IRS agent requests whistleblower protections in Hunter Biden tax investigation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqQ3i0Tdiaw
Biden’s nominee to lead FAA can’t answer a single question about aviation and air travel Ted Budd asks
At a March 1, 2023 Senate Commerce Committee Hearing, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) questioned Philip Washington, nominee to be Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEj2Yq0okzU
I asked ChatGPT to list the mistakes of Presidents Biden and Trump. It gave answers for Trump, but said, “I don’t have personal opinions or make subjective judgments” on Biden.
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
February 3, 2023
On February 3, 2023, I asked ChatGPT, “What mistakes did President Biden make?”
This was the response:
“As a language model AI, I don’t have personal opinions or make subjective judgments. However, it is widely acknowledged that all political leaders and their actions are subject to criticism and analysis. President Biden, like any other political figure, has faced criticism for various decisions and actions during his presidency. It is up to individual opinions to determine whether these are considered mistakes or not.”
Then, immediately afterward, I asked, “What mistakes did President Trump make?”
This was the response:
“President Donald Trump’s presidency was characterized by many controversial decisions and actions, and like any political figure, his actions were subject to criticism and analysis. Some common criticisms of President Trump include:”
“Racism and discriminatory comments”
“Handling of the COVID-19 pandemic”
“Relations with international allies and adversaries”
“Separation of migrant families and immigration policies”
“Climate change denial and rollback of environmental protections”
“Lack of response to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021”
Here’s a screenshot:
MSNBC: New classified material found in Biden’s home ‘a real, real problem for the Democrats’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1nkz0kUYDk
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre doesn’t know how to pronounce the following words: “Em-er-eye-tis” – “Bicarmel” – “Noble” Prize – “Armtice” – “Nordstrom” pipeline
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1610452259917426688
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1610452308340375554
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1610452403832111108
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1610452492386504704
If the Democrats had any brains, they’d nominate Ro Khanna for President in 2024
Fox News just reported:
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, appeared to be the only Democrat who expressed concerns about the ramifications of Twitter’s decision to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, according to his communications with the social media platform that were released Friday.
Twitter owner Elon Musk released bombshell revelations Friday evening about what led the tech giant to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election. Musk outsourced his findings to Substack journalist Matt Taibbi, who published a lengthy thread about what had transpired behind the scenes at Twitter.
“Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern” about the move to censor the story, Taibbi tweeted Friday night.
If the Democrats had any brains, they’d nominate Ro Khanna for President in 2024.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna expressed concerns over Twitter’s censorship of Hunter Biden laptop story
Twitter faced backlash after it censored the New York Post’s reporting of Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 presidential election
By Louis Casiano
December 2, 2022
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, appeared to be the only Democrat who expressed concerns about the ramifications of Twitter’s decision to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, according to his communications with the social media platform that were released Friday.
Twitter owner Elon Musk released bombshell revelations Friday evening about what led the tech giant to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election. Musk outsourced his findings to Substack journalist Matt Taibbi, who published a lengthy thread about what had transpired behind the scenes at Twitter.
“Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern” about the move to censor the story, Taibbi tweeted Friday night.
According to Taibbi, Khanna emailed Vijaya Gadde, then a Twitter executive who was charged with overseeing the social media platform’s trust and safety, legal and public policy, to relay his concerns.
“Generating huge backlash on hill re speech,” Khanna wrote in the Oct. 14, 2020, email. “Happy to chat if you’re up for it.”
Gadde quickly replied, according to screenshots of the email posted by Taibbi. In her email, she went over Twitter’s policies.
In his reply, Khanna seemed more concerned with First Amendment issues concerning the Hunter Biden story reported by the New York Post.
“If there is a hack of classified information or other information that could expose a serious war crime and the NYT (New York Times) was to publish it, I think the NYT should have that right,” Khanna wrote. “A journalist should not be held accountable for the illegal actions of the source unless they actively aided the hack.”
“So to restrict the distribution of that material, especially regarding a Presidential candidate, seems not in keeping of the principles of NYT v. Sullivan,” he added, referring to the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that limits the ability of public officials to sue for defamation.
Twitter famously blocked its users from sharing the Post’s reporting of Hunter Biden’s laptop in tweets and in direct messages when the story was published in 2020 during a heated election between President Biden and then-President Trump.
At the time, Twitter Safety alleged that the articles were in violation of its “hacked materials policy.” Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey admitted his company’s actions were a mistake. Many critics have argued the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story by Big Tech and the media at large was enough to sway the election in favor of his father.
“I say this as a total Biden partisan and convinced he didn’t do anything wrong,” Khanna wrote. “But the story has become more about censorship than relatively innocuous emails and it’s becoming a bigger deal than it would have been.”
He added that “in the heat of a Presidential campaign, restricting dissemination of newspaper articles (even if the NY Post is far right) seems like it will invite more backlash that it will do good,” he said.
