(Headline USA) President Joe Biden met with the chairman of a Chinese energy firm that Hunter Biden sought to do business with, according to testimony from one of Hunter Biden’s former business partners.
Rob Walker, a former business associate of Hunter’s, told the House Oversight and Judiciary committees earlier this month that Joe Biden attended a meeting where he, Hunter and their other business partners proposed a joint venture to CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.
“I don’t remember the exact time, but I remember being in Washington, D.C., and the former vice president stopped by. We were having lunch,” Walker said in his closed-door testimony, according to Fox News.
Walker estimated the meeting took place in 2017, after Joe Biden had finished his vice presidency.
“I can say it was for certain he was out of office,” Walker told lawmakers. “I’m certain—I’m certain Ye was there,” he continued, adding that there were also other CEFC business partners in the room.
The purpose of the meeting, according to Walker, was to discuss “ways we could work together” with CEFC.
“I don’t think we had structured a deal on how to work together at this point,” he said. “The former vice president was not there the entire time. He was there maybe 10 minutes. He spoke nice, you know, normal pleasantries. I think he probably did most of the talking and then left.”
Walker insisted that Joe Biden was not directly involved with Hunter Biden’s subsequent business deals with CEFC, but admitted that Hunter’s last name helped make deals happen.
“He had an interesting last name that would probably get people in the door,” Walker said. “It had just seemed—if a U.S. entity was going to have a foreign national represent them, It would probably make more sense to come from Hunter versus me.”
(Headline USA) Democrat senators admitted this week that President Joe Biden is in trouble following the release of a special counsel report that detailed his mental decline.
Special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, argued in his report that Biden should not be prosecuted for the crime because a jury was likely to see him as an “elderly” but “well-meaning” man with memory issues.
According to Hur, during their interview Biden could not remember when he was vice president or when his late son Beau Biden died.
The president and his allies have pushed back on the comments, writing off Hur’s report as a right-wing “hit job.” And even though Democrats on Capitol Hill reiterated their support for Biden’s reelection bid, several acknowledged that Biden’s campaign was in a tough spot.
“I’m nervous,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., according to the Washington Examiner. “But I’m pretty confident that people will make the right decision.”
Hickenlooper, who was found guilty in an ethics investigation of his own during his time as Colorado governor, also suggested Hur’s conclusions were political in nature.
“It certainly appeared to have a lot of information there that was not complimentary to the president but didn’t really have to do much with the decision, but that’s politics,” he said of the report.
“I’m not up in arms about it,” he added. “I don’t think there should be an inspector general looking into it. I think it’s where we are in our political universe right now.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who weathered concerns about his own mental fitness after suffering a stroke on the campaign trail, admitted that members of his own party were nervous about Biden’s ability to win reelection, but he dismissed their fears as “some kind of agenda.”
He went on to argue that Biden’s mental fitness shouldn’t be a top concern.
“Yes, President Biden is old. Trump is old. They’re essentially the same age,” Fetterman said.
“One has gaffes. The other has gaffes. One has files. The other one has files,” he continued. “It’s pretty much the same thing, but one of us isn’t saying, ‘If you don’t pay bills, I want Russia to invade you.’ And saying really crazy kind of s***.”
The press conference on Monday was held to honor the 75th anniversary of the two countries’ strategic partnership, but it was overshadowed by concerns about Biden’s mental fitness as he wandered around the stage.
Biden kicked off the conference, at one point making an awkward comment to the king, saying, “And by the way, Barack’s looking at you in the corner over there.”
After addressing attendees, Biden wandered from side to side around King Abdullah II as the king spoke, keeping his eyes fixated on the floor as if he were looking for something.
Biden’s pacing seemed to confuse Abdullah, who looked over his shoulder to figure out where the president was. Biden then commented to Abdullah, “I switched sides on you.”
The incident comes less than a week after special counsel Robert Hur revealed in a report that Biden’s memory has deteriorated significantly.
