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California’s Huntington Beach stays on MAGA path after divisive campaign.

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California’s Huntington Beach stays on MAGA path after divisive campaign. I just love articles from the left when they’re crying.

The Washington Post Story by Reis Thebault

Southern California’s oceanside Republican stronghold continued its rightward march this week, as voters appeared likely to approve two controversial ballot measures that are sure to draw ire and, in one case, legal action from the state’s liberal leaders.

Huntington Beach, a city of about 200,000 south of Los Angeles, was poised to pass a pair of charter amendments that effectively ban Pride flags from flying on municipal property and require voter identification for local elections — despite warnings from California’s attorney general and secretary of state that such an ID law runs afoul of state law and would lead to a court battle.

As of Thursday, with most ballots counted, the initiatives led by wide margins, and their chief opponents had conceded.

A third measure, which was also backed by Huntington Beach’s far-right council majority, would have modified the city’s budget cycle and given its mayor the power to unilaterally cancel council meetings. That initiative appeared on track to fail as of late Thursday, showing that voters may have embraced the council’s culture-war priorities but were not as willing to go along with everything the elected officials suggested.

The run-up to Tuesday’s election roiled Huntington Beach, which has long cherished its reputation as a laid-back surf town, and deeply divided its residents. Even as demographics have driven much of surrounding Orange County to the left, Huntington Beach has retained its historically conservative bent, and registered Republicans still outnumber Democrats there.

But the current council majority, elected in 2022, has pushed the city further right, with Tuesday’s ballot measures just the latest in a growing list of MAGA priorities that conservatives have championed.

And while the council’s majority did not appear to pull off a clean sweep, members say the results further validate their approach to local governance, which has included weighing in on polarizing subjects more often found in national political debates, including immigration policies and LGBTQ rights.

“The results show that our voters believe in the direction our city is headed — one of unity, patriotism and the restoration of election integrity,” Gracey Van Der Mark, Huntington Beach’s mayor and one of the council’s four conservatives, said in a statement. “As an elected representative, it is important to me that I advocate for the wants and needs of our community. The passing of these measures reassures me that I am on the right track.”

For opponents of the measures, who sought to convince their right-leaning hometown that its leadership had gone too far, the results were a bitter end to a discordant campaign that pitted neighbors against each other and had both sides harking back to a time when city politics wasn’t so acerbic.

Protect Huntington Beach, a community activist group that formed to protest the charter amendments, reported that dozens of its signs urging the public to vote “no” on the measures were vandalized with stickers and spray paint in the run-up to Election Day. In a statement, the group said its members were “deeply saddened at the outcome of the election.”

But the group, which is made up largely of retirees and includes several former city leaders, grew quickly in recent months. Organizers said they would look to build on their momentum ahead of the November contest, when the council’s three Democratic members are up for reelection and are facing a slate of Republicans looking to consolidate control of the body.

“Protect HB is not going anywhere,” the group’s statement said. “Our job is not done. We feel it has only just begun.”

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The Myth of Low Immigrant Crime.

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The Myth of Low Immigrant Crime. Ann Coulter gives us the rundown on the future members of the Democrat party.

With the Biden administration hauling in millions of “newcomers” (the latest euphemism for illegal aliens) from booming economies like Venezuela, Senegal and Haiti, we seem to be getting a Kate Steinle every day.

Among the recent atrocities committed by Our Greatest Strength is the savage murder of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley by Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan illegal alien released into our country by the Biden administration. The “newcomer” beat Riley so badly that he disfigured her skull.

MEDIA ALERT: Time to roll out the fake studies on low immigrant crime!

The one-man factory producing these studies is Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato Institute. (Take our country, just don’t raise taxes.) He fudges the data, slaps a false title on his report, and journalists copy his work like they’re Claudine Gay writing a thesis.

Thus, in its story on the murder of Riley, The New York Times cited “studies” showing “no causal connection” between immigrants and crime. Indeed, the Times said, studies “have concluded” that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.

The article links to 1) Nowrasteh’s sham study and 2) a 2017 Times story that cites Nowrasteh’s sham study.

That same day, the Times’ Angelo Fichera ran a “fact check” on Donald Trump’s claim that “the United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime. It’s a new form of vicious violation to our country.” Fichera’s ruling: “This lacks evidence.”

 

His proof:

“One recently updated analysis by Alex Nowrasteh, the vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, found that the homicide conviction rate for illegal immigrants in Texas in 2015 was slightly lower than the rate among U.S. citizens.”

(If they’re so law-abiding, why are they fleeing the crime in countries full of people just like them?)

The Nowrasteh “study,” and others that perform the exact same error-ridden analysis, is the heart and soul of the immigrants-commit-less-crime scam. If it’s wrong, liberals have nothing, and you can go back to believing your lying eyes.

Needless to say, his study is not merely off by a homicidal illegal or two. He — and others like him — aren’t even comparing illegal aliens to citizens. They’re comparing illegal aliens to a group that includes both illegal aliens and citizens.

As I pointed out in “Adios, America!” (and apparently will have to keep pointing out for the rest of my life): Texas’ crime data only counts illegal aliens who have already been caught and fingerprinted by the Department of Homeland Security.

That leaves out a lot of illegals. Is the DHS even fingerprinting migrants at the border anymore? If not, then by Nowrasteh’s calculations, illegals’ crime rate in Texas is zero.

How about we only count the murder convictions of citizens who’ve previously been fingerprinted by the Denver police? Why would we do that?

Obviously, a lot of the inmates originally classified as “other/unknown” will later turn out to be illegals. But all these Nowrasteh counts as “citizens.” He had his headline, so why bother updating the data?