He then asked that Gadde keep the communication private between themselves and Dorsey.
“I believe our Constitution and First Amendment are sacred. As the congressman who represents Silicon Valley, I felt Twitter’s actions were a violation of First Amendment principles so I raised those concerns. Our democracy can only thrive if we are open to a marketplace of ideas and engaging with people with whom we disagree,” Khanna wrote in a statement to Fox News.
In a letter from Carl Szabo, of the research firm NetChoice, to Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s then-head of public policy, Szabo said his firm met with nine Republican and three Democratic House staffers to gather intelligence about Facebook and Twitter and the Biden story.
Some figures on Capitol Hill referred to the laptop story as “tech’s Access Hollywood moment,” appearing to refer to the television entertainment show in which Trump was heard on an audio recording making degrading remarks about women.
In his letter, Szabo said Democrats complained that the social media companies let Republicans “muddy the water and made Biden look corrupt despite him being innocent.” They were also in agreement that social media needs to moderate for harmful content more often.
“When pushed on how the government might insist on that, consistent with the First Amendment, they demurred: the First Amendment isn’t absolute,'” the letter said.
The real reason Elon Musk bought Twitter was to expose its internal documents which prove Twitter censored conservatives at the request of the DNC
The real reason Elon Musk bought Twitter was to expose its internal documents which prove Twitter censored conservatives at the request of the DNC.
Conservative actor James Woods is suing the DNC over this.
The New York Post article on Hunter Biden’s laptop was true. The laptop was abandoned by Hunter, who ignored multiple requests from the repair shop to pick it up. After a certain number of days and ignored requests to pick up the laptop, it became the legal property of the repair shop. The laptop was never hacked, but Twitter falsely said it was hacked, in order to justify its ban on people linking to the story. The owner of the repair shop sued Twitter for defamation.
Before the election, every mainstream news source said the New York Post article was a lie. After the election, they all admitted it was true. Surveys of Biden voters in all the major swing states show that 1 in 6 would not have voted for Biden if they had known about the laptop.
Internal Twitter documents show that all of this censorship came at the request of the DNC.
Sources at https://tinyurl.com/2upkaesh
Washington Post: Federal agents see chargeable tax, gun-purchase case against Hunter Biden
Federal agents see chargeable tax, gun-purchase case against Hunter Biden
Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, must decide whether to charge the son of the current president
By Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein
October 6, 2022
Federal agents investigating President Biden’s son Hunter have gathered what they believe is sufficient evidence to charge him with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase, according to people familiar with the case. The next step is for the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, a Trump administration holdover, to decide on whether to file such charges, these people said.
The investigation into Hunter Biden began in 2018, and became a central focus for then-president Donald Trump during his unsuccessful 2020 reelection effort. Initially, the investigation centered around Hunter Biden’s finances related to overseas business ties and consulting work. Over time, investigators with multiple agencies focused closely on whether he did not report all of his income, and whether he lied on gun purchase paperwork in 2018, according to the people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing case.
Agents determined months ago they had assembled a viable criminal case against the younger Biden. But it is ultimately up to prosecutors at the Justice Department, not agents, to decide whether to file charges in cases where prosecutors believe the evidence is strong enough to lead to a likely conviction at trial.
Given the intense political interest in a criminal probe involving the son of a sitting president, Attorney General Merrick Garland has made clear that the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, David C. Weiss, who was nominated by Trump in late 2017, is supervising the case.
Garland has vowed there will be no political or otherwise improper interference in the Hunter Biden case, and has not moved to push Weiss to make a decision, the people familiar with the matter said. It is not uncommon for Justice Department investigations to take years to finish. Justice Department policy would require any criminal tax charges to be approved by the department’s tax division.
A spokeswoman for Weiss declined to comment, as did spokespeople for the Justice Department, and the FBI and the IRS, the two primary investigative agencies.
Asked about the case, Chris Clark, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, accused investigators of leaking information. “It is a federal felony for a federal agent to leak information about a Grand Jury investigation such as this one,” Clark said in a written statement. “Any agent you cite as a source in your article apparently has committed such a felony. We expect the Department of Justice will diligently investigate and prosecute such bad actors. As is proper and legally required, we believe the prosecutors in this case are diligently and thoroughly weighing not just evidence provided by agents, but also all the other witnesses in this case, including witnesses for the defense. That is the job of the prosecutors. They should not be pressured, rushed, or criticized for doing their job.”
Any charging decision involving the Biden case is especially fraught because Trump and his allies have made accusations of corruption in Hunter Biden’s business dealings a key line of attack against Democrats, both before and after the 2020 presidential race. At the height of the election campaign, Trump allies revealed that a Delaware computer shop owner had turned over to the FBI a laptop that had apparently belonged to Hunter Biden. Trump and others argued the data on the laptop showed evidence of unethical and possible illegal business deals; Joe Biden and his supporters denounced the efforts as a smear.
