What? Air Force Shot Down $12 Hobby Balloon with $500,000 Missiles!

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Congratulations to the Commander-in-Cheap and his WOKE Department of Defense for shooting down a $12 hobby balloon over Lake Huron using 2  $500,000 Sidewinder Missiles (1st one missed) with permission of feckless Canadian PM Trudeau and bragging about it.

Beijing Joe also bragged about his actions regarding a real threat, the Communist Chinese Spy Balloon which was allowed to fly all way across the continental USA and close to dozens of sensitive military installations like our ICBM silos in Montana before finally being shot down.

I really feel safer now.

US Air Force may have shot down hobby club’s balloon worth US$12 with US$439,000 missile

By Aqil Hamzah

The United States Air Force (USAF) launched a US$439,000 (S$587,000) missile to take down an unknown flying object that might prove to be something quite unremarkable: a US$12 (S$16) hobby balloon.

A hobby group in the US, the Northern Illinois Balloon Brigade, was reported by The Guardian as saying that one of its pico balloons had gone “missing in action” over Alaska on Feb 11, when a USAF F-22 fighter jet coincidentally shot down an object flying in the vicinity of Canada’s Yukon territory.

A pico balloon is equipped with trackers typically used to measure temperature, humidity, pressure or wind currents.

Although the group did not link the two events, the balloon’s trajectory suggests a possible connection.

The group’s website said that balloon K9YO was last reported to have been flying at an altitude of 11,560m near Hagemeister Island in Alaska.

However, as “no part of the object shot down… has been recovered,” the group said it was unable to confirm definitively if it was indeed one of their balloons.

The unidentified flying object that was shot down over Yukon was the second one to be felled, with US President Joe Biden issuing orders to take down three of them on consecutive days, starting on Feb 10.

US Department of Defense officials had said that the objects did not pose a military threat, but their flight paths and proximity to sensitive sites, as well as their altitudes, were potential hazards to civil aviation, causing concern.

They have since said that the objects were possibly commercial ones or used for climate research purposes.

The downing of the objects comes after the US in early February shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon that had flown into its airspace.

Read more.

©Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

RELATED AVIDEO: Kirby on Reports that One of the Balloons Shot Down May Have Been from a Hobby Club

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Reports: US missile may have shot down $12 balloon from amateur hobby balloonists

Northern Border Agents Were Asked To Deploy To Florida Due To Massive Illegal Migrant Surge

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Agents patrolling the northern border were asked to deploy to Florida due to a large surge in illegal migrants in recent months, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told the Daily Caller News Foundation Friday.

The Miami sector has seen increasing flows of illegal migrants with a surge of hundreds of them reaching the Florida coast in a matter of days in early January, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 1,300 migrant encounters. For the last few months, agents stationed along the northern border have been dealing with their own migrant surge and deployments to address another surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“While the southwest border with Mexico continues to be the most problematic area for border security, Biden has made it possible for people and cartels to exploit weakness on all our borders including our coastal borders and northern border. Robbing Peter to pay Paul by moving resources from one area to another is, and has never been the answer, while it might help one area, it weakens the area the agents vacated. This Administration has proven it has little ability and care to protect our borders thereby safeguarding US Citizens,” Judd told the DCNF.

Border Patrol agents stationed along the U.S.-Canadian border, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak, confirmed to the DCNF that they were asked to volunteer.

“What’s next?” one of the agents told the DCNF. “We’re all being stretched pretty thin.”

“The situation in Florida isn’t uncommon. However, it wasn’t consistent as it has appeared to be recently. Once the boats started showing up consistently, and with hundreds of apprehensions per vessel, the need for additional agents brought about the requests for agents who wanted to volunteer to deploy down to Miami Sector,” a second northern border agent told the DCNF.

The situation has also led Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to send in additional state resources, including the National Guard, and declare an emergency. In one instance, two cruise ships in the area came to the rescue.

CBP told the DCNF that it had deployed additional resources to address Florida’s influx of illegal migrants.

“Due to maritime migrant fluctuations in Florida, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has deployed additional Border Patrol and Air and Marine Agents to the south Florida area of operations. These additional resources along with our integrated collaboration with our federal, state, and key stakeholders, allows for a rapid and efficient response to any increase in migratory flows. CBP seeks to deter and disrupt human smuggling activities by transnational criminal organizations and ensure our personnel are properly equipped to maintain border security,” a CBP spokesperson said.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: American Dissatisfaction With Immigration Levels Increases As Border Crisis Continues: POLL

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

CBO: Interest on Debt to Triple by 2033, Surpass Defense Spending by 2028

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Here’s one ballooning problem the military can’t simply knock out of the sky: net interest payments on the U.S. government’s debt are projected to triple over the next 10 years, totaling 300% of 2022 outlays in 2033, according to a new report published this week by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

According to CBO projections, interest on the debt (which claimed 7.5% of federal government spending in 2022) will rise sharply to 10.3% of spending in 2023 and then continue rising steadily, surpassing defense spending (11.9% of spending in 2022) in 2028 and reaching 14.4% of spending by 2033.

This bad news on rising interest costs comes amid another, short-term crisis regarding the debt ceiling. The U.S. government hit its statutory debt limit of $31.4 trillion on January 19 of this year. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has resorted to “extraordinary measures” to “borrow additional funds without breaching the debt ceiling,” the CBO explained, but they estimate that “the Treasury would exhaust those measures and run out of cash sometime between July and September of this year” unless Congress acts to raise the debt ceiling. For every penny Congress raises the debt ceiling, it will only aggravate the interest problem more.

The increase in net interest payments has two primary causes: interest rates and deficit spending.

First, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes to fight inflation contribute to higher interest rates the U.S. must pay on preexisting debt, with a small lag in time. The Federal Reserve has raised the federal funds interest rate eight times in the past 12 months, from a targetrange between 0.25%-0.00% in January 2022 to a range between 4.50%-4.25% today.

“Net outlays for interest, which rose by 35 percent last year, are projected to increase by 35 percent again this year,” said the CBO. “The projected increase in 2023 occurs primarily because the average interest rate that the Treasury pays on its debt has risen sharply this year and is expected to rise further as maturing securities are refinanced at rates that are higher than those that prevailed when they were initially issued. For example, the interest rate on 10-year Treasury notes averaged 1.3 percent in 2021 and 2.4 percent in 2022; that rate averages 3.8 percent in 2023 in CBO’s current economic forecast.”

Second, continued deficit spending increases the volume of debt on which the U.S. government must pay interest. (To clarify, “debt” is the total, cumulative amount owed, while “deficit” is the difference between expenditures and revenues over a given period of time.) “Debt held by the public (in nominal terms) is on track to increase by 6 percent from 2022 to 2023,” said the CBO, which “projects a federal budget deficit of $1.4 trillion for 2023.”

In fact, the CBO projects the federal government will run an annual deficit of $1.4 trillion-$2.8 trillion (amounting to 5.4%-7.3% of estimated Gross Domestic Product [GDP]) for every year, 2023-2033. In their February report, the CBO added 20% to their projected deficit over the next 10 years, due to changing economic and legislative factors.

