THIS DELEGADATION WILL GET IT FIXED FAST!
We Are Change | June 18, 2023
Tulsi Gabbard warns Biden pushing world toward nuclear war
Press TV – July 2, 2023
Former US presidential contender and ex-lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard has slammed US President Joe Biden over his war-mongering, accusing the octogenarian leader of pushing the world towards a nuclear war over Ukraine.
Speaking on Saturday at a meeting in a university in Centennial in the US state of Colorado, Gabbard said the Biden administration’s war-mongering policy was shoving the world on the brink of nuclear disaster.
“We are faced with the reality. Now, President Biden’s actions and policies have pushed us to the brink of nuclear war,” she said.
The former Democratic lawmaker from Hawaii warned that the US-led proxy war against Russia posed an “existential crisis”, threatening the very existence of humanity.
“This is an existential crisis, not only for us here but the world. This proxy war against Russia using the Ukrainian people’s lives continues to escalate,” Gabbard said in her speech which was broadcast on her social media.
She insisted that it was time for a reality check to see if Biden and his lackeys had any awareness of the risk and dangers of delivering more and deadlier weapons to Ukraine, saying it would “only increase the likelihood” of a possible direct confrontation between the US-led NATO forces and Russia.
“Now if you hear President Biden and his administration … talk about this, they talk about World War III and nuclear war as though it is just another war, just another conflict … it is so far removed from the reality … they are not being honest with the American people what the cost and consequences of these wars would look like,” Gabbard added.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Could Follow His Own Advice and Not Call Vladimir Putin a Gangster and Thug
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | June 24, 2023
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. posted at Twitter on Friday some advice for President Joe Biden: Don’t refer to the leader of China’s government with the insulting descriptor of “dictator.” And the advice went further, indicating Biden should avoid using similar language to describe leaders of other nations as well.
In the first of a series of Friday tweets, Kennedy commented, “It’s Diplomacy 101 that a President doesn’t send his senior diplomat to speak to a foreign leader, then insult that leader the next day.” In this tweet Kennedy linked an article regarding Biden having in a recent speech called China leader Xi Jinping a “dictator.”
In the second of his series of tweets, Kennedy further stated:
Maybe Biden is trying to appear ‘tough on China.’ But absurd, unhinged, and personally insulting remarks don’t make you tough. There is a level of unavoidable tension between great powers like China and the U.S. that doesn’t need to be artificially aggravated by antagonistic rhetoric.
Kennedy, however, does not appear to have followed this advice in his own presidential campaign.
In his campaign that began on April 19, Kennedy has volunteered his assessment that Russia President Vladimir Putin is a “gangster” and a “thug” at least two times. You can hear Kennedy make such comments six minutes and 19 seconds into a report on Kennedy’s interview with Noel Phillips and 41 minutes and 8 seconds into Kennedy’s interview with Freddie Sayers at UnHerd.
If Biden calling Xi a dictator is unacceptable under Kennedy’s take, why would Kennedy’s use of these other descriptors for the leader of Russia’s government — another great power — be acceptable?
Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute
Biden assesses impact of calling Xi a ‘dictator’
US ‘President’ Joe Biden appears at a White House welcoming ceremony for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. © Getty Images / Anna Moneymaker
RT | June 23, 2023
US President Joe Biden has dismissed concerns that his comment this week referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a “dictator” could hinder his administration’s efforts to mend Washington’s strained relationship with Beijing.
Asked about the remark at a White House press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, Biden denied that insulting Xi would undermine relations with China. “I expect to be meeting with President Xi sometime in the future, in the near term, and I don’t think it’s had any real consequence,” he said.
At issue was Biden’s comment on Tuesday at a political fundraiser in California, where he claimed that Xi had not known about an alleged spy balloon that was shot down after entering US airspace in February. “That’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened.” The remark came just one day after US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken concluded a long-awaited and rare visit to Beijing, where Washington’s top diplomat met with Xi and sought to ease tensions between the superpowers.
The Chinese embassy in Washington delivered a formal protest on Thursday, just hours before Biden spoke dismissively of the controversy. “With the latest irresponsible remarks about China’s political system and its top leader, people cannot help but question the sincerity of the U.S. side,” the embassy said in a statement. “The Chinese government and people do not accept any political provocation against China’s top leader and will resolutely respond.”
The statement echoed criticism earlier this week by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, who said Biden’s comment was an “open political provocation” and had “seriously violated China’s political dignity.”
Asked about becoming the first US president in recent memory to call his Chinese counterpart a “dictator,” Biden appeared to suggest that he was merely speaking his mind. “When we’re talking to our allies and partners around the world, including India, we let the idea of my choosing and avoiding saying what I think is the facts . . . is just not something I’m going to change very much.” He added that fears of a collapse in Sino-US relations were “hysteria.”
Beijing cut off military and climate ties with Washington last August, after then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a controversial visit to Taiwan. Blinken’s planned trip to China earlier this year was postponed in the aftermath of the balloon incident. Ning blasted Biden’s decision to shoot down the balloon, saying Washington had “abused force, fully reflecting the US bullying and hegemonic nature.”
Republicans mocked Biden for appearing to read his answer to a reporter’s question about his “dictator” comment. There was also an awkward moment during Thursday’s welcoming ceremony for Modi’s state visit, where Biden slowly lowered his hand from over his heart after apparently mistaking the Indian national anthem for the “Star Spangled Banner” for about 20 seconds.