According to Hur, Biden could not remember during his interview with the special counsel when he served as vice president or when his late son Beau Biden died.
Biden has denied the legitimacy of Hur’s findings, writing them off as a Republican hit-job.
“My memory is fine,” he said during a press conference last Thursday. “None of you thought could I pass any of the things I got passed. How did that happen? I guess I just forgot what was going on.”
He went on in Thursday’s press conference to confuse the presidents of Mexico and Egypt.
Polls show the vast majority of Americans are concerned about Biden’s mental fitness. Currently, 86% of Americans believe Biden is “too old” to be president, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday and conducted after the release of the Hur report.
“Very very few stood for ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’” tweeted Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. “The Negro National Anthem. Not a pretty picture of Super Bowl crowd.”
Very very few stood at Super Bowl for “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. The Negro National Anthem. Not a pretty picture of Super Bowl crowd.,
Grammy winner Andra Day performed the song before the Super Bowl LVIII game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, drawing cheers from the crowd.
This year marked the second time the song was performed in an official capacity. It was one of several politically divisive measures that the NFL undertook despite criticism that the league had gone “woke.”
Critics pointed out that the “Star-Spangled Banner” was intended as the anthem for all Americans and that it was, in fact, racist, to have a separate but equal “black” anthem.
Others noted the hypocrisy of expecting people to stand following years of controversy over allowing black activists like former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to kneel during the national anthem.
The issue has been one of particular contention when players who knelt for the national anthem then stood for the performance of “Lift Every Voice.”
Cohen defended his comments in replies to users who pointed out that Democrats encouraged Americans to kneel during the actual national anthem.
“I stand for both. And in Memphis, most do,” he insisted.
Another user criticized the decision to include the anthem in the Super Bowl pre-festivities, arguing there shouldn’t be a separate anthem just for one race.
“Well, I honor our national anthem and respect it as representing our country and in our pride in it,” Cohen replied. “However if you look at the history and some of the verbiage, it does relate to slavery and not in a questioning manner.”
The NAACP first began to promote “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as the country’s “black national anthem” in 1917. Written by James Weldon Johnson, it was used as a civil rights rallying cry in the 1950s and 1960s, according to the organization.
Cohen has come under fire for his comments on race relations before. In 2013, for example, he claimed his black constituents see him as another black man.
“He goes, ‘Man, you’re black.’ And I took it was a compliment. I hear it in Memphis all the time. My constituents don’t look at me as a white person, they say, ‘You’re one of us,'” Cohen said at the time.
Judicial Watch sued the DHS last July about the matter, and said Tuesday that it received a new tranche of documents—including records that implicate Mayorkas in the decision to deny protection for RFK.
The specific record that implicates Mayorkas is a letter sent by him to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on July 21, 2023.
In that letter, Mayorkas said that on May 26, 2023, candidate for President Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. submitted a request to the Department of Homeland Security for United States Secret Service protection.
“In accordance with the authority set forth in Title 18, United States Code, Section 3056(a)(7), and in consultation with the Candidate Protection Advisory Committee, I decline to identify Candidate Kennedy for United States Secret Service protection at this time,” Mayorkas said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson were all recipients of Mayorkas’s letter, according to Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch’s Tuesday findings come on the heels of the group also obtaining records that showed Assistant Director Michael Plati ordering his staff not to respond to a request for information from RFK’s head of security. The documents also confirmed that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas and President Biden both have the discretion to provide Secret Service protection to Kennedy at any time, according to Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton blasted the Biden administration and the DHS for not providing protection to a presidential candidate whose father and uncle were both assassinated while serving as high government officials.
“It is simply despicable that Secretary Mayorkas refused needed Secret Service protection for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” said Fitton. “That it took a federal FOIA lawsuit to force out this information speaks volumes.”
Kennedy has also blasted the Secret Service and DHS for not taking seriously his requests for additional security—especially given his family history, but also because he is a presidential candidate.
