LA Spends $10K Each for Shade/Light Structures

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LA Spends $10K Each for Shade/Light Structures

(By Adam Andrzejewski, RealClear Wire) Los Angeles recently unveiled a new prototype of a structure to provide shade and light at city bus stops as part of its gender equity action plan.

Named “La Sombritas,” the four pilot structures cost around $10,000 a piece, and will soon be built across LA.

According to StreetsBlog LA, the structures were designed by nonprofit Kounkuey Design Initiative, and were commissioned in response to women in LA asking for more shade and lighting at bus stops.

In a statement, the organization said, “The participants in our resident advisory committee for the Gender Equity Action Plan expressed a clear need for lighting and shade, this is a way to move the needle on that.”

The very narrow structures are aptly described by Slate as “a Popsicle-shaped metal grate, 24 inches wide, bolted to the top of a bus pole near the edge of the curb.” They feature a meshed metal grate meant to create shade, and also boast a light for nighttime.

Despite their elementary design, LA Mayor Karen Bass lauded the structures, saying, “Improvements like La Sombrita will make our neighborhoods safer, healthier and more livable.”

StreetsBlog noted that while the ideas of providing shade from the hot sun and light at night are good, faster, more frequent bus service should be prioritized to get riders off the sidewalk and onto the bus faster.

Only government could find a way to spend close to $10,000 to affix a piece of sheet of metal on a pole to provide shade and light and tout it as advancing gender equity.

Illegal Border Crossers Outnumber the Population of 8 States

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Illegal Border Crossers Outnumber the Population of 8 States

(By Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) At least 1.2 million people have been apprehended or reported evading capture at the southern border in the first five months of this year, according to data obtained and analyzed by The Center Square.

The estimate is based on official apprehension data reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as well as gotaway data. A Border Patrol agent provides this data exclusively to The Center Square on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Gotaways are those who illegally enter the U.S. and intentionally seek to evade capture. Border Patrol agents report those who have illegally entered and evaded capture based on several factors. CBP doesn’t publicly report gotaway data.

Gotaways are averaging roughly 60,000 per month, according to data analyzed by The Center Square. However, these numbers are believed to be higher for several reasons, including the fact that far fewer agents are out in the field and aren’t able to identify the tracks of those who’ve gotten away.

Federal, state and local law enforcement officers have no idea who or where they are, or how many of them are known, suspected terrorists or violent gang members and criminals, those in law enforcement tell The Center Square.

Combined, the monthly totals are greater than the individual populations of eight U.S. states, two states more than last month when illegal border crossers in 2023 totaled more than the populations of six states.

At least 240,256 foreign nationals were apprehended or reported evading capture after illegally entering the southwest border in May, according to preliminary data obtained by The Center Square. The preliminary data excludes Office of Field Operations data and only includes Border Patrol data. The total increases after CBP publishes its official data because it includes OFO data.

In April, those apprehended or reported evading capture totaled at least 285,000. In March, they totaled nearly 270,000; in February, they totaled roughly 205,000; in January, nearly 216,000, according to data analyzed by The Center Square.

In the first five months of this year, illegal border crossers combined totaled at least 1,216,256. That’s greater than the populations of Montana (1,139,507), Rhode Island (1,090,483), Delaware (1,031,985), South Dakota (923,484), North Dakota (780,588), Alaska (732,294), Vermont (647,156) and Wyoming (583,279).

Officials have told The Center Square people who’ve been apprehended are arriving from over 170 countries. The majority are arriving and being apprehended in Texas.

The Biden administration maintains the border is secure and closed. At least 25 Republican governors disagree. Among them are nearly a dozen who’ve so far sent their state’s National Guard troops or state law enforcement officers to Texas to assist with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security efforts, Operation Lone Star.

“While the federal government has abdicated its duties, Republican governors stand ready to protect the U.S.-Mexico border and keep families safe,” a group of 24 governors said last month in support of Abbott.

