It turns out that while preparing for Hunter's July court appearance FBI investigators decided to take photographs of the handgun Hunter's then-girlfriend ditched in a dumpster in Delaware back in 2018, and which was seized by Delaware State Police at that time and placed into evidence. Meaning, the firearm and its storage pouch have been in a sealed evidence bag, in a Delaware State Police vault, since October 2018. When FBI investigators opened the evidence, they found a "white powdery substance," had it tested, and, surprise, surprise, it was cocaine.

White House claim: “On Friday night, a woman and two children drowned near Eagle Pass, and Texas officials blocked U.S. Border Patrol from attempting to provide emergency assistance.”

DOJ filing: The migrants had already drowned at 8pm, and Border Patrol didn’t inform Texas until an hour later at 9pm.

This, like the horseback patrol “whipping” claims - took off as a false narrative, generating headlines that claimed Texas blocked a federal rescue effort, leading to the drownings of three migrants. The DOJ now confirms, those migrants had been deceased for an hour before Texas was even alerted about it. //

Make no mistake, President Biden's policies are not just putting our national sovereignty and safety at risk, they are directly responsible for the conditions that caused these illegal immigrants and hundreds of others just like them to die. Since Biden took office, over 1,000 illegal immigrants have died trying to illegally enter the United States, ... ///

Only 1000, out of 10 million in three years??

Kevin Kiley @KevinKileyCA
·
It's official. Gavin Newsom's war on workers has just been taken national by Biden and Julie Su. They've announced an "Independent Contractor" rule based on California's notorious AB 5 law. It will put millions of Americans out of work.

Here are some of the reviews AB 5 received… Show more
1:28 PM · Jan 9, 2024

That's a conservative estimate. Since 2022, there are 57.3 million Americans who consider themselves freelancers, independent contractors, self-employed, or entrepreneurs. The legacy media's tendency to lump all of these categories under the "gig" economy simply frames it in people's minds as technology or rideshare; but these are your dental hygienist, your child's soccer coach, fabricators, farriers, and home health care providers, to name just a few. Over 600 professions have been identified that would be upended or outright eliminated when this DOL IC Rule takes effect. //

The Independent Contractor Rule was recorded in the federal register on January 10, 2024, and is scheduled to take effect on March 10, 2024. It is 339 pages of essentially the Department of Labor justifying why independent contractors should not be allowed to exist. The rule acts from the premise that independent contractors have no right to determine whether they are independent or an employee. It is the DOL's job to do that for you. //

The term "economic reality" appears 345 times within the Rule as one of the means to deny an independent contractor their right to earn money as they choose. It's positively chilling, and if Americans refused to pay attention when California independent professionals raised the alarm on AB5, then they very well need to pay attention now. //

Kevin Kiley @KevinKileyCA
·
We are using every possible tool to stop the Biden-Su "Independent Contractor" rule from destroying the livelihoods of millions of Americans:

First, I'm introducing legislation under the Congressional Review Act to nullify it. This is a fast-track procedure for overriding an… Show more
11:16 AM · Jan 12, 2024

Just 23% of Haley supporters say they would vote for Trump in a matchup with Biden. The plurality of Haley supporters, 43%, would vote for Biden instead. //

Chris Paige
2 hours ago
Nope, you're reading that poll wrong: what it says is that Haley's supporters are Ds who either will not or cannot admit they're Ds. The last thing we should want as a nominee is someone who is preferred by Biden voters (you're guaranteeing ZERO enthusiasm &, even if by some miracle you win, you're guaranteeing that she'll be a RINO in office). These people don't agree w/ us on anything, so why should we put them in office? Better to run them out of the party for the same reason & in the same way that the Whigs always lost & the GOP won - trying to hold the pro slavery Whigs in the party was just doomed to failure; we had to get rid of them & we need to get rid of Haley's people. This is addition by subtraction (just like when we rid ourselves of pro slavery Whigs). //

afeblue32
2 hours ago
All that tells me is 1) Democrats are looking for anyone else, and 2) Nikki Haley appeals to Democrats.