Assuming that “current laws governing taxes and spending generally remained unchanged,” CBO projects that “federal debt held by the public is projected to increase in each year of the projection period and to reach 118 percent of GDP in 2033 — higher than it has ever been.”

Rising interest payments will only exacerbate the U.S. government’s budget shortfalls. According to the CBO project, the percentage of the budget devoted to paying interest will nearly double from 2022-2033. Other slices of the pie must get smaller as a result. But, as Figure 1 shows, the decreases won’t come from mandatory spending (it’s mandatory, after all), which is already a majority of federal spending. Instead, the increasing interest payments mean a smaller slice of the pie is left over for discretionary spending — including a vital subset, defense spending. The CBO estimates that defense spending will decline from 13.2% of federal expenditures in 2024 to 11.1% in 2033 (with nondefense spending declining proportionally), as interest payments increase from 11.5% to 14.4% over the same period.

VIEW: Figure 1: CBO Projection – Spending by Category (in Pct.)

Of course, one often overlooked feature of the spending “pie” analogy is that the pie can grow in size — through either expanding revenues or assuming additional debt. As Figure 2 makes clear, the CBO doesn’t predict that discretionary spending — either for defense or nondefense purposes will shrink in absolute terms. Rather, it will grow more slowly than interest payments, mandatory spending (mostly Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare), and by implication, the whole economy as well.

VIEW: Figure 2: CBO Projection – Spending by Category (in $Billions)

One major asterisk to CBO estimates is their assumption that “current laws governing taxes and spending generally remained unchanged.” There’s nothing wrong with projecting from that assumption — it’s their job at the Congressional Budget Office, actually. But a lot can change over 10 years. For one thing, “forecasting interest rates is particularly challenging,” the CBO admitted in 2020. Three presidential elections and two midterm elections give plenty of time for political coalitions to change “current laws.”

It’s not implausible that America might experience a recession, or even two, over a 10-year period; this, too, could radically alter taxation and spending priorities. Foreign events may also interject themselves; a foreign conflict with, say, China could substantially increase military spending. All these plausible variables could dramatically alter the shape of actual government spending, 10 years down the road.

What the CBO projection can tell us is that our current policies are needlessly backing us into a corner. Just paying the interest on our current national debt will cost more and more, and the government continues to overspend its revenues to the tune of trillions (with a “T”) per year. Meanwhile, the CBO predicts mandatory spending will increase by 60% from 2023 to 2033, primarily due to the population aging into Social Security benefits. The combined pressure of these factors will reduce the federal government’s freedom to spend discretionary funds (on everything else), trimming them from 26.5% of total spending in 2022 (and somehow 29.1% in 2024) to 23.9% of total spending in 2033.

If the CBO’s projection is accurate, when Congress gets around to allocating funds in 2033, they will have less than a quarter to work with out of every dollar that they spend. That quarter must cover all discretionary spending, including defense spending.

Net interest payments are far from the most expensive category of federal spending, as Figures 1 and 2 illustrate, so why do they matter so much? One reason is that they perpetuate the deficit spiral. The CBO called the “net interest outlays increase … a major contributor to the growth of total deficits.” These deficits add to the debt, which then increases the interest the U.S. government must pay even further.

Another reason is the irresponsible folly it implies. The U.S. government is in the situation of a person who has gotten up to their eyeballs in credit card debt. Yet the government not only continues to finance purchases with credit, but only ever pays the interest that comes due, and never pays down the ever-growing principal. Sooner or later, those chickens will come home to roost, and, when they do, everything will smell like chicken houses.

A third reason to worry about the growing interest payments is that it complicates the math for any plan to reach a balanced budget. “Opportunities to trim costs are limited, with only about one-third of federal spending labeled as discretionary,” wrote analysts at The Wall Street Journal. Those opportunities shrink further as discretionary spending is crowded out by interest payments.

A fourth, and related, reason is it leaves us less prepared for any crisis. Apart from possible military crises, the CBO forecasted last month that Social Security will become insolvent in 2033, 10 years away. Analysists have recognized for decades that the entitlements time bomb is most likely to kill us when it finally detonates, but America lacks the political will to address that issue yet.

Still, the U.S. government can be better or worse prepared when that time comes. Our best escape route is to free up some funds to deal with the ultimate insolvency of Social Security. Instead, we continue to spend money we don’t have. It’s as if we are trapped in a corral with a deadly bull lying fast asleep. We could choose to flee before the bull awakes. Yet America has not only remained in the ring, but we have backed ourselves into a corner, limiting our chances to dodge its gory horns. And, on top of that, we occupy ourselves by stringing barbed wire across our best escape route. When the bull finally awakes, we will deserve all the consequences of our folly.

If America’s fiscal situation is dangerous, even desperate, why haven’t we confronted our fiscal irresponsibility yet? One reason is that historically depressed interest rates kept legislators from feeling the consequences of their actions. For 11 out 14 years from 2008-2020, the federal funds effective rate lay under 1% (and most of that time it was under 0.2%). In 2015, the interest rate on a three-month Treasury bill, which averaged almost 5% in 2007, had dropped to 0.03%. This created an era of cheap debt, where Congress could overspend with hardly any consequences. Now, as interest rates rise, as we always knew they would, the U.S. government not only has to shoulder an interest burden to which it is unaccustomed, but it has also lost the habit — or even the façade — of fiscal restraint.

According to the latest CBO report, 2028 represents a shocking threshold: the year when the U.S. government will have to spend more paying the interest on our $31.4 trillion of debt than it will spend on national defense. Whether we reach this landmark a few years early or late, the point is that our profligate legislature is spending our country into a pointless crisis.

Just as no one wants to be the team down by three touchdowns at the two-minute warning, no country should willingly bury itself under so much debt that it’s mathematically impossible to escape. Alas, the only similarity between wisdom and Washington is that both begin with “W.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden IRS Plans to Crackdown on Waitress’ Tips As Biden Lies No New Taxes On Working Class In SOTU Speech

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Biden’s IRS plans to crack down on waiters’ tips

‘They’re coming after waitresses’ tips now,’ tax expert Mike Palicz says

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News

California, New York, Connecticut, Washington, Hawaii, Illinois and Maryland among the states to tax wealthy who flee.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed a revenue procedure this week to crack down on the service industry’s reporting of tips.

The Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program would be a voluntary tip reporting system in which the IRS and service industry companies cooperate, according to the announcement Monday. As part of the proposal, the IRS will give the public until early May to provide feedback on the program before implementing it.

“Those 87,000 new IRS agents that you were promised would only target the rich,” tweeted Mike Palicz, federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform. “They’re coming after waitresses’ tips now.”

According to the IRS, the program would seek to “improve tip reporting compliance,” reduce administrative burdens and provide more transparency and certainty to taxpayers.

“This is not a proposal for the auditing of servers,” an IRS official told Fox News Digital. “Yesterday’s action was a proposal for comment – not a rule – based on over a decade of feedback from restaurants and other businesses seeking the increased flexibility for their overall tax compliance on tips.”