According to the more accurate count of illegals in Texas prisons, they commit 30% more murders than U.S. citizens — not to be confused with a “slightly lower” rate than citizens.

Not only that, but the longer inmates are in prison, the more of them will be found to be illegals, whereas the reverse is not true. Consequently, the number of illegal alien murderers continues to grow, while the “other/unknown” — all of whom Nowrasteh calls “citizens” — continues to shrink.

Apart from Nowrasteh’s “study,” the main argument for the peacefulness of illegal aliens relies on “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” reasoning:

The national crime rate declined since 1980, even as illegals poured in. Therefore, illegals cause crime rates to drop.

Cities with lots of illegals have low crime rates. Therefore, illegals are law-abiding.

This is how primitives think. Heard of Rudy Giuliani? Ed Meese? COMPSTAT, California’s three strikes law, the boom in prison construction or the sentencing commission? The cause-and-effect argument about immigration and crime employs the logic of a witch doctor, which may be where this country is headed.

One September day, New York City was 65 degrees, the skies crystal clear, and 3,000 people were murdered. Therefore, cool, clear days cause mass murder.

The media seem to think the criminality of immigrants is a critically important fact, judging by how often they wheel out these nonsense studies. But they don’t have the necessary information. There are no such “studies.”

Why doesn’t the government tell us? The fact that it won’t — and that the media aren’t asking for concrete numbers — tells us more than a million phony studies.

 

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Winning – MAGA edition: Supreme Court rules states can’t kick Trump off the ballot

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Winning – MAGA edition: Supreme Court rules states can’t kick Trump off the ballot

The decision swiftly ended the legal fight over whether states could bar Trump from their ballots based on the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday handed a sweeping win to former President Donald Trump by ruling that states cannot kick him off the ballot over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — bringing a swift end to a case with huge implications for the 2024 election.

In an unsigned ruling with no dissents, the court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court, which determined that Trump could not serve again as president under Section 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

The provision prohibits those who previously held government positions but later “engaged in insurrection” from running for various offices.

The court said the Colorado Supreme Court had wrongly assumed that states can determine whether a presidential candidate or other candidate for federal office is ineligible.

The ruling makes it clear that Congress, not states, has to set rules on how the 14th Amendment provision can be enforced against federal office-seekers. As such, the decision applies to all states, not just Colorado. States retain the power to bar people running for state office from appearing on the ballot under Section 3.

By deciding the case on that legal question, the court avoided any analysis or determination of whether Trump’s actions constituted an insurrection.

The decision comes just a day before the Colorado primary.

Minutes after the ruling, Trump hailed the decision in an all-capital-letters post on his social media site, writing, “Big win for America!!!”

Get out the legal vote. Tenor Photo.

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Just in case you missed it. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump’s $355 million fine.

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Just in case you missed it. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump’s $355 million fine.

SusanShelley

Let me tell you about the time Ruth Bader Ginsburg saved Donald Trump $355 million plus interest. It was Feb. 20, 2019, and Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the court in the case of Timbs v. Indiana.

In that case, police in Indiana had seized Tyson Timbs’ Land Rover SUV, which he bought for $42,000 with money he received from a life insurance policy when his dad died. The state sought civil forfeiture of the vehicle because Timbs had pleaded guilty to drug dealing and conspiracy to commit theft. However, the fine for the crime was only $10,000 and the vehicle was worth four times that. Taking the vehicle was an excessive fine, the judge ruled, and excessive fines are prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court of Appeals agreed.

But then the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the ruling on the grounds that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines applies only to the federal government, and it does not bind the states.

Yes it does, the U.S. Supreme Court said unanimously. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas wrote separate concurring opinions stating that they would have arrived at the decision through different reasoning. But the conclusion was the same.

“There can be no serious doubt that the Fourteenth Amendment requires the States to respect the freedom from excessive fines enshrined in the Eighth Amendment,” wrote Gorsuch.

“The Eighth Amendment’s prohibi­tion on excessive fines applies in full to the States,” wrote Thomas.

“The Excessive Fines Clause traces its venerable lineage back to at least 1215,” wrote Ginsburg, “Magna Carta required that economic sanctions ‘be proportioned to the wrong’ and ‘not be so large as to deprive [an offender] of his livelihood.’”

Timbs v. Indiana was a landmark decision. It was the first time the Supreme Court had held that the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause applied to the states. Just nine years earlier, in McDonald v. Chicago, the Supreme Court had acknowledged in a footnote, “We never have decided whether … the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of excessive fines applies to the States,” pointing to the 1989 case of Browning-Ferris Industries of Vt., Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., in which the court declined to decide the issue.

McDonald v. Chicago was itself a landmark decision. In that case, the Supreme Court said for the first time that the Second Amendment applies to the states as well as to the federal government.

“When ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights applied only to the Federal Government,” Justice Ginsburg wrote.

How that eventually changed is a little-known part of U.S. history that is about to protect former President Trump from the state of New York.

The Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution after the Civil War, in 1868. It read, in part, “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

However, this did not immediately make the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. That change began more than 50 years later, in 1925. In the case of Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court floated the idea that freedom of speech and of the press are assumed to be “among the fundamental personal rights and ‘liberties’ protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the states.”

Gradually over the next century, the court would pick and choose provisions of the Bill of Rights, declare them to be “fundamental” or “deeply rooted” in our history, tradition and “scheme of ordered liberty,” and make them binding on the states. (The history of this process can be read in Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the court in McDonald v. Chicago.)

