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!!!”
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, whichhas 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 judgein 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 JoeyLangston’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, JoeyLangston 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 Bidenspoke 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.
‘Dear Joe…’ Border Patrol Union Unleashes on Biden in Short But Hard-Hitting Open Letter
By Laura Wellington forThe 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 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
‘A Rigged Trial’ Judge Orders Trump, Executives to Pay More Than $350 Million
This judge — who infamously declared Trump guilty before the trial had even started — proved this was all an attempt to tie up Trump and punish anyone who is associated with him. No bank or any other entity lost money due to fraud, so where is the crime?
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron issued a ruling on Feb. 16, ordering former President Donald Trump and Trump Organization executives to pay $355 million in damages, and barring the former president from doing business in the state for three years.
The ruling also modified a previous order to cancel Trump Organization business certificates in a move widely criticized as a “corporate death blow.”
“As detailed herein, this Court now finds defendants liable, continues the appointment of an Independent Monitor, orders the installation of an Independent Director of Compliance, and limits defendants’ right to conduct business in New York for a few years,” the judge wrote.
“This Court finds that defendants are likely to continue their fraudulent ways unless the Court grants significant injunctive relief.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the case against President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization in September 2022, and the trial began on Oct. 2, 2023.
The judge granted most of what the attorney general had asked for in injunctive relief but, in a major departure from the recommended relief, did not permanently ban President Trump from doing business in New York.
This IMHO was an attempt on Engoron’s part to “prove” he wasn’t biased against Trump from the get-go. — TPR
Trump Organization executives are ordered to pay $355 million with backdated interest.
Wait, what? Trump “overvalued” his holdings and now has to pay taxes –with interest, no less– where the state claims the assets were worth LESS than Trump claimed??? Shouldn’t that be that they owe HIM money? I must be missing something here. –TPR
Former Trump Organization executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney are permanently banned from doing business in New York.
“The evidence is overwhelming that Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney cannot be entrusted with controlling the finances of any business,” the judge ordered.
Mr. Weisselberg, Mr. McConney, and President Trump are banned from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or legal entity for three years. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. cannot serve as such for two years.
President Trump and his companies cannot apply for loans from any financial institution chartered by or registered in New York for three years.
This would effectively bar President Trump from doing business in the state for three years.
Former Judge Barbara Jones will continue to monitor the Trump Organization for at least three years and will send a proposal to the court in 30 days outlining what authority she needs to effectively serve as an independent monitor.
Another independent director of compliance will be installed at the Trump Organization, paid for by the defendants, to “ensure compliance with financial reporting obligations and to establish internal written accounting and financial reporting protocols.” Ms. Jones will make a list of recommended persons for the position within 30 days.
Justice Engoron wrote in his order that the ruling is intended to “protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole.”
He added that ongoing monitorship is necessary because the defendants have testified they do not believe changes need to be made.
Ms. James issued a statement on the ruling through a series of X, formerly Twitter, posts outlining the penalties.
“Today, justice has been served,” she wrote in her last post. “This is a major win for everyone who believes that we must all play by the same rules. No matter how big, how rich, or how powerful you are, no one is above the law. Not even Donald Trump.”
President Trump also posted a lengthy social media statement, and then called a press conference in front of his Mar-a-Lago residence.
“This ‘decision’ is a Complete and Total SHAM,” he wrote. “There were No Victims, No Damages, No Complaints. Only satisfied Banks and Insurance Companies (which made a ton of money), GREAT Financial Statements, that didn’t even include the most valuable Asset – the TRUMP Brand, IRONCLAD Disclaimers (Buyer Beware, and Do you Own Due Diligence), and amazing Properties all over the World.”
No Cancellation of Business Certificates, For Now
The judge vacated his September 2023 order to cancel the Trump Organization business certificates, and decided instead that this penalty could be applied later at the recommendation of the monitor or “based on substantial evidence.”
Again, this, IMHO, was an attempt on Engoron’s part to “prove” he wasn’t biased against Trump from the get-go. — TPR
“Going forward there will be two-tiered oversight, an Independent Monitor and an Independent Director of Compliance, of the major activities that could lead to fraud, cancellation of the business licenses is no longer necessary,” the judge ordered.
These are outsiders (and certainly anti-Trump) — which Trump has to pay for — whose sole goal is to hamstring Trump businesses as much as possible. — TPR
“The restructuring and potential dissolution of any LLCs shall be subject to individual review by the Court appointed Independent Director of Compliance in consultation with Judge Jones.”
Notice the Captions: “The Republican Mess” and “Republicans sabotage their own border deal.”
“Undocumented Americans” do not exist, Senator. If you ARE an American, you ARE documented. Otherwise, you are an immigrant, legal or otherwise.