Over the past nearly two and a half years, Republican governors have provided a range of solutions for the president to consider to secure the border and haven’t received a response.

Biden to Appoint Mandy Cohen to Lead CDC

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Biden to Appoint Mandy Cohen to Lead CDC

(By Casey Harper, The Center Square) President Joe Biden announced Friday he intends to tap Dr. Mandy Cohen, who has served as the secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Dr. Cohen is one of the nation’s top physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations, and a proven track-record protecting Americans’ health and safety,” Biden said.

A formerly unremarkable agency was thrust to the forefront of national attention and political division during the COVID-19 pandemic as federal policies recommended by federal health authorities became increasingly divisive.

Now, the CDC faces ongoing scrutiny over how it responded to the pandemic, what health research it funds, and how political interests may have influenced official federal health guidance. Outgoing CDC head Dr. Rochelle Walensky took fire for her work in the role and even recently admitted the agency’s failings in handling the pandemic.

Cohen will likely have to navigate these challenges in her new role, which does not need to be confirmed by Congress.

In anticipation of Biden’s pick, more than two dozen Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Biden earlier this week blasting Cohen and pushing him to not choose her for the position.

The letter points to Cohen’s strong advocacy for COVID-19 lockdowns and masking young children in schools in North Carolina.

“Dr. Cohen’s willingness to threaten the school district put politics over the well-being of children and is just another example of the litany of public health abuses the American people endured at the hands of bureaucrats throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,” the letter said.

The Republicans also point to Cohen’s connections to the Democratic party.

“In 2009, she served as the National Outreach Director for the group ‘Doctors for Obama,’ later known as ‘Doctors for America,’ a partisan political association that not only campaigned for Obama’s presidency but also endorsed an unconstitutional ban on semi-automatic rifles and lobbied to classify climate change as a ‘public health crisis,’ ” reads the letter, which was signed by both House and Senate Republicans.

The letter also points to Cohen’s twitter, where she fundraised for Democrats as recently as last August.

“Given her strong affiliation with the Democrat Party and the COVID-19 lockdowns, it will be difficult for the American people to trust Dr. Cohen to run the CDC as a nonpartisan actor who makes objective decisions rooted in scientific data, and not in political expediency,” the letter adds.

While Republicans took issue with Cohen’s record, Biden pointed to Cohen’s experience as a sign of her qualifications to head up the CDC.

“Her leadership through the COVID-19 crisis drew bipartisan praise, as did her successful transformation of North Carolina’s Medicaid program and pivotal role in the bipartisan passage of Medicaid expansion,” Biden said in the statement. “Before serving in North Carolina, Dr. Cohen held senior roles at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services where she helped implement Affordable Care Act programs, including expanding insurance coverage and protections.”

Americans’ Alcohol Consumption at Highest Level Since Pre-Civil-War Era

Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji Bello
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Americans’ Alcohol Consumption at Highest Level Since Pre-Civil-War Era

(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) A new report from the National Institutes of Health revealed that American alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic increased to its highest rate since the start of the Civil War in 1861.

From 2019 to 2021, there was a 5.5% rise in the alcohol consumption of Americans, marking the most drastic increase in the space of two years since 1969, the Daily Mail reported.

Among the factors that were believed to have influenced this drastic spike in alcohol usage were increased stress levels, boredom and increased access to alcohol due to remote-work environments. 

Similarly, this excessive drinking occurred during the early days of the Civil War as soldiers had even more access to alcohol and stress levels were also high.

“When you’re going through a trauma, especially a global trauma like Covid, you’re focused on survival and really not thinking too far ahead,” Carolyn Rubenstien, a Florida-based psychologist, told the Daily Mail.

Rubenstein said that the panic-mongering media ,ay have helped drive people to drink by blasting them with negative news all day long.

“When you’re going through anything scary, you want to escape, especially during Covid; we were bombarded with news and information and social media, everything,” she said.

“Although we were alone a lot, it was so busy and so loud,” she continued. “So many times we wanted to hit that stop button, but didn’t know how, so people leaned towards things like drinking and other things that would help them to kind of dial down the stress.”