“Every presidential administration for 55 years has afforded early protection to candidates who requested it,” he said in October. “The Biden administration is the sole outlier.”
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing allegations that it cut the benefits from Jan. 6 defendants who haven’t been convicted of felonies, which critics say is against VA policy.
The allegations were first reported last November by independent journalist Breanna Morello, who filed a lawsuit over the matter last week. Morello’s lawsuit claimed that the VA is stonewalling her Freedom of Information Act request for records about Jan. 6 defendants and VA benefit recipients JD Rivera, Hector Vargas Santos and Kenneth Harrelson.
I’m suing the Department of Veteran Affairs after they failed to comply with my FOIA request.
My FOIA request was in regards to several J6 defendants who saw a reduction in their benefits.
According to UncoverDC, which summarized Morello’s reporting, Rivera was told last July that the VA reduced his “from a 90% rate to a 10% rate effective the 61st day of confinement” following his conviction for disorderly conduct and trespassing on Capitol grounds.
“Rivera had no felony conviction, only misdemeanor charges,” UncoverDC reported Tuesday.
Santos is reportedly in a similar situation to Rivera, having been convicted of four misdemeanors for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021. According to UncoverDC, the VA erroneously alleged he had felony charges and notified him of their plans to reduce his VA benefits in July.
The VA reportedly has restored full benefits for Rivera and Santos—perhaps because of Morello’s reporting, UncoverDC speculated—but Santos wants to know why they were cut in the first place.
“It is the VA’s job to protect veteran’s rights,” Santos reportedly said. “They were too quick to take my benefits away. I had no one outside jail helping me either. I wish I could find out who gave the VA the wrong information.”
As for Harrelson, his benefits were allegedly removed unlawfully pre-trial. Harrison was one of the Oath Keepers sentenced to prison.
Harrison’s wife Angel was reportedly denied benefits because she was allegedly not named as a beneficiary in his VA file. She was also reportedly told that if were her husband to die, he would not be buried in a military cemetery.
According to Morello, Angel was recently sent a bill for over $4000. But that bill disappeared after the reporter started asking questions about it, she said.
“Magically, it disappeared two weeks later after … the VA reached out and asked Angel to sign some papers,” she reportedly said of the situation.
Moreno, 36, came to the United States from El Salvador, and had a history of theft, possession of marijuana, unlawful carrying of a weapon, evading arrest, assault of a public servant and forgery, according to KHOU 11 News.
Investigators said Moreno previously went by the name “Jeffrey Escalante,” but police confirmed her to be a woman and the mother of a 7-year-old child.
Officials believe Moreno supported Palestine and was a previous supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
The attack left two people critically injured, as well as resulting in Moreno’s death. It follows a recent rash of mass shootings and acts of violents by transgender or gender non-binary individuals.
However, many of those have been actively suppressed by left-wing media and federal law enforcement since they contradict the desired narrative blaming white supremacy and right-wing extremism as the sole causes of domestic terrorism.
The LGBTQ Texas Church shooter was a migrant from El Salvador. She has a long criminal history dating back to 2005. She was also a Bernie supporter, had a “free palestine” sticker on her gun, and identified as transgender.
Officials discovered anti-Semitic writings in the vehicle Moreno took to the scene, which they suspect are related to a familial dispute.
“We have uncovered some items, we do have some anti-Semitic writings that we have uncovered during this process.” said Christopher Hassig, homicide commander for the Houston Police Department. “We do believe there was a dispute with her ex-husband and his family and some of them are Jewish.”
Hassig also said that statements from family members confirmed Moreno’s suspected mental-health issues.
The motive for the shooting remains unclear, but some reports indicate that Moreno had previous connections with the church.
Moreno entered the church before the 2 p.m. Spanish service, threatening the security guard with her rifle before entering the building. She opened fire in a hallway adjacent to the hall, injuring a 57-year-old man and a young boy.