The plain fact is the “Border Deal” referred to was NOT about securing the border; it was about ways to process illegal immigrants faster and funnel more money to foreign countries. And it’s not “The Republican’s own…” either.
What’s interesting during this interview is that the Senator — who is supposed to represent the actual citizens of the US and of his home state of Connecticut — is saying the illegal immigrants are the ones the Democrats care about most. Hmm.
WASHINGTON — Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) issued the following statement after day one of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s two-day, 14-hour transcribed interview:
“Dr. Fauci’s testimony today uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems. While leading the nation’s COVID-19 response and influencing public narratives, he simultaneously had no idea what was happening under his own jurisdiction at NIAID. Dr. Fauci signed off on all domestic and foreign research grants without reviewing the proposals and admitted that he was unaware if NIAID conducted oversight of the laboratories they fund. Clearly, the American people and the United States government are operating with completely different expectations about the responsibilities of our public health leaders and the accountability of our public health agencies.
It is also concerning that the face of our nation’s response to the world’s worst public health crisis ‘does not recall’ key details about COVID-19 origins and pandemic-era policies. Nearly 1.2 million Americans lost their lives to a potentially preventable pandemic. I look forward to asking Dr. Fauci further questions about mandates, his role in prompting the ‘Proximal Origin’ publication, and his policy positions related to masks and lockdowns. Tomorrow’s testimony will continue the Select Subcommittee’s effort to deliver the answers Americans demand and deserve.”
DR. FAUCI DAY 1 TAKEAWAYS
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci for seven hours yesterday (Jan 8, 2024) about his role during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fauci’s testimony uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems.
Dr. Fauci claimed he “did not recall” pertinent COVID-19 information or conversations more than 100 times.
Dr. Fauci profusely defended his previous testimony where he statedthat NIH does not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
He repeatedly played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function in an attempt to avoid conceding that NIH funded this dangerous research.
Dr. Fauci testified that he signed off on every foreign and domestic NIAID grant without reviewing the proposals.
A 2020 email, previously released by the Select Subcommittee, proved Dr. Fauci was aware of dangerous gain-of-function research occurring in Wuhan, China. Today, he backtracked by arguing he should not have stated that as “fact.”
Dr. Fauci was unable to confirm if NIAID has ANY mechanisms to conduct oversight of the foreign laboratories they fund.
Clearly, the American people and the United States government are operating with completely different expectations about the responsibilities of our public health leaders and the accountability of our public health agencies. More accountability coming soon!
The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual confab in Davos, Switzerland is set to kick off next week, and the program is rife with all of the usual suspects. Our aspiring global rulers are set to have a grand time once more calling for our collective enslavement, which of course is necessary for the “greater good.”
The 2024 program is one for the ages. Attendees will watch Pfizer’s Albert Bourla and Open AI’s Sam Altman talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI). They’ll see depopulation advocate Bill “Bugman” Gates advancing the climate hoax. John Kerry will appear on four different stages to discuss the “energy transition.” We will also see Klaus Schwab sit down for a 1 on 1with the second highest ranking Chinese government official.
But one panel in particular sticks out: Preparing for Disease X. The topic is both incredibly vague and incredibly disturbing.
The description for the discussion reads: “With fresh warnings from the World Health Organization that an unknown ‘Disease X’ could result in 20 times more fatalities than the coronavirus pandemic, what novel efforts are needed to prepare healthcare systems for the multiple challenges ahead?”
The panel will feature a high-profile lineup that includes WHO director “Dr” Tedros and the chairman of AstraZeneca.
The concept of a Disease X was adopted by the World Health Organization in 2018. Tedros, Dr Anthony Fauci, Jeremy Farrar of the eugenicist Wellcome Trust, and many high profile individuals on the forefront of Covid hysteria policy have been involved in advancing the Disease X hypothesis over the years.
Now, it’s easy for normal people to dismiss this lunacy. But given the powerful, maniacal minds populating the Davos gathering, it’s worth maintaining a level of situational awareness surrounding these events, as they can often offer some insight into the unguarded mindset of these technocratic tyrants.
“No possibility of a vaccine being available in the first year”
On this topic, it’s worth recalling that another infamous predictive panel was announced at the 2019 WEF Davos conference. That panel concluded with the launch announcement of Event 201.
Event 201 was an amazingly predictive “war game” simulation in which a fictional coronavirus passed from an animal reservoir to humans.
Just weeks before the onset of COVID Mania, some of the most maniacal, power-hungry forces on the planet got together to war-game a “fictional” coronavirus with “no possibility of a vaccine being available in the first year,” warning of a “similar pandemic in the future.”
Event 201 became known for its impeccable timing. Just weeks after the simulation occurred, full-blown pandemic hysteria broke out.