The Eighth Amendment reads, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

The “cruel and unusual punishments” clause was declared applicable to the states in 1962, in Robinson v. California. The “excessive bail” provision has applied to the states since the 1971 case of Schilb v. Kuebel. And the “excessive fines” prohibition has been binding on the states since the 2019 Timbs case.

New York Judge Arthur F. Engoron fined the former president and 2024 frontrunner an astronomical $355 million plus $100 million (and counting) in interest. Engoron also prohibited the Trump Organization from taking loans from financial institutions that do business in New York for three years, and he banned Trump personally from working as a director or officer of any corporation or entity in New York for the same period. Engoron even refused Trump’s request for a 30-day extension of the due date to pay the fine, which New York requires before he can appeal the judgment.

This was a civil fraud trial, without a jury, in which the judge found Trump guilty of giving his assets a too-high valuation to get good loan terms, even though the bank adjusted those values downward before approving a loan that was paid back fully and on time, with interest.

“For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history: Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties,” wrote Ginsburg. “Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James campaigned on a promise to sue Donald Trump, calling him an “illegitimate president.” She said she’ll ask the court to seize Trump’s buildings if he can’t come up with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash in time to pay the fine.

We’ll see. It may be easier to go up against Trump than to argue with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, with lawyers Christopher Kise and Alina Habba, attends the closing arguments in the Trump Organization civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (Shannon Stapleton/Pool Photo via AP)

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, with lawyers Christopher Kise and Alina Habba, attends the closing arguments in the Trump Organization civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (Shannon Stapleton/Pool Photo via AP)

 

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Biden’s brother used his name to promote a hospital chain. Then it collapsed — Politico

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Biden’s brother used his name to promote a hospital chain. Then it collapsed — Politico

You know you’re in trouble when you’re a leftist and Politico attacks you!

Joe Biden’s brother Jim Biden, accused of fraud by Tennessee businessman

In 2017, a hospital operator set out to build a rural health care empire with the help of a Philadelphia-area consultant. The consultant, Jim Biden, had no experience running hospitals. But he did understand the federal government and had ties to labor unions. Perhaps more importantly, he was Joe Biden’s younger brother.

The final years of the Obama administration had cemented the former vice president’s towering stature in the world of health care, where he had made the fight against cancer a top federal priority and, then, a centerpiece of his legacy-building efforts.

For then 67-year-old Jim Biden, the third of four Biden siblings, his ties to his older brother made up much of his pitch as he pursued deals that could help Americore make money from drug rehab, lab testing, and even cancer treatment.

“This would be a perfect platform to expose my Brothers team to [your] protocol,” Jim Biden wrote to the CEO of a Tampa-area company that controlled licensing rights to an experimental cancer treatment the hospital operator wanted to offer. “Could provide a great opportunity for some real exposure.”

The email, obtained by POLITICO from a person close to the company, documents one of the many ways in which Jim Biden invoked his brother’s name and clout in the course of his work with Americore, which has since gone bankrupt, wreaking havoc in rural communities in the process.

Jim Biden spoke of plans to give his brother equity in Americore, according to one former Americore executive, and install him on its board, according to a second. He also said that if Americore could find a winning business model for rural health care, his brother could promote the company in a future presidential campaign, a third former executive told POLITICO. All were granted anonymity to discuss a company mired in legal and political controversy

In order to fund Americore’s expansion, Jim Biden offered to secure capital from investors in the Middle East, according to the emails and executives. When the expected money did not arrive, it aggravated Americore’s preexisting financial issues. The company collapsed, leaving behind unpaid bills and neglected patients.

The management failures took a human toll as hospital staff went unpaid, services dwindled, and authorities were forced to intervene. At Americore’s hospital in southeastern Kentucky — ravaged by staff departures and dwindling medical supplies — a patient died of cardiac arrest in late 2018 after receiving substandard care, according to a Department of Health and Human Services report obtained by POLITICO.

Four years after its bankruptcy, federal investigators are still pursuing questions about what else happened at Americore.

In September, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused one of Jim Biden’s business partners of fraud related to loans to the company, allegations the business partner has denied.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department found that Americore’s hospital in Pennsylvania entered into sham service agreements and paid kickbacks as part of a scheme that billed the government for medically unnecessary lab tests the hospital shipped out to be performed elsewhere.

Those actions are at the center of a federal prosecution of a $100 million conspiracy to defraud Medicare that has netted a guilty plea from the recipient of the kickbacks and, according to a person familiar with the case, remains ongoing.

Now, House Republicans pursuing an impeachment inquiry focused on the relationship between the president and his relatives’ business dealings have also homed in on Americore. The House Oversight Committee is set to interview Jim Biden on Feb. 21 as part of the inquiry.

As the layers of activity that occurred in and around Americore are peeled back in a federal prosecution in Pennsylvania, a bankruptcy court in Kentucky, and tense witness interviews on Capitol Hill, a POLITICO investigation renders the most detailed picture to date of the ways in which Joe Biden’s relatives leveraged his public stature to advance a private business venture.

The investigation — based on public records, court filings, dozens of interviews and hundreds of exclusively obtained internal documents — reveals that Jim Biden’s role at Americore was larger than previously reported: In some internal documents and investor materials his name is included among its top handful of leaders. He also helped the company seal regulatory approval to acquire the Pennsylvania hospital and personally fired Americore’s chief financial officer, according to the emails obtained by POLITICO.

