And we’re up to four and counting. David Weiss stymied on Hunter Biden tax crimes. We now have four IRS employees (two workers and two managers) who have claimed that there was hanky panky going on in the Hunter Biden saga.
IRS Director of Field Operations Michael Batdorf and DC IRS Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon detailed how Weiss’ probe was thwarted in recent testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Garland has repeatedly insisted to lawmakers — most recently on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee — that Weiss, the US attorney for Delaware, had “full authority” to bring cases against Hunter Biden anywhere he wished and that Garland would not personally interfere in the probe.
Batdorf recalled sitting in on a June 2022 meeting involving Weiss, IRS criminal investigators, and FBI officials at which DOJ Tax personnel pushed back against charges for the first son — at the same time they were holding conferences with Hunter Biden’s legal team.
When asked how many times the two sides met, Batdorf could not recall specifically, but said there had been “more than two” meetings and possibly as many as four. CPA Academy
“Is it typical in a tax investigation to meet with defense counsel two, three, four times?” Batdorf was asked, to which he answered: “No.”
.IRS Director of Field Operations Batdorf also said he had signed off on a report recommending felony and misdemeanor tax charges dating back to 2014 against Hunter, now 53 — including counts related to income from the first son’s position on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings
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5 Major Problems with ProPublica’s Latest ‘Ethics’ Hit Piece on Justice Clarence Thomas.
By Ken Klukowski
Lawyer who served in the White House and Justice Department.
There are five major problems with the latest so-called “ethics” attack on Justice Clarence Thomas, which this time is a hit piece from the leftwing ProPublica, attempting to kick Thomas off an upcoming Supreme Court case.
ProPublica has the vapors over the fact that Thomas flew on a private jet to a conference in Palm Springs in 2018 hosted by the network of Charles and David Koch, suggesting several ethics violations. ProPublica is legally wrong on every claim.
Two problems are that Supreme Court justices can speak at nonpartisan gatherings so long as there are no presentations to or from parties to a case currently pending before the Court, and the justice does not engage in fundraising.
First, Thomas did not present at the conference on any issues pending before the court, and no parties or lawyers on cases that were scheduled at the court made any presentations to him.
Second, although fundraising certainly takes place at such gatherings, so long as the justice does not ask for money, the fact that private citizens do so is not an ethics concern for a justice in attendance.
On various occasions when liberal justices like Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor have spoken at events, fundraising people huddle about how to promote the justice’s name to raise more money off the event. But Kagan and Sotomayor violate no ethics rules when this happens, because they are not the ones engaged in fundraising.
Third, it is utterly irrelevant that the Koch Network supports filing briefs in a case currently before the court that would change the scope of the federal government’s regulatory law. Justices frequently speak at events hosted by groups that take positions on pending matters, and the upcoming case is no different.
That case, Loper Bright, asks the court to overrule a 1984 case named Chevron, where the court held that courts should defer to agency bureaucrats about whether regulations are consistent with a law passed by Congress, if Congress’s law is either silent or ambiguous about the precise legal question at issue in the regulation.
Chevron should be overruled because it is egregiously wrong and has led to terrible results. It upends bedrock principles of the rule of law for judges who defer to the almost-all-powerful government about the government’s claims as to the government’s own power over citizens and companies. If anyone should get the benefit of the doubt, it should be the powerless ordinary citizen. But better yet, there should be no deference, and judges should just interpret the law and the regulations the same way they interpret any other law, regulation, or contract. (Full disclosure: I coauthored one of the many briefs in Loper Bright urging the Supreme Court to overrule Chevron.)
The left is panicking over Loper Bright. Chevron gives unelected bureaucrats enhanced power over the lives of private citizens on countless issues, from energy production, to transportation, to immigration, to transgenderism in schools, to firearms. It hobbles the ability of courts to require Congress to legislate clearly and for public policy to be made by officials accountable to the people. Overruling Chevron would restore transparency and good government, so the left is trying to disqualify conservative justices like Thomas from being able to vote on it.
Fourth, ProPublica’s authors are again ignoring judicial standards on personal hospitality. During the time in question (2018), if private individuals are a friend of a Supreme Court justice and offer the justice a seat on a private airplane, that form of personal hospitality is ethically allowed. Liberal justices like the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the retired Stephen Breyer frequently accepted such hospitality.
Fifth, even federal judges on lower courts that are already subject to the ethics code that Senate Democrats are trying to foist on the Supreme Court – a code that would be unconstitutional, because the Supreme Court is a coequal branch of government. In May 2005, Judge Ray Randolph – a highly respected judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – conferred with ethics counsel at the Judicial Conference regarding a similar trip.
The judicial ethics expert at the Judicial Conference responded that the trip did not even need to be disclosed. So even if the Supreme Court could be forced into a subordinate role to Congress, like the federal appeals courts are, such trips would still be permitted.
The left’s latest desperate attempt to smear Thomas – this one from ProPublica – appears to be yet another swing and miss. And the fact that it focused so heavily on gaslighting the American people about Loper Bright shows that it is just the latest attempt at reverse court-packing to disqualify conservative justices in a brazen attempt to manipulate the outcome of a Supreme Court case on government power.
