NSC Jake Sullivan, Family Affair and the Russian Collusion Scandal

Do you really want to know the fundamentals of the back story on who is involved still in the Russian collusion scandal that froze not only the Trump administration, an impeachment and proved the real collusion? Good, then let’s look deeper at Jake Sullivan. He is presently the National Security Advisor for Joe Biden…but it gets worse, much worse. Frankly, I would submit the FBI never investigated the whole Russian collusion operation but rather enhanced the plot.

Jake Sullivan’s wife once clerked for Merrick Garland when he was a DC Circuit judge and is now part of the Department of Justice . Additionally, Jake’s brother, Tom Sullivan presently serves as the Chief of Staff  for policy at the State Department and Tom’s wife, Rose is the acting assistant secretary for legislation at HHS. Understand that Merrick Garland oversees the work of the John Durham investigation, rather it appears that, Margaret Goodlander, Jake’s wife is the point person at the DoJ for the Durham operation. This is all while the Russian collusion plot was concocted to cover for Hillary’s email server scandal and this was a time that Jake was Hillary’s Chief of Staff. Beginning to see how this work and still works?Jake Sullivan Wife And Family - Wikiage.org Jake’s wife Margaret

The Importance of Diplomacy: Jake Sullivan on his Career ... L to R: Ben Rhodes, Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Tom Donilon.

 

Fox News reported Tuesday that Sullivan is the “foreign policy advisor” referred to in the indictment of former Hillary Clinton presidential campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, according to two well-placed sources. This is the closest Durham’s probe into the origins of the Russia investigation has come to anyone directly associated with the Biden White House.

The Durham indictment lays out a scenario in which an unnamed Clinton campaign lawyer “exchanged emails with the Clinton Campaign’s campaign manager, communications director, and foreign policy advisor [Jake Sullivan] concerning the Russian Bank-1 allegations that Sussmann had recently shared,” with an unnamed reporter.

There is no indication that Sullivan is a target of Durham’s investigation, only that he received information from a campaign lawyer. Durham’s indictments have since revealed that the information he received, about an alleged link between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian bank, and that was fed to the FBI, was false.

In light of Sullivan’s newly confirmed connection to a Clinton campaign lawyer, there is a new focus on Biden’s national security adviser’s role in previous political scandals and his family ties to the Biden administration.

Matthew Buckham, founder of the group American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to government officials and political elites, told Fox News that it is especially “troubling” that Sullivan has a family member at the top level of DOJ, the agency responsible for overseeing the Durham probe. In addition, AAF plans to recommend to Congress that it launch an investigation into Garland’s ties to Sullivan.

“The fact that he has relatives in the agency responsible for overseeing the investigation is very troubling from an oversight and a watchdog perspective and is something that we would recommend and potentially will recommend Congress keep a close eye on and investigate,” said Buckham. “This is something we always flag and we don’t want any undue influence from family members in an ongoing investigation.”

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Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice is teeming with conflict, double standards and conspiracy, but you be the judge. Some facts are just pesky things that cannot be denied.
Perhaps to put this is some further context watch this video: 

More sourcing. 

Biden’s Bank Controller Nominee is a Communist

Primer: This site published an item on Saule Omarova last month, Biden’s Nominee for the Treasury Dept is Member of a Facebook Marxist Group

A big question would be just how she could pass and gain security clearance?

One has to ask where do these people come from such that Biden staff personnel know about them in the first place and then nominate that for a cabinet position, which apparently Biden himself approves….

In part consider these additional items:

2020 article written by Omarova that suggests the need for a government-controlled “people’s ledger” that would “end banking as we know it” has caused further friction over her nomination, with some reports suggesting that moderate Democrats may oppose her appointment.

A Republican senator has called on Omarova to hand over her university thesis from her time at Moscow State University, which was titled Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis And The Theory Of Revolution In Das KapitalIn the Soviet Union, it was nearly impossible for ambitious academics to avoid extolling the “virtues” of socialism and Marxist theory. More here. 

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SAULE OMAROVA’S ACADEMIC WORK

Among Omarova’s publications, “The People’s Ledger: How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy,” written for Vanderbilt Law Review, is of particular interest. Here, she argues all bank accounts should be in – what she terms – “FedAccounts” to be monitored by the Federal Reserve. [source]

From past tweets of hers, we know that she has praised the Soviet Union, with her most popular tweet stating, “Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn’t always ‘know best.’”[source]

Since her nomination to the position within the OCC as the Comptroller of the Currency (an office I don’t believe is helpful in the first place), Senator Pat Toomey asked her to turn over her thesis on Marxism to the Senate. She refused. Moscow University representatives stated the thesis was destroyed, and no copies of Omarova’s work existed within the university. source

***Towards The Mandatory Approval Of Complex Financial ... She authored this item in Social Europe, it is terrifying.

Perhaps the Biden mission to destroy the American oil and gas industry is coming from her.