Current and elected members of the Guatemalan Congress have reported that they have been intimidated and are currently being preassured by US Embassy personnel with visa removals, business blockades and other sanctions if they do not vote to elect a specific candidate as Speaker of the House. They have gone as far as using an employee of UN-Women to communicate that the US knows where they and their families live. //

It's interesting that Jovel says "they have gone as far as using an employee of UN-Women to communicate that the US knows where they and their families live," given that Attorney General Porras has been working to dismantle institutional corruption involving the UN. //

Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee
·
Why is @CBP holding Alejandro Giammatei for questioning at the airport in Miami? Could it have anything to do with this administration’s chronic disdain for his father, the conservative former president of Guatemala, who completed his term of office today?
Last edited
10:25 PM · Jan 14, 2024 //

Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell added that the younger Giammattei had an approved form to enter the United States when he left Guatemala.

He had an approved form. But today, his status changed when he landed in Miami. Did @PowerUSAID ask for his late denial? Did the U.S. Embassy? Did Todd Robinson?

HAWLEY: Let's talk a little bit about who's really benefiting from this administration's climate agenda, and from these draconian electric vehicle mandates. So, Mr. Turk, you've already alluded to this. I know you know the answers to these questions. Currently, one nation accounts for 60 percent of the world's electric vehicle production. That nation is?

TURK: China

HAWLEY: One nation accounts for 76 percent of the world's lithium battery production. That nation is?

TURK: China

HAWLEY: Yet, your administration, the president's administration, the mandates that you put in place require that two-thirds of our new vehicle sales in just the next eight years be electric vehicles. Your policies are driving us and our supply chains into the hands of our greatest geo-strategic enemy, enriching them, enriching their government ....

So, Mr. Turk, why is it good for the American worker that we force our supply chains to a country that is our greatest rival and adversary, and why is it good for the American consumer? //

Meanwhile, China remains the world's largest emitter of carbon emissions, and they aren't slowing down anytime soon. Think about how insane that dynamic is. We are knee-capping Americans for "climate change" to enrich China, which is continuing to build coal-fired power plants like they are pop-up houses. If the Biden administration was purposely trying to sabotage the United States, what would it be doing differently? //

anon-608f
5 hours ago
The EV mandates have nothing to with environmental conservation and everything to do with limiting citizens freedom of travel. The globalist elites intent is to depopulate the world in accordance with their ideology and new religion.
They learned all they needed from the Soviet Union and the Holodomor- disarm a population, make them politically unsavory, restrict their ability to communicate with the outside world, restrict their ability to flee, then starve them out of existence.
Make no mistake, Whites are first in their sights but no one is safe...only temporarily useful.

Per a new report, the total number of jobs overreported clocked in at a whopping 439,000 for the year 2023, and there's more bad news involved. //

That's an average of about 40,000 jobs per month being erroneously claimed as "created." A couple of mistakes would be understandable, but this is clearly a systemic issue with how the numbers are gathered, and it cannot be assumed to be accidental at this point.

Entire markets shift based on the jobs numbers put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retirements go up and down, investments rise or fall, and companies sink or swim with the understanding that what is released is accurate. The numbers are not accurate, though, and that could severely complicate matters going forward. Never mind that this is yet another example of the Biden administration appearing to play politics with functions that aren't supposed to be political. //

Further, as noted in the above report, the labor participation rate is at a record low of 62.5 percent, meaning more and more people are simply not looking for jobs anymore. That helps bolster the unemployment rate because those people are then not considered in the calculations.

The Biden administration has created a room full of smoke and mirrors.

Citizen Free Press
@CitizenFreePres
·
Follow
Fetterman right again:

"There's a crisis at the border and I don't know how anyone could pretend that there isn't."

9:17 PM · Jan 5, 2024 //

RNC Research
@RNCResearch
·
Follow
More illegal immigrants have crossed the border in December than in any month — EVER.