Moreno wounded the man’s leg; doctors released him from the hospital shortly after treatment. The boy, a 5-year-old, was shot in the head and remains in critical condition.
Two off-duty police officers intervened and shot Moreno. Officials proclaimed her dead at the scene.
Lakewood Church is one of megachurch pastor Joel Osteen’s churches. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research estimated it be the third largest church in America, with televised sermons reaching over 100 countries.
The video was filmed during a recent visit to Raleigh, North Carolina—anticipated to be a key swing state in the 2024 election.
Biden, along with Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, stopped at Cook Out, a North Carolina-based fast-food chain, before meeting with local Wake County school administrator Eric Fitts and his two teenage sons, Christian and Carter.
Several local media stations covered Biden’s visit to the restauraunt’s location on Falls of Neuse Road, reporting that Biden got a vanilla milkshake with chocolate syrup and Cooper got one with M&Ms.
On Feb. 7, Biden’s handlers posted the video of his meal with the Fitts family to YouTube.
“A few weeks ago, I stopped at Cook Out in North Carolina to grab some food and eat with Eric and his sons, Chrisitan [sic] and Carter,” said the caption.
“From talking about student loan forgiveness to basketball and business club, I loved our conversations,” it continued. “Carter, I hope my absence note to your school helped.”
Then, on Monday, segments of the video were posted to Biden’s unofficial social-media accounts, where users quickly took note of some of the more problematic elements.
It’s great to spend time with Christian and Carter and discuss their involvement in their community and schools. pic.twitter.com/Vd3q70UriM
“Remember to vote blue in November, like a good little demographic,” user @normposter wrote.
Conservative influencer @KanekoaTheGreat called attention to Biden’s 1994 crime bill, using a viral video that juxtaposed an old Senate speech with images of Hunter Biden’s degeneracy.
“Senator @JoeBidenwas the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill that sent millions of Americans to prison for doing what his son is doing right here,” Kanekoa tweeted. “Biden wrote the crack laws targeting minorities.”
NEW: President @JoeBiden buys fried chicken for a black family.
Senator @JoeBiden was the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill that sent millions of Americans to prison for doing what his son is doing right here.
The embattled 81-year-old president, following a damning special counsel report last week that suggested he may be in the advanced stages of dementia, is desperately scrambling to contain the damage as both young and minority voters jump ship.
He recently joined TikTok, a platform popular with younger generations, despite widespread concerns that China uses it to push propaganda and commit acts of espionage.
Some estimates, meanwhile, have a jaw-dropping 25% of black voters expressing support for Republican leader Donald Trump—a sharp departure following recent election cycles when the number of black Republicans was in the single digits.
The defection threatens to have a major impact in urban areas that Biden is relying on to deliver the swing states where he secured his 2020 victory.
The combination of his increased social-media presence, his growing dementia and his desperation to pander to minorities all but guarantees that more cringe-worthy moments lie in store for the 2024 campaign season.
Biden was famously slammed during his 2020 campaign for saying during an interview with black radio personality Charlamagne Tha God, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
Charlamagne should have dumped Biden long ago before our country got in this mess. Especially after Joe beat him down, ridiculed him and called him "PAL". pic.twitter.com/Mqnpf0emVq
However, Biden was not the first candidate to commit a racially insensitive gaffe on Charlamagne’s radio show, nor to pander to black voters using food stereotypes.
Hillary Clinton did both in one fell swoop during a widely ridiculed 2016 appearance, when she responded to a question by claiming she carried hot sauce with her wherever she went.
(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) The federal government’s budget deficit was “only” $21.93 billion in January. That was a significant improvement over the $129 billion shortfall recorded in December.
But don’t throw the confetti.
The smaller deficit was primarily due to increased government receipts thanks to a big drop in tax refunds. But the Biden administration is still spending like a drunken sailor. (No disrespect to drunken sailors.)