“This proposal is not in effect and is intended to welcome further conversation from all interested parties before any rule is put into place,” the official added.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

TSA Director Accused of Fraud, Waste for Unlawfully Deploying Assets to Mexican Border

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The head of the federal agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation’s transportation system is accused of fraud, waste, and abuse of authority for unlawfully deploying assets to the Mexican border to perform duties unrelated to transportation, according to a report filed with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General. In the formal complaint to the DHS watchdog, the Air Marshal National Council, which represents thousands of Federal Air Marshals (FAM) nationwide, accuses Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator David Pekoske and FAM Director Tirrell Stevenson of violating federal law and overstepping their authority for assigning the highly trained aviation security specialists to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with the illegal immigration crisis. FAM operates under TSA and both function under DHS.

“The TSA personnel are being sent to El Paso TX, San Diego CA, Laredo TX, McAllen TX, Tucson AZ, and Yuma AZ,” the complaint states, adding that internal agency documents reveal the “highly skilled FAMs” are being sent to the southwest border to perform “Hospital Watch, Transportation, Law Enforcement Searches, Welfare Checks, and Entry Control.” The duties have no relation to TSA’s core mission of transportation security, the filing says, and instead the air marshals will assist migrants who have crossed the border into the United States. TSA was created after 2001 to help prevent another terrorist attack, though the agency is famous for its lapses, including a big one just days ago when a man was allowed to board a plane in Cincinnati with two box cutters. FAM is charged with protecting commercial passenger flights by deterring and countering the risk of terrorist activity. At the very least it seems like a waste to send the highly trained law enforcement agents to the border to babysit illegal immigrants.

“The statute does not give the Administrator any authority to deploy TSA or FAM employees to the southern border to perform non transportation security related matters,” the complaint to the DHS IG states. “Further, under section (g) the statute describes what the Administrators authority is if an emergency, as defined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, is declared.” The act makes clear that the legislative intent is to only allow TSA to exercise authority and deploy its assets for transportation security, the report to the DHS watchdog confirms. “To date Mr. Pekoske nor Mr. Stevenson have declared the deployments to be related to transportation security,” according to the complaint. Furthermore, the duties, “Hospital Watch, Entry Control, Law Enforcement searches, and Transportation,” could not be interpreted to have any nexus to the TSA core mission of transportation security. Additionally, the document notes that Congress has not appropriated any funds in the TSA budget for border security, making any money expended for the cause a violation of the Antideficiency Act which prohibits federal employees from obligating funds unless Congress has approved the amount and purpose of the spending.

A few weeks ago Judicial Watch obtained the DHS memorandum to the nation’s air marshal force announcing that officers would soon be sent to the southern border to help deal with “a surge in irregular migration.” The notice states that “the unprecedented volume of Noncitizen Migrants (NCMs) currently apprehended mandates immediate further action to protect the life and safety of federal personnel and noncitizens in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] custody.” It is the first acknowledgment, albeit leaked involuntarily, by the Biden administration that there is indeed a crisis along the nation’s famously porous southern border. “To support its mission, CBP is seeking federal employees from DHS Components and other federal agencies to be placed on reimbursable TDY assignments to assist in critical support functions,” the widely circulated mandate reads, adding that “LE/FAMS has been directed by DHS to support this request.” Air marshals interviewed by Judicial Watch expressed outrage that they are being pulled from their critical inflight security duties to assist with the mayhem created by the Biden administration’s failed immigration policies.

RELATED VIDEO: The border crisis continues to spiral, including a stunning increase in Chinese nationals

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EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘The Peace President’: Trump’s 2024 Plan Is To Run Against The War In Ukraine

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Former President Donald Trump is planning to tap into “anti-war” sentiments over the Ukraine-Russia conflict in a bid to stand out in a potentially crowded field of Republican contenders heading into 2024, Politico reported, citing anonymous individuals closely tied to his campaign.

Trump has criticized the Biden administration’s handling of Ukraine, and said he would have ended the conflict in “24 hours,” according to Politico. The former president’s pivot to foreign affairs is in direct response to a growing field of potential Republican challengers, including former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Trump is the peace president and he’s the first president in two generations to not start a war, whereas if you look at DeSantis’ congressional record, he’s voted for more engagement and more military engagement overseas,” an anonymous individual close to Trump told Politico.

The former president hopes his “America First” agenda will stand out among the other likely political opponents, who have signaled support for supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, according to Politico.

Shortly after Russia’s invasion, Haley said “this isn’t just a war for Ukraine, its a war for freedom.” In October, Pompeo said the U.S. must supply Ukraine with the necessary resources.

“I do think national security is going to be a much more important issue in 2024 than in many of the most recent presidential elections,” John Bolton, former national security adviser to the Trump Administration, told Politico, in lieu of the recent Chinese balloon national security breach.

After several days of the balloon traveling through American air space, it was shot down over the Carolinas.

Trump also called out his former secretary of State, claiming Pompeo took too much credit for the Trump administration’s foreign accomplishments, according to Politico.

Republican Sen. J.D. Vance from Ohio praised Trump’s policy plans, “I’m supporting him for president in 2024 because he’s the only person certain to do it,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Haley’s former UN ambassador experience will likely come in handy in this political match up, those close to Haley told Politico.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Joe Biden Has Become a Key Weapons Supplier for the Global Jihad

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The U.S. military was far too concerned with implementing Critical Race Theory and making sure the troops were vaccinated to bother with something so trivial as planning a safe and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan, and so when it all came crashing down and the strongest military in the world had to cut and run in the most ignominious manner imaginable, it ended up leaving behind $7 billion worth of American ordnance. This appalling turn of events was dismissed at the time, as we were assured that the Taliban wouldn’t know how to operate all this sophisticated weaponry. But the generous Taliban jihadis have shown that they are more than willing to spread their wealth around among their fellow warriors for Allah. And so Old Joe Biden has become the chief weapons supplier of the global jihad.

NBC News reported Monday that the weapons that Biden and woke Gen. Mark Milley were far too busy to be concerned about as they ensured that the U.S. exit from Afghanistan was conducted in the most shameful possible manner have now made their way to other jihadis, in the Indian province of Kashmir that has been a hotbed of jihad violence for years now. What’s more, NBC adds laconically that “experts” say that the transfer of this materiel from Afghanistan to Kashmir “could be just the start of the weapons’ global journey.” No kidding, really?

The Kashmir jihadis, who want to detach the province from India and attach it to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, are now armed with “M4s, M16s and other U.S.-made arms and ammunition that have rarely been seen in the 30-year conflict.” For these top-of-the-line armaments, they can thank not only the Taliban, but Old Joe, Milley, and Biden’s woker-than-woke Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin. The groups that your taxpayer dollars have armed now include not only the Taliban, but Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both of which the U.S. government has designated as terrorist organization.

Wait, it gets worse. Lashkar-e-Taiba has looked into perpetrating jihad massacres inside the United States. Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield notes that the terror group has “a long history of recruiting Americans, including members of the Virginia Jihad Network,” a group that was discovered in the early 2000s to be training to participate in jihad attacks overseas. And maybe more than just overseas: Greenfield reports that “during the Virginia Jihad Network investigation, Masoud Khan, one of the men charged, revealed that the terror boss behind the Mumbai attack had asked them to conduct ‘information gathering’ operations in the United States, specifically ‘an unnamed chemical plant in Maryland.’”