The investigation also reveals that Joe Biden’s name and inner circle were more involved with the company than has been understood: In addition to the accounts provided by former executives, investor materials described Jim Biden as an adviser to his older brother. And on top of Joe Biden’s own previously reported encounter with the firm’s CEO, at least three of Joe Biden’s relatives did work with Americore. They include Jim Biden’s wife, Sara, and his son, Jamie. The president’s son, Hunter Biden also met with its CEO, and his personal doctor — current White House physician Kevin O’Connor — joined a meeting with Jim Biden and the president of a hospital being acquired by Americore, according to a former executive and emails obtained by POLITICO.

While the extent to which Joe Biden’s relatives have invoked their ties to him to advance their business careers has been a subject of ongoing controversy, the documents obtained by POLITICO demonstrate that Joe Biden was a central element of Jim Biden’s pitch to potential partners and investors during this period.

None of these Biden family members would answer specific questions related to Americore. The White House did not respond to detailed requests for comment.

Jim Biden has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. His attorney, Paul Fishman, said in a statement that he “conducted himself ethically and honorably in all his business dealings.” A spokesman for Jim Biden declined to answer detailed follow-up questions, writing, “We are not able to participate in this story at this time.”

POLITICO’s investigation did not find that Joe Biden involved himself in the firm or took actions on its behalf. However, Joe Biden did benefit indirectly from his brother’s work with the firm. On the same day Jim Biden received a $200,000 payment from Americore, he made out a check for his brother Joe. The White House has said the check was for repayment of a loan, but did not respond to questions about the circumstances of the loan, including whether Joe Biden was aware of his brother’s income from Americore.

Otherwise, Joe Biden remained on the sidelines as his name and relatives became intertwined with a company that was pitched as a vehicle for his legacy, but stands accused of defrauding taxpayers instead.

“I was sold that Americore was going to be the salvation of rural hospitals,” said one of the former executives. “The whole thing was a scam, and it didn’t take that long to figure it out.”

Mississippi Roots

Jim Biden’s involvement with Americore traces back to his family’s decades-long ties to a circle of Mississippi attorneys that supported Joe Biden’s national political ambitions when he served in the Senate.

Since serving as finance chairman of his brother’s first Senate campaign in his early 20s, Jim Biden had regularly struck up business relationships with Joe Biden’s political backers, including the Mississippians.

The circle orbited around tort lawyer Dickie Scruggs, a brother-in-law of former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who achieved fame and fortune in the 1990s through his scorched-earth legal fights against big tobacco companies.

One of Scruggs’ associates had worked for Joe Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign, and when Scruggs needed congressional support for a large tobacco settlement, he hired Jim Biden as a consultant.

Then, in 2007, Scruggs became an early supporter of Joe Biden’s Democratic presidential primary bid, but the high-flying tort lawyer’s star soon came crashing down when he was caught trying to bribe a judge in a dispute over attorney’s fees.

Scruggs’ downfall also dealt a blow to Jim Biden: As his big brother wielded the gavel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and pursued his second presidential run, he was preparing to launch an international lobbying firm with two Scruggs associates. When both of the men were implicated in the bribery scheme and convicted along with Scruggs, the lobbying business was abandoned.

Jim Biden’s dealings went much further with Joey Langston, another lawyer convicted for trying to bribe a judge for Scruggs. When Langston got out of prison, he went into the health care field, and Jim Biden joined him.

Like the Bidens, Langston’s family is a close-knit clan. Just as Jim Biden regularly involved his nephew Hunter in his ventures, Joey Langston sometimes did business with his son, Keaton Langston. A former business partner of the Langstons recalled being struck in a business meeting when Keaton Langston referred to his father as “daddy.”

ome details of the Jim Biden-Joey Langston relationship have emerged from the impeachment inquiry in recent months.

According to a person familiar with Joey Langston’s congressional interview earlier this month, he told investigators that he has lent Jim Biden $800,000, that he has received only $400,000 in repayment, and that he has no documentation of the loans.

According to a second person familiar with the interview transcript, Joey Langston said he has not spoken to Joe Biden in more than a decade and did not know of Joe Biden having any involvement in his brother’s dealings.

Many details of the relationship between Jim Biden and Joey Langston remain sketchy. Sometime around 2015, the two men became involved in a business called Trina Health, in which Jim Biden at one point described himself as a partner.

Trina championed a controversial method for treating diabetes that some insurers balked at paying for. Trina’s founder, G. Ford Gilbert, lobbied the state’s legislature to force insurers to pay for his product. But he was caught bribing the majority leader of Alabama’s House of Representatives, Republican Micky Hammon, leading to Gilbert’s conviction.

Jim Biden and Joey Langston, who were not implicated in the scheme, moved on from Trina, but maintained an interest in the business of health care.S

The Biden Brand

In early 2017, Joe Biden was in legacy-building mode.

His son Beau Biden’s battle with brain cancer had inspired the Cancer Moonshot, a federal push to cure the disease, and closely linked the Biden name with health care in the public imagination.

In the waning days of the Obama administration, the outgoing vice president announced he would continue the cancer fight with a nonprofit, the Biden Cancer Initiative. In June, the nonprofit officially launched.

At the time, Jim Biden was in empire-building mode. Like his older brother, his plans included health care.

One aspect involved a business that allowed hospitals to outsource the complicated, but often lucrative, work of performing medical tests to a specialized service.

In May 2017, a company that provided lab services, Fountain Health, LLC, was incorporated in Mississippi with Keaton Langston listed as its sole member. And it was through Fountain Health that Jim Biden first found his way to Americore, according to one of the hospital operator’s former executives.