Democrats want you to believe the border is “secure.” They are lying.

12:47 PM · Dec 29, 2023 //

Bill Melugin
@BillMelugin_
·
Follow
Migrant encounters at the southern border over the last four Decembers. (3 Biden, 1 Trump).

December 2023: 302,000+

December 2022: 252,315

December 2021: 179,253

December 2020: 73,994
3:29 PM · Jan 2, 2024

While nearly everyone agrees that it was a colossal intelligence failure on the part of Israel and its allies that led to the slaughter on October 7, the ensuing war in Gaza, and other instability in the region, the little-known truth is that it was US military aid to Lebanon provided by Joe Biden's national security brain trust that effectively prevented Israeli intelligence from sniffing out the plan and preventing the attack.

To understand this, one has to look at our history with Lebanon since the Bush (43) administration. If you find yourself asking how the United States ended up funding the internal security apparatus that rolled up Israel's intelligence networks and blinded them to the coming storm, the answer is a lot like the character Mike Campbell in his novel "The Sun Also Rises" explaining how he became bankrupt: "Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” //

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a nasty little war. Even though Lebanon was a virtual Iranian satrapy under the de facto control of Hezbollah, the Diplomatic SmartSet® reasoned that we needed to try to retain some influence. As a result, we began a program of providing training and equipment to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and their Internal Security Forces (ISF). It wouldn't take a genius to figure out what would happen. Still, the logical and foreseeable consequences of training the ISF when Iran politically dominated the country were beyond the grasp of a Harvard Kennedy School grad.

The training and equipment paid immediate dividends to Hezbollah as the ISF began trading Israeli agents and sources to Hezbollah in return for survival. This is from an account of a 2009 Lebanese operation.

The chief of Lebanon’s domestic security forces had a warning for the Hezbollah commander: “You’ve been infiltrated.”

With that, Achraf Rifi, head of the U.S.-backed Internal Security Forces, handed over evidence showing that two trusted, mid-ranking Hezbollah commanders were working as informants for Israeli military intelligence, said a high-ranking Lebanese security official with knowledge of the April 2009 meeting. //

With the rise of ISIS and the effective dissolution of Syria, more money was directed to the LAF and ISF because they were viewed in Foggy Bottom as the glue that was holding Lebanon together. Money to supply the LAF and ISF with equipment and training continued under Obama and grew under Trump. By 2020, the US was spending $242 million annually in Lebanon, up from $213 million in Obama's last year in office.

The training and equipment were excellent because the ISF rolled up 15 Israeli espionage networks in their next round of arrests that took place in December 2021. //

The above report places the beginning of planning and training for the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians in the late summer of 2022. This was carried out while a US-trained, equipped, and funded Lebanese counterintelligence service provided operational security for the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran planning and training period. As if to underscore the abject failure of the "retain influence" and "glue that holds Lebanon together" crowd, no one in the ISF, which we had trained and equipped for over a decade and whose salaries we were paying, dropped a dime to US intelligence or diplomatic personnel.

None of this is to say that the Biden national security goat rope knew the attack was coming, but it is hard to see how the outcome differed from being an active participant. Had we not been overawed by our cleverness and let Lebanon descend into its natural state, which is chaos and violence, Hamas would not have had a secure area in which to plan and to train, and the coming attack would probably have been discovered and prevented. //

Author's Note: My primary resource for this story is "Eyeless in Gaza" https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/america-leaves-israel-eyeless-in-gaza

According to a new report, the claim that the infamous Chinese spy balloon was blocked from transmitting data as it flew across the mainland United States was false. Astonishingly, the balloon was allowed to connect to a domestic telecommunications service. That connection was then used to send "burst transmissions" back to China, and it's unlikely it was transmitting take-out orders. //

Of course, none of this would have been an issue had Biden had the guts to shoot the spy balloon down when it was still over the Pacific Ocean. As RedState previously reported, it was detected long before it reached the U.S. mainland. Biden let it transit across anyway, not making the call to blow it out of the sky until it got off the South Carolina coast. The public finding out about it is what ruined his plan to let the thing pass over unmolested.

