Financial Times @FinancialTimes
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Vladimir Putin and Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, vowed to ‘strengthen’ ties between Moscow and Beijing at a meeting in the Kremlin ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine https://on.ft.com/3YRShq3
8:30 AM · Feb 22, 2023 //

As we reported, Russia also announced they were pulling out of START.

As my colleague Streiff observed,

The biggest solid news item was Putin’s announcement that Russia would suspend its participation in the “New START” treaty signed in Prague in 2010. That treaty places a cap on the number of nuclear warheads held by the US and Russia and the delivery systems for those warheads.

I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty.

Putin’s decision to “suspend” the treaty means he gets to keep the treaty in force but deny the US the ability under that treaty to carry out inspections. It’s good work if you can get it and something he would never have tried to pull on President Trump. I’m sure Biden and Blinken will go along with this bullsh**. //

Mr. President, any reaction to Putin pulling out of New START [nuclear treaty]?"

BIDEN: "I don't have time" pic.twitter.com/um4YEE3zsd

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 22, 2023

This would be the point where you’re supposed to make a statement criticizing Russia, Joe. You shouldn’t have to be told that. But he’s having to work too hard just figuring out where to stand.

That’s part of the problem — he never has time — or the ability or inclination to respond appropriately — to balloons, to Afghanistan, to the border, to much of anything that is in the best interests of the United States. Our antagonists look at who we have in “charge” and it has emboldened them all.

According to the Washington Post, attorneys sent letters to the Department of Justice and the Delaware attorney general requesting investigations of several people who either accessed or disseminated information from the laptop that he allegedly dropped off at the computer repair shop in Delaware. //

This is all sort of quietly hilarious because at this point they’re more than a little late. You can’t lock the door after the horse has bolted out of the barn and that happened a long time ago. The laptop material is everywhere.

But on top of that, hasn’t the left been telling us this was Russian disinformation for two years? //

What about those 51 former intelligence community officials who told us they thought was Russian disinformation?

But let’s not forget Joe Biden himself pushing that. //

So now that the lawyers are claiming that somehow people accessed and disseminate private information, it sounds like they’re acknowledging it’s real and that’s pretty funny after all the prior comments.

WASHINGTON – Disgraced first son Hunter Biden lived off and on at the Delaware home where classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president were found last month — giving him unrestricted access to America’s secrets while he was addicted to drugs, hammering out shady foreign business deals and under federal investigation.

The now-52-year-old began listing the Wilmington home as his address following his 2017 divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle — even falsely claiming he owned the property on a July 2018 background check form as part of a rental application. //

Hunter also listed the home as the billing address for his personal credit card and Apple account in 2018 and 2019, respectively, Fox News Digital reported Friday after reviewing emails from his abandoned laptop.

We reported last week how the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands Denise George filed a massive lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase in New York accusing the bank of ‘knowingly providing and pulling the levers through which [Epstein’s] recruiters and victims were paid.’ “Epstein Island,” more formally known as Little St. James Island is part of the U.S.V.I.

The lawsuit maintained that “human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts that Epstein maintained at JPMorgan.” //

But then came stunning news on Monday that the Attorney General had been fired by the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Albert Bryan, Jr. The governor’s spokesperson is refusing to say why she was fired, ‘I am not at liberty to discuss details on personnel matters.’ //

Coincidentally, on the same day that George filed the lawsuit, Joe Biden flew down to the Virgin Islands, to St. Croix, for vacation. He didn’t leave until Monday, the same day that it was announced the AG had been fired.

People couldn’t help but think of that instance where Joe Biden got the Ukrainian prosecutor fired who had raided the home of a Burisma official, given the coincidence.