The 15 participants in the Event 201 simulation included an interesting bunch:
George Gao, the director of the Chinese CDC
Hasti Taghi, a vice president for NBC
Avril Haines, the former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Chris Elias, a director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Timothy Grant Evans, a former World Health Organization and Rockefeller Foundation official
Lavan Thiru, the director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
Adrian Thomas, VP at Johnson & Johnson
Brad Connett, the president of Henry Schein, Inc., a major distributor of health care products
Jane Halton, an executive with Australia’s second largest bank
Stephen Redd, a top CDC official
Sofia Borges, a top official at the UN Foundation
Eduardo Martinez, a senior executive at UPS
Matthew Harrington, the COO of Edelman, a marketing and PR firm
Martin Knuchel, a senior director at Lufthansa
Latoya D. Abbott, a senior employee for Marriott International
Of those 15 players, 13 worked in the upper echelons of private organizations or government agencies that would almost immediately witness an exponential monetary benefit or the tremendous absorption of political power.
Will the global ruling class attempt to foment another worldwide hysteria at Davos 2024?
While it might be amusing that the latest victim of a phony police call of a violent crime in progress was extreme-left Billionaire George $oro$ (who probably wasn’t even in the country at the time), “Swatting” is no joke.
George Soros’ posh Southampton estate was swatted over the weekend as the leftist billionaire became the latest high-profile victim of the 911 pranks.
Southampton police said they received the 911 call shortly before 9 p.m. Saturday, with the caller telling cops he had just shot his wife at the ritzy South Shore manse and was threatening to shoot himself — sending officers rushing to the scene.
The report turned out to be bogus, Southampton Police Detective Herman Lamison said Monday.
“Spoke to security, searched the premises. It was [a] negative problem,” one cop responding to the scene reported, according to a recording of police radio traffic obtained by The Post.
Lamison did not identify Soros as the owner of the home, but sources confirmed to The Post that it was indeed the 93-year-old billionaire’s Long Island estate on Old Town Road.
It is not clear if Soros or members of his family were home at the time of the incident.
The Southampton prank was just the latest incident of swatting — phony calls to police reporting crimes at a specific address — targeting high-profile individuals.
On Friday, police in Virginia responded to the home of George Washington University legal scholar Jonathan Turley after a bogus 911 call to Fairfax County police that someone had been shot at the address.
“Yes, I was swatted this evening,” Turley said in a statement. “It is regrettably a manifestation of our age or rage.”
On Christmas Day, police were dispatched to the home of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) following a fake 911 call from a man who said he shot his girlfriend there.
Four other Georgia lawmakers — Republican state Sens. John Albers, Kay Kirkpatrick and Clint Dixon, and Democrat Kim Jackson — were swatted the same day, according to reports.
Another victim of the Christmas Day pranks was upstate New York GOP Rep. Brandon Williams.
On Thursday, Georgia GOP Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was also swatted, with a bogus bomb threat called into police — one day after US Rep. Rick Scott (R-Fla) was the target of another call that sent police rushing to his Naples home.
Among the other recent swatting victims were Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, and US Rep. Kevin Miller, an Ohio Republican.
Soros has backed dozens of far-left prosecutor candidates across several cities as part of his efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system, including Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Kim Foxx in Chicago, former DA Kim Gardner in St. Louis and others.
However, Soros’ work to overhaul the criminal justice system extends beyond prosecutors.
In what seems like an “uh-oh” realization that swatting call targets have been almost exclusively conservatives, there has been a sudden uptick in high-profile Democrats being targetted by these calls.
To long-time Disqus conservatives, this scenario sounds suspiciously like the infamous upvote theft bot of a couple of years ago that destroyed commenters’ ability to post on new sites because their ‘Disqus Rep” fell below the threshold of automatically going to pending — or marked as spam. When people started pointing out that all those losing their upvotes were conservatives, suddenly, a few token leftists were hit (and their vote counts were quietly restored soon after). Some conservative posters have had their upvotes restored, but only when an individual begged a Disqus staffer who was somewhat sympathetic to the user’s plight.
But while Disqus’s little dirty trick didn’t harm anyone in the real world, Swatting definitely could. And — sooner or later — it will.
In the interests of transparency, I have had this happen to me, and having a gun pointed at you for no good (ie, legal) reason is NOT conducive to a calm, well-thought-out analysis of the situation. Using one’s wife to hide the gun while standing out of the line of sight escalates an already bad situation.
Sooner or later, someone is going to get seriously injured or killed.
If it’s a conservative “MAGAt,” the story will be shrugged off. But if it happens to be a leftist, all hell will break loose, IMHO.
A Texas teen managed to safely steer her car off the road and save her passengers’ lives after being fatally shot in a road rage incident.
Louise Jean Wilson, 17, along with her boyfriend and a friend, were driving through Houston on Dec. 10 when the incident occurred, the New York Post reported.