The NIH report noted a possibility that the alcohol consumption level might have increased even without the pandemic due to the already stressful environment stemming from a tumultuous national election and months of race riots.

However, the pandemic undoubtedly was a major contributing factor.

“The pandemic was like the perfect storm,” Rubenstein said. “So that quick surge, similar to what we saw in the 1850s, 1860s, it’s just the environment is kind of fostering it.”

Drive-By Media Pre-Emptively Targeting Fla. Judge in Trump Case

Corine Gatti
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Drive-By Media Pre-Emptively Targeting Fla. Judge in Trump Case

(Corine Gatti, Headline USA) Judge Aileen Cannon, a Donald Trump-appointee, has found herself in the crosshairs of the unhinged, drive-by media after being randomly assigned to handle the former president’s new federal criminal case in Miami.

The Left has already ramped up its media efforts to persecute Cannon before Trump goes through due process. And anything outside of a conviction will end in an unprecedented character assassination, the Daily Caller articulated in a recent editorial.

Democrats unleashed their assault on Cannon through none other than mainstream media in recent days.

Despite an impressive résumé, the New York Times published a hit piece questioning Cannon’s qualifications saying she had “scant experience,” in Trump’s case.

It dismissed a decade of her experience as an assistant U.S. Attorney, working as a corporate lawyer and graduating from the University of Michigan School of Law.

Inaccuracies in the article included a lack of “readiness to handle what is likely to be an extraordinarily complex” case, the Daily Caller noted. 

An article by Vox, another left-wing media site, indicated that the Democrat base will delegitimize any result other than their preferred one—a conviction of Trump.

“If Cannon wants to, she could most likely place such a huge thumb on the scales of justice that it will be impossible for [Jack] Smith to convince a jury to convict Trump no matter how strong his case may be,” Vox projected.

The Washington Post‘s opinion section recently goaded Cannon to recuse herself from ruling on the Trump-related case—and wrote that Cannon would not be impartial as any decision she makes would be viewed as biased by either side.

As Trump is preparing for his initial court appearance on Tuesday, it’s important to note that Cannon won’t be handling it. Instead, a magistrate judge will take charge. However, as time passes, Cannon is expected to be in control of the case in the months ahead.

That being said, Cannon, who had earlier experience in the case after overseeing the appointment of a special master to review the purloined Mar-a-lago materials, took the early step Thursday by issuing an order telling the lawyers who would need security clearances to get them, CNN reported.

Mich. City Bans Pride Flags from Public Property

Molly Bruns
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Mich. City Bans Pride Flags from Public Property

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) A Muslim-majority city in Eastern Michigan banned the display of rainbow “Pride” flags in public spaces after a city council meeting on Wednesday.

According to PJ Media, Hamtramck, Michigan, is famously known as “one of the most diverse cities in America,” and was the first city in the U.S. to inaugurate an all-Muslim government. The slogan of the city is “the world in two square miles.”

The ban came as a surprise to many, despite the clash between the Muslim faith and homosexual agenda.

“We serve everybody equally with no discrimination but without favoritism,” said Mayor Amer Ghalib. He also expressed doubt that anyone in the bill’s opposition had actually read the document.

Government buildings in Hamtramck may now only fly five flags, including the American flag, the Michigan flag and flags representing the country of origin for the immigrant population.

City Councilor Mohammed Hassan introduced the measure to prevent other “radical or racist groups,” such as Black Lives Matter, from requesting government officials also display their flag.

The bill prohibited government or city buildings including libraries, parks, City Hall and public schools in Hamtramck from displaying pride flags, along with other religious, ethnic and political flags.

Gay protestors kicked up a fuss about the ban—despite private citizens ability to display the flag outside of personal homes and privately owned businesses—and claimed that this measure was a direct attack against the LGBT community.