But the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis. And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. We are a court of law, not policymakersers of last resort. //

While acknowledging the dire threat to America in the current uncontrolled immigration across our southern border, we should all be opposed to using public health edicts for other policy goals. I thought we all learned that lesson over the last two years, but it may bear repeating. Likewise, we should be horrified that a policy based on an expired emergency is not only being used but is one of the few effective tools in combatting illegal immigration. It really isn’t possible to oppose DACA, which is based on a memorandum from a Secretary of Homeland Security who left office nearly a decade ago, and support Title 42.

I think Justice Gorsuch is correct. The Supreme Court is using this case as a vehicle to define the degree to which states have an interest in immigration law. So to that extent, it may be a victory.

But, as Justice Gorsuch also notes, the courts should not be forced into policymaking roles. As conservatives, we’ve opposed this consistently when the courts get involved in making up voting laws and the boundaries of congressional districts. Keeping Title 42 in place is wrong because the reason for the regulation has expired. It is wrong because it insulates Congress and the Biden White House from their failure to address the illegal immigration crisis. It is wrong to have the courts dragged into doing what the Legislative and Executive Branches will not do.

RNC Research
@RNCResearch
·
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“Everything [Maggie Hassan] talks about wastes money, costs money, and takes money out of everyone’s pocket,” says @GenDonBolduc.

DON BOLDUC: Under Joe Biden and Maggie Hassan, “you can’t even buy a house, you can’t even rent property, you can’t even feed your children, you can’t even heat your home. That is the ultimate tax.” #NHSen

CLOSING STATEMENT from @GenDonBolduc: “You have to ask yourselves, Granite Staters, are you better off today than you were two years ago?”

“Two years ago, you were NOT making choices between heating and eating.” #NHSen

8:24 PM · Nov 2, 2022

By the end of the year, Biden will have purged 275 million barrels of oil from the reserve, which has an authorized capacity of 714 million. According to the Department of Energy, the reserve now holds less than 400 million barrels of petroleum, marking its lowest level since 1984. The emergency petroleum reserve, established in the 1970s to prepare the U.S. for a sudden and severe disruption in supply such as a hurricane hampering gulf coast refineries, has been transformed into the president’s personal oil bank to cash in on for political capital. //

Pyle prescribed a legislative fix to the issue as the administration empties the petroleum reserve to save face as the midterms draw near.

“Congress needs to step in and put binders on the administration and make it very specific about what types of uses the releases are for,” Pyle said.

House Republicans have repeatedly sought to intervene. In June, Democrats blocked for the seventh time Republicans’ “American Energy Independence from Russia Act,” which would have placed restrictions on White House use of the emergency petroleum reserve. The legislation would require the president to submit an energy security plan within a month of tapping the emergency stockpile and require the energy secretary to develop plans for replenishment. //

Congressional Republicans tried to restock the oil reserve in the early months of 2020 when the industry was on the brink of collapse from Covid-19 lockdowns. At the time, oil prices had plummeted, and it could be purchased in bulk at a bargain. Democrats, however, obstructed the effort, and now the Biden administration is forced to deal with replenishing millions more barrels at a far higher price. When the Trump administration looked to refill the reserve, oil was trading at less than $24 per barrel. Today, Biden is facing prices between $67 and $72 per barrel, about three times as much as oil cost just two years ago.

NARA told Trump it would proceed with “providing the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as May 12, 2022,” according to the order.

Contrary to Biden’s claims, per the order, it was Biden who requested that the documents that had been turned over to NARA be provided to the FBI.

While Biden might not have known of the moment of the raid, he knew of the involvement of the FBI because he had requested the documents be turned over to them. He was directly involved in the FBI action. //

Robert A Hahn
3 hours ago
I wish someone could explain to me why every judge involved in this case prefers to ignore the existence of the Presidential Records Act, which would appear to render moot the issue of whether any of these documents were classified. That law, on its face, anticipates that some of the records taken by an outgoing president will be classified. Yet the law contains no penalties or even restrictions on taking them. This would appear to make it impossible to charge a former president -- as the Democrats and their blue media insist must happen -- with "possession of classified documents." Given that, what possible legal reason could there be for even asking for a search warrant, let alone conducting a raid on someone's home? And now here we are again with the "review which ones were classified" nonsense, when the law draws no distinction in that area?

