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Biden Regime Launches Task Force on Chinese Censorship, Drawing Criticism for Hypocrisy

By Didi Rankovic – Reclaim The Net – December 16, 2024

The Biden-Harris administration has revealed it was setting up an action group to “monitor and address the effects” of any censorship or intimidation of Americans by China.

Signed by President Joe Biden, the memorandum addressed heads of executive departments and agencies, while the task force is to be led by the assistant to the president for National Security Affairs and the director of the National Economic Council.

This move comes after the administration spent the past four years doubling and tripling down on policies encouraging unprecedented censorship at home and being sued and investigated for colluding (through pressure via third parties) with social platforms and other tech companies to do its (unconstitutional) bidding.

Hypocrisy this may be, but that might be the least of the problems with this sudden spurt of activity by an administration that is weeks away from exiting, stage left.

If we choose to forget that many of the censorship and surveillance mechanisms that permeated the soon-to-be former administration’s activities were regularly mentioned by critics as “inspired” by those used by China’s authorities, the question remains: why establish an entirely new “task force” and why now?

The departments and agencies that will be represented at assistant secretary or above level include the departments of state, defense, treasury, commerce, agriculture, education, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the FBI, the director of National Intelligence, etc. – plus, “other agencies and offices as the President may, from time to time, designate.”

Opponents of the Chinese authorities and their notorious brand of censorship welcome the move and believe it should be endorsed by the incoming Trump administration, but also – somehow – expanded to China itself.

Declarative statements about the purpose of such “monitoring” outfits are one thing, but recent history shows how far those can veer off course.

One cautionary tale is the Department of Homeland Security’s Global Engagement Sector (GEC) which was set up to direct, lead, and coordinate US government efforts countering foreign state propaganda and disinformation.

What that turned out to be, however, is a weapon of censorship pointed at Americans, that used third parties to circumvent legal constraints and push biased, partisan narratives at home.

December 16, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Blinken Announces New $500Mln Military Aid Package for Ukraine

Sputnik – 13.12.2024

The US will provide Ukraine with an additional military aid package worth $500 million, State Secretary Antony Blinken said on Friday.

“As part of the surge in security assistance that President Biden announced on September 26, the United States is providing another significant package of urgently needed weapons and equipment to our Ukrainian partners… This additional assistance, provided under previous drawdowns from Department of Defense stocks, is valued at $500 million,” Blinken said in a statement.

The package will include artillery munition, Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (c-UAS) munitions, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as protection equipment for chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, he added.

Russia believes that arms supplies to Ukraine hinder the settlement, directly involving NATO countries in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russia. According to lavrov, the US and NATO are directly involved in the conflict, including not only by supplying weapons, but also by training personnel in the UK, Germany, Italy, and other countries.

December 13, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Strikes deep into Russia ‘big mistake’ – Trump

RT | December 12, 2024

US President-elect Donald Trump has criticized Ukraine’s strikes deep into Russia using Western-supplied weapons, saying that they only escalate the conflict between Kiev and Moscow.

Trump made the statement on Thursday in an interview with Time magazine, which named him the 2024 Person of the Year.

“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?” he asked rhetorically.

According to the president-elect, such attacks are “just escalating this war and making it worse.”

“That should not have been allowed to be done… And I think that is a very big mistake, very big mistake,” he said of strikes deep into Russia’s internationally recognized territory.

Trump returned to the issue later in the interview, saying that “the most dangerous thing right now” is the fact that “[Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President [Joe Biden], to start shooting missiles into Russia.”

“I think that is a major escalation. I think it is a foolish decision,” he stressed.

The US president-elect’s comments came a day after the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian forces had fired six US-supplied ATACMS missiles at a military airfield near the southern city of Taganrog.

Two of them were shot down and the rest were diverted using electronic warfare during the attack, the ministry said. The fallen debris resulted in some injuries and minor damage to two buildings and several vehicles, it added.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s response to the strike on Taganrog “will follow at the time and in the way that will be deemed appropriate. But it will definitely follow.”

In late November, Russia used its new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile system for the first time, striking the Yuzhmash military plant in the Ukrainian city of Dnepr.