That wasn’t all: “Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Sadequee, Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants operating in Georgia, were accused of making videos casing the Capitol Building in D.C. and other targets, and sent the videos to a facilitator for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Sadequee was convicted of conspiring to provide material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba.” And in yet another instance, “after Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani Muslim, opened fire at CIA headquarters in Langley, he hid out at a safe house constructed by Osama bin Laden at Lashkar-e-Taiba’s headquarters. That same safe house was alleged to have been used by 1993 World Trade Center bombing operative, Ramzi Yousef.”

This is a clear indication that Lashkar-e-Taiba was looking into striking inside the U.S.; although they didn’t follow up on this at the time, now that Old Joe and his henchmen have supplied them with top-grade weaponry, maybe they’ll decide to revisit those plans.

In the meantime, an Indian army spokesman, Lt. Col. Emron Musavi, confirms that “it can be safely assumed that” Lashkar-e-Taiba jihadis “have access to the weapons left behind.” The Kashmir jihadis have been active of late. According to NBC, “the year opened in violence as Kashmir police blamed militants for a Jan. 1 gunfire attack that killed four people in the southern village of Dhangri, followed by an explosion in the same area the next day that killed a 5-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. At least six people were injured on Jan. 21 in two explosions in the city of Jammu.”

For that and much more, we have Old Joe Biden to thank. But as with so much else, one thing is certain: the sycophantic Leftist propagandists that make up the establishment media will never ask the old man about this. To do so wouldn’t fit the narrative.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

UNBELIEVABLY OBSCENE: Senate Democrats Won’t Vote On House Bill Rescinding 87,000 New IRS agents

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Americans can’t afford, food, fuel, rent etc. And the Democrats keep coming for us. Frankly, the people who voted for these Democrats thieves should have to pay not those of us trying to save the country.

Our founding fathers started a revolution over tea taxes. I think we have long passed that bar.

House bill rescinding $71B for 87k IRS agents stalled in Senate after nearly 4 weeks without vote

In a recent poll, a solid majority of respondents supported the House-passed bill that strips the IRS funding from the Democrats’ $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.

House-passed bill rescinding $71.5 billion for the hiring of up to 87,000 IRS agents has languished in the Democrat-led Senate for nearly four weeks without a vote.

The funding was part of the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that Democrats passed last year.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pledged to schedule a vote to eliminate the funding as his first order of business in the new, Republican-led House. The GOP bill passed along party lines on Jan. 9.

Republicans have argued the funding could be used to target Americans earning less than $400,000 per year with additional audits. In response to the criticism, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote to the IRS instructing the agency not to use additional resources to target individuals or families in that category.

“Instead, new funding will crack down on tax evaders among the wealthy and large corporations, invest in technology upgrades that help taxpayers, and hire more customer support staff to prevent backlogs,” the Treasury Department said in a statement in August.

Ahead of the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage on a party-line vote using budget reconciliation, Democrats defended the roughly $70 billion expenditure for the IRS as a revenue enhancement measure that would help pay for the legislation.

In a Rasmussen Reports poll published on Jan. 17, a solid majority of likely voters queried (56%) supported the House-passed bill that strips the IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has criticized the GOP bill, signaling that it will not get a vote any time soon in the Democrat-controlled chamber.

“It is well known that too many wealthy individuals and large corporations — through gaping loopholes — don’t pay their fair share of taxes while average Americans often pay a much higher percent,” the New York Democrat said after the bill passed in the House. “The thousands of increased IRS personnel are aimed at closing those loopholes and forcing the wealthy and well-connected to finally pay their fair share. It is incredible that the first move House Republicans make this Congress is to cut these agents and allow large corporations and wealthy individuals to continue to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.”

Schumer compared the bill’s passage to the 2017 tax reform law enacted under former President Trump and a GOP-led Congress.

“Just as they failed in 2017, when Republicans cut taxes on the rich and tried to scare the middle class, this won’t work either,” he said.

The GOP tax reform cut income tax rates across-the-board and lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

The Inflation Reduction Act included a 15% minimum corporate tax rate.

Just the News asked Schumer’s office on Friday if he plans to vote on the House-passed IRS bill at some point but did not receive a response before publication.

Read full article.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

House Oversight Investigates John Kerry’s Secret Communist China Deals That Undermined U.S. Economy and National Security

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This parasitic scumbag has made a career out of selling out this country, undermining our economy and national while acquiring enormous wealth. Climate is a euphemism for corruption. Imaginable corruption.

Has the FBI searched Kerry’s homes for classified docs?

John Kerry’s secret CCP negotiations probed by GOP Oversight chairman

Kerry’s activities, conducted ‘under the guise of climate advocacy,’ could undermine American interests, top Republican says

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is probing Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry’s secretive negotiations with his Chinese counterparts.

Comer informed Kerry in a letter sent Thursday afternoon that the committee, under his leadership, has opened an investigation into Kerry’s role in the Biden administration and, in particular, his high-level climate negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To date, Kerry has ignored information and document requests from Comer and other committee Republicans sent when they were in the minority.

“To date, you have failed to respond to any of our requests,” Comer wrote to Kerry. “Yet, you continue to engage in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy.”

“The Committee requests documents and information to understand your role and provide necessary transparency over the SPEC and its activities,” he continued. “As a member of the President’s cabinet, you should be representing the United States’ interests. Your statements, however, consistently show disregard for American national security and taxpayer dollars.”

[….]

Letter to Kerry Re SPEC 118… by Jim Hoft

Despite the high-level role leading the Biden administration’s global climate strategy, Kerry’s office has been tight-lipped about its internal operations and staff members, sparking criticism from Republicans, including Comer, who have demanded transparency for such an important office.

“We are left with an insufficient understanding of your office’s activities, spending, and staffing,” Comer continued. “To enable long overdue oversight of your office, please provide the following documents and information.”

The Oversight Committee chairman added that Kerry has been too soft on China’s human rights violations “while promoting climate negotiations that the CCP does not even appear interested in entering.”

Kerry has been blasted for various comments that have appeared to downplay vast human rights abuses tied to China’s green energy supply chain. After he was asked in November 2021 about how slave labor was reportedly employed by solar panel firms in China, Kerry said he had to stay in his “lane” when negotiating with Chinese officials.

“Well, we’re honest about the differences,” Kerry said at the time. “We certainly know what they are, and we’ve articulated them, but that’s not my lane here… My job is to be the climate guy and stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”

Since assuming the SPEC position, Kerry has engaged in various private talks with Chinese counterparts, including two 2021 meetings that took place in China. Following a regional climate summit in April 2021, Kerry told CNBC that solving climate change was “not about China.”

“This is not about China. This is not a counter to China,” he told the outlet. “This is about China, the United States, India, Russia… a bunch of countries that are emitting a pretty sizable amount.”