She wants to regulate the banking system said earlier this year that she wants to “starve” companies of money to invest in the oil and gas industry in order to fight climate change, comments that could further complicate her chances of Senate confirmation. Additionally, she has proposed establishing a National Investment Authority to divert investments away from the oil and gas industry and into “clean and green” infrastructure projects. Speaking at a virtual forum in May, Omarova said “the way we basically get rid of those carbon financiers is we starve them of their sources of capital.”Omarova, a professor at Cornell Law School, says her proposed National Investment Authority would serve as the “fighting muscle” of the progressive-backed Green New Deal. Under Omarova’s proposal, the National Investment Authority would create investment funds and issue bonds in order to lure investors to fund clean energy projects, sapping oil and gas projects of their funding. The agency, which Omarova modeled after the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, would work closely with the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, which oversees the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. More here. 

China versus Taiwan and the United States, Just the Facts

A hacking group has compromised at least nine global organizations in the fields of technology, defense, energy and other key sectors as part of an apparent espionage campaign. Attribution is still ongoing, specific tools and methods used in the apparent hacking efforts are in line with those used by Chinese cyber-espionage group Emissary Panda, also known as TG-3390, APT 27 and Bronze Union.

While China has indeed surpassed the United States in the size of their Navy, the other concern is the build up of Chinese nuclear weapons.  Meanwhile, the United States has deployed at least 30 U.S.military forces to Taiwan for training.For years, U.S.-Taiwan military exchanges have been thought of as an open secret—also known by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) leadership in Beijing. However, Tsai became the first Taiwanese leader in decades to publicly acknowledge the existence of a training program.

The United States has deployed the Iron Dome missile-defense system for testing in Guam by U.S. military planners concerned about possible Chinese attacks.Chinese President Jinping awarded additional 'War Powers ...

WAR GAMES:

The Chinese military – the People’s Liberation Army – is waging so-called gray-zone warfare against Taiwan. This consists of an almost daily campaign of intimidating military exercises, patrols and surveillance that falls just short of armed conflict. Since that report, the campaign has intensified, with Beijing stepping up the number of warplanes it is sending into the airspace around Taiwan. China has also used sand dredgers to swarm Taiwan’s outlying islands.

Military strategists tell Reuters that the gray-zone strategy has the potential to grind down Taipei’s resistance – but also that it may fall short, or even backfire by strengthening the island’s resolve. They are also envisioning starker futures. While they can’t predict the future, military planners in China, Taiwan, the United States, Japan and Australia are nonetheless actively gaming out scenarios for how Beijing might try to seize the prized island, and how Taiwan and America, along with its allies, might move to stop it.Xi’s options include seizing Taiwan’s outlying islands, blockades or all-out invasion. Some Taiwanese military experts say Beijing’s next step might be to seize the lightly defended and remote Pratas Islands in the north of the South China Sea.  Any of these moves could spin out of control into war between China and America over Taiwan.

Reuters has published a comprehensive report and possible scenarios.

The Chinese military has built targets in the shape of an American aircraft carrier and other U.S. warships in the Taklamakan desert as part of a new target range complex, according to photos provided to USNI News by satellite imagery company Maxar.

The full-scale outline of a U.S. carrier and at least two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are part of the target range that has been built in the Ruoqiang region in central China. The site is near a former target range China used to test early versions of its so-called carrier killer DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles, according to press reports in 2013.

This new range shows that China continues to focus on anti-carrier capabilities, with an emphasis on U.S. Navy warships. Unlike the Iranian Navy’s aircraft carrier-shaped target in the Persian Gulf, the new facility shows signs of a sophisticated instrumented target range.

A target in the shape of a U.S. Destroyer in the Taklamakan Desert in Central China. H I Sutton Illustration for USNI News Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies Used with Permission

The carrier target itself appears to be a flat surface without the carrier’s island, aircraft lifts, weapons sponsons or other details, the imagery from Maxar shows. On radar, the outline of the carrier stands out from the surrounding desert – not unlike a target picture, according to imagery provided to USNI News by Capella Space.

There are two more target areas representing an aircraft carrier that do not have the metaling, but are distinguishable as carriers due to their outline. But other warship targets appear to be more elaborate. There are numerous upright poles positioned on them, possibly for instrumentation, according to the imagery. Alternatively these may be used for radar reflectors to simulate the superstructure of the vessel.

The facility also has an extensive rail system. An Oct. 9 image from Maxar showed a 75 meter-long target with extensive instrumentation on a 6 meter-wide rail.

Target range in the Taklamakan desert in Central China. H I Sutton illustration for USNI News

The area has been traditionally used for ballistic missile testing, according to a summary of the Maxar images by geospatial intelligence company AllSource Analysis that identified the site from satellite imagery.