According to Moscow, the deployment of the state-of-the-art weapon was a response to Washington and its allies allowing Ukraine to target internationally recognized Russian territory with the long-range weapons they supply to Kiev.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the time that if Ukraine’s attacks deep inside Russia continue, Moscow reserves the right “to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.”

December 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

The Real Scandal of Hunter‘s Pardon

By Ron Paul | December 9, 2024

Politicians and pundits spent much of last week commenting on President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter for lying on a federal gun purchase form, failing to pay taxes, and any other offenses he may have committed over the past decade. Much of the controversy is because President Biden repeatedly pledged that he would never pardon his son.

Some have also observed that the pardon’s timeline starts the year Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukraine energy company Burisma. This has led to speculation that President Biden is trying to block any investigation into links between his son’s business dealings and President Biden’s Ukraine policy.

What has not been widely discussed is the fact that Hunter Biden may be the only American President Biden has pardoned for violating unconstitutional federal gun and drug laws.

Hunter Biden was convicted of lying on federal Form 4473. This is a form Americans must fill out to get federal government “permission” to purchase a firearm. Specifically, Hunter Biden gave a false answer to the question, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”

The Second Amendment forbids the federal government from limiting the ability of any American to exercise his natural right to own a firearm. Furthermore, federal drug laws are themselves unconstitutional.

The Constitution only creates three federal crimes: treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. All other crimes are under the jurisdiction of state and local governments. So, the required use of this form is a constitutional violation of the rights of Hunter Biden and all other Americans who are subjected to it when they seek to obtain a gun.

Form 4473 warns Americans that “the use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.” Thus, someone could be prevented from exercising his Second Amendment right because of his activities that are perfectly legal in his state. This turns federalism on its head.

Hunter Biden was also convicted of, and pardoned for, tax evasion and the filing of fraudulent tax returns. It is hard for anyone who values liberty to get upset at those who violate the tax laws since the income tax is a form of theft by the government of people’s hard-earned income.

An outrage of Hunter Biden’s pardon is President Biden’s hypocrisy. When he served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, then-Senator Biden played a major role in getting through Congress the Brady Law that created the federal gun purchase background check system that Hunter Biden was convicted of violating. Senator Biden also was a leading drug warrior who led the fight to pass the 1994 crime bill and was a champion of mandatory minimums and other infringements of civil liberties in the name of the war on drugs. President Biden also supported hiring more IRS agents to squeeze more money from taxpayers.

Then-Senator Biden wrote large parts of the PATRIOT Act. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden also led the effort to pass the unconstitutional (and disastrous) “authorization for use of military force” against Iraq.

President Biden should spend his last month in office pardoning more Americans for violations of unconstitutional drug and gun laws. This would serve as a small gesture of atonement for a political career spent advocating policies destructive of peace, prosperity, and liberty.

December 9, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Kiev reveals terms of $20 billion US loan

RT | December 9, 2024

The Ukrainian government has approved the terms of a conditional agreement with the US Federal Financing Bank (FFB) for a 40-year loan of $20 billion which will be backed by profits from frozen Russian state assets.

It’s part of a broader $50 billion G7 loan deal, which includes a separate $20 billion EU commitment, and $10 billion to be split by G7 members Britain, Japan and Canada.

The money will be transferred to the Facilitation of Resources to Invest in Strengthening Ukraine Financial Intermediary Fund, established by the World Bank on October 10, “for the sake of the state,” a resolution issued by Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers on Friday stated.

The transfer will be based on a Certificate Purchase Agreement between Ukraine, the FFB, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), along with a loan guarantee and repayment agreement between Ukraine and USAID.

Under the deal, Ukraine’s Finance Ministry will issue a certificate of indebtedness to the FFB, guaranteed by USAID, the government resolution said.

The loan, which has an annual interest rate of 1.3% plus the current average rate for one-year US Treasury bills, will be repaid using interest earned from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.

The US and its allies froze an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. In June, G7 members pledged a $50 billion loan for Kiev, with the frozen Russian assets to be used as collateral, to help Kiev buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure. The agreement was finalized in October.

Moscow has repeatedly denounced the asset freeze as “theft” and argued that tapping into these funds would be illegal and set a dangerous precedent. The Russian Finance Ministry has warned that it will initiate retaliatory measures mirroring the West’s actions against resources of Western investors held in the country.