At the time, Americore had recently been founded by a Canadian entrepreneur, Grant White, as a vehicle for taking over distressed rural hospitals. White believed he could create a better business model for these facilities by capitalizing on the value of their underlying real estate, and the company was in the process of acquiring a handful of hospitals across the eastern half of the United States.

One of them was in Pineville, the seat of Bell County in southeastern Kentucky. That’s where both Langstons and Jim Biden showed up in May 2017 to pitch Americore on outsourcing its lab services, according to the former Americore executive.

White, who had little experience running clinical labs himself, was sold on the idea.

By early June, Fountain had made a deal with a hospital that Americore had recently agreed to acquire outside of Pittsburgh, according to a contract obtained by POLITICO.

The contract was included in a cache of tens of thousands of internal Americore documents, dealing with all aspects of the business, which changed hands in the course of one of the many private disputes related to the company. POLITICO, which first began reporting on Jim Biden’s Americore involvement in 2019, recently obtained the cache, and this article draws on hundreds of the documents within it.

Jim Biden’s representatives declined to respond to questions about whether he has a relationship with Fountain Health.

As relations deepened between Fountain Health and Americore in the summer of 2017, Jim Biden grew closer to White. He saw even more potential in struggling rural hospitals than the value contained in their real estate.

In addition to cancer treatment, he believed he could help Americore land contracts from the Veterans Affairs Department, an area rife with federal subsidies, and from labor groups, political allies of his older brother with whom he had built longstanding business ties over the decades, according to emails and the former Americore executives.

A few weeks after Fountain concluded the deal with Ellwood City Hospital in Pennsylvania, Jim Biden took O’Connor, an army veteran who served as Joe Biden’s government-provided doctor during the Obama administration, to meet with the hospital’s president, Beverly Annarumo.

“You and your team clearly share our vision, and I look forward to seeing you again in coming months,” O’Connor, who now serves as Biden’s White House physician, wrote to Annarumo later that week. Annarumo did not respond to requests for comment.

The White House did not respond to requests to interview O’Connor. The physician, who also lists an affiliation with the George Washington University’s medical school, did not respond to an email sent to him through the university’s website.

As the summer wore on, plans for a health care empire continued apace.

On July 12, Joey Langston emailed Jim Biden, Keaton Langston, White and two others to schedule a “meeting for Fountain Health partners” the next week.

“Jim will report to the group the results of his discussions earlier today with a contact at [Blue Cross Blue Shield],” he wrote. “There will also be discussion about how to proceed with the Union contacts that have been made by Jim and Keaton, within the last two weeks.”

The partners’ meeting had to be put off so that White and Jim Biden could attend a meeting in Ellwood City, where Americore’s hospital acquisition faced review by the state.

Once the acquisition was completed, Joey Langston wrote in another email to Jim Biden and others, Fountain could dramatically increase the samples it sent to Ellwood City for lab testing.

But before the deal could close, it needed to be reviewed by the office of Pennsylvania’s attorney general. At the time, that was Josh Shapiro, who, as the Democratic nominee for that post in 2016, had campaigned alongside Joe Biden.

Approval was no guarantee. Americore’s efforts to acquire a hospital in southwest Virginia were encountering resistance: Local authorities had learned about financial problems in Pineville, where the hospital had just failed to make payroll, and about one of White’s previous ventures in Canada, in which investors had been saddled with losses.

In Pennsylvania, the company had a leg up. With his roots in Scranton, and his three decades representing neighboring Delaware, Joe Biden had earned the honorific of Pennsylvania’s “ third senator,” and an endorsement from a Biden could help ease concerns about Americore’s trustworthiness.

On a Thursday afternoon in July, Shapiro’s office held a hearing at the hospital to solicit feedback on the proposed takeover. In a show of support, Jim Biden accompanied White, who noted the presence of his new ally. “We also have Jim Biden here as one of our strategic partners,” White said, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law. “Very familiar person I’m sure.”

In the weeks that followed, Shapiro recommended the approval of Americore’s acquisition of the hospital, which began going by the name Ellwood City Medical Center, according to a September 2017 order issued by Lawrence County judge David Acker that greenlit the takeover.

Representatives for the attorney general’s office directed requests for more information about the approval to the state’s public records process, where a request for documents remains pending. Representatives for Shapiro, who now serves as governor, did not respond to requests for comment.

Americore’s bid enjoyed support from some local stakeholders, and it is unclear what role Jim Biden’s help played in the approval.

His appearance at the Ellwood City hearing had been a rare sign of visible support. As a personal business bio he sent Grant White a few days after the hearing made clear, he preferred to operate in the background.

“Jim has been advising his brother in relation to implementing the Cancer Moonshot, his nephew Beau Biden’s legacy foundation and other Biden family projects,” the bio states. “Through the years, Jim has personally met and has maintained relationships with many key governmental and business leaders throughout the world. He remains the closest personal advisor to his brother. He prides himself in maintaining a low business and political profile.”

Big Brother

In private, Jim Biden was less shy, especially when it came to invoking his older brother.

Several former Americore executives said Joe Biden was central to Jim Biden’s ambitions for the company.

One said that Jim Biden explained to him “His brother was very interested in rural health care and very interested in veterans’ health care and it was something he really wanted to get behind.”

In fact, Jim Biden told the executive, if Americore successfully demonstrated a model for revitalizing rural health care, Joe Biden could run on it in 2020. “This would help his brother get elected if it were to take off and go,” the former executive explained.

Another former executive said that Jim Biden spoke of plans — which did not come to pass — to give Joe Biden equity in Americore.

The plans were part of broader discussions about Jim Biden taking an equity stake of his own in the company, this person said.

A third former executive said that White and Jim Biden spoke of plans to put Joe Biden on Americore’s board.