China accounts for about 27% of total global emissions — nearly tripling the total in the U.S., the world’s second-largest emitter, according to Rhodium Group — and continues to approve and construct a large amount of coal power plants.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: John Kerry’s office consulted left-wing environmental groups while crafting policies, emails show

RELATED TWEET:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

House Judiciary’s First Hearing Highlights Border Crisis

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Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee held its first full hearing on immigration. The hearing, entitled Biden’s Border Crisis—Part I, highlighted the impacts of illegal immigration on the American people, from schools to health care, to public safety, to families who have lost loved ones to drug overdoses.  It highlighted how Border Patrol is being moved from the border to help process individuals for asylum, allowing fentanyl to pour into the country between ports of entry.  It also discussed the threat that cartels and traffickers may bring their dangerous and lethal antics to our soil.

All of the witnesses at the hearing had personally experienced the impacts of the crisis at the southern border.  The first witness was Mr. Brandon Dunn, the father of a fifteen-year-old boy who died from fentanyl poisoning.  His son, Noah, was a sophomore in high school and was murdered by a drug dealer who sold counterfeit pills that contained 8 milligrams of fentanyl, which is four times the lethal dose.  Noah’s family is not alone; Mr. Dunn testified that there are countless people that have been lost to fentanyl, which is smuggled across the border.

The second witness was Arizona’s Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels.  He testified that he has experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, and today is the worst it has ever been.  He said border deaths are at an all-time high, and that the threats to his county residents and law enforcement are endless.  He shared that the morale of agents is extremely low and that calls for help have been ignored by this administration.

The third witness, Dale Carruthers, is a judge and rancher from Terrell County, Texas.  He stated that the chaos caused by this administration’s open-border policies is the reason he and many others have switched parties.  He described in detail how his ranch has suffered from illegal alien traffic, and in particular, has experienced water system damage that threatens his livestock and crops. Families like his, he said, live in fear because trespassing on their land, stealing of food, and damaging property is commonplace.

Finally, the Democrats’ witness, Texas Judge Ricardo Samaniego of El Paso, shared how his local community is treating asylum seekers and transporting them to other places in the country.  He described their expeditious processing of illegal aliens as “a success story,” describing how the county is processing over 1,000 people per day and has moved nearly 27,000 people since they started working with nonprofits to provide same-day travel to the destination of their choice.  He said the border is not open, that there is no invasion, despite the fact that there were 162,000 encounters in the El Paso sector in the first quarter of this fiscal year – and 55,000 encounters in December alone. He, like many Democrat lawmakers, did not see the correlation between illegal immigration and other serious issues like drug smuggling and human trafficking. He suggested the committee was conflating the issue of the border crisis with people seeking a better life.

Indeed, many Democrats in attendance complained about the entire premise of the hearing on the border crisis, even claiming that securing the border is racist.  Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) opened the hearing by declaring it would showcase “the racist tendencies of the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the party.”  Similarly, Rep. Jayapal (D-WA) criticized Republicans for using the hearing to make “a lot of statements that aren’t true” and using “nativist rhetoric” such as “invasion and flooding” to “demonize immigrants.” The Democrats’ witness echoed these statements, arguing: “There is no invasion of migrants in our community,” and that “claiming this continues a false, racist narrative…”

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) also objected to the hearing.  She declared that its purpose was “to amplify the anti-immigrant hysteria and right-wing conspiracy theories” and that her presence there was “in opposition to any racist agenda pursued by Republicans.” She excoriated Republicans’ attempts to enforce the immigration laws and said their position on immigration “is to inflict as much cruelty as possible on the people fleeing suffering and persecution.”

Despite these objections, many Democrats also called the immigration system broken, and that the laws needed to be fixed.  Some argued that “legal pathways” or “functioning legal pathways” or “additional pathways” are needed to solve the problem at the border.  These lawmakers, however, appear to have forgotten that enforcing the laws also secures the border and restores order to our immigration system.

Between 2017 and 2020, President Trump robustly enforced our immigration laws, and the border was much more secure.  The data also show how border security collapsed during the first two years of the Biden Administration, and how the borders were thrown wide open to drug dealers, cartels, traffickers and criminals. Thus, there isn’t a problem with the law. The problem is that the Biden Administration refuses to enforce the law.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR column is republished with permission. © Copyright 2023 Federation for American Immigration Reform, all rights reserved.

Why There Are No ‘Fair’ Solutions Out of the Federal Government’s Spending Quagmire

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The federal government is facing very serious budget issues, dramatically worsened by the past few years’ expansion in profligate spending. But while that gets most of the fiscal headlines at the moment because of the national debt limit discussion, the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds have far more unfunded liabilities than the official federal deficit. And those huge problems are well past the “something should be done” stage and getting very close to the “something must be done” stage. That has led some to reconsider reforming Social Security, the famous “third rail” of politics.

The mere possibility of that has energized those who fear that a change from the status quo might give them less, even though the huge financial holes involved cannot be sustained for long, meaning that “doing nothing” for now guarantees a worse deal for many soon. So such opponents are gearing up to prevent any move toward improved fiscal responsibility and sustainability that might involve reducing anyone’s benefits now or in the future by asserting that it would be unfair.

Unfortunately, however, if we rule out all options that might “unfairly” reduce benefits for current or future beneficiaries, we must be unfair to others. The reason is that the federal government has promised trillions of dollars more in benefits than taxes to fund them through Social Security (and even more so for Medicare), and those overpromises leave no fair way out.

Consider the option of reducing Social Security retirement benefits in one way or another. That is not fair, because government promises of ongoing retirement support have led people to believe in continued funding at the promised levels, and to adapt their behavior to those promises. Having done so (e.g., saving less privately for their retirement), it is unfair to cut that funding, because many who relied on benefit promises have become dependent on the government living up to them.

But there is a good reason for considering this possibility—if we continue to do nothing to change things, the trust funds will soon run out and benefits will have to fall substantially from then on, which would also be unfair, and potentially even more so.

Despite that, if history is any guide, any serious proposal of potential benefit reductions will not lead to rational discussion, but fights to make sure someone named “not us” will bear as much of the burdens as possible. We will witness a “guilt parade” of the most obviously pitiful and destitute beneficiaries, none of whom should be forced to “do without,” to remind us of its unfairness (just as we see struggling family farmers when agricultural or water subsidies are under fire; the most seriously ill when medical benefit cuts are proposed; poor, inner-city children when cuts to education funding are considered; etc).

Now, this fairness argument is partly correct. But only partly, because it does not consider the fairness of the alternatives. While benefit cutbacks can be considered unfair to those now and soon-to-be dependent on them, every alternative is unfair as well. Rather than choosing between fair and unfair options, we must choose between unfair ones.

Say we look to maintain benefit promises through substantially higher Social Security taxes. The problem is that people have also adapted their behavior to the promised extent of those taxes (already greater than income taxes for the majority of Americans), and some now depend on not losing any more take-home pay just as many recipients depend on not losing anticipated benefits.

Proposing that we just tax “the rich” more, as by increasing or even eliminating the income limits on Social Security “contributions,” would especially increase its unfairness to higher income earners, who are already paying far more in Social Security taxes than they will ever get back in benefits, and who also pay a sharply disproportionate share of income and other taxes as well (not to mention being in the crosshairs for further increases in those taxes).

Benefits could be maintained without increasing Social Security taxes by federal borrowing. But borrowing is just deferred taxation, so that would unfairly burden whichever taxpayers will be left holding the bag for those taxes. It would also increase the tax uncertainty faced by all Americans, who face a harder task of guessing how, where, when, and on who those future taxes will be assessed.