The latest move is part of the current US administration’s last-minute strategy to bolster Kiev’s war effort, which includes a new $725 million military aid package to Kiev and another round of sanctions against Russia. It comes as uncertainty grows over Washington’s commitments under the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump, particularly after US House Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed President Joe Biden’s request to include $24 billion in additional aid to Ukraine in a government funding bill last week.

December 9, 2024 Posted by | Corruption | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Preemptive Pardons & Banana Republics

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | December 6, 2024

News that President Biden is contemplating issuing “preemptive pardons” of Dr. Anthony Fauci and others, even though they have not been charged with crimes, reminded me of an African dictator I have long considered to be one of the most colorful and bizarre in the world—namely, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has served as the second President of Equatorial Guinea since 1982, three years after he staged a coup against his uncle.

The Equatorial Guinea constitution provides Obiang sweeping powers, including the right to rule by decree, effectively making his government a legal dictatorship. He has also placed family members in key government positions. In other words, Obiang’s personal preferences in public affairs are the law.

A “preemptive pardon” is not a legal action and has no legal precedent. It is a purely political action that is based on the false proposition that President Trump will, once in office, possess the power to initiate federal investigations without having to adhere to legal procedures and rules of evidence.

Because Democrats and their friends in the media have conditioned millions of Americans to believe that Trump is an inherently defective authoritarian, the Biden Administration may be tempted to believe that it can get away with such a crass political maneuver.

This is a variation of the same gambit the Democrats deployed when they impeached Trump for merely requesting, in July 2019, that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy investigate Joe Biden’s business activities in Ukraine. When this request came to light, Democrats and their friends in the media acted as though the mere request was an outrage, even though there was a mountain of evidence that the Bidens had, since 2014, participated in a spectacularly corrupt scheme in Ukraine for which they had received millions of dollars.

Five years after the Democrats in the House initiated impeachment proceedings against President Trump, President Biden pardoned his son for “offenses Hunter Biden has committed or may have committed or taken part in” between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024.”

Any “preemptive pardon” issued by President Biden should be viewed as the same species of corrupt political action, and not as a lawful act.

December 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption | , | Leave a comment

‘An Extraordinary Step’: White House Mulls ‘Preemptive’ Pardon for Fauci

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 6, 2024

Senior aides to President Joe Biden are “conducting a vigorous internal debate” on whether to grant preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci and other current and former public officials whom they fear the incoming administration might target, Politico reported Wednesday.

CNN described the proposed pardons as “an extraordinary step” that would immunize people who have not been formally accused of a crime.

According to Politico, fears that current and former government officials may face inquiries or indictments “accelerated” after President-elect Donald Trump last week nominated Kash Patel to head the FBI. Patel has publicly stated he will pursue Trump’s critics.

Fauci, who according to Politico “became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic,” did not respond to the outlet’s requests for comment.

Politico reported that White House counsel Ed Siskel is leading deliberations on the matter, and Chief of Staff Jeff Zients is also playing a key role in the discussions.

Zients, formerly the Biden administration’s COVID-19 “czar,” publicly promoted universal COVID-19 vaccination. In 2021, he spoke about “the winter of illness and death for the unvaccinated.”

Attorney Greg Glaser told The Defender, “The U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 2, confirms the President’s power ‘to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.’”

The Huffington Post reported that preemptive presidential pardons “are rare but not unprecedented.”

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender, “A blanket pardon by President Biden to Fauci would cover his gross violations [of] federal statutes that are too numerous to list” but “could not cover his crimes committed under the criminal laws of the 50 U.S. states.”

“Biden’s ‘get out of jail free’ card only applies to federal prison, not state prison,” Glaser said.

Joseph Sansone, Ph.D., who proposed legislation to ban COVID-19 and mRNA vaccines in Florida, told The Defender, “The use of preemptive pardons appears to be a violation of the Separation of Powers inherent in the U.S. Constitution.”

“The purpose of a pardon is to correct a judicial error or miscarriage of justice, not to preempt judicial action,” Sansone said. “Unless a coconspirator, no president could know the scope of the crimes being pardoned if the person has not been convicted or even charged.”