In March, The Washington Post reported that two computer security experts had reviewed thousands of the emails purportedly from Hunter Biden’s computer and found they were authentic communications, based on cryptographic signatures from Google and other technology companies. It could not be determined for this article whether the laptop and its contents were useful in the Justice Department investigation.
The Biden probe has proceeded with relatively little fanfare in recent months amid the much larger and more public Justice Department and FBI investigation into whether Trump mishandled classified material at Mar-a-Lago — and a separate federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump and his allies have sharply criticized federal law enforcement over both those cases.
Questions about the younger Biden’s foreign business ventures have long dogged his father’s political life. Trump and his GOP allies specifically cite as ethical conflicts Hunter Biden’s past work for a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president, as well as his China-related business affairs. In a July 2019 phone call, Trump urged Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate both Joe and Hunter Biden — part of a pressure campaign that led to the first of Trump’s two impeachment trials in Congress.
In December 2020 federal agents sought to interview the younger Biden, leading him to publicly acknowledge that he was under investigation. “I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors,” Hunter Biden said in a statement at that time.
Clark, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, said in his statement Thursday that he has “had no contact whatsoever with any federal investigative agent. Therefore, a rendition of the case from such an ‘agent’ is inherently biased, one-sided, and inaccurate. It is regrettable that law enforcement agents appear to be violating the law to prejudice a case against a person who is a target simply because of his family name.”
Republicans have pressed the Biden administration to appoint a special counsel to take over the investigation into the president’s son, arguing the step was needed to ensure public confidence in the probe’s outcome. Under Justice Department regulations, any special counsel would still answer to the attorney general, however. Garland chose not to make such an appointment, instead keeping the case with Weiss, whose previous career as a federal prosecutor stretches back decades and includes violent crime and white-collar cases.
In the early days of the Biden administration, a Justice Department official said removing Weiss as U.S. Attorney as he was overseeing the Hunter Biden case would likely spark significant political backlash.
In April, after White House chief of staff Ron Klain said Biden “is confident that his son didn’t break the law,” Garland was asked at a Senate hearing about how the Justice Department is handling the case.
Weiss “is in charge of that investigation. There will not be interference of any political or improper kind,” Garland answered. “We put the investigation in the hands of a Trump appointee from the previous administration.”
The primary focus of the tax investigation has been whether Hunter Biden did not declare income related to his various business ventures, including overseas. The gun paperwork part of the investigation stems from 2018, a time period in which Hunter Biden, by his own account, was smoking crack cocaine.
In October of that year, Biden purchased a handgun, filling out a federal form in which he allegedly answered “no” to the question whether he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
According to a book Hunter Biden later wrote about his struggles with substance abuse, he was using drugs heavily that year.
Prosecutions for false statements on gun-purchase forms are relatively rare, but they do happen. In the fiscal year that Hunter Biden purchased that handgun, Justice Department records show prosecutors received 478 referrals for lying on the forms. Of those, charges were filed in 298 cases, or about 60 percent of the time.
Federal agents refer to such cases as “lying and buying.” Historically, prosecutors have significant discretion to decide which ones are worth federal resources.
“A prosecutor can say they have bigger fish to catch, or they can decide to seek a deal,” said Joseph G. Green, a retired agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “As agents, we would always include as many charges as we could, but it’s ultimately up to the prosecutor to decide which ones they will bring.”
Biden just tried to introduce Rep. Jackie Walorski at a White House event. Jackie was killed in August and Joe issued a statement mourning her death.
Biden just tried to introduce Rep. Jackie Walorski at a White House event. Jackie was killed in August and Joe issued a statement mourning her death.
By Harris Rigby
September 28, 2022
This is embarrassing, tragic, and frustrating all at once.
Joe Biden’s questionable mental state has come to the forefront again as he tries to find and introduce the recently deceased Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana in the audience at a White House event.
https://twitter.com/charliespiering/status/1575136322389409792
Jackie Walorski tragically died in a car accident in August. Biden released this statement at that time:
Weeks later, Biden seems to have forgotten the conservative congresswoman has passed away.
You might think it’s a different Jackie, and I’m sure someone will try to spin it that way (the White House is probably desperately searching for other women named Jackie in the audience), but this event is directly connected to Walorski’s work in Congress. She would have been there if not for her accident.
The President of the United States has ZERO clue what’s going on around him. It’s not only embarrassing, it’s dangerous.
If Joe Biden Cared About Gun Laws, Hunter Biden Would Already Be In Jail
If Joe Biden Cared About Gun Laws, Hunter Biden Would Already Be In Jail
By Tristan Justice
June 3, 2022
Before President Biden lectures Americans about responsible gun ownership, some self-reflection is warranted.