Sen. Joe Biden wanted a sweetheart deal for the banks that stripped student loans of bankruptcy protections, and it created a train wreck. //

In general, borrowers burdened by too much debt and unable to pay their loans can usually discharge them in a personal bankruptcy case. Some debts, particularly those owed to the government, are not dischargeable. But consumer loans and credit card debts generally are dischargeable. //

Why did Biden staunchly back this change — even as Democrats like Teddy Kennedy denounced it for “sacrific[ing] Americans to the rampant greed of the credit card industry”? Because Biden was a long-time water carrier for the credit card and banking industries. And both he and his family profited from that arrangement.

Citizens United filed two lawsuits this week against the Department of Interior and Department of State for failing to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records requests regarding the White House’s attempt to federalize elections.

The nonprofit submitted FOIA requests in June, but both agencies failed to respond (federal law requires FOIA requests to be responded to within 20 working days). The requests sought email and text messages from both agencies that mentioned President Biden’s Promoting Access to Voting executive order and the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in election activities. //

As previously reported by The Federalist, Biden’s executive order directs all 600 federal agencies to become voter registration agencies and organize voter outreach efforts. It allows such agencies — including ones that dole out federal benefits —to work with leftwing get-out-the-vote groups.

Storage containers are being used to fill gaps along the border in Yuma, Arizona. Credit: Doug Ducey/Twitter //

That took……. 3 days: //

In the fiscal year 2022, the Yuma sector has seen 259,895 migrant encounters, according to Customs and Border Patrol data. This high figure is reflective of a broader trend across the Southwest, which has had 1.8 million encounters in total since September 2021, surpassing the previous fiscal year.

Charles V Payne @cvpayne
·
Household Survey
Full Time -71,000
Part Time +384,000
Multiple Jobs +92,000
Robert Luther @RobertLutherFL
Replying to @cvpayne and @PressSec
how is it possible we “added” 528,000 jobs, but 136,000 fewer are employed than in May?
9:03 AM · Aug 5, 2022 //

Labor participation is still lower than it was before the pandemic. It likely means things like retired people having to take a part-time job and other people having to take a second job to keep up with the rising prices in the crush of Bidenflation. If you’ve looked around when you’ve gone out, you may see some evidence of this — retired-age people working jobs that you might generally see teenagers working to supplement Social Security. That’s not exactly a sign of a healthy economy, no matter how the Biden people want to slice it.

The number of people holding two full-time jobs is also at a record high. That’s also not a good thing. //

Frog Capital @FrogNews
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433,000 Americans now working 2 full time jobs.
That is an all time high.
12:35 PM · Aug 5, 2022 //

Charles V Payne @cvpayne
·
You have to ask @PressSec while you are at it ask why Black Americans are sinking in the midst of the jobs boom?

July
-39,000 out labor force
-68,000 fewer employed

I get this stuff is only newsworthy when GOP in WH but some care all the time. Thanks
Jeffrey L. O'Malley @icebergdad
Replying to @cvpayne
Oh, 528,000, not 150,000? Care to comment?
8:19 AM · Aug 5, 2022

Governors and other state officials don’t have to stand idly by as the Biden administration plots a federal takeover of elections. That’s the message being sent by the heads of two good government groups in a new memo to state officials.

“The Biden administration wants to use federal government resources for political, get-out-the-vote purposes, and it’s up to strong leaders in state and local government to stop them,” wrote Russ Vought of the Center for Renewing America and Tarren Bragdon of the Foundation for Government Accountability. “We strongly urge those in positions of power to stop President Biden’s power grab and act soon.”