But according to Glaser, “A federal pardon by Biden cannot be overturned by President Trump or even reversed by Congress without a constitutional amendment to Article II, Section 2 or upon proof that Biden’s pardon was itself unlawful.”

Fauci pardon may help conceal ‘massive scale of criminal wrongdoing’

What would a preemptive pardon for Fauci cover? Criminal defense attorney Rick Jaffe told The Defender that if he were Fauci’s lawyer, he would seek a pardon that “covers all testimony provided to Congress since at least the start of the pandemic.”

The pardon could also include all actions relating to the U.S. government’s funding of gain-of-function research and all actions in which Fauci is alleged to be part of a conspiracy to mislead government officials and the public,” Jaffe said.

“I’d throw in immunity from any action by the federal government to terminate his pension or his royalty payments from pharma, because trying to do that will probably be very high on the new government’s list,” Jaffe added.

Journalist Paul Thacker, formerly a U.S. Senate investigator, told The Defender “Sen. Rand Paul has sent two separate referrals to the Department of Justice to prosecute Fauci” for “lying and/or misleading Congress. Fauci was also caught lying to Congress about his use of private email to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests, something that I have reported on, as has The New York Post,” Thacker said.

Brianne Dressen, a participant in AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials who was injured by the shot, later took part in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study of vaccine-injured people “that got shot down and hidden.” Dressen told The Defender pardoning Fauci would silence vaccine injury victims. She said:

“The Biden administration silenced true stories of COVID vaccine injuries online at the same time that Fauci was flying COVID vaccine-injured to NIH headquarters to be studied. It’s no surprise Biden may close the loop to protect him.

“This pardon isn’t just about protecting him. Discovery alone would shine a light on things we still don’t know about that happened at the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

“How better to circumvent a process likely to reveal a massive scale of criminal wrongdoing — not just by Dr. Fauci but by layers and layers of his allies in both the government and the private sector — than by preemptively pardoning him?” asked Naomi Wolf, CEO of Daily Clout and author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity.”

Fauci pardon would show public health decisions ‘beyond the reach of justice’

According to Politico, some congressional Democrats — “though not those seeking pardons themselves” — have engaged in “quiet lobbying” recently in an effort to convince Biden to issue the preemptive pardons.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has come out in favor of Biden issuing preemptive pardons. In an interview with Boston Public Radio last week, Markey cited the precedent of former President Gerald Ford, who granted a preemptive pardon to Richard Nixon before any charges were filed against him following his impeachment.

However, the proposed preemptive pardons have “caused a stir” among other Democrats, “with some saying the move erodes Americans’ faith in the justice system,” the Huffington Post reported. According to Politico, some Democrats are concerned the pardons “could suggest impropriety, only fueling Trump’s criticisms.”

“I just haven’t heard a good case to be made for pardoning behavior that hasn’t yet been committed or hasn’t yet been defined,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told USA Today. Referencing his term as Virginia’s governor, Kaine said he used pardon power “in individual cases to grant pardons to people who have been convicted.”

“The idea of just kind of general vague, pardon for unknown activities that haven’t been charged. That is so susceptible to abuse,” Kaine said.

According to CNN, “Attorneys across the political spectrum” have also “raised concerns about blanket pardons.”

“You would create the beginning of a tit for tat where, when any administration is over, you just pardon everybody,” Neil Eggleston, former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, told CNN.

According to The Washington Post, “The notion of sweeping preemptive pardons for offenses that have not yet been charged, and may never be, is largely untested.”

Jeffrey Crouch, J.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of politics at American University and expert on presidential pardon powers, told USA Today that a president can grant a pardon as soon as a federal crime is committed, without waiting until someone is charged, tried or convicted.

Crouch said it is unclear whether beneficiaries of such pardons would be admitting guilt by accepting the pardon. Crouch said the Biden administration would be in “uncharted waters” and warned that preemptive pardons “could weaponize clemency” and stray far beyond the intended constitutional use of pardon power.

Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo, was named one of the “The Disinformation Dozen” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate in 2021 — a list subsequently used by the White House to pressure social media platforms to censor those individuals. He told The Defender preemptively pardoning Fauci would be an abuse of power.