President Joe Biden is on a full-blown crusade to regulate or repeal the Second Amendment out of existence. While Democrats are often not honest about their intentions, this has always been their true agenda. Biden’s son, Hunter, who appeared to purchase a gun illegally in 2018, could be among those hardest hit.
On Thursday night, the president went on a nearly 20-minute tirade on the need to ban “assault weapons,” whatever that means.
“Why in God’s name should an ordinary citizen be able to purchase an assault weapon that holds 30-round magazines that let mass shooters fire hundreds of bullets in a matter of minutes,” Biden said, ranting on the graves of the 19 children and their two teachers gunned down by a madman in Uvalde, Texas last week.
“We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” demanded the president. “And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21. Strengthen the background checks, enact safe storage laws and ‘red flag’ laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability.”
For starters, suing gun manufacturers for the way their firearms are used is akin to suing the Ford Motor Company because a black suspect motivated by anti-white racism allegedly plowed through a Wisconsin Christmas parade, brutally killing at least six with Ford Escape SUV. In stark contrast to his immediate visits to Buffalo and Uvalde following mass tragedies, Biden made no trip to console the families of Waukesha, Wisconsin, nor did he demand Congress take on the car lobby.
Biden summarized his demands in a tweet calling on lawmakers to pass new gun bans and repeal immunity laws for firearm manufacturers that don’t exist.
An easy giveaway that Democrats aren’t ever actually serious about solving the underlying issues whenever tragedy strikes with firearm, Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi points out, are that the laws they routinely propose never would have prevented the carnage in the first place.
Details aside, President Biden doesn’t have room to speak on gun control until his son faces, at minimum, a substantive criminal investigation into his answers on a background check when purchasing a firearm in 2018.
When asked by the Firearms Transaction Record (Form 4473) whether he is an “unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance,” Hunter Biden answered, “no.”
While it’s unclear whether Hunter was an active user at the time, it’s far from inconceivable following repeated rehab visits in 2003, 2010, and 2014 for treatment with highly addictive substances. In 2014, Hunter was discharged from the Navy for cocaine use, and according to the New Yorker, went on another cocaine binge in 2016.
Three years later, the president’s son abandoned his laptop at a Delaware repair shop. It possessed graphic footage of the first son appearing to smoke crack cocaine during sexual encounters. In 2018, the same year Hunter purchased the revolver apparently found abandoned in the garbage by Secret Service, the younger Biden was suspected of smoking crack in a D.C. strip club.
Lying on a Form 4473 to purchase a firearm is a felony offense that can carry up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Before Biden goes on lecturing Americans about responsible gun ownership and threatening to regulate ownership out of existence, some self-reflection is warranted.
Joe Biden says, “Let’s go Brandon. I agree.” Skip to 2:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vihi39gzpTc
Hellish living conditions are the new Kabul reality [“Trash heaps throughout the city, feces on sidewalks… The once-modern capital of Afghanistan… has been plunged back into the Dark Ages, literally, as electricity is shut off at night”]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hellish-living-conditions-kabul-reality-110000304.html
Hellish living conditions are the new Kabul reality
By Tori Richards
August 29, 2021
Trash heaps throughout the city, feces on sidewalks, and armed guards at every street corner to hand out beatings — welcome to the new Kabul.
The once-modern capital of Afghanistan with a growing middle class has been plunged back into the Dark Ages, literally, as electricity is shut off at night, plunging 4 million people into darkness. This is life under the Taliban after their takeover two weeks ago.
“They are trying to save the power. If it’s night, why do you need the power? It must be dark,” said Afghan security consultant Nasser Waziri, parroting the Taliban’s thinking. “There is a curfew at night. At nighttime, you cannot go out. On every corner is a Taliban person, giving an order to go back home.”
If lack of power isn’t bad enough, the population must now contend with slow or nonexistent internet service. Afghanistan is primarily a cash nation, and residents purchase monthly cards at a store for internet access. Cards are no longer available, and banks do not have any money available for people to purchase any, Waziri said, adding that the Taliban want it that way so nothing can be documented.
With the lack of money and international trade that has stopped, inflation is rampant. For example, a bag of rice has almost doubled, Waziri said. No trucks are delivering goods on the streets.
“Everybody is scared — who is going to import to a terror state?” Waziri said.
The takeover is a brutal reality for many who have grown up under the freedom of Western influence, especially women who must now wear a burqa and cannot go outside without a male family member.
Afghans cannot listen to music either, as that is banned by the Taliban’s version of Islam. The most brutal example is the murder of beloved Afghan folk singer Fawad Andarabi, who was shot in the head on his farm.
Waziri shared photographs with the Washington Examiner of welts on the shoulder and neck of a friend who made the mistake of walking down the street with a cell phone. A Taliban guard grabbed her phone to check whether any music was uploaded, and when he found some, he beat her.