Biden Crashes Down the Stairs of U.S.-China Reset
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 21, 2023
Joe Biden’s penchant for tripping over his feet – and verbally – couldn’t have happened at a most unfortunate moment. Mocking China’s president as a “dictator” just when his administration attempted a big reset in U.S.-China relations has to rank as one of Biden’s clumsiest gaffes.
A day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China in a high-profile attempt to mend frayed relations, Biden kicked those efforts in the teeth by telling a crowd in California that Chinese President Xi was a dictator.
Beijing responded furiously, denouncing the American president’s “extreme” disrespect and lack of etiquette. China’s anger is no doubt reinforced because it showed magnanimity in receiving Blinken and affording him a top-level diplomatic meeting with President Xi Jinping.
Biden’s latest gaffe is made all the more absurd because he was referring to the incident of a Chinese weather balloon that had strayed over U.S. territory in February, which Biden ordered an F-16 fighter jet to shoot down with a sidewinder missile. Biden is still claiming that it was a Chinese spy balloon even though the Washington Post had reported earlier that it was a meteorological aircraft blown off course whose errant trans-Pacific course was being monitored in real-time by the Americans.
That crass overreaction by Biden resorting to a military attack over a balloon sent U.S.-China relations into a further tailspin. Blinken canceled a visit to Beijing in February in what was a cheap protest stunt against an alleged Chinese breach of U.S. national security. His trip last weekend was meant to signal a new reset in relations. There was much talk during the U.S. diplomat’s visit about improving communications between Washington and Beijing to avoid a military confrontation.
Then there came the crash, bang, wallop from Biden’s strange outburst insulting his Chinese counterpart.
During the California fundraising foray this week, Biden claimed that Xi knew nothing about the “spy balloon”, implying that he was being kept in the dark by Chinese intelligence officials as befitting a hapless “dictator”.
In reality, it looks like Biden is the one who is hopelessly benighted. Ordering the shoot-down of an errant balloon with million-dollar air-to-air missiles and to continue insisting that it was a spy vehicle shows an abject lack of judgment. Could anyone trust a balloon-popping commander-in-chief who has access to grabbing the nuclear football? This is Doctor Strangelove’s twilight stuff. All the more frightening because it’s real life, not a movie.
But on top of that, Biden then goes on to gratuitously insult the Chinese leader.
Biden’s loose tongue and legs at this frail stage in his half-century political career are beyond parody. Falling on the stairs of Air Force One and tripping over podiums is an embarrassing routine spectacle for this president.
His congenital bad manners of referring to Russian and Chinese leaders as “thugs”, “killers” and “dictators” shows Biden’s low class as a person, as well as extreme hypocrisy for a politician who is responsible for causing millions of deaths from promoting U.S. criminal wars down through the decades.
One good thing, however, is the impeccable clarity that all this provides (if that were needed).
China – and Russia– by now know beyond doubt that Washington cannot be trusted in anything it says. Biden is just the decrepit embodiment of the treacherous and duplicitous politics inherent in Washington. It is blinded and stupefied, incapable of meaningful dialogue because of Washington’s insufferable delusions, its arrogance, hubris, and self-righteous propaganda. And its total addiction to war for fixing its corporate capitalist junkie economy.
Top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken went on a mission to appease China with ostensible declarations of wanting to normalize relations, avoid confrontation and professing adherence to the One China policy with regard to abjuring Taiwan’s independence and recognizing the island territory as being under China’s sovereign control. In other words, respecting international law.
China’s leadership warily shook hands with Blinken and appeared to give him the benefit of doubt for a public reset in U.S. bilateral relations.
Biden’s subsequent rush to the brain and his rash, churlish words demonstrate that Washington is not capable of adhering to decorum, decency and diplomacy, or anything for that matter, apart from a handrail on a staircase. And even that’s unreliable.
After Blinken’s smarmy visit to China, one can bet the farm that in the coming weeks there will be more provocative U.S. naval maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait; there will be more provocative U.S. multi-billion-dollar arms sales to Taiwan; and there will be more provocative U.S. political delegations ostentatiously traveling to Taipei in order to foment instability and the offensive notion of independence from China.
Thus, it’s altogether better that Beijing does not waste time by engaging Washington with disingenuous diplomacy. Forget smarmy, florid rhetoric about improving relations, and smiley handshakes. The only proof needed is deeds and practical compliance with already established legal treaties.
Washington says it respects the One China policy and three legally binding treaties that it has signed with Beijing since 1979 on that. That should mean the United States ending all interference in China’s sovereignty. No more arms sales to Taiwan and no more “freedom of navigation” maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait by U.S. warships.
It’s a rather straightforward obligation that avoids ambiguity and equivocation. It’s almost incredible that this has to be spelled out which illustrates just how rogue the United States is.
Moscow can make the same arguments and conclusions with regard to the U.S.-led NATO expansion up to its borders and the infiltration of Ukraine with NeoNazi proxies.
But here’s the deplorable rub: the United States is agreement incapable, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has caustically noted. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also recently lamented the complete dearth of American political integrity, at least for the past few generations.
Joe Biden figuratively falling down the stairs of the U.S.-China reset attempts is the latest confirmation that forked-tongued American politicians should be repudiated until Washington actually begins to behave as a law-abiding entity.
China hits back at Biden over ‘dictator Xi’ comments
RT | June 21, 2023
Beijing has pushed back against remarks by US President Joe Biden referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping as “a dictator,” claiming that the statements are outright offensive.