He said:

“These were not mere administrative decisions, but profound exercises of authority that reached into the sanctum of personal liberty, that redefined the boundaries of state power and touched the very foundations of how citizens relate to their government.

“A preemptive pardon for Dr. Fauci would pierce the sacred covenant between those who govern and those who consent to be governed — a bond as old as democracy itself. Such an extraordinary shield … would signal that the architects of our most consequential public health decisions stand beyond the reach of justice.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

December 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , | 1 Comment

Why Biden Allowed Ukraine to Fire US missiles into Russia

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – December 5, 2024

Washington’s (and London’s) decision to allow Ukraine to fire their missiles into Russia is a clear escalation, but the timing explains most of the puzzle underlying this decision.

It is not just Biden being reckless. It is not simply madness, either. It is politics with a touch of global geopolitics.

The Biden administration, having lost both presidential and congressional elections to the Republicans, appears to be following a scorched-earth policy. Before Trump is sworn in, and before he can move towards a negotiated resolution of the Russia-Ukraine (NATO) military conflict in 2025, the outgoing administration seems willing to make issues much more complicated – and deadly – than they currently are. At the heart of these calculated escalations is the American “deep state” unhappy with Trump’s success and the prospects of him pulling NATO back from Ukraine, thus undoing American hegemony. Trump claimed, during his campaign, that he will end wars. The American “deep state” does not want to let him do this – at least, not easily.

The Timing

For a long time, the Biden administration resisted allowing Ukraine to fire US missiles into Russian territory. This firing represents a “new phase” in the ongoing conflict for Moscow. There is potentially no other way for Moscow to see things. A pro-Democrats response is that the decision was motivated by the Biden administration’s desire to strengthen Ukraine’s position vis-à-vis Russia in the wake of upcoming possible negotiations. However, if this truly was the main intention, why did the Biden administration not reach the same conclusion during the peak time of the presidency, i.e., a year earlier, for instance? The Biden administration could have done the same escalation, hoping that this would push Russia to come to the negotiating table. Except, the Biden administration did not make such a decision for one chief reason.

They understood Moscow’s response would be deadlier, which would escalate the war more than Washington and NATO could handle. A deadly escalation, the Biden administration maintained, could cost them the elections. Now that they have already lost the elections – and there is nothing they can do about it now – they are escalating the war deliberately to scuttle the Trump administration. If the war escalates, it will make it harder for the Trump administration to negotiate with Russia. It will also make it harder for the Trump administration to negotiate with US allies in Europe as well. The more complicated the issue becomes, the more time it will take to find a resolution. Overall, this will give the Democrats a political opportunity to shift the blame to the Trump administration for its failure to quickly end conflicts. For the Democrats, this could be one of the key points they could raise in the midterm elections.

A key official of the Biden administration indirectly acknowledged the politics driving the decision. Matthew Miller, State Department spokesperson, defended the decision during a press briefing saying that the “American people elected Joe Biden to a four-year term, not to a term of three years and 10 months, and we will use every day of our term to pursue the foreign policy interests that, we believe, are in the interests of the American people.” One caveat is that the only interest that matters here is that of the Democrats.

The Reactions

The Trump administration understands this politics. In a post on X, Donald Trump Jr said the change was aimed at getting “World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives”. Trump’s pick for national security adviser, US Representative Mike Waltz, called it “another step up the escalation ladder … and nobody knows where this is going,” he said on Fox News. Former Trump cabinet member Richard Grenell also accused Biden of moving to “escalate the war in Ukraine during the transition period”. “This is as if he is launching a whole new war. Everything has changed now. All previous calculations are null and void,” he added.

This reaction makes sense because Ukraine has received only a few dozen of the ATACMS systems. If the Biden administration really wanted to strengthen Ukraine’s position, a first step would have been to ensure sufficient supplies of this system. If Ukraine is likely to fire up its entire stockpile too quickly to make any meaningful impact, the only sense this escalation makes is that it makes a negotiated end of the conflict much more complicated. Anymore escalation before Trump assumes control in January – and this escalation is very much possible – means the conflict will continue to rage in the months to come.