“If you see Kabul now, it’s garbage. Everywhere is garbage,” Waziri said. “[The Taliban] are animals — they go to the bathroom on each side of the street, and the whole city is smelling. One guy put out a [portable] toilet, and he got beaten and had to remove that. The Taliban said, ‘We have to do this a natural way.’”
The condition of Kabul now is reminiscent of what American troops found in 2001 when they captured a city that had been destroyed from the 1979 Soviet invasion. The streets had been torn up and littered with garbage and sewage while the electrical grid and water system had to be rebuilt, said retired Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who served in Afghanistan.
“I close my eyes, and I can smell it, and I can see it — I know exactly what is going on there today,” he said. “It was nasty. It was a big health problem and humanitarian crisis.”
Planes, guns, night-vision goggles: The Taliban’s new U.S.-made war chest
Planes, guns, night-vision goggles: The Taliban’s new U.S.-made war chest
By Idrees Ali, Patricia Zengerle, and Jonathan Landay
August 19, 2021
WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) – About a month ago, Afghanistan’s ministry of defense posted on social media photographs of seven brand new helicopters arriving in Kabul delivered by the United States.
“They’ll continue to see a steady drumbeat of that kind of support, going forward,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters a few days later at the Pentagon.
In a matter of weeks, however, the Taliban had seized most of the country, as well as any weapons and equipment left behind by fleeing Afghan forces.
Video showed the advancing insurgents inspecting long lines of vehicles and opening crates of new firearms, communications gear and even military drones.
“Everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now,” one U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
Current and former U.S. officials say there is concern those weapons could be used to kill civilians, be seized by other militant groups such as Islamic State to attack U.S.-interests in the region, or even potentially be handed over to adversaries including China and Russia.
President Joe Biden’s administration is so concerned about the weapons that it is considering a number of options to pursue.
The officials said launching airstrikes against the larger equipment, such as helicopters, has not been ruled out, but there is concern that would antagonize the Taliban at a time the United States’ main goal is evacuating people.
Another official said that while there are no definitive numbers yet, the current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban are believed to control more than 2,000 armored vehicles, including U.S. Humvees, and up to 40 aircraft potentially including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones.
“We have already seen Taliban fighters armed with U.S.-made weapons they seized from the Afghan forces. This poses a significant threat to the United States and our allies,” Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters in an email.
‘MORE LIKE TROPHIES’
The speed with which the Taliban swept across Afghanistan is reminiscent of Islamic State militants taking weapons from U.S.-supplied Iraqi forces who offered little resistance in 2014.
Between 2002 and 2017, the United States gave the Afghan military an estimated $28 billion in weaponry, including guns, rockets, night-vision goggles and even small drones for intelligence gathering.
But aircraft like the Blackhawk helicopters have been the most visible sign of U.S. military assistance, and were supposed to be the Afghan military’ biggest advantage over the Taliban.
Between 2003 and 2016 the United States provided Afghan forces with 208 aircraft, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In the last week, many of those aircraft were most useful for Afghan pilots to escape the Taliban.
One of the U.S. officials said that between 40 and 50 aircraft had been flown to Uzbekistan by Afghan pilots seeking refuge. Even before taking power in Kabul over the weekend, the Taliban had started a campaign of assassinating pilots.
Some planes were in the United States for maintenance and will stay. Those en route to Afghan forces will instead be used by the U.S. military to help in the evacuation from Kabul.
Current and former officials say that while they are concerned about the Taliban having access to the helicopters, the aircraft require frequent maintenance and many are complicated to fly without extensive training.
“Ironically, the fact that our equipment breaks down so often is a life-saver here,” a third official said.
Retired U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, who oversaw U.S. military operations in Afghanistan as head of U.S. Central Command from 2016 to 2019, said most of the high-end hardware captured by the Taliban, including the aircraft, was not equipped with sensitive U.S. technology.
“In some cases, some of these will be more like trophies,” Votel said.
FIGHTING AT NIGHT
There is a more immediate concern about some of the easier- to-use weapons and equipment, such as night-vision goggles.
Since 2003 the United States has provided Afghan forces with at least 600,000 infantry weapons including M16 assault rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices.
“The ability to operate at night is a real game-changer,” one congressional aide told Reuters.
Votel and others said smalls arms seized by the insurgents such as machine guns, mortars, as well as artillery pieces including howitzers, could give the Taliban an advantage against any resistance that could surface in historic anti-Taliban strongholds such as the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
U.S. officials said the expectation was that most of the weapons would be used by the Taliban themselves, but it was far too early to tell what they planned to do – including possibly sharing the equipment with rival states such as China.
Andrew Small, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the Taliban was likely to grant Beijing access to any U.S. weapons they may now have control over.
One of the U.S. officials said it was not likely China would gain much, because Beijing likely already has access to the weapons and equipment.
The situation, experts say, shows the United States needs a better way to monitor equipment it gives to allies. It could have done much more to ensure those supplies to Afghan forces were closely monitored and inventoried, said Justine Fleischner of UK-based Conflict Armament Research.