Speaking on Tuesday at a fundraiser in California, Biden addressed the controversy surrounding a Chinese balloon that entered US airspace earlier this year, suggesting that Xi did not know the vessel was even there.
“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That [balloon] wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course,” he said at the time.
On Wednesday, speaking at a regular press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning described the remarks as “extremely absurd,” adding that they “seriously violated China’s political dignity.” She said that such statements also violate diplomatic etiquette and contradict basic facts.
“It is an open political provocation,” Mao stressed.
The spokeswoman also reiterated China’s position that the balloon – which Washington has insisted was seeking to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States – strayed into US airspace due to “force majeure factors.”
“The US side distorted the facts and abused force, fully reflecting the US’ bullying and hegemonic nature,” she said.
The back-and-forth between China and the US comes shortly after a landmark visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing, where he met with Xi and other senior Chinese officials.
On Monday, the top US diplomat stated that both countries had achieved “progress” towards putting their bilateral relations back on track. Blinken also vowed that the US would “responsibly manage” competition with China so that their relationship “does not veer into conflict,” according to the State Department.
During the meeting with Blinken, Xi said that Beijing “respects US interests and does not seek to challenge or displace the United States,” adding that Washington also “needs to respect China” and not hurt its legitimate rights and interests.
In recent months, Sino-US relations have been marred by a number of disagreements, with Taiwan being one of the most divisive. China considers the self-governing island a part of its sovereign territory and has repeatedly protested against Washington selling military equipment to Taipei.
Defining Dictator Down Won’t Make Us Free
By James Bovard | Brownstone Institute | June 20, 2023
For 27 seconds on Tuesday night, Fox News posted a chyiron beneath a video of President Biden: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” That sparked a media uproar over what was portrayed as the biggest breach of decorum since the 1865 assassination of President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater.
The Washington Post howled that Fox News “shocks with ‘wannabe dictator’ graphic.” A Daily Beast columnist shrieked that the chyron “spreads dangerous lies.” Liberal zealots called for completely shutting down Fox News – as if the network had committed a sin that could never be expunged.
But rather than razing a network headquarters, Americans must recognize the disputed terminology that spurred this fracas.
Biden’s critics are using an archaic definition of dictatorship, one that focuses myopically on whether a president obeys the law and the Constitution. Under the new definition, “dictatorship” only refers to rulers who do bad things to good people. (Maybe the National Security Agency can automatically “correct” all dictionaries on the Internet.)
As Biden explained last year, Republicans are guilty of “semi-fascism.” So, nothing Biden does to his political opponents can be “dictatorial” because they deserve whatever the feds inflict.
It is true that Biden dictated that 84 million Americans working for large companies must get injected with the Covid vaccine. But that wasn’t dictatorial because, as Biden explained, vaccine skeptics were murderers who only wanted “the freedom to kill you” with Covid. (The Supreme Court nullified that dictate early last year.)
It is true that the Biden White House dictated that social media companies suppress billions of posts, including true information from critics of the administration’s Covid policies. But that didn’t count because, as top Biden advisor Andrew Slavitt declared, “People with murderously selfish ideas— driven by an unwillingness to sacrifice & wrapped in phony intellectualism— entered” the debate over Covid policies. (A federal appeals court is exposing the vast sweep of Biden’s Covid censorship.)
It is true that Biden issued a dictate extending the national moratorium on evictions of deadbeat renters. The Supreme Court torpedoed Biden’s policy. But he was blameless because the Court decision relied on an archaic standard: “Our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends.”
It is true that Biden appointees dictated that two-year-old children in Head Start must wear masks all day. But that wasn’t dictatorial because children were permitted to briefly remove the masks when they ate meals. (A federal judge torpedoed that mandate in late 2022.)
It is true that Biden revived dictatorial policies that entitled federal bureaucrats to ban landowners from farming or building on any land with puddles, ditches, or other purported wet spots. But Biden had no choice but to take drastic action to rescue his environmentalist supporters from hopeless depressions. (The Supreme Court nullified Biden’s wetlands policies last month).
It is true that Biden dictated that taxpayers must shoulder the cost of $300+ billion in federal student loans that he canceled to buy political support. But that didn’t count because God wanted Democratic candidates to do well in last November’s midterm election. (The Supreme Court is expected to nullify Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme in the coming weeks.)
It is true that the Biden White House dictated that the FBI target and investigate parents who protested at school board meetings. But the feds were justified in classifying mothers and fathers as terrorist threats because they committed verbal micro-aggressions against liberal sacred cows including the teachers’ union.
It is true that Biden appointees are arbitrarily dictating sweeping prohibitions of firearms parts that could turn tens of millions of peaceful gun owners into federal felons. But that is not dictatorial because “C’mon, man!” Or maybe, “Why’d you ask such a dumb question?”
It is true that Biden dictated… actually, we probably have not heard or seen his most arbitrary or dangerous dictates. The Biden administration is stonewalling congressional investigations and dropping a cloak of secrecy around its most controversial policies. But this is not a dictatorial abuse because Biden needs a second term to “literally redeem the soul of America” (as he promised on Wednesday).
The hypersensitivity over tagging Uncle Joe with the D-word is ludicrous after activists spent four years howling that Donald Trump was literally Hitler, or maybe only Stalin. Many protestors who vehemently denounced Trump were not opposed to dictators per se; they simply wanted different dictates. Now that Biden is dictating at full speed, Biden’s allies seek to rewrite the English language. As usual, the Washington media devotes far more attention to political labels than to the realities of government power.