Meanwhile, interest payments on the rapidly ballooning national debt continue to expand at breakneck speed.
Through the first four months of fiscal 2024, the federal government ran a $531.86 trillion deficit, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement. That is a 16 percent increase over the same period in fiscal 2023.
These massive monthly budget shortfalls are pushing the national debt higher at a dizzying pace. On December 29, the national debt eclipsed $34 trillion for the first time. When Congress effectively eliminated the debt ceiling on June 5, the national debt stood at a “mere” $31.46 trillion. As of Feb. 9, the national debt stood at $34.2 trillion.
According to the CBO, debt held by the public is projected to balloon from $26.2 trillion to $48.3 trillion by the end of 2034. That would represent 116 percent of GDP and would be the highest level on record.
The U.S. Government Has a Spending Problem
The federal government is a little like a drunk dude up late shopping on Amazon.
The Treasury reported $477.32 billion in receipts last month, a January record. Collection of payroll and income tax withholdings helped boost government revenue. The IRS has also cleared a backlog of delayed income tax filings from the pandemic year.
But even with this revenue windfall, the U.S. government still ran a deficit. That’s because it is addicted to spending money.
In January, the U.S. Biden administration blew through $499.25 billion, also a January record.
Spending was up 2.7 percent over January 2023, even without any one-time outlays. Last year, January spending was boosted by a $36 billion bailout of a Teamsters union pension fund. If you factor out that one-time expense, federal spending rose nearly 11 percent year-on-year.
This underscores the fact that the fundamental issue isn’t that the U.S. government doesn’t have enough money. The fundamental problem is that the U.S. government spends too much money.
Despite the pretend spending cuts, and promises from the Biden administration that it would save “hundreds of billions” the debt ceiling deal (aka the [misnamed] Fiscal Responsibility Act) didn’t address that problem. No matter what you hear about spending cuts, the federal government always finds new reasons to spend more money.
The Interest Rate Problem
These big budget deficits are happening during a time of sharply rising interest rates. This is a big problem for a government that primarily depends on borrowing to pay its bills, and it is likely one of the reasons that the Federal Reserve is talking about rate cuts. The borrow-and-spend U.S. government can’t function in a high interest-rate environment.
The U.S. government spent $69.2 billion on interest expenses alone in January. This was more than the amount spent on national defense ($60 billion) and more than healthcare ($68 billion).
Interest on the federal debt came in $96 billion higher through the first four months of the fiscal year than in the same period last year. The government has shelled out $357 billion on interest payments in fiscal 2023. The only category with higher spending was Social Security.
Net interest expense, excluding intragovernmental transfers to trust funds, was $283 billion through the first four months of the fiscal year, still nearly as much as the government spent on national defense ($298 billion).
And interest expense will only continue to climb.
Much of the debt currently on the books was financed at very low rates before the Federal Reserve started its hiking cycle. Every month, some of that super-low-yielding paper matures and has to be replaced by bonds yielding much higher rates.
The weighted average interest rate on the government’s outstanding Treasury securities rose to 3.21 percent as of the end of January. That compares with a weighted average rate of 2.43 percent in January 2022.
Rising interest rates drove interest payments to over 35 percent as a percentage of total tax receipts in fiscal 2023. In other words, the government is already paying more than a third of the taxes it collects on interest expense.
And it’s only going to get worse unless the Fed quickly ratchets down interest rates.
Interest expense will continue to rise at a rapid rate as more and more Treasuries mature and are replaced by higher-yielding bonds.
The only way out of this fiscal death spiral is significant spending cuts and/or major tax hikes.
(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Could arguably the world’s worst currency become its best? If Zimbabwe follows through and embraces a plan to back the Zimbabwe dollar with gold, it just might.
Last week, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa said officials were exploring ways to introduce a “structured currency,” but he didn’t explain what that meant. On Monday (Feb. 12), Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube shed some light on the plan, saying the goal was to “manage the growth of liquidity which has a high correlation to money supply growth and inflation.”