According to police, Wilson unintentionally swerved in front of a four-door sedan to avoid getting into an accident on Interstate 45.
“The vehicle that they had cut off accelerated and overtook her on her driver’s side,” Det. Caleb Bowling said during a news conference. That was when the driver of the sedan opened fire.
Wilson pulled her vehicle off to the side of the freeway before succumbing to her injuries. She died at the scene.
“Louise’s last act was to safely pull over, most likely saving the lives of the two [passengers],” Bowling said. “It was a heroic act for her to be able to get that car to the side and stopped with the injuries that she sustained.”
A 17-year-old male passenger was hospitalized with a gunshot wound and released. A second male passenger was not injured.
“Our daughter was just trying to go to the beach to watch the sunrise with her boyfriend on her day off before she had to go back to work again,” said Wilson’s father, Daniel Wilson.
“She ended up dying a hero. She was shot through her heart, and she was still able to safely pull over the car and save people in her car and other people who were driving. She wanted to help people, and she helped them.”
Daniel Wilson also addressed his daughter’s killer.
“Just think about … what you took from this world and what she could have done,” he said. “Lay that on your conscience, whoever did this. Just know you gave an angel, but you took our baby girl.”
“Louise was a great girl, a wonderful soul, a great daughter, granddaughter and sister, and to have her life senselessly taken by a dirtbag — this should not have happened,” Wilson’s uncle, Leo Amoling, told KTRK-TV.
“I know it’s not just happening to us. There is a real crime issue in this country. We just want justice.”
The suspect, described as a black male in his mid-20s, is still at large, according to the Post.
According to Wilson’s obituary, she graduated high school a year early and was “just a few classes shy” of obtaining an associate’s degree. She hoped to work in law enforcement.
“Louise was a caring and gentle soul with a lovely personality that could light up a room,” the obituary said.
“Her life had far reaching impacts that only now we are able to comprehend. She is forever in our hearts and memories. We know she is up there with God singing and dancing in the perfect, peaceful landscape of heaven.”
The CDC’s most recent weekly vaccination update says that “receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine is low across all socio-demographic subgroups and has consistently varied by age, race and ethnicity, poverty status, health insurance status, and urbanicity.” As of December 2, fewer than 18% of adults reported getting the updated COVID-19 vaccine since Sept. 14, and about another 15% of adults said they would “definitely” get vaccinated.
RSV — respiratory syncytial virus infection — is another one of those bugs that poses its most serious risk to the 60-and-over crowd. Although a serious RSV infection might require hospitalization, the uptake rate among the eligible 60-plus cohort is just 16%.
Vaccinations for the ordinary flu are down a bit, too. “Adult vaccination rates for influenza reached their peak for the 2020-2021 cycle,” the Washington Examiner reported on Monday, “with 50.2% of those over 18 getting vaccinated. For the 2022-2023 season, however, only 46.9% of the same population obtained their shot.” Rates are expected to be about the same or lower for the 2023-2024 flu season.
The drop isn’t huge, but the trendline is clear: Americans don’t seem to be all that worried about the flu — and aren’t concerned at all about COVID or RSV.
That’s not for any lack of effort on the part of our public health system.
The CDC began its big vaccination push over two months ago with this tragically hip tweet from CDC director Mandy Cohen.
Fetch? Retch!
Whatever your opinion about the safety or efficacy of this or that vaccine, we can all agree that seeing a 44-year-old medical doctor/public health official try to be hip is painfully cringeworthy. Besides, as any “Mean Girls” fan could tell you, “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen! It’s not going to happen!”
Chicago health officials took a more traditional (and much less wince-inducing) approach on Monday, with Dr. Colleen Nash, associate professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Rush University Medical Center, warning, “We’ve now been lucky enough to kind of live with COVID but still enjoy normal life and activities and things. And that is directly attributable, at least in part, to vaccinations. So I would really encourage people to do that if they haven’t already.”
While reports show that Illinois’ hospitalization rate for COVID is “ticking up,” the actual numbers aren’t anything like 2020, with an additional 1,251 COVID hospital admissions this week statewide. And yet, according to the Chicago Tribune, only about 11% of city residents are fully current on their COVID-19 vaccinations.
The CDC tried on Twitter/X again on Saturday, reminding readers, “‘Tis the season for joy and family. Now is the time to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and flu before you see your loved ones again.”
While the replies were all over the place in tone, this one reasonable-sounding tweet captured the general sentiment.
When vaccination rates are down even for the innocuous (and generally trusted) flu shot, it’s clear that the CDC no longer enjoys the clout it used to with the American public.
On a personal note, I’ve done everything a columnist can do to keep this piece 100% evenhanded. The only strong opinion expressed here was a joking one about Dr. Cohen’s use of “fetch” in her October 4 tweet.
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