Perhaps Biden could satisfy his gender-fluid supporters by coming out publicly and personally identifying as “non-dictator.” But other Americans will continue wryly watching the political rascality, laughing at the media’s snit-fits, and awaiting the next judicial demolition of Biden’s decrees.
James Bovard, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is author and lecturer whose commentary targets examples of waste, failures, corruption, cronyism and abuses of power in government.
Is the Dam About to Burst on the Biden Crime Family?
By Andy Behlen | The Libertarian Institute | June 13, 2023
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said on June 5 that the FBI has a file on an informant that accuses President Joe Biden and his family of accepting millions of dollars in bribes.
“It suggests a pattern of bribery where payments would be made through shell accounts and multiple banks,” Comer said last week.
Comer described the informant as a trusted and “highly credible” source to the FBI.
FBI Director Christopher Wray initially refused to hand the committee the document, known as an FD-1023 form, which was dated from June 2020. Comer threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress over it. The committee even drafted a contempt resolution. But Wray yielded last week and allowed members of the committee to review the document.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), a Republican member of the House oversight committee, tweeted “The (FBI) is afraid their informant will be killed if unmasked, based on the info he has brought forward about the Biden family.” Neither Comer nor any other committee member have echoed that sentiment.
The draft of the contempt resolution and memos from Committee staff provided a few details about the GOP’s latest allegations against the Biden family.
“Without having custody of the FD-1023 form… the Committee cannot assess whether the allegations in the document pose a national security risk,” the resolution stated. “Because of the FBI’s refusal to cooperate with our investigation, the Committee cannot use the allegations in the FD-1023 form to evaluate whether anyone from the Biden family received payments from the foreign national, how much those payments entailed, if they were made, and what, if any, companies (including shell companies) were used to make such payments.”
A memo dated March 16, 2023, detailed bank records that the committee subpoenaed. According to the memo, one of Biden family business associates, Mr. John Robinson Walker (Rob Walker), “transferred over $1.3 million in payments to Biden family members and their companies between 2015 and 2017, which he received from foreign companies and foreign nationals. The Rob Walker accounts made payments while then-Vice President Biden held public office.”
A second memo dated May 10, 2023, outlined additional bank record subpoenas:
“Through the Second Bank Records Memorandum, the Committee released several new findings. First, Biden family members and business associates created a web of over twenty companies—most of which were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. Bank records showed the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ companies. The Committee has identified payments to Biden family members from foreign companies while Joe Biden served as Vice President and after he left public office.”
After reviewing the FD-1023 form last week, Republican committee members confirmed that the allegations involve Hunter Biden’s relationship with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
It’s no secret that the Biden family has profited from business overseas, especially in Ukraine. But according to mainstream media reporting, all of this is perfectly fine and has nothing to do with corruption—even when a $5 million bribe shows up to shut down an investigation into the company that paid the president’s son $1 million a year.
On June 13, 2020, Reuters reported that Ukrainian authorities detained three individuals for offering $5 million in bribes to stop a corruption investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder and former president of Burisma Holdings..
The president’s son Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings in 2014, a position he held until 2019.
In 2020, Ukrainian anti-corruption officials were quick to exonerate the Bidens from any connection to the bribes.
“Let’s put an end to this once and for all. Biden Jr. and Biden Sr. do not appear in this particular proceeding,” said Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of the anti-corruption investigations in 2020.
The New York Post reported last week that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $83,333 per month while his father served as U.S. Vice President, according to invoices on the famous abandoned laptop. Those payments dropped by half after his father left office. Hunter Biden resigned from the Burisma board in 2019 while his father announced his presidential campaign.
In addition, Fox News reported last week on emails found on the laptop between the President’s son and Vadym Pozharskyi, an advisor to the Burisma board. In one exchange, Hunter Biden asked Pozharskyi to pass along his thanks to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky for birthday gifts he received in 2016.
“Finally- thank (Zlochevsky) for the beautiful birthday gifts it was far too extravagant but much appreciated,” Hunter Biden said in the email dated February 4, 2016.
The emails did not indicate what the gifts were.
In March 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden famously leveraged $1 billion in aid to Ukraine in order for the country to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Shokin had investigated Burisma Holdings in 2014 for money laundering.
In 2018 Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about his strong-armed negotiations with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to get Shokin removed: “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”
But those close to the president said the threat to withhold aid had nothing to do with Burisma or Hunter Biden. A USA Today “Fact Check” from 2020 claims the reason was because Shokin did too little to fight corruption:
“Mike Carpenter, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the then-vice president, told USA TODAY that Shokin ‘never went after any corrupt individuals at all’ and ‘never prosecuted any high-profile cases of corruption.’”
That’s right—the Ukrainian prosecutor who investigated Burisma for money laundering “never went after any corrupt individuals at all.” To say otherwise would imply that Shokin may have had a case against Burisma and the President’s son.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) dropped a bombshell on Monday, saying that a Burisma executive at the center of the latest allegations has audio recording of then-vice president Biden accepting bribes, and that the FBI redacted this information in the FD-1023 form that the House Oversight Committee reviewed last week.
“The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them—17 total recordings,” Grassley said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” Grassley said.
Reporting on the development, Kerry Picket of The Washington Times wrote, “Mr. Grassley smelled a political double standard.”
“Special Counsel Jack Smith, who indicted former President Donald Trump on 37 counts, used an audio recording against former President Donald Trump and alleged Mr. Trump retained nuclear secrets and papers on foreign weapons systems at his Mar-a-Lago estate and waved around military plans to persons without proper clearance in 2021,” the article continued. “Mr. Grassley asked whether Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss was doing anything with respect to the alleged recordings of the Bidens ‘that are apparently relevant to a high-stakes bribery scheme.’”