“But the time has passed for these efforts to have any impact in Afghanistan,” Fleischner said.
Taliban seizing Afghan-American’s US passports outside Kabul airport
https://nypost.com/2021/08/20/taliban-seizing-afghan-americans-us-passports-outside-airport/
Taliban seizing Afghan-American’s US passports outside Kabul airport
By Hollie McKay
August 20, 2021
KABUL, Afghanistan — Scenes of chaos and calamity continue to unfold in and around Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, as thousands of embattled Afghans purport to push through Taliban barricades and escape the country before the Taliban takes full power.
In the latest blow to those running up against the clock, Afghan-Americans on Thursday said that Taliban fighters are now attempting to take their U.S. passports and identification orders in an attempt to stop them from leaving the country.
“I got to the gates and was about to show my passport, but the Taliban got it, and he said you are not allowed to go through and wouldn’t give it back,” one Afghan-American, who served for several years as an interpreter during the war and has his home in the U.S but requested anonymity for safety reasons, said. “I was lucky a U.S. marine was right there and forced him to give it back.”
According to several others, some have not been so lucky — hamstringing their chance to make it home ahead of the Taliban’s officially assuming of the throne.
“U.S. passports, driver’s licenses — they are confiscating those pieces of documentation from American citizens,” said Ephraim Mattos, a former Navy SEAL and founder of the humanitarian organization, Stronghold Rescue and Relief, which is working around the clock to evacuate Afghans interpreters and helpers. “They lose proof of who they are, and this has happened on multiple occasions in multiple places.”
President Joe Biden on Friday said they “know of no circumstance where American citizens are carrying an American passport” and not able to reach the airport.
“We’ve made an agreement with the Taliban,” Biden said. “So we know of no circumstance where American citizens are carrying an American passport for trying to get through to the airport, but we will do whatever needs to be done to see to get more.”
Other Afghan-Americans describe scenes of crowds getting crushed and even infant babies getting injured, of brutal beatings by some Taliban members to push back the sea of frenzied faces.
Initially, Afghan Special Forces were said to control some of the key roads toward the airport. But soon after darkness fell on Wednesday, the Taliban is said to have taken over. Minute-by-minute, the scene is simply becoming direr as the insurgency cements a more formidable grasp over the city’s checkpoints and routes.
Several U.S. officials also affirmed that the Taliban on Thursday ratcheted up its crackdown encircling the airport.
The group’s leadership has vowed to protect all Afghans and assured no acts of revenge would be tolerated, while at the same time stressing that citizens of the beleaguered country should not leave.
Meanwhile, in Herat, more than a week after the Taliban seized the provincial capital, residents have continued to paint a chilling portrait of intimidation as the waiting game for the U.S. departure draws near.
“Taliban are searching home by home in Herat and asking about me,” one business owner with long-term ties to the United States, who is currently in an undisclosed location outside of Afghanistan, said. “Then others came to the Kabul office and asked about the company and our clients and warned they would search for information.”
It is a jarring fact of simply not knowing what lies ahead, driving much of the desperation forward.“These people are our allies; we fought shoulder-to-shoulder with them. I saw them fight just as bravely as any American soldier, and they deserve our support. What our country is doing to them now is a complete disgrace,” Mattos added. “What is happening is significantly worse than Saigon.”
House Agriculture Chairman David Scott, a Democrat, says Biden’s proposed tax increase will “make it more difficult for young, beginning, and socially disadvantaged farmers to get into farming”
https://www.rollcall.com/2021/06/02/house-agriculture-chairman-opposes-key-plank-of-biden-tax-plan/
House Agriculture chairman objects to Biden inheritance tax plan
Scott says capital gains change would increase obstacles for young, beginning and disadvantaged farmers
June 2, 2021
House Agriculture Chairman David Scott objected Wednesday to President Joe Biden’s proposal to change the capital gains taxation on inherited property, signaling growing opposition among farm-state Democrats to a change Biden hoped would help to fund sweeping domestic spending proposals.
Scott, D-Ga., in a statement called the proposal to tax capital gains at the time of a person’s death “untenable” and said exemptions that would allow farmers and ranchers to delay tax payments on intergenerational land transfers are inadequate.
“Any increase in inheritance tax for those taking over farm land is untenable and will further strain a farm economy that is just now beginning to recover from the strain of the pandemic,” Scott said.
In a letter to Biden Wednesday, Scott said he supported the president’s goals, but said the tax proposal could impose significant tax increases on farmers, ranchers and small businesses in rural America.
“The potential for capital gains to be imposed on heirs at death of the landowner would impose a significant financial burden on these operations,” Scott wrote.
“Additionally, my understanding of the exemptions is that they would just delay the tax liability for those continuing the farming operation until time of sale, which could result in further consolidation in farmland ownership. This would make it more difficult for young, beginning, and socially disadvantaged farmers to get into farming,” he said.