The End Game

Most people understand that the Trump administration would bring the conflict to an end. For one thing, Trump does not intend to use military conflicts to advance US foreign policy interests. Secondly, Trump has the “America First” policy at the heart of his politics. People who understand how misfit military conflicts are within the Trump camp include not only the Democrats but also Ukraine’s own president, who went on record two weeks ago to say that the conflict will end “sooner” now that Trump has won.

For the anti-Russia camp within the American “deep state”, this expectation is deeply unsettling. It would mean NATO will not be able to expand into Europe any further. NATO’s failure will create fresh openings for European states to chart their own foreign policy courses, including relations with Russia. In fact, this is already happening. When the German chancellor recently spoke with the Russian President, he did not do so to merely talk about the possibility of ending the conflict, but also to get a sense of their post-conflict bilateral relations. More importantly, Germany initiated the call. There is, thus, a possibility of Germany resuming gas supplies from Russia. Indeed, both leaders discussed the possibility of “cooperation” on energy trade.

In Washington, the fear is that this one call is going to encourage other European leaders to pick up their phones and talk to Vladimir Putin. It means Washington will lose control of the situation. These people in Washington do not want to let that happen; hence, a key geopolitical reason to escalate the conflict is to scuttle the end gam, which is very much on the horizon already.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

December 5, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | 1 Comment

US House speaker rules out more Ukraine aid

RT | December 4, 2024

The US House of Representatives will not consider President Joe Biden’s request to include $24 billion in additional aid to Ukraine in a continuing government funding bill, Speaker Mike Johnson has said.

In the absence of a formal budget, the US government has been funded through “continuing resolutions” that Congress needs to approve periodically. The White House has requested the $24 billion as part of the last such piece of legislation the House would need to adopt before adjourning for Christmas holidays.

“I’m not planning to that,” Johnson said on Wednesday, at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “It is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now.”

The Louisiana Republican reminded reporters that he had predicted Donald Trump’s election would change the dynamics of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and make further US funding unnecessary, adding that this is precisely what’s been happening in recent weeks.

“We have a newly-elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander-in-chief’s direction on all of that,” Johnson said. “So I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now.”

Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion to prop up Ukraine in its ongoing military conflict with Russia. The latest batch of funding, amounting to $61 billion, was held up for several months amid a battle between Johnson and the White House.

The previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last October because a group of Republicans was outraged he had secretly negotiated with Democrats to get the Ukraine funding approved. The funding ended up stuck in Congress for almost six months, before it was approved in both the Senate and the House in April, with no concessions to the GOP.

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US embassy in Kiev blocking Zelensky interview – Tucker Carlson

RT | December 4, 2024

American journalist Tucker Carlson has said the US government has been blocking his attempts to organize an interview with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky for more than a year.

On Wednesday, Carlson published a video on X in which he previewed the upcoming release of an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The journalist said the conversation with Russia’s top diplomat was aimed at providing a perspective on how close Washington and Moscow could be to a direct clash, after the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden granted Ukraine permission to fire American-made long-range weapons deep into Russian territory.

In the same clip, filmed on Manezhnaya Square in the heart of Moscow, the former Fox News host revealed that “we have also tried for over a year to get an interview with Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.”

According to Carlson, his team “have attacked that from a bunch of different angles. We have spoken to a lot of different people around him, had dinner with them. We have been in talks continuously.”

“And those efforts have been thwarted by the US government. The American Embassy in Kiev, which our tax dollars pay for, told the Zelensky government: No, you may not do the interview. You can talk to CNN. You cannot talk to us,” Carlson said.

In June, the journalist said he had agreed an interview with the Ukrainian leader. However, Zelensky’s press-secretary, Sergey Nikiforov, swiftly rejected the claim, saying that “Tucker Carlson should check his sources in the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) more carefully.” Zelensky “has a completely different schedule, and Tucker Carlson is not on it,” Nikiforov stressed.

Carlson’s latest trip to Moscow is his second since the escalation between Russia and Ukraine in early 2022. In February, he interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the recording of their two-hour conversation getting 14 million views on YouTube and 185 million views on X in the first three days after its release.