It should be noted that the GOP’s investigation into Biden family corruption all began with tech companies’ efforts to censor stories about the Hunter Biden laptop in the leadup to the 2020 elections. Photos from the laptop purport to show Hunter Biden smoking crack and cavorting with hookers during the time when he sat on Burisma’s board of directors.
Andy Behlen is a reporter for the Fayette County Record, a twice-weekly newspaper in La Grange, Texas.
Ukrainian gas executive has Biden ‘bribe’ recordings – US senator
RT | June 13, 2023
A Ukrainian gas executive who claimed to have paid bribes to US President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, retained more than a dozen recordings of his conversations with them as an “insurance policy,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has said, citing FBI documents.
In a statement published on Monday, the GOP lawmaker urged the Justice Department to release a full, unredacted copy of FBI files that allegedly outline a criminal bribery scheme between the Biden family and Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. The documents are reportedly based on FBI interviews with a “highly credible” confidential source who described several interactions with a top Burisma executive starting in 2015, when Biden was serving as vice president.
While the FBI shared the documents with select lawmakers last week, Grassley said key sections had been redacted, including “reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings.”
The Burisma executive kept the recordings “as a sort of insurance policy” in case he “got into a tight spot,” according to the senator, who said he had seen the full documents. He did not indicate what might have been said in the audio, however.
Senator Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer first highlighted the alleged bribes in May, citing a whistleblower who revealed the FBI was in possession of documents detailing its interviews with the confidential source. The Oversight Committee then subpoenaed the bureau for the records, which were only shared in redacted form last week after lawmakers threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.
The documents are said to show that the unnamed Burisma executive discussed $5 million payments he allegedly made to both Joe and Hunter Biden during the Barack Obama presidency. Despite having little experience in the energy sector, the younger Biden was employed on Burisma’s board of directors between 2014 and 2019 and received more than $50,000 per month.
The Burisma official allegedly explained that the company had to “pay the Bidens” because a Ukrainian prosecutor was investigating the company. While Joe Biden recently dismissed the bribery allegations as “a bunch of malarkey,” he has acknowledged that he was responsible for the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma and its executives for corruption at the time. Biden said he did so by threatening to withhold US aid, but insists Shokin was replaced for refusing to go after corruption.
Fact check: Blinken’s claim that US strived to revive JCPOA holds no water
By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | June 10, 2023
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a low-key visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this week, which coincided with the reopening of Iranian diplomatic missions in the Arab kingdom after seven years.
The whirlwind visit primarily focused on rebuilding ties between Washington and Riyadh but also involved other issues including the Joe Biden administration’s aggressive but unsuccessful push to mediate Riyadh-Tel Aviv normalization.
During the visit, the top American diplomat sat down for an interview with Arabic-language Asharq News, fielding questions on a range of subjects from Iran’s nuclear program to the Ukraine war.
Blinken’s responses were riddled with glaring inconsistencies and false assertions, in particular regarding efforts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.
On being asked whether the US was “trying to revive the negotiations” over the 2015 nuclear accord, the US Secretary of State said “from day one” the US “made a significant effort in that direction”.
“So we, from day one, sought to determine whether a return to mutual compliance with the JCPOA was possible, and we made a significant effort in that direction, as did the European partners, and, for that matter, Russia and China,” Blinken said in the interview.
“But Iran either couldn’t or wouldn’t do what was necessary to get back into compliance with the JCPOA. So the JCPOA is not our focus,” he hastened to add.
A simple fact-check is in order to set the record straight.
It was the US government, under the megalomaniac former President Donald Trump, which unilaterally abandoned the landmark nuclear agreement in May 2018, and reinstated an array of sanctions on Iran.
The move was in complete breach of the agreement and Washington’s legal obligations under Resolution 2231, the United Nations Charter and international law.
Iran adopted strategic patience for one year, waiting for European signatories to salvage the deal, and only then announced retaliatory measures, which included gradually scaling up uranium enrichment in line with a law passed by the Iranian parliament.
Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, pledged to reverse the so-called “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran that violated the multilateral deal and laid bare the infamous American hypocrisy.
However, more than two years into office, Biden has not only failed to reverse his predecessor’s hard-nosed measures but has doubled down and escalated the situation.
Since April 2021, Iran and the remaining parties to the 2015 nuclear deal have been engaged in marathon negotiations in Vienna to revive the accord and lift sanctions, facilitated by the European Union.
Despite a degree of progress, the consensus has been eluding mainly due to the policy of procrastination adopted by the Biden administration, with Blinken and his Iran pointsman Rob Malley playing a key role in letting the process drag on.
Blinken’s remarks about the US mulling “a return to mutual compliance” with the deal and making “a significant effort in that direction” hold no water when we examine the ground realities and actions taken by the US over the past two years.
Iran continues to be a key party to the deal, unlike the US which unilaterally and irresponsibly walked out of it. Iran has maintained that measures it has taken since May 2019 to scale up its uranium enrichment are reversible if the US returns to the deal in good faith and lifts all illegal sanctions.
Blinken’s statement that Iran “either couldn’t or wouldn’t do what was necessary to get back into compliance with the JCPOA” also fails the fact-check test.
United States left the deal. United States reneged on its commitments under the deal. United States stopped compliance with the deal. United States imposed and reimposed sanctions on Iran. United States launched the so-called “maximum pressure campaign” against the Islamic Republic.