Biden issued an executive order on March 7, 2021, directing all 600 federal agencies to submit a plan to the White House to increase voter registration and turnout. Many agencies subsequently developed a plan to turn federal facilities, particularly those that deliver federal benefits, into voter registration agencies. //

The agencies are allowed to work with voting groups approved by left-wing partisans in the White House, reminiscent of the Zuckerbucks plot to destabilize the 2020 election by running get-out-the-vote operations in the Democrat areas of swing states.

It’s a “backdoor approach that’s designed to ensure Democratic victories at the polls in 2022 and beyond,” Vought and Bragdon wrote.

Rather than confront the energy crisis head on, Biden and his administration have apparently decided to a) demand censorship of their critics, b) scapegoat the only people who can end the energy crisis, and c) lie about their own role in creating the crisis. It is a transparently counterproductive strategy, one which is antagonizing the energy industry, worsening investor confidence, and alienating voters.

Biden’s is a strategy that makes him look like a child and oil and gas executives like grown-ups. Wrote Wirth, “we need an honest dialogue… We can only meet these challenges by working together.”

But if Biden’s strategy is so counterproductive, why does he keep pursuing it?

Remember all these catastrophes are self-induced. They are choices, not fate. The U.S. has the largest combined gas, coal, and oil deposits in the world. It possesses the know-how to build the safest pipelines and to ensure the cleanest energy development on the planet.

Inflation was a deliberate Biden choice. For short-term political advantage, he kept printing trillions of dollars, incentivizing labor nonparticipation, and keeping interest rates at historical lows—at a time of pent-up global demand.

The administration wanted no border. Only that way can politicized, impoverished immigrants repay left-wing undermining of the entire legal immigration system with their fealty at the ballot box.

Once esoteric, crack-pot academic theories—“modern monetary theory,” critical legal theory, critical race theory—now dominate policymaking in the Biden administration.

The common denominator in all of this is ideology overruling empiricism, common sense, and pragmatism. Ruling elites would rather be politically correct failures and unpopular than politically incorrect, successful, and popular.

Is that not the tired story of left-wing revolutionaries from 18th-century France to early 20th-century Russia to the contemporary disasters in Cuba and Venezuela?

The American people reject the calamitous policies of 2021-2022. Yet the radical cadres surrounding a cognitively inert Biden still push them through by executive orders, bureaucratic directives, and deliberate Cabinet nonperformance.

Why? The left has no confidence either in constitutional government or common sense.

So as the public pushes back, expect at the ground level more doxxing, cancel culture, deplatforming, ministries of disinformation, swarming the private homes of officials they target for bullying, and likely violent demonstrations in our streets this summer.

The White House is refusing to share details about its coordinated efforts to engage in a federal takeover of election administration. //

When President Biden ordered all 600 federal agencies to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process” on March 7, 2021, Republican politicians, Constitutional scholars, and election integrity specialists began to worry exactly what was up his sleeve.

They had good reason. The 2020 election had suffered from widespread and coordinated efforts by Democrat activists and donors to run “Get Out The Vote” operations from inside state and local government election offices, predominantly in the Democrat-leaning areas of swing states. Independent researchers have shown the effect of this takeover of government election offices was extremely partisan and favored Democrats overwhelmingly. //

As with previous efforts to destabilize elections, the chaos and confusion that would occur are part of the plan. The Executive Order copied much of a white paper put out by left-wing dark money group Demos, which advocates for left-wing changes to the country and which brags on its website that it moves “bold progressive ideas from cutting-edge concept to practical reality.” Not coincidentally, Biden put former Demos President K. Sabeel Rahman and former Demos Legal Strategies Director Chiraag Bains in key White House posts to oversee election-related initiatives. //

One of the concerns shared by the members was that Biden was directing agencies to work with third-party organizations. Nobody knows which third-party organizations have been approved by Rice for her political efforts, nor which are being used. They also asked how much money is being spent on the effort, which statutory authorities justify the election activities, and what steps are being taken to avoid Hatch Act violations. They received no response. //

It is unclear why Biden and his political appointees are being so secretive about the work that went into their plan to engage in a federal takeover of election administration.