“For Hamtramck to attempt to equate the LGBTQ Pride flag with hate symbols, when it is a symbol of progress and love, is now a local attack on our community,” one opposing individual said.

In response to the backlash, council member Nayeem Choudhury pointed out that gay people in the area have done a very good job making themselves heard.

“Why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented?” Choudhury asked. “You’re already represented. We already know who you are.”

The city counselors received push back from Detroit lawmakers as well.

Congress Restricts Funding of Chinese, Russian Labs, But Loopholes Remain

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Congress Restricts Funding of Chinese, Russian Labs, But Loopholes Remain

(By Susan Crabtree, RealClear Wire) More than three years after the U.S. stopped sending taxpayer dollars to fund coronavirus experiments on bats in China, 27 Chinese laboratories – including some run by the Chinese Communist Party – are still eligible for U.S. government funding for research on animals, according to a new review of Congressional Research Service data provided to Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.

The ongoing debate over COVID’s origins, including U.S. intelligence agencies’ belief that the virus likely or could have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has spurred far more Washington scrutiny of U.S. funding of various research programs in China and Russia. Over the last year, Congress has broadened the effort, working to limit or altogether end U.S. financial support for research projects in all countries regarded as foreign adversaries.

In late May, an analysis by Ernst and the watchdog group Open the Books found that the American research institutes had sent Chinese and Russian entities at least $1.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars over five years for various programs, including several at the Wuhan lab, as well as experiments forcing cats to run on treadmills in Russia and a gender-equality New Yorker cartoon exhibition in Beijing.

The CRS data showed that $490 million in U.S. grants and contracts were paid to Chinese entities, while another $780 million went to Russian entities. Before Ernst’s efforts, the Government Accountability Office estimated that the U.S. sent just $48 million to Chinese entities over the five-year period examined, from 2017 to 2021.

Another outside group, the White Coat Waste Project, which seeks to end government-funded animal experiments and first exposed the U.S. financing of the coronavirus research in Wuhan, has since reviewed all the U.S.-funded research programs over that five-year period.

A White Coat Waste review of the CRS data, released to RealClearPolitics this week, found that the University of Illinois spent $123,552 of a $1.6 million NIH grant on a Kremlin-linked project at a Russian fur farm that killed foxes, and that the University of Southern California channeled $576,453 of a $1.9 million NIH grant to China’s Peking University for deadly experiments on mice.

It also showed that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Seattle-based Allen Institute sent $993,000 of a $64.7 million NIH grant to Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology for a deadly experiment on baby mice. In addition, Emory University shipped $515,418 of a $38.6 million Health and Human Services contract to the CCP-linked Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, which houses one of China’s dangerous high-containment bio-agent labs.

The experiments at Harbin involved dangerous avian flu viruses collected from China’s wet markets being forced into mice and guinea pigs and efforts to supercharge viruses to make them more transmissible.

Ernst believes the $1.3 billion she uncovered is likely the floor, not the ceiling, for what she describes as “pointless projects” in China and Russia because federal agencies do not follow the trail of tax dollars overseas. To ensure Congress knows where all its funding ends up, Ernst has introduced a bill requiring all U.S. funding for organizations in China and Russia to be tracked to its final destination and disclosed. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the China Select Committee, has authored a House version of the measure.

“Among many other troubling taxpayer-funded programs, I’ve got receipts showing how Americans unwittingly funded experiments on foxes at a Russian government fur farm, the Kremlin’s cat-on-a-treadmill experiments, the Wuhan lab that likely sparked the pandemic, and another CCP-run bioagent lab that collected dangerous bird flu viruses from filthy wet markets and engineered them to be more contagious,” Ernst told RCP in a statement. “Our taxpayer dollars should not be funding foreign adversaries, and I’m working to cut this wasteful and reckless spending overseas.”

Last month, the Biden administration’s National Institute of Health also disqualified the Wuhan Institute of Virology – the Chinese state-controlled lab some have blamed for leaking coronavirus and sparking the pandemic – from receiving more U.S. government funds.