The way to do that is to link the exchange rate to some hard asset such as gold. To do that you have to have some sort of currency board type system in place where the growth of the domestic liquidity is constrained by the value of the asset that is backing the currency.
The Zimbabwe dollar has lost more than 40 percent of its value just since the start of the year.
Consumer prices in Zimbabwe rose 34.8 percent in January on an annual basis. That was up from 26.5 percent in December, according to data released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency.
Those numbers don’t reflect the full extent of Zimbabwe’s currency devaluation since about 80 percent of transactions occur in U.S. dollars. The government changed its CPI calculation last fall to better reflect the presence of the dollar in the economy. In other words, it “updated” its inflation formula to hide the extent of the problem. The U.S. government did the same thing in the 1990s.
This isn’t Zimbabwe’s first foray into the world of inflation. As Business Insider Africa put it, “Zimbabwe continues to bear the scars of hyperinflation endured during the extended leadership of Robert Mugabe.”
Hyperinflation wiped out the value of the Zimbabwe dollar in the early 00s. In 2009, the government simply abandoned its own currency and adopted foreign currencies – primarily the U.S. dollar (or, more accurately, the Federal Reserve Note).
The African nation reintroduced the Zimbabwe dollar in 2019. But the government apparently didn’t learn its lessons and the currency quickly devalued again. By mid-July 2019, price inflation had increased to 175 percent.
As economist Milton Friedman once said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”
In other words, if a country is experiencing price inflation and currency devaluation, it is ultimately the government’s fault. Price inflation is a symptom of monetary inflation – government creating more and more currency to prop up spending.
During Zimbabwe’s first round of hyperinflation, the government was printing money to finance Mugabe’s military involvement in the Congo. It was also allegedly creating currency to pay for government corruption and to fill the pockets of politicians and their buddies.
More recently, Al Jazeera reported, “The printing of new money by the central bank has also worsened the situation, reversing gains made in the past two years that saw inflation decrease from a peak of 800 percent in 2020 to 60 percent in January [2023].”
The Zimbabwe government has already taken some steps attempting to stabilize its currency and limit its dependence on the Federal Reserve note dollar.
Last summer, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mangudya announced Fidelity Gold Refineries (Private) Limited would mint gold coins and make them available to the public through the country’s banking institutions.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) resolved to introduce gold coins into the market as an instrument that will enable investors to store value.
The central bank owns Fidelity Gold Refineries (Private) Limited. It operates as the only gold-buying and refining entity in the southern African country.
The digital tokens called Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) can be stored in a digital e-gold wallet or on e-gold cards. An equivalent amount of physical gold held in the RBZ’s reserves backs each digital token. Individuals and businesses can use ZiG in business transactions and can share the gold-backed tokens peer-to-peer. In practice, this gold-backed digital currency makes it possible to do everyday business in gold.
The hope was this gold-backed payment system would ease the pressure on the country’s limited supply of dollars (and create of flow of dollars into government vaults.)
Putting the Zimbabwe dollar on a gold standard would slam the door on the Zimbabwe government’s inflationary policies. Backing currency with a hard asset limits money creation. The government can’t create more dollars unless it gets more gold. A gold standard puts a natural brake on monetary expansion.
This would benefit Zimbabweans who would enjoy a stable currency and could maintain their purchasing power over time.
Of course, that requires fiscal discipline on the part of the government. It can’t rely on money printing to support its spending. Therein lies the rub. Government people tend to quickly abandon any pretense of linking the currency to gold when they discover it puts the kibosh on expanding their power.
With this in mind, I’m skeptical that Zimbabwe will follow through with reforms. As Money Metals Exchange President Stefan Gleason put it, “Sadly, total catastrophe may be the most likely path to reform. The only danger is that with the wrong people in place, the catastrophe could lead to a lurch towards tyranny.”