Whatever the case, Americans have a right to know whether these bureaucracies that are meddling in elections have experts in for each state’s election laws, what type of training is going on to ensure that state laws are being followed, whether they are allowing inspections and oversight to ensure no illegal activity, how they are determining whether a third-party group is genuinely non-partisan, whether they are allowing state investigators to approve money, and how much is being spent on this federal takeover of elections.

Sorry, but there is nothing routine about 240,000 illegal migrants crossing the border in a month. That’s a city the size of Buffalo or Toledo.

It’s an exponential increase since Joe Biden dismantled Trump-era border protections. Illegal crossings quadrupled in his first two months. And he has 29 months left.

His administration has become efficient at hustling illegal immigrants from the border and out to the rest of the country so as to avoid the bad optics of 3 million illegal border crossings in their first 16 months (to May).

Charter planes from airlines such as World Atlantic, iAero, Avelo and new entrants Omni and Canada’s GlobalX fly daily from border airports such as Harlingen and El Paso, Texas, or Yuma, Ariz., to a town near you.

Luke Rosiak at The Daily Wire has just compiled data on nearly three dozen charter planes believed to have been deployed to move illegal migrants in a conveyer-belt operation in the dead of night to small airports as far afield as California, Iowa, Tennessee, Ohio, Georgia, Florida and New York. //

I’ve watched illegal migrants get off these flights in White Plains and a significant number look to be in their late teens to early 20s. The youngest might be 16. Most are male — the cheap-labor demographic.

But even if you take the Biden administration’s word that they are all minors, then authorities are negligent about their welfare.

We have seen them picked up in buses that hurtle down Westchester highways at reckless speeds.

We have seen them dropped off after midnight at service areas off the New Jersey Turnpike, where no one checks the bona fides of the so-called sponsors who come to pick them up.

We have seen them dropped off at affordable-housing complexes in Yonkers and The Bronx, with no chaperones outside to ensure their safety.

The administration and agencies have stonewalled The Post’s efforts to report on this migrant-dispersal operation. They moved planes to the other side of the tarmac at White Plains to stop us photographing them. The charter buses from J&F Tours covered over their logos.

But it doesn’t take much to stop Biden’s butlers at NPR from reporting one of the biggest abuses of power in this country.

Mike Rusher
@mjrusher
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OUCH: Biden is now the most unpopular POTUS in *United States history.

Now has the all time worst POTUS approval at the 517 day mark, per @FiveThirtyEight . *Data began in late 30's by @Gallup

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?cid=rrpromo #ncpol #ncga #ncsen
10:22 AM · Jun 20, 2022

EU Signs Landmark Natural Gas Deal With Israel
“Israeli gas is expected to be sent to liquefaction plants in Egypt, then shipped north to markets in Europe.” //

Biden Admin Tried to Kill Europe-Israel Gas Pipeline Deal
The agreement allowing supply of Israeli gas was reached despite Biden administration’s efforts to kill a similar pipeline deal. Just weeks ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden State Department pulled the U.S. support away from the EastMed pipeline designed to deliver Israeli gas to the European market — reversing a Trump White House decision.

“Washington no longer supports the proposed EastMed gas pipeline from Israel to Europe, according to a Jerusalem diplomatic source,” the Israeli TV channel i24News reported January 19. “The Biden administration reportedly informed Israeli, Greek, and Cypriot officials in recent weeks of its change in attitude,” the news outlet added.

The Biden White House decision emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin as he was amassing troops along the Ukrainian border, and further consolidated Moscow’s stranglehold on the Europe’s energy supply. It was only the shock of the Russia military offensive on the Europe’s eastern flank which forced the policymakers in Washington and Brussels to rethink energy security and look for ways to reduce dependence on Kremlin.

The paper found changes to the way the federal government measures inflation understate the current scope of the problem.