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A court found Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was among those indirectly censored by the Biden administration for his views on COVID-19.
CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag
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A federal court of appeals ruled earlier this month that the White House, surgeon general, CDC and FBI “likely violated the First Amendment” by exerting a pressure campaign on social media companies to censor COVID-19 skeptics — including Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
“I think this ruling is akin to the second Enlightenment,” Bhattacharya told The Post. “It’s a ruling that says there’s a democracy of ideas. The issue is not whether the ideas are wrong or right. The question is who gets to control what ideas are expressed in the public square?”
The court ordered that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly” to coerce social media companies “to remove, delete, suppress or reduce” free speech.
Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford University, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in the fall of 2020 with professors from Harvard and Oxford.
The epidemiologists advocated for “focused protection” — safeguarding the most vulnerable Americans while cautiously allowing others to function as normally as possible — rather than broad pandemic lockdowns.
The Fifth Circuit court found that the Biden administration and other federal agencies pressured social media companies to censor dissenting views on COVID-19.Getty ImagesA court found Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was among those indirectly censored by the Biden administration for his views on COVID-19.CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag
“We were just acting as scientists, but almost immediately we were censored,” said Bhattacharya, director of Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. “Google de-boosted us. Our Facebook page was removed. It was just a crazy time.
“The kinds of things that the federal government was telling social media companies to censor included us — along with millions of other posts from countless other people who were criticizing government COVID policy,” he added.
A New Orleans-based three-judge panel found that the federal government “likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content” by vaguely threatening adverse regulatory consequences if social media companies did not suppress certain viewpoints on the pandemic.
Dr. Bhattacharya (from right) co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration with Oxford researcher Sunreta Gupta and Harvard professor Martin Kulldorff.UnHerdBhattacharya is a professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford University, where he serves as director of the Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.Getty Images
“The government had a vast censorship enterprise,” Bhattacharya said. “It was systematically used to threaten and coerce and jawbone and tell all these social media companies, ‘You better listen to us: Censor these people, censor these ideas, or else.’”
It was later revealed that then-NIH director Dr. Francis Collins called for a “swift and devastating takedown” of Bhattacharya and his co-authors — whom Collins dubbed “fringe epidemiologists” — in an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Subsequent reporting from Elon Musk’s so-called Twitter Files — internal documents and communications released by Musk, after he bought the platform, to expose Twitter’s inner workings — revealed that Bhattachrya’s profile was being suppressed on the platform.
“It’s akin to the efforts by governments to suppress the printing press when it first was invented, when books represented an enormous threat to power,” Bhattacharya said, referring to efforts by King Henry VIII and the Catholic Church to curb use of the printing press in the 16th century.
“There’s an analogous fight that’s currently going on with social media, which makes it vastly easier for anybody to express their ideas, and very powerful people find that incredibly threatening.”
The September 8 ruling affirmed but narrowed a lower court order, issued on July 4 by US District Judge Terry Doughty, which found that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “engaged in a years-long pressure campaign [on social media outlets] designed to ensure that the censorship aligned with the government’s preferred viewpoints” and that “the platforms, in capitulation to state-sponsored pressure, changed their moderation policies.”
In an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Francis Collins (above) referred to Bhattacharya and his co-authors as “fringe epidemiologists.”AP
Bhattacharya says the first victory, although in a lower court, was the most exciting to him.
“I was just absolutely thrilled, especially to have it on July 4th,” he said. “I think that judge was sending a message by issuing this ruling on July 4th that we’re going to restore free speech in this country.”
Judge Terry A. Doughty declared the Biden administration’s actions “Orwellian” in a July 4th ruling.Youtube
But he believes it’s “unlikely” the Supreme Court will overturn the Fifth Circuit’s decision.
He feels his is a landmark case in curbing the influence the government has over social media — on matters that extend far beyond just COVID-19 and lockdowns.
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No Virgina, they weren’t burning books, it was cardboard. Not so long ago (Sept 18) the white progressive supremacists were losing it. They claimed that a book burning was taking place in Missouri.
As usual no research was done to verify the story and the cultists were spreading the lie. Guess what PolitiFact said about this.
Video shows Republican Missouri state senators using flamethrowers to burn books.
The video claims to show state Sens. Bill Eigel and Nick Schroer using flamethrowers to burn books. In the video, Schroer and Eigel, who is running for Missouri governor in 2024, aim flamethrowers at a burning pile as an audience behind them watches.
Text on a Sept. 18 Instagram video of this fiery event reads, “WTF?! Elected Republican officials in MO participate in book burning.”
The Instagram posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Screengrabs from Instagram
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott accuses Biden administration of cutting razor wire at border. Texas National Guard installing more razor wire. The Governor has claimed that the Biden thugs turn around and cut the wire. So more National Guardsman have been sent to replace the wire.
Texas installed razor wire in Eagle Pass to stop illegal crossings.
Today the Biden Admin CUT that wire, opening the floodgates to illegal immigrants.