While we must acknowledge this engagement's success, it is not sustainable. The Eisenhower CSG is not playing the game to win; they are playing to not lose. They are like the team sitting on a one-point lead at halftime and trying to run out the clock. The Eisenhower must be successful 100 percent of the time; the Houthis only need to occasionally have a missile or drone leak through to achieve their mission. //

Dieter Schultz
10 hours ago
The Eisenhower CSG is not playing the game to win; they are playing to not lose. They are like the team sitting on a one-point lead at half-time and trying to run out the clock.
Winning teams never really back off... they might do it once or twice but, the ones that win and do it consistently, have learned that stopping at playing the game brings them losses that they hate and, when that happens, they formulate a hard and fast rule that they never back off until they've won.

I'm not sure Biden's team... gets that. Playing to not beat a team too bad, even if they are very, very bad, hurts both teams.

I hate the way Biden plays the game but, he's running the team... at least for another year or so.

We don't have a ‘problem’ on the border. We have a Biden immigration policy, which is working perfectly, if you're a hard-left person, which is destroying American identity, it's crippling the rule of law.

It is flooding the country with people who haven't been trained into the culture, don't necessarily understand how to function in our society and create all sorts of problems. //

And I think we don't realize yet this is a deliberate policy by people who want to undermine America, change it profoundly, and eliminate all of those crazy ideas like the Constitution, the rule of law, the work ethic, meritocracy, actually being able to know and do something. //

If you'd told me not so long ago that a U.S. president would deliberately undermine our security and actively flout our laws, I would have thought you were nutters and that it was a crazy conspiracy theory. And, yet, that's exactly what we've been seeing with first Obama and now his surrogate Biden.

Gingrich's explanation as to why is as good as any you'll see.

Now, when the chips are down, we see that our "allies and partners" have figured out what the rest of us have. The US is an erratic, unstable, and unreliable ally. It will abandon you at the drop of a hat. It will do profoundly stupid stuff without a second thought. American military leadership is so weak and feeble that you need to think twice about placing your men and ships under American command.

On the whole, I think we can safely say that Joe Biden has fully implemented Barack Obama's "lead from behind" strategy. Our military is so physically weak that it can't do some missions alone and is perceived as so incompetent that no one cares to follow us. //

Proud American Patriot
11 hours ago
Another major foreign policy failure by the Biden Administration. We cannot expect other countries to follow the U. S. lead when we have a weak, compromised and corrupt president who cannot make clear and decisive decisions. //

streiff Proud American Patriot
11 hours ago
Bingo. I needed to see this before I finished the post. It is a great summary. //

Laocoön of Troy Brubaker5
6 hours ago
And the failure to figure out what exactly were we trying to accomplish was what the Weinburger Doctrine was designed to fix. It failed because the Bush family loved interventions and they were jealous of Reagan's success. They shelved the Weinburger Doctrine because it limited them too much. They wanted to engage in world affairs independent of what Reagan accomplished. //

Asurea streiff
6 hours ago
Near as I can figure, the most sensible goal to take on for Iraq and Afghanistan would have been to find a dictator we could stomach and with the personal ability to keep their country under control, and support them. Alternatively, just keeping chopping heads off the snake until one fits those criteria... that would have probably been more effective, if far bloodier. //

Dieter Schultz Asurea
5 hours ago
I've argued this before... we need a 'failed state' protocol that, while we neutralize any threats to targets outside of the "states'" borders, we leave the state in both incapable of striking other nations and, this has to be right up there as a priority, prohibited from exploitation by other nations like China, Russia, and Iran.

The 'failed state' protocol must allow us to, like in the case of Yemen, take out any power within the states' borders that are threatening other nations' shipping or, like Afghanistan, coordinating attacks on other countries like the US.