What about some sort of privatization? That could potentially increase the rate of return earned on retirement savings relative to what Social Security offers, improving the system from this point in time forward. However, such a move cannot magically eliminate its current multi-trillion dollar unfunded liabilities. And if future benefits are to be more closely based on private contributions than the current system, as privatization would require, treating those savers more fairly would unfairly take funds now used to subsidize the retirement of current workers, even though many of them paid far less in taxes than they will receive in benefits under the current structure.

Even doing nothing about Social Security to avoid treating people unfairly is unfair, since the status quo is unsustainable, requiring future commitments to be broken in a major way. Even Social Security statements now communicate that there will soon be too little money to meet their benefit promises.

It is time we realized that there is no fair way out from government Social Security commitments that exceed the funds available. Current overpromises mean that everyone has a plausible fairness claim on their side, yet something must give. The closest we can come to being fair is to avoid making any new over-commitments, to search for ways to make the program more sustainable (to reduce future unfairness problems), and to look seriously at the contentious issue of which of the options will minimize the adverse impacts of unfairness that cannot be avoided altogether. Demonizing any real consideration of the various options, as some have already started doing, only increases the likelihood that there will ultimately be more unfairness than necessary.

It’s also important to recognize that the inherent unfairness we must soon address is not limited to Social Security. That problem comes in the wake of any ongoing government program that offers benefits in excess of costs to beneficiaries at the start, because in a world without free lunches, that requires future Americans to be saddled with the burden of paying for those excess benefits.

So “not fair” also applies not only to the introduction and past expansions of Social Security, but also to current attempts to sweeten the Social Security pot, as with the Social Security 2100 Act. It also applies to Medicare, Social Security’s 1965 offspring, which faces an even larger financing hole, since early recipients got far more benefits than they paid for (both because benefits have increased and because early recipients paid for at most a few years at lower tax rates than now, but got benefits for the rest of their lives).

The same unfairness applies to any government trust fund with unfunded liabilities, such as for the Highway Trust Fund, due to be fully depleted within the next dozen years. (Since benefits from the road work began long before much of the associated costs came due, the program leaves more costs than benefits for succeeding Americans.)

The national debt reflects similar benefits that have not been paid for, unfairly leaving the tab for a huge pile of not-even-remotely-justified government spending projects and policies to later generations (not to mention providing the leverage for further expanding not-yet-paid-for benefits every time the debt limit expansion provides a must-pass piece of legislation).

It is worth remembering that in many areas that have been put under government control, the word “unfair” is correct. But that is because unfairness is baked in from the beginning of such government programs.

We can now only choose among unfair options which will be unavoidably difficult and unpleasant, with a government that has shown very little interest in facing those sorts of problems. And the way to prevent further inherent unfairness problems is not by embracing policies that attempt to buy votes today by creating policies where people are disproportionately treated (debt forgiveness, anyone?). Unfortunately, there is an ever-present pile of policy proposals whose political attraction is just such disproportionate treatment, which justifies little optimism for solutions arising out of the beltway anytime soon.

AUTHOR

Gary M. Galles

Gary M. Galles is a Professor of Economics at Pepperdine University and a member of the Foundation for Economic Education faculty network. In addition to his new book, Pathways to Policy Failures (2020), his books include Lines of Liberty (2016), Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies (2014), and Apostle of Peace (2013).

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

List of Equipment/Munitions Biden Sent to Ukraine That Will Take Between 3 to 18 Years to Replace

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Reference the telling table below – there is no way the occupant of the White House and his WOKE Department of Defense including Secretary of Defense Austin and Chair, of the Joint Chief’s Staff Milley can justify depleting our own warfighting capabilities for 5 years or more by sending all these munitions and equipment to Ukraine.

NOTE:  This chart does not include the 33 M-1 Abrams tanks (cost $400M); 100 brand new tank transporters and now Patriot surface to air missiles being sent to Ukraine.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Table 1: Inventory Replacement Times for Key Systems

Now for some Questions and my Answers:

  1. Will the Ukrainians maintain all this complicated equipment ?   Answer: NO – they don’t have the capability so US contractors will do so at great expense to US taxpayers.
  2. What happens if any of this equipment lands in hands of Russians?  Answer: Russian and China will reverse engineer and copy them taking away our technological edges..
  3. Does this negatively impact our own defense needs?  Answer: Obviously sending this equipment reduces our own warfighting capabilities. This equipment costs billions in addition to the $100 M in cash sent to Zelinskyy and must also be reducing the warfighting capabilities of our own military.
  4. How long before U.S. boots are on the ground?  Answer: Probably not long. Some are already there in advisory roles – you can bet CIA and mercenaries are there, others like the U.S. 101st Airborne Division are staging in Poland.
  5. Will all this support along with $100B+ in cash ensure the Russians will quit and go home?  Answer:  NO – their Black Sea Fleet is located at Ukrainian ports and they aren’t going to give up Crimea which they invaded and occupied back in early 2014.
  6. Could this war lead to further escalation including possible use of nuclear weapons?  Answer:  YES – Ukraine also had thousands of nuclear weapons and probably still have some suitcase nuclear weapons there was little accountability when Ukraine broke away from old USSR.
  7. Do we have accountability process in place to ensure this $ and equipment all go to help Ukraine military and people and not go into pockets of corrupt Ukrainian Oligarchs?  Answer:  NO  – how much of this money will end up in the off shore or Swiss bank accounts of Ukrainian oligarchs?
  8. Has all this fueled the rampant Inflation and rising prices in the U.S.?  Answer:   YES
  9. Do we know what US National Security Interests are at stake in Ukraine?  Answer:  NO – sure as hell isn’t that if we don’t stop Russia in Crimea it will lead to China attacking Taiwan. This is mixing golf balls and grapefruits. For one thing, Ukraine’s allies are feckless NATO and the European Union who depend on the U.S. for their defense, whereas Taiwan has not only the U.S. but well armed and trained forces of Taiwan, Japan, S. Korea, Indonesia, Australia etc. on its side. Those worried about this contingency should be supporting shipment of the equipment in table above to Taiwan not Ukraine.
  10. The Obama/Biden regime were in power in 2014 when the Russians first invaded Crimea what did they do about it?  Answer: Nothing except sanctions which didn’t hurt Russia which kept supplying Germany and much of rest of Europe with their energy needs (e.g. natural gas) and this hasn’t stopped.
  11. Are the Russians and Putin bad people interested in restoring old Soviet Union brand of Communism?  Answer:  Yes, BUT what is NATO and EU going to do about it ?  What red line in the sand did the Obama/Biden regime draw when the Russians invaded Crimea in early 2014?
  12. Did the Russians offer a ceasefire in trade for Ukraine not pushing to enter NATO?  Answer:  YES but Zelensky would have no part of it thus the war escalated. Zelensky is not a man of peace as he tries to convey.
  13. Are these same people in Obama 3/Biden Admin like WOKE SOD Austin and Chair of Joint Chiefs Milley as concerned about defending the US southern border from invasion by illegal aliens and cartels as they are about defending Ukraine?  Answer: Not only NO but Hell NO!