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

The Pardoning of Hunter Biden’s Crimes in Ukraine

By Professor Glenn Diesen | December 3, 2024

Joe Biden promised not to pardon his son Hunter Biden, and was subsequently celebrated by the media for being principled and standing up for the rule of law. However, in a not-so-surprising move, Joe Biden reversed his position and issued a sweeping pardon with an incredible legal breadth. The pardon protects Hunter Biden from any crimes he may have committed over the past decade, since January 2014. This date is no accident, as it marks the beginning of the Biden family’s seedy and likely criminal activities in Ukraine.

Joe Biden was the Vice President when the West backed a coup in Ukraine in February 2014. The US sought to cement its control over Ukrainian resources for economic interests and as an instrument for political influence. Joe Biden involved his son to personally enrich himself and his family.

Three months after the coup, Hunter Biden and a close family friend of US Secretary of State, John Kerry, became board members of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The job paid $50.000 a month despite Hunter Biden having no experience or competencies in the gas industry or Ukraine. In 2017, the NATO think tank Atlantic Council and Burisma signed a cooperative agreement, with a focus on “energy security”.

Ukrainian General Prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, opened a corruption case against the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Joe Biden subsequently intervened by having Ukraine’s General Prosecutor fired with the threat of withholding a $1 billion US loan guarantee. Shokin, complained that since 2014, “the most shocking thing is that all the [government] appointments were made in agreement with the United States”. Washington’s behaviour, according to Shokin, indicated that they “believed that Ukraine was their fiefdom”.

Vice President Joe Biden insisted that the decision was not related to Burisma or his son, as he falsely alleged that he has “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealing”. However, Hunter Biden’s business partner in Burisma, Devon Archer, confirmed in July 2023 that Joe Biden was deeply involved in Hunter Biden’s business.

Scandals threatened Joe Biden’s campaign during the 2020 presidential election as the content of Hunter Biden’s communications was leaked. The criminal activities of Hunter Biden, which seemingly could implicate his father, could likely result in Trump winning the election.

The intelligence community intervened in the election as more than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter, published in Politico, supporting the narrative that the Biden laptop scandal was a Russian disinformation campaign and did not prove the crime of the Biden family. Twitter and Facebook immediately censured the story, while tensions with Russia escalated.

One year later, in September 2021, Politico acknowledged the authenticity of the Hunter Biden emails and that Russia was not involved in any way. Mark Zuckerberg also admitted that Facebook had been pressured to censor Hunter Biden laptop story, which was direct election interference in favour of Joe Biden.

Joe Biden’s pardon of his son’s decade-long involvement in Ukraine implicitly entails pardoning Joe Biden himself. It is very unlikely that anyone will be held accountable for the Biden crimes in Ukraine, and there will be continued loss of trust in both the legal system and the media.

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

ICC says facing threats over arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant

Press TV – December 2, 2024

The International Criminal Court (ICC) says it has faced coercion and intimidation after judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ousted war minister over war crimes in Gaza.

Addressing the ICC members in The Hague, ICC President Tomoko Akane said the court faced “coercive measures, threats, pressure, and acts of sabotage.”

“We are at a turning point in history… International law and international justice are under threat. So is the future of humanity.”

“The International Criminal Court will continue to carry out its lawful mandate, independently and impartially, without giving in to any outside interference.”

The ICC issued the arrest warrants on November 21.

The court determined there were “reasonable grounds” that Israel’s siege and assault on Gaza “created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population.”

Following the issuance of the warrants, the United States, Israel’s great benefactor and an accomplice in the Gaza genocide, swiftly rejected the ICC decision.

Some US Republicans called on the Senate to sanction the ICC. President Joe Biden said the warrants were “outrageous.”

“Several elected officials are being severely threatened and are subjected to arrest warrants from a permanent member of the UN Security Council,” the ICC president stated.

“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions from institutions of another permanent member of the Security Council as if it was a terrorist organization,” she said.

It is “appalling” that countries appear “scandalized” when the ICC hands down arrest warrants based on international law, Akane added.

“If the court collapses, this will inevitably imply the collapse of all situations and cases… The danger for the court is existential.”

DAWN, a US-based rights group that has welcomed the arrest warrants, has warned Biden administration officials – including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin – that they could be next.

December 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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