Biden would pay for part of his $1.8 trillion paid leave, child care and education proposal by nearly doubling the top capital gains rate on millionaires and eliminating stepped-up basis, which resets the value of inherited property to market value at the time of the original owner’s death.
Under Biden’s proposal, heirs who inherit assets of more than $1 million per person would have to pay capital gains taxes on the full appreciation in value from the time the original owner purchased the assets, in some cases many decades earlier.
The proposal, which was detailed further in the president’s fiscal 2022 budget request released May 28, would allow family-owned and -operated businesses, like farms, to defer payment of the tax until they sell the business or no longer operate it. And taxes owed on non-liquid assets could be paid off over time under a 15-year fixed-rate payment plan.
Treasury estimates that Biden’s capital gains tax increases would raise $322.5 billion over 10 years.
Scott’s letter comes nearly a month after 13 farm district Democrats in May wrote Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., and Ways and Means Chairman Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., to warn that changing the stepped-up basis for capital gains could lead to taxes that long-time family farms couldn’t afford.
The lawmakers, led by House Agriculture Committee members Jim Costa, D-Calif., and Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, called for “full exemptions for these family farms and small businesses that are critical to our communities.”
The Democrats also drew a distinction between the “administrative difficulties” of taxing farm assets and taxing other inheritances that are easier to value, such as shares of stock. The stocks have a clear price for valuation and capital gains are simple to administer, they said, adding that farms, machinery and some small businesses may be illiquid and hard to value.
Selling stock to pay a tax bill also has less far-reaching consequences than breaking up land holdings in families that use that land to earn a living, they said. Farm operations could be left less viable by those changes, the lawmakers said.
Biden’s proposal seeks to address some of the concerns about administrative difficulties in valuing inheritances. He proposes a deduction for the full cost of appraising the assets and allowing Treasury to issue safe harbor rules in cases where complete records needed to conduct an appraisal are unavailable.
The American Farm Bureau Federation and agricultural financial advisers raised red flags in March as Democratic members of Congress floated tax changes similar to the ones Biden eventually called for. Republican lawmakers also have argued against the proposed changes.
PURE EVIL: Biden Imports Oil from Iran After Shutting Down Keystone Pipeline and Putting US Oil Workers Out of Work
PURE EVIL: Biden Imports Oil from Iran After Shutting Down Keystone Pipeline and Putting US Oil Workers Out of Work
By Jim Hoft
June 1, 2021
There is no other way to explain what is happening with the Biden-Obama 2.0 foreign policy.
It is pure evil.
These are not good people.
You cannot lead a country when you hate its people so much that you would rather import oil from a wicked terrorist regime than allow American workers to produce that same product.
Joe Biden’s first action as president was to shut down construction of the Keystone Pipeline and eliminating an estimated.52,100 American jobs in the process.
Canceling the Keystone Pipeline costs over 11,000 construction jobs and 42,100 jobs throughout the US during the construction process according to the US State Department.
Then in May Joe Biden and his handlers waved American economic sanctions on Russia in order to streamline construction on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany.
And then this past weekend we found out Joe Biden imported oil from the terror regime in Iran that is committed to destroying Israel and has murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens.
This is not about politics. This is about good versus evil.
And the Biden regime and their supporters are clearly evil.
Video shows a second steering wheel in the vehicle that Joe Biden was “driving”
Below is a still image from the video.
Click on this link to see a bigger version of the image:
https://danfromsquirrelhill.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/c-span.pn
And here’s the video:
Liberals, conservatives, and libertarians agree with each other that Biden’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes will increase the number of interactions between black people and the police, just like his previous crime bill did
Liberals at the ACLU are worried about it:
Conservatives at Breitbart are worried about it:
Libertarians at Reason are worried about it:
And here are two previous articles from the New York Times about how Biden’s crime bill hurt black people:
Joe Biden on Crime and Mass Incarceration
During the ’80s and ’90s, Mr. Biden helped shepherd a string of bills that transformed the criminal justice system — and, experts say, hurt America’s black communities.
June 27, 2019
As Joseph R. Biden Jr. makes his third run for the White House, he is being pressed to answer for his role in legislation that criminal justice experts say helped lay the groundwork for the mass incarceration that has devastated America’s black communities.
During the 1980s and 1990s, when Mr. Biden was a senator from Delaware, he and other leaders of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee helped fashion a string of bills that overhauled the country’s crime laws.
Among the most significant were: the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which established mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses; the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which imposed harsher sentences for possession of crack than for possession of powder cocaine; and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which was essentially a catchall tough-on-crime bill.
.
‘Lock the S.O.B.s Up’: Joe Biden and the Era of Mass Incarceration
He now plays down his role overhauling crime laws with segregationist senators in the ’80s and ’90s. That portrayal today is at odds with his actions and rhetoric back then.