I’m sure you can come up with other questions about this debacle.  If your answers are different, I’d like to hear them.

Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: NYC Hotel Mobbed by Illegals Refusing to Leave Hotel For Relocation

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New Yorkers voted for this. They always vote Democrat. You reap what you vote.

The Democrats that opened the floodgates to these ingrates is the same party what refused entry to Jew fleeing

Migrants refuse to leave Hell’s Kitchen hotel for relocation to Brooklyn

By David Propper, Joe Marino, Larry Celona and Bernadette Hogan, January 30, 2023 12:15am Updated

Dozens of migrants stood their ground outside the Watson Hotel in Hell’s Kitchen on Sunday night and refused to leave for a new shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

Cops had mobilized around the hotel around 10 p.m. as more than 50 migrants were standing outside with activists assisting with food, water and translations.

Single men were supposed to be brought to the new shelter over the weekend that would provide the same services they’ve been receiving, city officials said.

At one point, a city bus arrived and a small number of migrants jumped on, though the vast majority stayed put in front of the hotel on West 57th Street. Activists argued the migrants were being forced out of the hotel.

One Manhattan activist told The Post the men outside were staying at the hotel and were prepared to stay outside overnight. Some were moved to the new shelter earlier this weekend, but opted to return to the Manhattan site, she said.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Migrants are ‘Drinking All Day,’ ‘Having Sex in the Stairs’ in Taxpayer-Funded Luxury New York Hotels: Whistleblower

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

NIH Records Reveal FBI Inquiry of Wuhan Grant Records Show ‘Gain-of-Function’ Concerns about Wuhan Lab Going Back to 2016

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Washington, D.C. — Judicial Watch announced today that it received 1651 pages of records from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealing an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.

The records also show EcoHealth Alliance’s legal team suggesting that a records request for data on their bat coronavirus research in Wuhan be denied because of the January 6 disturbance.

Judicial Watch obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records of communications, contracts and agreements with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-00696)).

In an email dated May 22, 2020, with the subject line, “Grant Questions – FBI Inquiry – 1-R01A1I110964-01 – 2-R01AI110964-06,” Ashley Sanders, a senior investigations officer in the NIH Division of Program Integrity, within NIH’s Office of Management Assessment, emails David A. Miller, an agent at the FBI’s Newark Field Office to inform Miller, “In preparation for our call on Tuesday, Erik [Stemmy] (cc’d) has provided responses to your initial questions below (also attached).” Also copied on Sanders’ email is Mike Shannon, whose email address indicates he works in the NIH Office of the Director. The responses are completely redacted but are labeled “SF [Standard Form] 424 AI110964-06 (received date 11/05/2018),” which refers to NIH grant award R01AI110964, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

The records reveal several indications of gain-of-function research, as well as failures to comply with reporting regulations, including a May 9, 2016, email marked “High” importance, in which NIH official Carine Normil notes Peter Daszak’s failure to file a progress report on EcoHealth’s bat coronavirus research:

This is the second communication from NIAID requesting that you file the progress report for the above-referenced grant [5R01AI110964] that was due no later than April 15, 2016. Please submit the delinquent report by May 12, 2016…. [P]lease be advised that continued late submission of your non-competing grant progress report and any subsequently requested documentation will result in a reduction of time and/or funds for this grant.

NIAID official Erik Stemmy, who is copied on her email, replies to Normil noting, “They have proposed work for the next year of the award that may be subject to the gain-of-function funding pause.”  

EcoHealth Alliance Chief of Staff Alexa Chmura separately responds to Normil saying, “We received a warning that one of the publications [redacted] listed from the past year is non-compliant.”

In a letter dated May 28, 2016, from NIH official Jenny Greer and NIH Program Manager Erik Stemmy, the officials advise Chmura that the NIH grant for the Wuhan bat project, “may include Gain of Function (GoF) research that is subject to the U.S. Government funding pause … issued on October 17, 2014.” They add that this pause was based on the following line in the grant application: “Aim 3: Testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission.”

In an email dated June 15, 2016, from Stemmy to Grant Operations, Stemmy notes that the EcoHealth bat research at WIV may include gain-of-function research: “The Daszak award may have GoF [gain-of-function] and I’ve been in touch with the GMS [Grants Management Specialist] for a while now.”

In an email dated August 3, 2021, EcoHealth Alliance Chief of Staff Aleksei Chmura sends an email to NIH officials with the subject line “5 ROl AI110964 (Interim Report),” which is the grant number for the “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” program. The report, which seems to detail gain-of-function research, is attached:

To analyze which viruses were a potential public health risk, we managed to cultivate three strains of SARSr-CoVs from bat feces… We used the genetic codes of some of the other viruses we found in bats and inserted spike protein genes of those viruses (the proteins that attach to cells) into the cultured viruses. By doing this experiment we showed that other viruses may also be able to infect human cells, and were able to do this safely without the need to culture large amounts of virus…. This work proves that there is a clear and present danger for future emergence of novel SARS-like viruses in people.

The August 2021 report also details that $66,500 of the award was budgeted for China in the grant period June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2019.

Records in 2020 include an April 21 NIH email thread regarding “additional subawardees,” referring to NIH grant award R01AI110964 “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” Ten facilities are listed including:

Wuhan Institute of Virology, China;

Institute of Pathogen Biology, China;

Duke-NUS, Singapore;

San Pya Clinic, Burma;

Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, Cambodia;

Primate Research Center at Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia;

Conservation Medicine, Ltd, Malaysia;

King Chulagongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thailand;

Hanoi Agricultural University, Vietnam;

National Animal Health Laboratory, Laos;

East China Normal University, China, is listed as a “consultant.”

Also in this thread, on April 21, 2020, senior NIH official Matthew Fenton advises his NIH colleagues that in the EcoHealth Wuhan bat project’s grant, the WIV received $76,301 one year, the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing received $75,600 and the East China Normal University in Shanghai received $49,750. 

In an October 23, 2020, letter NIH Deputy Director Michael Lauer notes to Daszak that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had not satisfied safety requirements that applied to subawards with EcoHealth:

[W]e have concerns that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which previously served as a subrecipient of the Project, had not satisfied safety requirements that applied to its subawards with EcoHealth, and that EcoHealth had not satisfied its obligations to monitor the activities of its subrecipient to ensure compliance.”  

Lauer then enumerated all the funds WIV had received in the first five years of the grant through EcoHealth, including $133,595, $139,015, $159,122, $159,122 and $159,122.

In an email dated April 11, 2021, and flagged as “High” importance, Daszak acknowledges that he knows FOIA requests would be inevitable for information on EcoHealth’s work.

I’ve tried to stick to a logical argument, but I’m also mindful of the dozens of FoIA requests targeting EHA [EcoHealth Alliance] and myself and that previous letters have been leaked to the press, so have made sure all details are laid out. I do not aim to make this letter public, of course and am sending this to you confidentially.