None of them recalled any indication that Joe Biden ever did involve himself in the company, though his younger brother also invoked him in the course of wooing potential business partners and acquisition targets outside of Americore.

One person on the receiving end of Jim Biden’s health care pitch recalled a phone call in which Jim Biden said he was sitting in a car next to his brother Joe. Joe Biden has said that he never discussed business with his brother.

Previously, an executive who was suing Jim Biden told POLITICO that in a call with the maker of an oral health care rinse he had offered to have the product promoted by the Biden Cancer Initiative. At the time, a spokesman for Jim Biden dismissed that allegation as “pure fantasy.”

The newly obtained email sent to another potential business partner confirms that Joe Biden at times was featured in Jim Biden’s pitch. “This would be a perfect platform to expose my Brothers team to [your] protocol,” he wrote to Jonathan Brenner, the CEO of Tampa-area health care firm Medicus. Brenner did not respond to requests for comment.

While Joe Biden has said he never discussed business with Jim Biden, he did have a chance to meet Americore’s CEO.

In September of 2017, White attended a fundraiser for the Beau Biden Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting child abuse, alongside Jim Biden. At the event at the Wilmington Country Club, White met Joe Biden, though there is no indication they discussed business.

The next month, White met Jim and Hunter Biden for lunch at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan. The trio discussed the possibility that Americore could land an investment from associates of Jim and Hunter Biden affiliated with CEFC, a Chinese energy firm, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

Tracy Schmaler, a communications consultant who has been fielding media inquiries on behalf of Hunter Biden’s legal team, did not respond to a request for information about the encounter.

In November, Jim and Hunter’s plans with the Chinese businessmen were upended when one of them, Patrick Ho, was arrested by the FBI for bribing government officials in Chad and Uganda.

As he looked elsewhere for investment capital, Jim Biden enlisted the help of more relatives.

Emails also show that his son, Jamie Biden — a creative type known for his turn as a long-haired DJ in the Hamptons — pitched in, helping to create a video presentation about Americore intended to entice investors.

Jim Biden’s wife, Sara Biden, an attorney and a partner in Jim’s consulting firm, Lion Hall Group, was more involved. She helped prepare investor presentations and for a time was given her own Americore email address, according to emails obtained by POLITICO.

Neither Jamie Biden nor Sara Biden responded to requests for comment.

 For complete article (Yes, there’s more!)

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Biden Cartel Censorship Commentary Corruption Crime Elections Government Overreach Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Leaders of the Biden Cartel? CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say.

Visits: 9

Leaders  of the Biden Cartel? CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say.

United States Intelligence Community targeted 26 Trump advisors for foreign spy agencies to “reverse target” and “bump”

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Back Door Power Grab Biden Biden Cartel Drugs Elections Government Overreach Immigration Leftist Virtue(!) Politics Reprints from others. The Border Unions

‘Dear Joe…’ Border Patrol Union Unleashes on Biden in Short But Hard-Hitting Open Letter

Visits: 19

‘Dear Joe…’ Border Patrol Union Unleashes on Biden in Short But Hard-Hitting Open Letter

The Western Journal

Biden to blame. Tenor.com Gif.

Sometimes less says more. The Border Patrol Union proved it Monday with a social media post on X.

The union shared a very concise letter to President Joe Biden.

Fewer than 50 words, the message was short but sweet and to the point.

“Dear Joe, You OWN this catastrophic disaster at the border – lock, stock and barrel,” the union wrote on the National Border Patrol Council account. “You created it. You nursed it along. You encouraged it. You facilitated it. It’s all yours. Don’t run from it now like a coward. Signed, The BP agents you’ve thrown under the bus.”

I guess there is no arguing who owns this issue in the eyes of the Border Patrol agents. It can’t be passed off as former President Donald Trump’s by the current administration anymore.

Nor should it be. The Biden administration unleashed the kraken on the United States, with almost  9 million illegal immigrants infiltrating this nation since Biden’s inauguration.

Biden has welcomed the invasion with open arms, fanning the flames every step of the way. He’s done everything he could to assist in drowning our nation under the weight of this invasion. Illegals are receiving free everything while Americans look on in disgust. The evidence is clear.

Illegals are receiving free food, free healthcare, free lodgings, free medical care, free diapers, free relocation travel, and free money. The list continues. Whatever they need, it all comes free. He’s forced Americans to pay for all of it while they are barely getting by. And then those same illegal immigrants threaten Americans with words of pure hatred, warning us of what is to come. It worsens by the day.

And now that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has refused to allow the invasion to continue in his neck of the woods, the cartels have figured out how to carry on smuggling illegal immigrants through southern California and Arizona. The influx is simply changing course but not lessening.

According to a Fox News report from Feb. 1, over 71 percent of illegal entries are now happening through California and Arizona rather than Texas.

Where the Border Patrol’s Del Rio Sector, which covers part of the Texas border with Mexico (including hard-hit Eagle Pass), was averaging 3,000-4,000 illegal migrants invading our nation at their border per day in December, that number has reduced to 200, Fox reported.

It shows that effective policing of the border can provide huge results. But as the cartels are not only persistent but also rather well-versed in the best possible ways to get around these impediments, they are coming up with their own solutions.

It’s like watching water find its way through the cracks. This water, however, is tainted with violence, crime, perversion, and death.

More than 8.9 million illegal immigrants have arrived into the United States since Biden took office. This number is larger than the population of Arizona.

The one man who has promised to stop them, Democrats are attempting to bury in trumped up lawsuits and corrupt criminal cases. That speaks volumes.