The idea that a national boundary in a 'failed state' is sacrosanct needs to be rejected if, and only if, they are allowing extra-territorial attacks on other countries' interests.

the Meese brief addresses the question of the universe of individuals who can be lawfully appointed to the position of “Special Counsel” in order for this regulation to fit under federal statutes and the Constitution’s Appointment Clause.

Meese states that the appointments of Patrick Fitzgerald, John Huber, and John Durham as past “Special Counsels” were all valid because, at the time of their appointment, each was serving as a Senate-confirmed United States Attorney within the Department of Justice. Their appointment as “Special Counsel” did not alter their authority; it just granted them the same authority over a particular investigation pursuant to the regulation that they otherwise would not have under their individual geographic limitations.

Meese and his co-authors first published the objection set forth in the current brief in law journals and other publications following Robert Mueller’s appointment as Special Counsel, given that he was an attorney in private practice at the time he was named Special Counsel to investigate former President Trump, but never to a court.

Now Meese and his co-authors are making the claim against Jack Smith to a court because of his effort to have the Supreme Court take up the immunity issue. This created an opportunity for them to raise the question by arguing that Smith lacks jurisdiction to seek the Court’s relief because he is not truly an “Officer” of the United States.

Congress alone has the authority to create federal offices not established by the Constitution. And the Attorney General cannot ex nihilo fashion offices as he sees fit. Nor has Congress given the Attorney General power to appoint a Special Counsel of this nature. Thus, without legal office, Smith cannot wield the authority of the United States, including his present attempt to seek relief in this Court. //

Because Jack Smith was a private citizen when appointed, never having been nominated by a President or confirmed by a vote of the Senate, he was not within the scope of individuals who could be authorized by Garland to exercise prosecutorial authority equivalent to United States Attorneys. Any action purporting to create such a position – or “office” -- and vest it with the same authority as United States Attorneys is unconstitutional because it was not “created by law." //

Among the most compelling arguments made by the Meese brief comes at the end when it notes the incarnation of a Special Counsel vested with a Javert-like mission, as compared to the statutorily-created officers of the Justice Department – the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, Solicitor General, eleven Assistant AGs, and 94 U.S. Attorneys – all subject to Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. According to the Biden DOJ, the Attorney General can simply create a Special Counsel Office, appoint a non-government actor to that post, grant him the power to wield the authority of a grand jury, draw resources from various federal law enforcement agencies, and direct their conduct, and seek search and arrest warrants when loosed upon a member of the public.

If the Meese brief’s argument is correct, then all the actions taken by Smith have been without lawful authority under federal law – beginning with the use of the grand jury in Washington D.C. to build the cases he has brought against former President Trump. The outcome would almost certainly mean that the cases would be dismissed.

Both energy industry officials and eco-activists are complaining.

The real objective appears to be a test run on shutting down two of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints. Without access to both ends of the Red Sea, a large portion of the world's shipping will be routed around South Africa, resulting in price increases and disrupted supply chains. //

The Houthis are now spreading propaganda about:

“stopping international maritime trade through the Suez Canal” pic.twitter.com/El1KSQ2srB

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 15, 2023 //

That this is happening under the nose of two US carrier strike groups is not a good look, but this is the price of Joe Biden kowtowing to Iran. We have within our power the ability to put this nonsense to a halt in short order, but we're not. The Congress should explore that reasoning, but it won't. //

Red is the original BRIC countries, green is the addition of South Africa making BRICA, and yellow is new invitees. Look at the maritime chokepoint map; there are some similarities. Note: Argentina has declined membership. If you look at what is happening in the Red Sea as a dry run for shutting down those checkpoints in case of war over Taiwan, it makes a lot of sense. If you recall, in 2021, the Suez Canal was blocked for six days and cost billions in losses when a container ship, the Ever Given, wedged itself into a critical point in the canal.

The Ever Given was owned by a Taiwanese company called the Evergreen Line. That Taiwanese company had extremely close ties to Communist China. //

In a totally unconnected event, another Evergreen ship, the Ever Forward, ran aground just outside Baltimore Harbor in March 2022.