President Trump’s NIH, back in April 2020, took the first step and cut off funding for coronavirus experiments on bats at the Wuhan lab. The NIH announced the decision just days after the White Coat Waste exposed the U.S. financial support for the research. Congress followed up by cutting State Department and Defense Department funds to the lab and worked to dramatically restrict U.S. spending for animal experiments in China and Russia, as well as in other foreign adversaries.

The final version of legislation that Biden signed into law narrowed the language from a prohibition on nearly all animal experiments in China, Russia, and other adversarial nations to barring dangerous pathogen experiments in these countries, allowing other U.S.-financed experiments to continue. But a new effort in the House would prevent the U.S. taxpayer dollars from flowing to any research lab in China, Russia, and other foreign adversaries.

“I’m proud to have led successful efforts in recent years to completely cut taxpayer funding for the Wuhan lab that likely caused COVID and all Russian labs that torture cats and other animals,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican who has authored a bill that would impose a full ban. “Tax dollars should never be sent to dangerous and unaccountable labs in adversarial nations like Russia and China that threaten our national security.”

On Thursday, the House Defense Appropriations panel passed a bill including language that would cut funding for all animal experiments or other virus-related projects in China, including those involving the Wuhan lab funder EcoHealth Alliance. Republican lawmakers and others have accused EcoHealth of conducting risky gain-of-function research with NIH funding, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The NIH, which denies that the funds went to gain-of-function research, and the U.S. Agency for International Development have doled out tens of millions to EcoHealth in recent years.

Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who worked to advance the language in the House defense spending bill, said it’s past time to defund these projects because U.S. foreign adversaries, particularly China, have proven they cannot be trusted with U.S. taxpayer dollars to conduct laboratory research and experiments.

“Cutting American funding to research labs in adversarial nations that pose a threat to our national security should never be a partisan issue,” he told RCP. “I’d like to thank my colleagues who have recognized the importance of this effort.”

After Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year, support for defunding Russia-based research programs gained strong bipartisan backing in Washington. Barring U.S.-funded research in China also has garnered far more converts as tensions have continued to flare between Washington and Beijing over China’s lack of transparency about COVID’s origin, new fears over Chinese spying, aggression against Taiwan, and its genocide against the Uyghurs and many other egregious human rights violations.

“Defunding these labs is a no-brainer,” Rep. Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat helping to lead the House effort, told RCP, stressing the need to protect national security and the animals.

Despite the strong sentiments from Republicans and Democrats, 27 Chinese labs are still listed as eligible for funding in an online NIH database. Several of these labs have strong links to the CCP, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, which are run by the CCP’s State Council of China. Others with strong CCP ties include Fudan University, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Southern Medical University, and Zhenjiang University.

The language providing a full ban on sending U.S. dollars to foreign adversary entities must still pass the full House and Senate, where it was narrowed last year.

Same Firm that Funds CCP Tech Also Bankrolls GOP RINO Politicians

Ken Silva
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Same Firm that Funds CCP Tech Also Bankrolls GOP RINO Politicians

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Political commentator and conservative political kingmaker Steve Bannon blasted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, yesterday for their connections to Sequoia Capital, a U.S. venture capital firm that has bankrolled Chinese tech firms and a slew of American politicians.

On his Thursday show, War Room, Bannon alleged that Turner quashed a congressional investigation into Sequoia because the firm supports his colleagues, McCarthy and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. Bannon also accused Sequoia of being disloyal to America by funding CCP military tech.

“The reason he’s avoided Sequoia is because they’re a major funder of McCarthy and Scalise. We’ve got the receipts. Mike Turner has shut down an investigation into the Goldman Sachs of venture capital, Sequoia Capital, which is a funding mechanism of the Democratic Party,” Bannon said.

“This is the biggest single scandal because Sequoia has taken American pension fund money and funded Chinese military artificial intelligence.”

Turner’s office did not immediately respond to a Headline USA inquiry seeking his response to Bannon’s allegation. While his allegation about Turner quashing an investigation into Sequoia is unconfirmed, Bannon is correct that Sequoia is a major political funder that also invests in Chinese tech.