In an email and letter both dated April 11, 2021, Daszak informs Lauer that it would be difficult to get the information Lauer requested about the Wuhan bat project because of the termination of EcoHealth’s funding:

This termination of a funded relationship with the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] makes it extraordinarily difficult and more likely impossible to provide the information requested about an autonomous foreign organization – as would also be the case for a domestic one – that our organization neither works with currently, nor has control over.

Daszak further states that NIH’s FOIA officer, Gorka Garcia-Malene, had informed Daszak that “any indication from my program [NIH FOIA Office] that there is an ongoing investigation into WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology] can now be disregarded, as we recently confirmed there are no pending investigations into that organization.” [Emphasis in original]

NIH asks EcoHealth to “Provide [a sample] of the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus that WIV used to determine the viral sequence.” Daszak responds that it would be “effectively impossible” to request such a sample.

In response to NIH’s requirement to provide copies of all WIV biosafety reports from June 1, 2014, through May 31, 2019, Daszak writes, “Given the intense geopolitical pressure around the accusations that WIV intentionally or accidentally released SARS-CoV-2 (something which the WHO mission deemed ‘extremely unlikely’), obtaining such information is not a plausible option at present.” Daszak includes email correspondence between the law firm representing EcoHealth and NIH’s FOIA office on January 25, 2021. When NIH sought assistance from EcoHealth in processing a FOIA request, the law firm’s representative said the FOIA request should be denied because of the January 6 disturbance: “[A]s demonstrated by the recent attack on the US Capitol fueled by disinformation and conspiracy theories, the need to protect the privacy of EcoHealth Alliance’s employees and affiliates is more important than ever.”

In a letter dated April 13, 2021, Lauer indicates that Daszak has failed to provide all reports and documents that NIH had previously asked him to produce regarding NIH grant R01AI100964. Lauer also cites the contract language requiring Daszak to provide these documents. 

In a letter dated July 23, 2021, from Lauer to Daszak and Chmura, Lauer requires EcoHealth to produce detailed records relating to three of their NIH awards including the Wuhan Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence project as well as grant U01A/151797, titled Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia involving Chulalongkorn Hospital and Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, Duke-National Singapore University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and grant U01A/153420 involving the International Center for Diarrhoearal Disease Research of Bangladesh, Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research of Bangladesh. Lauer writes:

For us to continue our analyses, we will need to receive and review WIV’s [Wuhan Institute of Virology] records validating expenditures specific to R01AI100964 … that WIV submitted to you. As a reminder, subawardees are required to have a financial management system that includes records that identify adequately the source and application of funds for federally-funded activities.

[ *** ]

We will also need to see subaward agreements, subawardee audit reports, subawardee safety monitoring documents, subawardee progress reports submitted to you, and subawardee financial and accounting records for two other NIH EcoHealth Alliance grants. 

Lauer informs Daszak that the NIH had determined EcoHealth to be out of compliance:

We are also writing to notify you that a review of our records for R01AI100964 [the Wuhan bat project] indicates that EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. is out of compliance with requirements to submit the following reports that are outlined in the NIHGPS [National Institutes of Health Grants Policy Statement]: the Federal Financial Report … and the Interim Research Performance Progress Report … 

Lauer adds that the grant was issued under a “Streamlined Noncompeting Award Process (SNAP)” and that EcoHealth Alliance had not submitted a required report that was due months earlier. Lauer warns Daszak, “[A] history of non-compliance related to R01AI100964, including reporting non-compliance, may impact other projects where EcoHealth serves as the primary grant recipient.”

(The NIH in April 2020 suspended funding to EcoHealth Alliance that “had previously established a partnership with a virology laboratory in Wuhan, China,” but in August 2021 provided a grant of $7.5 million that would reportedly “focus on Southeast Asia and the emergence of coronaviruses; filoviruses, the family responsible for Ebola; and paramyxoviruses, a family of viruses that includes measles and mumps.”)

“The incredible disclosure of an FBI inquiry shows that Fauci and others involved in this scandal were being dishonest in dismissing the seriousness of questions about their cover-up of their funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in China,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Any FBI inquiry would be appropriate as these documents, extracted by Judicial Watch after years of stonewalling, also show that Fauci’s agency knew and should have known, going back to 2016, that it funded dangerous and prohibited gain-of-function research in China,” 

Previous disclosures from this lawsuit include:

  • HHS records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.
  • NIAID records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
  • HHS records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci ” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international counsels as high level commitment from China.”
  • HHS records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appears to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
  • HHS records showed the State Department and NIAID knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding COVID data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.

Through FOIA requests and lawsuits, Judicial Watch has uncovered a substantial amount of information about COVID-19 issues:

  • May 2022: University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records show the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the COVID issue by Congress.
  • May 2022: HHS records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the COVID-19 vaccines show a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
  • April 2022: Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) reveal safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.
  • March 2022: HHS records include emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19.
  • March 2021: HHS records show that NIH officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
  • October 2020: Fauci emails include his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.

RELATED ARTICLES:

NIH gave EcoHealth Alliance money for risky coronavirus research without proper oversight, watchdog finds

Documents Show Wuhan Lab Asked NIH Official for Information on Disinfectants; Nine Fauci Agency Grants for EcoHealth Bat Coronavirus Research

Fauci Agency COVID Emails Detail Discussions about Wuhan Institute; Describe Gates Foundation Placement of Chinese Representatives on ‘Important International Counsels’

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Listen to Mitt Romney Explain Why Supporting Ukraine is Good for America — Laugh of the Day

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After reading an article about top Ukrainian officials resigning after blowing billions of U.S. dollars on cars, mansions, and high priced vacations, I’ve heard no good reasons why the U.S. national interests and security are at stake in Ukraine.

Listen to establishment RINO Mitt Romney’s explanation in the below 3 1/2 minute video.

Mitt Romney says US support of Ukraine is good for Americans

Utah Republican says aid for Ukraine consistent with US spending on its own national security

By Dennis Romboy, Jan 26, 2023

Sen. Mitt Romney says if Americans say the United States should not spend money to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, they should probably say the U.S. shouldn’t spend money on its own national defense either.

“And that makes no sense at all,” the Utah Republican said in a social media post Thursday.

Romney said in the 3 ½-minute video that he is often asked why the war in Ukraine is an American interest and why supporting it is good for Americans.

“So when people say ‘What does this do for America?’ Well, why do we spend money on national defense? We could just take all that money and spend it here on ourselves,” he said. “But we spend on national defense because we know that if we do so, it makes it more likely we’ll be safe and prosperous and our lives will be spared.”

In the video, Romney outlines the reasons he believes backing Ukraine is vital to the United States.

“I begin, of course, with just the humanitarian reality, we care of course about human life and the suffering that’s going on in Ukraine,” he said. “We’re just appalled by the fact that Russia has invaded a peaceful, sovereign nation next door.”

Continued American prosperity depends on peace, Romney said.

“We have better jobs and better incomes and better prospects for our future if the world is at peace. If the world is in conflict, things aren’t good for us as well as for other people around the world,” he said.

“But conflict makes us less well off, so a peaceful world makes us better off. It’s good for Americans.”

Romney said that if a country believes it can invade a neighbor without any response or reaction, it will happen again and again. Ultimately, he said, violence keeps spreading and “involves us and we end up being attacked ourselves.”

Read more.

©Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

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