The US Navy exists to protect the United States and guarantee freedom of navigation in international waters. //

We will be damned lucky to avoid a war with China in the next few years, with 2027 being the most probable. We can be assured that every act the Houthi take is calibrated to test the actions of the US, NATO, and Western commercial interests. What we are teaching China is much more likely to encourage than discourage them.

US military installations in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by Iranian proxies nine times since Friday. According to senior defense officials, this brings to 84 the number of attacks on US forces since October 17, resulting in injuries to 66 American servicemen. The highest profile of those attacks was an attack on the US embassy in Baghdad. It was hit by a volley of 60mm mortar rounds on Thursday, and there were no casualties . //

I'm sure that the usual isolationist fringe will say, "Why do we have troops in those countries? Why are our ships sailing in international waters? Shouldn't they be on our southern border?" Those may be fair questions, but it is also immaterial and a shameless dodge. The National Command Authority has ordered our military to those locations to carry out American foreign policy. But in an environment where our troops have been attacked on 84 separate occasions in 52 days, we have launched a grand total of six airstrikes in the same time frame. //

Until they learn to respect us, our troops, ships, and aircraft will always be in danger. And they will only learn respect if they learn to fear us along the way.

they aren't expensive either, but I digress. All told he was missing probably a dozen or so pieces of equipment that added up to $500 to $1,000. He was being screwed over for actions he was ordered to do by his superiors and now he's paying the price for it, literally.

That ladies and gentlemen, is getting what we called in the Marines, screwed by the big green weenie. We actually have an acronym for it, BOHICA. Which stands for Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

The sad part is that it is a common occurrence, both the green weenie and paying for losses of gear and or other equipment that was lost or destroyed in the course of our duties at no fault of our own. Some examples that I saw of these were both hilarious and infuriating at the same time. //

It is more than just an administration problem, it is a problem within the military as a whole. //

But sure, let's tack on an extra $500-$1,000 to repay the government, along with a Defense Department, that has enough resources, money, or credit, to absorb that cost for miscellaneous gear like an e-tool. That is a giant slap in the face to the very people who literally put their lives on the line in some jobs, to defend this Nation. They need to do better, much much better. //

thinkingoutloud
3 minutes ago
So, did Biden's paycheck get used to pay back the US taxpayers for the "gear" he intentionally left in Afghanistan?

If Donald Trump were the covert Kremlin agent Democrats made him out to be, he might have given President Vladimir Putin the same kind of red-carpet treatment that Democrats gave Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping this week.

On Wednesday, President Xi was greeted in the hastily sanitized streets of San Francisco with all the fanfare of a communist parade, complete with waving red banners, to welcome the head of Red China. //

President Joe Biden is to China what Democrats claimed Trump was to Russia: that is, compromised by complex financial ties that raise significant conflicts of interest and warrant a congressional impeachment inquiry. What if the streets of Palm Beach, Florida were draped in Russian flags to greet President Putin after Donald Trump Jr. had accepted $3.5 million from an ex-Moscow mayor’s wife? //

Will the same people who raised a circus over ridiculous “pee tape” rumors about Trump and Russian prostitutes wonder if the Chinese have any more illicit films of Hunter Biden indulging in crack cocaine and hookers? We never found those pee tapes but there’s plenty of graphic porn online starring the first son. //

But even beyond the Bidens’ entanglement in influence-peddling schemes involving prominent Chinese leaders, there’s good reason why Democrats might want to leave a good impression on the world’s leading civil rights offender. A Federalist analysis of federal campaign donations found that companies credibly accused of harnessing Chinese slave labor overwhelmingly donated to Democrats. Of the nearly $40 million that went to congressional candidates between the two major parties in 2020, Democrats took home more than 85 percent while Republicans received less than 15.

Joe’s burner accounts are subject to scrutiny because evidence suggests he used them to advance his family’s foreign influence-peddling schemes.