According to Federal Election Committee data, the McCarthy Victory Fund PAC received more than $1 million from Sequoia Global Partner Douglas Leone and his wife, Patricia Perkins-Leone.

And according to political watchdog Open Secrets, individuals affiliated with Sequoia made nearly $8 million in political donations in the 2022 interim elections. Top recipients were the Democrat-affiliated American Bridge 21st Century Fund ($3 million), the National Republican Congressional Committee ($1.1 million) and the Republican-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund ($1 million).

In terms of business investments, Sequoia’s portfolio is broad. The firm has invested in U.S. startups such as Airbnb, WhatsApp and Zoom. Sequoia has also backed Twitter under Elon Musk.

Additionally, Sequoia caught flack for having invested in the fraudulent crypto firm FTX, which has connections to numerous U.S. politicians as well as the Ukrainian government.

Most recently, Sequoia announced Thursday that it’s investing in U.S. defense startup Mach Industries—what it called the “first-ever defense tech investment in the venture capital giant’s history.”

“Sequoia’s funding of a technology that aims to use hydrogen creation on the battlefield signals the latest interest from Silicon Valley investors in backing technologies that bolster U.S. national security and working with the Department of Defense,” the company said.

However, Sequoia also has investments in Chinese firms that have been accused of working against American interests.

The most prominent of these investments is TikTok parent company ByteDance, which faces accusations of providing American data to the CCP. Another Sequoia investment is in DJI, which was funded by the CCP and is now the world’s leading maker of drones.

In a May 6 article, the Times of London noted that Sequoia is not directly invested in CCP military contractors. But in China, the line between private company and CCP asset is “far more blurred than in the west.”

“China does a very good job of hiding its military technology inside consumer companies,” an anonymous source told the publication. “In America, these companies don’t have a member of the [Chinese government] CCP or the People’s Republic of China government… on their board. In China, for AI companies, you do.”

Despite these split lines, Sequoia is still preparing for an anticipated Biden White House executive order, which will reportedly limit U.S. firms from investing in Chinese tech. Sequoia announced last week that it’s splitting up its U.S., China and India operations into separate entities to avoid geopolitical conflicts.

Conservative commentaror Rogan O’Handley, who runs the popular Twitter account @DC_Draino, framed Sequoia’s decision to split differently.

“It’s called covering your tracks,” he said.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Comer Says Biden Bribery Scheme Could Top $30M; Biden Snaps when Asked to Comment

Mark Pellin
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Comer Says Biden Bribery Scheme Could Top $30M; Biden Snaps when Asked to Comment

(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) President Joe Biden went from laughing at reports linking him to a multi-million-dollar bribery scheme involving foreign nationals, to snapping at the press when asked about the allegations.

The latest bombshell dropped Thursday, when Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., revealed that based on information uncovered by the House Oversight Committee, he believes that evidence exists showing at least $20-$30 million being funneled to members of the Biden family, including the president.

The illegal payments are allegedly linked to foreign nationals with ties to Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where the president’s son, Hunter, served on the board. As vice president during the Obama administration, Biden had extensive and highly controversial dealings with Ukrainian officials deep into corruption.

The oversight committee is investigating whistleblower claims and the reported existence of at least 17 audio recordings of Biden family members, including the president, accepting bribes from Burisma officials and other foreign nationals, and also discussing terms and conditions of the bribes. Comer said the oversight committee’s “investigation is about following the money.”

When asked how much money was involved in the scheme, Comer said the amount remained in flux as more information was being uncovered. 

“We have more bank records coming in and we’re gonna exceed $10 million this week, but I think we’ll get up to 20 to 30 million,” Comer told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, offering an assurance that “there’s more money that we’re going to be able to identify that was transferred between foreign nationals in other countries and the Biden family.”

The bribery scheme has been roundly ignored by mainstream media, but Comer said mounting evidence that is being uncovered could change that narrative.