In the last two years, it is the United States that has failed to provide guarantees to Iran that it won’t violate the terms of the agreement again. It is the United States that has weaponized sanctions against the people of Iran while harping about human rights.
The United States has also refused to compensate Iran for the losses caused by sanctions while exerting pressure on the UN nuclear agency to politicize its purely technical work.
The culprit here is the United States. Iran is well within its rights as the signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue its nuclear energy program for peaceful, scientific purposes.
The peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program has been attested by the International Atomic Energy Agency which regularly conducts inspections at various nuclear facilities in the country and has to date failed to notice or report any activity that points to divergence or deviation in the program.
The ball is in the Biden administration’s court. It has to save the deal through action, not rhetoric.
Missouri v. Biden might be most important legal case in U.S. history
From what I’ve read, proof our federal government wants to kill free speech is overwhelming.
BY BILL RICE, JR. | JUNE 7, 2023
Until yesterday, I’d not read any documents in the lawsuit brought by the states of Missouri, Louisiana et al vs. President Biden. Because of this, I didn’t fully grasp the stunning claims made by the plaintiffs, nor realize how overwhelming the evidence is that supports this case.
Yesterday, I read the first 54 pages of a 354-page legal document that was filed with a federal district court in Louisiana on March 3, 2023.
I now better understand why some people believe this might be the most important legal case in U.S. history.
In a nutshell, attorneys for the plaintiffs are compiling and presenting a mountain of evidence that shows actors for the U.S. government have conspired to nullify the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
This Amendment was first for an important reason.
It states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The core issue at stake is should American citizens be allowed to have genuine “freedom of speech.”
In my view, the evidence already presented in this legal case proves beyond a reasonable doubt that a cadre of officials in government (and organizations working “in partnership” with government agencies) despise, fear and want to end “free speech.” In fact, they’ve already effectively blocked the free speech of millions of Americans.
In a democracy, free speech is vitally important as it makes dissent from prevailing narratives possible and thus protects the “natural rights” of citizens who may hold minority views. That is, without “free speech,” only the views of those who embrace “authorized” opinions would be allowed to participate in any meaningful way in democratic debates.
One can parse this lengthy document a thousand ways, but the bottom-line conclusion is that the U.S. government believes only its views should be allowed to be widely disseminated.
Even more terrifying, virtually all the important institutions in contemporary society defend and seemingly support the efforts of the federal government to censor any speech labeled “mis-“ or “disinformation.”
A few of my main take-aways from my (partial) reading of this must-read legal document:
All Hope is Not Lost
The fact that attorneys general from at least two U.S. states have filed such a lawsuit provides hope that the entire country has not yet become disciples and enforcers of Big Brother.
It is also significant that the push-back to mass censorship comes from the state level of our “republic” and not from the federal government itself. That is, the Attorney General of the United States should have brought this case. Instead, representatives of the U.S. government are vigorously defending mass censorship, and the effort to “abridge the freedom of speech.”
The Legal System Can Work
This document is 354 pages because it’s replete with transcripts from legal depositions and exhibits that the public would have not seen absent the commencement of this legal proceeding.
The document also proves the power of legal “discovery” wherein defendants have to turn over all relevant evidence such as emails, meeting records, etc. (although plaintiffs argue that the defendants have still not turned over every piece of “discovery” requested).
A healthy democracy hinges on “fact-finding” and a “search for the truth.” This lawsuit has made it possible for the people who are following this case (not enough people) to learn more about the activities of the most powerful individuals who work for the most powerful government on the planet.
A quick aside ….
In reading this summary of evidence, I was struck by how easy it was for plaintiffs’ attorneys to build their case.
The attorneys, investigators and staffers bringing this case are clearly intelligent professionals who’ve been very thorough in developing their evidence and trying to prove their case. That is, if they get a fair hearing (which I’m not sure they will), they should win this case with ease.
However, this example made me think of all the lawsuits and “fact-finding” exercises that have NOT occurred with any of the litany of crimes and scandals of our Covid times (and even before Covid).
One strongly suspects that if other teams of competent litigators and investigators had employed the same tools of discovery and depositions, every scandal of our times would also be just-as-easily exposed.
Just like I think about all of the mainstream news articles that are off limits to alleged “watchdog” journalists, I also think about all the lawsuits and prosecutions that are apparently off limits to the people and organizations who could bring such cases.
What’s the core issue in this case?
The first paragraph of the “motion for the injunction” describes what the plaintiffs are trying to prove (and have already proven as far as I am concerned).
- “Federal officials, including Defendants, have made a long series of public statements since at least 2018 demanding that social-media platforms increase their censorship of speech and speakers disfavored by these officials, and threatening adverse consequences – such as repeal or reform of Section 230 immunity under the Communications Decency Act (CDA), antitrust scrutiny or enforcement, increased regulation, and other measures – if the platforms do not increase censorship …. “ (emphasis added).”
Note: For more excerpts from the document, see Reader Comments (under “most recent.”)
Comments:
Laymen and legal scholars alike agree that the First Amendment does not compel any publisher to print any and all speech. For example, a private company like The New York Times can publish, or not publish, whatever speech it wants for whatever reason it wants.
The issue in this case is whether citizens living in the “town square” can use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to share their opinions or facts.
Or, more specifically, can the government use its immense power to compel private companies to censor speech the government doesn’t like (speech labeled by the government as dangerous, extremist, false or basically “misinformation” or “disinformation” as the government defines these terms).