The fact that the Border Patrol Union stood up and called Biden out is a very good sign for the United States in the face of this atrocity. It’s a sign of how strong resistance remains to the Biden administration’s rampant lawlessness.

The union — which endorsed Trump in both 2016 and 2020 — has locked horns with Biden many times over the course of his benighted administration. In 2021 it was blasting Biden’s approach to border security as a crisis, and that was when the invasion was in its infancy.

That was the same year the Border Patrol was the subject of an attack that included Biden himself over a hoax story about agents on horseback using whips against illegal immigrants from Haiti.

Now, with the 2024 election approaching, it seems that Border Patrol agents are drawing their own line in the sand, sending a powerful message that they stand on the right side of the Constitution. They see how wrong and corrupt the current president and his administration is.

I liken it to them saying, “Don’t count on us to be complicit without speaking our truth. That ship has sailed.” It is a wake-up call to anyone who might have had any doubt left in his head of how intentional Biden’s actions have been.

The Border Patrol agents are required to do a job but that doesn’t mean that they agree with what is happening.

Frankly, we don’t know what will come of this situation after the fact — so much depends on American voters righting the country’s course when November’s elections roll around.

At a minimum, however, it emphasized which side the Border Patrol union and agents are on.

It’s the side of the law, of history and of the American people. And the country can’t ask for more than that.+

Dementia Joe can’t even read the 4K jumbotron-sized teleprompter; he only knows what the devils(s) whisper in his ear. — TPR

 

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Black Supremacy Commentary Corruption Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Reasons Companies flee NY and CA. Taxes, Legislatures, and Weaponization of Prosecutors.

Visits: 12

Reasons Companies flee NY and CA. Taxes, Legislatures, and Weaponization of Prosecutors. Common sense tells us that Blue states are not business friendly.

The taxes and state legislatures have gotten out of hand. But now your local prosecutors and AG’S have started crusades against Corporations and individuals like Trump and Cuomo. James in New York took over where Spitzer left off.

Below is a Newsmax Article.

New York businesses may leave the state following New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s historic $364 million verdict against Donald Trump, top financial services executives tell the New York Post.

They already considered the New York State Attorney General’s Office a major obstruction to doing business, starting with New York AG Elliot Spitzer, aka the sheriff of Wall Street. Despite forcing financial firms to fork over billions, Spitzer’s cases primarily focused on minor offenses.

The office has liberally used state laws, such as the Martin act, for political advancement, according to the Post.

In the cases against Trump and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York AG Letitia James has taken Spitzer’s strategies to a new level, Wall Street executives say.

Trump’s case centered on his real estate company’s valuations for its properties on loan applications to a major bank that did its own due diligence, hardly a capital offense.

James ran for office repeatedly vowing she would prosecute Trump. Just for that alone — believe business leaders, most of whom are not supporters of Trump — James should have been disqualified.

The AG’s case against Cuomo was based on sex-offense accusations that never materialized in court — but forced Cuomo from office.

Wall Street bigs are astounded at Friday’s judgment against Trump, the AG’s thirst for power, leftists running the state legislature, and Gov. Kathy Hochul making the state unlivable.

They also fear George Soros-funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

This is why major companies are now considering joining Goldman Sachs, which is moving to Texas; hedge funds pulling up stakes for Florida; and private equity titans like Blackstone leaving for Miami.

Bloomberg estimates $2 trillion in assets have left New York and California for Texas, Florida and other Sun Belt states where the cost of living is as much as 40% cheaper. Rampant crime, high taxes and exorbitant housing costs have been their main reasons for leaving — and now they can add to that a hostile political and legal environment.

In the three years through March 2023, 370 major investment firms with $2.7 trillion in assets under management—2.5% of the total assets managed by investment firms in the U.S.—moved their headquarters to a new state.

Even North Carolina and Tennessee saw more than $600 billion in assets seek refuge, primarily due to AllianceBernstein’s jump from New York to Nashville in 2021 and Allspring Global Investment giving up San Francisco for Charlotte in 2022.

The mass migration is taking a toll on California’s and New York’s tax revenue base, as well as career prospects for financial professionals. In 1990, 33% of all U.S. financial industry jobs were in New York, but by last year, New York’s share of these jobs had shrunk to 17.6%.

“It’s embarrassing what you have to put up with to do business here,” one top executive told the Post. “We look like idiots staying here.”

 

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Biden Biden Cartel Commentary Corruption Government Overreach How funny is this? How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Life Links from other news sources. Media Woke Opinion Politics Progressive Racism Racism. Reprints from others. Satire Stupid things people say or do. Weaponization of Government. White Progressive Supremacy WOKE

Friday Funnies.

Visits: 8

Friday Funnies.


I consider Tucker a mentor of sorts. I strive to be more like Tucker.















Brought to you by Google.

The brainwashing of our youth – by social media corporations is out of control. Unfortunately, for all of us – it isn’t going to stop.

“We know best. We are going to remake the world. We are going to reshape kids around the world”

The government has a remedy for this type of unlawful business practice. The 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act has bee utilized many times to break up monopolies. The Sherman Act outlaws:

“every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade,” and any “monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize.”

Google is out of control. They have not only monopolized the internet, they have monopolized the control of advertising. Both business strategies are being challenged by the DOJ in two separate lawsuits. Meta is also being sued for unfair business practices, as it has gobbled up its competitors in a series of buy-outs.




Or you might be watching MSM exclusively and using Google as your search engine.

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Black Supremacy Commentary Leftist Virtue(!) Links from other news sources. Racism. Reprints from others. WOKE

White People Embarrassing Themselves.