“This is going to be hard for Joe Biden to explain and it’s not going to go away,” Comer said. “This is going to be an issue and I think, eventually, the mainstream media will turn on Joe Biden and start asking the real questions. What did your family do to receive all this money?”

Biden has either laughed off or lashed out when reporters have dared broach the subject.

Confronted on a different day about the same allegation, Biden snapped at the reporter for asking “a dumb question.”

“They know there’s something wrong here,” Comer said of mainstream media skirting the bribery charges. “They know all the allegations have merit, because of where Joe Biden was, because of what we’ve seen on tape before, where Joe Biden bragged about firing that prosecutor.”

Comer didn’t overtly accuse fake news media of collaborating with the Biden regime to cover-up the president and his family’s alleged misdeeds, but he came close.

“They know that this family created these shell companies,” Comer said of the media and the Bidens. “They know this family was money-laundering, they were profiting off Joe Biden’s influence. The media knows that – they’re just not covering it.”

NYC Mayor Backpedals on ‘Symbolic’ Offer to House Illegals in Mansion

Jacob Bruns
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NYC Mayor Backpedals on ‘Symbolic’ Offer to House Illegals in Mansion

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) New York City Mayor Eric Adams rescinded his former offer to house illegal immigrants in the Gracie Mansion, the official home for New York City mayors, the Daily Caller reported.

It was the latest in a lengthy series of mixed messages from the mayor’s office that showed Adams grappling with the immigration dilemma presented by President Joe Biden’s open-borders policies.

On one hand, the impacts on crime, tourism and the city’s expense budget—not to mention finding room to accommodate the throngs of new arrivals—have created a sense of unease for the mayor, who has failed to rise beyond the low bar set by his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, in improving the Big Apple’s standard of living.

Nonetheless, Adams has been reluctant to abandon altogether his liberal principles of virtue signaling and insisting that New York remains a so-called sanctuary city that is welcome to all. That has left him instead frantically trying to scapegoat Republicans and to pass the buck onto neighboring communities that are far less well equipped to absorb the foreign invaders.

Adams also suggested housing illegals in the spare bedrooms of existing New York residents, which might potentially run afoul of the Third Amendment’s “no quartering” rule if the government were to attempt to mandate it.

Though Adams had previously publicly offered his five-bedroom mansion for the housing of illegal immigrants, he withdrew his offer Thursday, citing “legal issues.”

The Gracie Mansion is a 224-year-old estate that has served as the traditional home to NYC governors.

According to the NYC mayor, however, his rescinded offer still contained symbolic importance.

“Leading the challenge of the migrant problem is both substantive and symbolic and as I always said, ‘Good generals lead from the front,’” Adams said.

He continued to compare himself to a good general, who leads his soldiers to war.

“They don’t send their troops into battle and ask, ‘How was the war?’ They lead them into battle. The symbolism of saying, ‘I’m willing to put a homeless family in Gracie’ is that symbolism.”

But, he noted, he is committed to always following the law, and in this case, he was ignorant of the law that prohibits using the mansion to house illegal immigrants.

“We are never going to break the law,” he said.

“And so, we’d be able to know what we can’t do and what we can’t do as a symbolism of saying, ‘I’m willing to open up the people’s house to the people of the city.’”

Adams floated the idea earlier this month, suggesting that housing illegals at the mansion would fit in with his leadership strategy, which demands “leading from the front.”

He clarified at the time that if the idea was legally feasible, he would “put a migrant family in Gracie Mansion.”

Instead of housing illegals in his own home, Adams has turned to housing them in private residences until they have been in the country long enough to receive federal aid.

“It is my vision to take the next step to this faith-based locales and then move to a private residence,” Adams said, noting that the safety and privacy of the citizens of New York City must be sacrificed to the cities sanctuary city policy.

“They have spare rooms, they have locales,” he said, explaining that New York had to find a way to keep illegals for 30 days to qualify to receive funding for illegals.

Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.

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