Plaintiffs argue that the federal government is using its power to abridge free speech. The federal government is doing this by threatening to effectively shut down social media companies who don’t comply with the government’s wishes.
The federal government could harpoon these companies by “reforming” or “amending” Section 230 of the CDA. This section grants legal immunity to such companies, meaning social media companies can’t be sued or criminally tried because of the speech of citizens who make posts on their platforms.
Paragraph 3 of the document explains the power of this “threat.”
“3. The threat of antitrust scrutiny or enforcement is also a major motivator to social-media platforms. For example, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that the threat of antitrust enforcement is “an ‘existential’ threat” to his platform.”
The evidence – presented on scores of pages – clearly reveals this “threat” was made explicitly, implicitly, publicly and privately over and over and over by myriad employees of the U.S. government, including the President of the United States.
This makes one (almost) feel empathy for these social media companies, which have had a symbolic bazooka pointed at their heads by the U.S. government dating to the day “Joe Biden” allegedly won the presidential election over Donald Trump.
I write that I “almost” feel empathy for these companies because if anyone skims this document, he will quickly see that virtually every employee and key executive of these companies was eager and happy to accede to the demands of their pro-censorship rulers.
Those who read this document will see never-ending examples of government officials brow-beating and intimidating social media companies for NOT censoring MORE.
To me, these companies appear almost masochistic – as in they seemingly enjoyed their incessant scoldings. For example, social media employees often thanked their government minders for pointing out their transgressions, which they seem overly-eager to correct. (Here, the Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind).
The “stick” of repealing Section 230 is not the only motivation social media companies have for complying with Big Brother.
Numerous “carrots” also exist as almost every one of these companies also profits from big contracts with the federal government and/or receives large sums of money (such as vaccine advertising spends) for supporting the authorized narratives (or, more precisely, silencing the non-authorized narratives).
The Virality Project
The document makes many references to the Virality Project, an influential project commissioned by academics at Stanford University.
As I’ve written previously, the most important goal of the world’s real rulers in Covid times was/is the effort to fight “vaccine hesitancy.”
If people were hesitant about getting their Covid vaccines, the mRNA project would be a bust. Big Pharma and all the many entities that receives massive amounts of money from Big Pharma would not be pleased.
One thing that might make half the world skeptical of the “safe and effective” non-vaccines would be if the views of vaccine skeptics actually “went viral.”
This, very possibly, could have happened … absent mass censorship.
In my last article, I discussed several of the key “chess moves” our rulers have made to make sure they win this “game.”
Arguably, the most important move was making sure dissenting views did NOT go viral, a result which didn’t happen by chance … but by a coordinated effort to censor hundreds of millions of potential skeptics and critics.
Since the government doesn’t own Facebook (where two billion people share speech), the government had to “persuade” Facebook (Meta) to do their censoring for them.
This was a conspiracy, a massive one …
In reading this document, I was also stunned when I thought about all the employees and organizations that were involved in the effort to defeat the threat of “vaccine hesitancy” (and protect all the other many untrue Covid narratives).
I stopped reading after 54 pages, but this was enough to see that the actors in this conspiracy (a cover-up of the truth) included the President of the United States, all his key White House employees, the CDC, the Census Bureau, The Surgeon General and his staff, officials in the NIH (such as Anthony Fauci), many of the key members of Congress, all the new “fact checkers” and probably the White House chef.
Time and again, plaintiff’s attorneys present examples where government officials cite articles written by “journalists” at The New York Times or Washington Post that were used as a weapon to demand even more censorship among social media companies.
Surreally, this means our “free press” has been one of government’s key allies in suppressing free speech.
Government contractors, non-profits and think tanks were also brought in to help with the vital censorship chess moves.
Another hallmark of a conspiracy would be any evidence proving a coordinated initiative. The plaintiff’s attorneys have done an excellent job proving this happened. For example, the authors of the legal brief repeatedly show how the words “accountable” and “transparency,” were used ad nauseam by all the censorship conspirators.
When government actors told social media companies they would be “held accountable,” this was a not-too-subtle threat that they better do as told … Which, sadly and not surprisingly, they did.
The conspirators also incessantly demand “transparency” from social media companies.
The government didn’t just ask social media companies to do a little more censorship for the good of the country, they demanded access to all the algorithms, data bases, search queries, content-moderation policies, etc. that would prove companies were censoring the content the government said must be censored.
Amazingly, companies like Meta complied …. so, apparently, officials at the CDC and The Census Bureau (which for some reason took a lead role in enforcing censorship) and key White House staffers were looking at the same tools Meta used to see what Covid topics were trending on their platform.
The government would then tell the companies to ban such speech on their platforms.
Not only did government actors hold a gun to the social media companies’ heads, they wanted to see (and even use) the very tools that allow these companies to know what their users were posting.
As we’ve learned from the “Twitter files,” government officials also repeatedly zeroed in on key “disinformation super-spreaders” and made sure they were banned and punished.
Victims/targets of these censorship efforts include high-profile Covid skeptic like Alex Berenson, Steve Kirsch and Robert Kennedy, Jr., but they might as well have included Bill Rice, Jr, whose Facebook account has also been suspended (for no known or stated reason) multiple times.
Per the copious evidence in this legal brief, every time Meta banned someone or said some topic was now taboo, government officials were rarely placated, and demanded even more censorship. And, again, government officials kept demanding “transparency” to see that thy’s will was being done.