Visits: 23

White People Embarrassing Themselves.

 Taylor Swift, star of the LVIII Super Bowl, this year’s Grammys and a crackpot Fox News conspiracy theory that she’s a government PSYOP, is also the winner of my award for “Least Embarrassing Way To Attach Yourself to a Black Person When Accepting an Award.”

      For the uncouth among my readers, modern etiquette dictates that:

      1) Black people win all awards; and

      2) When that is absolutely impossible, the white winner must somehow latch onto a black person, stressing how fond he is of black people.

      In Taylor’s case, she recently made history by becoming the first musician to win four Album of the Year awards. This was despite her being, as The New York Times put it, “white and thin and blond in a world that continues to privilege whiteness and thinness and blondness.”

      Thus, according to protocol, Taylor had to attach herself to a black person. This she did by becoming part of the show when Tracy Chapman reprised her 1988 hit “Fast Car” at the Grammys. Taylor rose from the audience, like a mushroom popping up amid the moss, and sang along for the entire song.

      Boffo publicity! Twitter instantly exploded in gratitude and admiration for the Grammys champion. The media hailed Taylor’s performative tribute to Chapman as if she’d orchestrated the Peace of Westphalia. (The Times: “Taylor Swift singing along to Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs performing “Fast Car” is some kind of apotheosis of 2023 in music.”)

      Embarrassing, but nothing like Adele’s speech at the 2017 Grammys after she’d won Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Album of the Year for her work, “25.” She was up against Beyonce’s “Lemonade,” also a smash hit. (Stats: “Lemonade” sold 485,000 copies in its first week; “25” sold more than 3.38 million. “Lemonade” debuted at No. 1 in the U.S.; “25” debuted at No. 1 in 32 countries. “25” went on to become the fourth best-selling album of the 21st century.)

      After some brief throat-clearing, Adele quickly got to the point of her acceptance speech:

      “I can’t possibly accept this award. I’m very humbled and very grateful and gracious, but honestly, my life is Beyonce.

      “The ‘Lemonade’ album, Beyonce, was so monumental, so monumental, and so well thought out, and so beautiful and soul-bearing. And we all got to see another side of you that you don’t always let us see, and we appreciate that. And all us artists here, we f-ing adore you. You are our light.

      “And the way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel, is empowering, and you make them stand up for themselves. And I love you. I always have. And I always will.”

      (Sorry for such a long quote; I figured you wouldn’t believe me otherwise.)

      But Adele’s performance was still not the most mortifying example of a white person using a personal triumph to affix himself to a black person.

      That honor goes to Novak Djokovic, who, upon winning his fourth U.S. Open title, incomprehensibly turned it into a tribute to Kobe Bryant, a professional athlete in a different sport, from a different country, who’d died three years earlier.

      In anticipation of his shining moment in the sun, Djokovic had even made a T-shirt, with his and Bryant’s faces surrounded by the words, “MAMBA FOREVER.” It would have been weird if he’d done this with his coach’s face, his father’s face, his wife’s face (all who also had something to do with his success). Bryant was an American basketball player with the Los Angeles Lakers, having nothing to do with professional tennis.

      That wasn’t the end of the sartorial tribute. Djokovic also donned jacket with a “24” patch, which — as he explained to the audience — was Bryant’s number with the Los Angeles Lakers.

      Naturally, the bulk of Djokovic’s victory speech was about his black friend — a “close friend,” with whom he “chatted a lot.” Congratulations, Novak! You had a black friend. And now that he’s gone, there’s only the memory of having once had a black friend.

      The whole production was so absurd, it seemed like a Borat sketch of a vulgar foreigner who’d never met a black person.

      Probably kicking himself for not having thought of mocking up T-shirts of himself and a black friend, actor Tom Hiddleston instead used his acceptance speech at the 2017 Golden Globes for Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television to drone on about … Sudan.

      In case you were wondering, the TV series for which he’d won, “The Night Manager,” was not about Sudan. It was a spy caper based on a John le Carre novel. But Hiddleston thought it was important for everyone to know that he’d recently visited Sudan with the United Nations Children’s Fund.

      He told the audience that in Sudan, there was a “terrible situation happening for children.” But on the bright side, the people there loved “The Night Manager”! This he found deeply gratifying: “The idea that we could provide some entertainment and relief to people … who are fixing the world. I dedicate this to those out there who are doing their best.”

      The dedication didn’t involve actually giving anyone anything, mind you. It was more in the way of a verbal acknowledgment because he’s such a great guy.

      At the 2022 Critics Choice Awards, Best Director winner Jane Campion — translucently white — spent much of her speech praising random black people in the audience, such as Will Smith, Venus Williams and Serena Williams. They weren’t even “close friend[s]” who “chatted a lot,” like Djokovic and his black friend.

      Thinking she was really connecting with black people, Campion said, “Venus and Serena, you’re such marvels,” adding, “however, you don’t play against the guys, like I have to.”

      Recriminations and heartfelt apologies followed.

      In one of the earliest “I love black people” exhibitions, Adrien Brody skipped subtlety at the 2003 Academy Awards. After winning Best Actor for his performance in “The Pianist,” he grabbed the black presenter, Halle Berry, and passionately kissed her in a smooch that went on so long that by the time he was finished, the “get off the stage” lights were blinking.

      Berry later said the only thing going through her mind during the cringe-inducing kiss was, “What the f**k is happening right now?”

      What was happening was this: A white actor was making damn sure everyone knew how much he liked black people.

Originally found on Ann Coulter’s Substack. Unsafe    

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