June 25, 2019
Now, more than 25 years later, as Mr. Biden makes his third run for the White House in a crowded field of Democrats – many calling for ambitious criminal justice reform — he must answer for his role in legislation that criminal justice experts and his critics say helped lay the groundwork for the mass incarceration that has devastated America’s black communities. That he worked with segregationists to write the bills — an issue that recently dominated the political news and seems likely to resurface in Mr. Biden’s first debate on Thursday – has only added to his challenge. So has the fact that black voters are such a crucial Democratic constituency.
Joe Biden Masks Up for Zoom Call with 16 Other World Leaders. He’s the Only One.
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/joe-biden-mask-world-leader
Joe Biden Masks Up for Zoom Call with 16 Other World Leaders. He’s the Only One.
April 23, 2021
Please review the CDC mask guidelines at your convenience. It lays out when, where, and how we’re supposed to wear masks for totally unarguable sciencey reasons. At no point does it say you should mask up while on a conference call. Yet that’s what Joe Biden did on Thursday during a video conference with other world leaders, even after getting both his jabs. If you were wondering why Democrats are so uninformed about the ‘rona, wonder no more. It may very well be because this is their intellectual superior. Just a hunch.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It has to be twice as many in the world leader group text they don’t let Biden on.
Let’s zoom in on the Zoom.
It’s unclear if he was masked up for the entire call, and that this was just a snapshot when he was. But you can see in this news report he’s masked up with only two other people sitting at a table with him, in what looks like a six-foot or so safety distance away.
I will give Joe Biden one thing. It takes a special brand of idiot to look like more of a virtue-signaling douche than Justin Trudeau. Yet Biden pulls it off with panache. And Trudeau is someone who views the pandemic as an excuse to reset greatly.
What’s hysterical to me is how the Biden administration keeps carrying on about vaccine hesitancy and how to address it. They want to blame Tucker Carlson being allowed a Facebook account. I’d suggest two more effective ideas. The first would be to send Anthony Fauci to his room and take away his cable news privileges. The other would be to take a look in the mirror. If this is what the White House considers leadership, no wonder so many Americans aren’t listening to him.
I have trouble imagining that there are people around Biden who think THIS is a good look. That someone thinks this shows leadership. All of the people in this call have been dealing with the same global pandemic. They’ve all been following the same science. Or at the very least, the same “science.” They’ve all gotten their shots. Yet every other world leader is on this call looking like a leader. Our leader is there looking like a buffoon.
The people around Biden CAN’T possibly think this doesn’t make Biden look like a dick. That the photo ops of him alone, outdoors, with no one around, yet still wearing a mask, are inspiring Americans to say “much leadership, very science.” I guess we’ll find out next week when we see how many masks he’s wearing to his joint session of Congress.
‘Not our problem’: Gov. Reynolds declines request to house migrant children in Iowa
‘Not our problem’: Gov. Reynolds declines request to house migrant children in Iowa
By Cynthia Fodor
April 8, 2021
DES MOINES, Iowa —Gov. Kim Reynolds said Thursday during a radio interview that she declined a request by the Department of Health and Human Services to take in immigrant children being held at the U.S. border with Mexico.
The governor talked about the request during an interview with Jeff Angelo on WHO Radio.
Reynolds said Iowa does not have the facilities to help and that her priority is to protect the health and safety of Iowans.
“We will not do that,” Reynolds said during the interview with WHO Radio. “We do not have the facilities. We are not set up to do that. This is not our problem; this is the president’s problem. He’s the one who opened the borders. He needs to be responsible for this and he needs to stop it. So, at this point, no.
Reynolds went on to say that the state already struggles to place Iowa children into foster homes.
According to The Associated Press, nearly 19,000 children traveling alone were stopped at the Mexican border last month.
Many migrants are fleeing poverty and violence in Central America.
Joe Henry, political director of LULAC Iowa, said the state would be asked to provide refuge for about 300 children.
In a statement to KCCI, Henry said, “As you know, Iowa has always been a welcoming state for refugees, under Gov. (Robert) Ray with southeast Asians in the ’70s and ’80s, and even with Gov. (Terry) Brandstad, when 50,000 refugees were fleeing Central America every month during the summer of 2014.”
Henry explained that Iowa’s elected leaders are being asked if they are willing to provide refuge for, “only several hundred children and family members” and that other states are asked to do the same.
He went on to say, “Shame on the governor and those Iowa county sheriffs who are pandering to their hateful political base!!!”
Ten Iowa sheriffs added their names to a nationwide letter calling on President Joe Biden to address the border crisis.
The sheriffs come from counties across the state, Carroll, Green, Luca, and Grundy counties.
The letter says, in part, “you must act now before our nation’s public safety resources are overwhelmed with the criminal side effects of unchecked illegal immigration.”
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 