The irony of course is that the U.S. government is the least transparent entity on the face of the earth.
To be clear and to state what should be perfectly obvious by now, the multi-faceted censorship and “disinformation” programs (which pre-date Covid) were created and enforced to make sure no real government “transparency” is/was possible.
For our government officials, transparency is like sunlight or a silver crucifix to a vampire.
What will be the result of this lawsuit?
I actually don’t know what the plaintiffs are demanding except for the government to cease and desist with its efforts to compel censorship.
Speaking for myself, I’ve already seen enough evidence where this U.S. citizen won’t be mollified unless we have criminal prosecutions, the impeachment of President Biden and the censure of all the members of Congress who bullied these social media executives.
Also, the companies that went along with this need to be boycotted by every citizen that still cares about the First Amendment.
I’d also note that while Twitter has (largely) turned over a new leaf under the ownership of Elon Musk, the rest of the social media companies are censoring left and right just like they’ve been doing since “Joe Biden” was sworn into office. (This tells me these companies are betting on “Biden” prevailing in this lawsuit).
It’s not just Covid issues subject to mass censorship ….
For those who think the censorship regime only deals with Covid topics, I say you better think again … as this document also proves.
Plenty of sections of this document provide evidence showing that “disinformation” about Climate Change, election fraud and woke issues like “gender identification” will also continue to be subject to the whims of the government’s arbiters of truth.
For my part, I’m now convinced that what shouldn’t happen … will probably happen. This means, “Joe Biden” will probably win re-election and this case will probably be thrown out or the Supreme Court led by (captured?) John Roberts will ultimately side with the defendants.
If this happens, perhaps more Americans will belatedly understand the new legal precedent that has been set.
In the future, any speech that’s deemed “misinformation” by unelected bureaucrats (at say the CDC or EPA) can indeed be censored and banned.
It will be perfectly fine for presidents, Congressmen and surgeon generals to demand that social media companies censor unauthorized or “dangerous” speech. Furthermore, the government will be granted that “transparency” that tells them Meta or Google are following their orders.
Strangely, Substack wasn’t mentioned …
In reading this document, I was struck by the fact Substack (as far as we know) has yet to be targeted by the Censorship Czars.
My guess is that if this case is decided in favor of the defendants, this will no longer be the case. The “dangerous misinformation” I’ve been posting (and my readers in the Reader Comments) will suddenly be fair game for censorship as well.
Substack is replete with writers challenging the false Covid narratives, but this speech platform is also full of skeptics of Climate Change, writers who might not support the Ukraine War or central bank digital currencies … authors who think election fraud is real and correspondents who don’t like the “woke” transgender and pronoun malarky.
For the past 240 years, Americans thought the First Amendment gave them the “freedom” to share their views on controversial topics. If Biden and the U.S. government win this case, I suspect we’ll soon learn otherwise.
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Book Review
“Davos Can Really Replace the UN”
Inside the book that maps the architecture behind global governance — from the Epstein files to the Pact for the Future
Lies are Unbekoming | April 1, 2026
On June 13, 2019, the United Nations and the World Economic Forum signed a partnership deal to “accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” That same evening, WEF president Börge Brende — Norway’s former Foreign Minister — had dinner with Jeffrey Epstein at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse. The Epstein files, released January 2026, contain an exchange between the two from the previous year. Epstein to Brende: “Davos can really replace the UN. C21, cyber, crypto . genetics… intl coordination.” Brende back to Epstein: “Exactly — we need a new global architecture. World Economic Forum (Davos) is uniquely positioned — public private.”
The next day, the UN General Assembly adopted the framework for restructuring global governance.
That sequence — the partnership signing, the Epstein dinner, the candid admission about replacing the UN with a public-private architecture, and then the formal adoption — opens Jacob Nordangård’s The Digital World Brain. Pages two and three. Footnoted to the UN resolution number, the Epstein files, and the General Assembly record.
I keep coming back to it because it captures what this book does that almost nothing else in the independent research space manages. I’ve followed Jacob’s work for years now and interviewed him about his research. Each book peels back another layer of the same institutional architecture, and each time I think he’s reached the limit of what can be documented, the next one goes further. Nordangård doesn’t speculate. He doesn’t editorialize much. He lays institutional actions next to each other in chronological order and lets the pattern announce itself. … continue
Blog Roll
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- Under fire, Moscow and Tehran close ranks
- Iran, US receive Pakistan-mediated plan for ceasefire then final deal
- Iran submits demands for end to war as mediators scramble ahead of Trump deadline
- Iran Threatens Retaliatory Strike on Stargate AI Project in UAE
- If Americans Knew
- U.N. experts demand Israel release prominent Gaza doctor after reports of ‘severe torture’
- Israel’s Latest Genocide Is Against the Shias of Lebanon. Why Is the World Silent?
- How Eliot Cohen’s influence over U.S. war-making paved the way for Trump’s war crimes in Iran
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- While Distancing from AIPAC, Most 2028 Democratic Hopefuls Are Still Embracing Israel
- A brief history of the Israeli nuclear program, the open secret at the heart of the Iran war
- Israeli Settlers Killed a Palestinian Farmer on His Own Land, in Front of His Father. Yes, Again
- The US-Israeli War on Science is an Assault on our Future
- 100+ International Law Experts Say US Strikes on Iran Violate UN Charter, Could Be War Crimes
- ‘Vile, Horrifying, Evil’: Trump Threatens to Bomb Nation of 90 Million People ‘Back to the Stone Ages’
- No Tricks Zone
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
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- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
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