I immediately deployed more Texas National Guard to repel illegal crossings & install more razor wire. pic.twitter.com/eMtLS8Z6WI
In July, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Texas for installing a buoy barrier, which was designed to curb illegal immigration, on the Rio Grande. The barrier was developed as part of Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.
A federal judge initially told Texas to move the buoys, but the U.S. Court of Appeals stayed that decision. The case is still being deliberated through courts.
Stop the trespass. Border buoys float on the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas. (Omar Ornelas / El Paso Times / USA TODAY NETWORK / File / Fox News)
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We can only hope. New Forecast Has California Slated to Lose 5 More Congressional Seats by 2030.
According to new data compiled by The American Redistricting Project, California is forecasted to lose five additional seats in Congress by the 2030 reapportionment cycle, or census. Their forecasting model uses data provided by the United States Census Bureau, which has shown a steady decline in the population of California since 2020, the date of the last census.
In fact, since the 2020 census, California has seen a net loss of 508,903 residents. This again begs the question, if California is the place to be, according to Governor Gavin Newsom, why is the state in such a state of rapid decline?
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Several former intelligence officials who signed a letter suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely a “Russian information operation” are joining a federal “expert” board handling issues of national security, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Tuesday.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe, who will now serve on the board, all signed an October 2020 letter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop and suggesting its release was a Russian disinformation ploy. The group will advise DHS on intelligence and national security efforts regarding issues such as “terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology,” DHS announced.
The group will meet four times per year to advise DHS on countering threats to national security, according to the agency.
“The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement Tuesday regarding the group’s formation. “I express my deep gratitude to these distinguished individuals for dedicating their exceptional expertise, experience, and vision to our critical mission.”
Biden himself used the letter, whose conclusion is false, to characterize reports on the laptop’s contents as a “bunch of garbage.”
However, former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell testified to the House Judiciary Committee that then-Biden senior adviser Antony Blinken, who is now the Secretary of State, “triggered” the creation of the letter. Former CIA chief of staff Jeremy Bash, who signed the letter, connected Morrell and then-Biden campaign chairman Steve Richetti; Bash was later appointed to Biden’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
Moreover, both Clapper and Brennan have been previously criticized for misleading the American public.
Clapper gave incorrect information to Congress on multiple occasions, including in one instance when he gave “inconsistent testimony” about contacts he had with the media while in office. Brennan, for his part, denied that CIA officials had hacked the computers of Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, a statement that was later proven false.
The Letter signed by Brennan, Clapper and Kolbe argued that the release of emails from the laptop was an attempt by Russia to influence the U.S. election.
“We write to say that the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” the 2020 letter read.
“If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this,” the letter added.
In a February letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ), lawyers representing Hunter Biden appeared to admit that data from his laptop is real.
Several social media platforms censored the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop archive.
DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the specifics of the board.
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They note that some of the notable COVID-19 symptoms, including a cough or a loss of taste or smell, are less common among patients.
“It isn’t the same typical symptoms that we were seeing before. It’s a lot of congestion, sometimes sneezing, usually a mild sore throat,” Dr. Erick Eiting, vice chair of operations for emergency medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai, told NBC News on Sept. 16.
“Just about everyone who I’ve seen has had really mild symptoms,” Dr. Eiting said, referring to urgent care COVID-19 patients. “The only way that we knew that it was COVID was because we happened to be testing them.”
A study published in The Lancet shows that symptoms for COVID-19 have become milder since the omicron variant emerged and supplanted the delta variant in late 2021. Hospital admissions have also declined since then, along with initial symptoms such as a loss of taste or smell, according to the paper.
“The SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, omicron, appears to be less severe than delta,” the abstract states, noting that there has been a “lower rate of hospital admission during omicron prevalence than during delta prevalence.”
Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told NBC News that the mild symptoms are, in part, due to previous immunity.
“Overall, the severity of COVID is much lower than it was a year ago and two years ago. That’s not because the variants are less robust. It’s because the immune responses are higher,” the doctor said.
Several doctors who spoke to the network said COVID-19 now commonly starts with a sore throat.
Dr. Michael Daignault, an emergency physician in California, told the network that “especially since July, when this recent mini-surge started, younger people that have upper respiratory symptoms … 99 percent of the time they go home with supportive care.”
The upper respiratory tract includes the nose, nasal cavity, mouth, throat, and voice box. The lower respiratory tract includes the trachea, lungs, and bronchial tubes.
“Then, as soon as the congestion happens, it seems like the throat gets better,” she said, estimating that about 10 to 20 percent of patients lose their sense of taste or smell now.
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“The city of Chicago is reimagining the role government can play in our lives by exploring a public option for grocery stores via a municipally owned grocery store and market,” said Pawar, senior adviser at Economic Security Project. “Not dissimilar from the way a library or the postal service operates, a public option offers economic choice and power to communities.”
To write this in plain english:
The city of Chicago is re-imagining the role government can play in our lives by exploring a command economy for Chicago via government owned stores and markets. A public option takes away economic and personal choice and eliminates the buying power of the people.
For an example of how well this works.
This is Soviet (communist) grocery store from the 1980s.
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