“The mockups of several probable U.S. warships, along with other warships (mounted on rails and mobile), could simulate targets related to seeking/target acquisition testing,” according to the AllSource Analysis summary, which said there are no indications of weapon impact areas in the immediate vicinity of the mockups. “This, and the extensive detail of the mockups, including the placement of multiple sensors on and around the vessel targets, it is probable that this area is intended for multiple uses over time.“

Analysis of historical satellite images shows that the carrier target structure was first built between March and April of 2019. It underwent several rebuilds and was then substantially dismantled in December 2019. The site came back to life in late September of this year and the structure was substantially complete by early October.

Detailed Photos of the mobile target at the Ruoqiang facility. H I Sutton Illustration for USNI News Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies Used with Permission

China has several anti-ship ballistic missile programs overseen by the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. The land-based CSS-5 Mod 5 (DF-21D) missile has a range of over 800 nautical miles. It has a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) to target ships. The larger CSS-18 (DF-26) has a range of around 2,000 nautical miles.

“In July 2019, the PLARF conducted its first-ever confirmed live-fire launch into the South China Sea, firing six DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles into the waters north of the Spratly Islands,” according to the Pentagon’s latest annual report on China’s military. The Chinese are also fielding a longer range anti-ship ballistic missile that initially emerged in 2016.

“The multi-role DF-26 is designed to rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads and is capable of conducting precision land-attack and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea from mainland China. In 2020, the PRC fired anti-ship ballistic missiles against a moving target in the South China Sea, but has not acknowledged doing so,” reads the report.

A Nov. 5, 2021 Capella Space synthetic aperture radar image of the target in the shape of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Taklamakan Desert H I Sutton Illustration for USNI News

In addition to the land-based anti-ship ballistic missiles, China has a program to equip the People’s Liberation Army Navy H-6 bombers with a massive anti-ship ballistic missile. First revealed in 2018, the CH-AS-X-13 will likely be the largest air-launched missile in existence, and would be large enough to accommodate a hypersonic warhead.

Another possible launch platform for anti-ship ballistic missiles is the new Type-055 Renhai Class large destroyer. Described as a guided-missile cruiser, it will be capable of carrying anti-ship ballistic missiles, according to the Pentagon report.

It’s not the first time China has built an aircraft carrier target in the desert. Since 2003, a large concrete pad, roughly the size of a carrier, has been used as a target. The slab, which is part of the Shuangchengzi missile test range, has been hit many times and is frequently repaired. The new site in the Taklamakan desert is 600 miles away and is much more evolved. The newer ship targets are closer approximations of the vessels that they are supposed to represent.

DoD Graphic

While questions remain on the extent of weapons that will be tested at the new facility, the level of sophistication of what can now be seen at the site show the PLA is continuing to invest in deterrents to limit the efficacy of U.S. naval forces close to China – in particular targeting the U.S. carrier fleet.

According to the Pentagon report released last week, a primary objective of the PLARF will be to keep U.S. carriers at risk from anti-ship ballistic missiles throughout the Western Pacific.

Introducing Air-scrubbing Machines of Carbon Dioxide

NEW YORK (AP) — On a field ringed by rolling green hills in Iceland, fans attached to metal structures that look like an industrial-sized Lego project are spinning. Their mission is to scrub the atmosphere by sucking carbon dioxide from the air and storing it safely underground.

Just a few years ago, this technology, known as “direct air capture,” was seen by many as an unrealistic fantasy. But the technology has evolved to where people consider it a serious tool in fighting climate change.

Orca - World's Biggest Carbon Capturing Machine Has Been ...

The Iceland plant, called Orca, is the largest such facility in the world, capturing about 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. But compared to what the planet needs, the amount is tiny. Experts say 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide must be removed annually by mid-century.

“Effectively, in 30 years’ time, we need a worldwide enterprise that is twice as big as the oil and gas industry, and that works in reverse,” said Julio Friedmann, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

RELATED READING: THE BENEFITS OF CARBON DIOXIDE

Leading scientific agencies including the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say that even if the world manages to stop producing harmful emissions, that still won’t be enough to avert a climate catastrophe. They say we need to suck massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air and put it back underground — yielding what some call “negative emissions.”

“We have already failed on climate to the extent to which direct air capture is one of the many things we must do,” Friedmann said. “We have already emitted so many greenhouse gases at such an incredible volume and rate that CO2 removal at enormous scales is required, as well as reduction of emissions.”

As dire warnings have accelerated, technology to vacuum carbon dioxide from the air has advanced. Currently, a handful of companies operate such plants on a commercial scale, including Climeworks, which built the Orca plant in Iceland, and Carbon Engineering, which built a different type of direct air capture plant in British Columbia. And now that the technology has been proven, both companies have ambitions for major expansion. source

 

DIRECT AIR CAPTURE AT WORK

At Climeworks’ Orca plant near Reykjavik, fans suck air into big, black collection boxes where the carbon dioxide accumulates on a filter. Then it’s heated with geothermal energy and is combined with water and pumped deep underground into basalt rock formations. Within a few years, Climeworks says, the carbon dioxide turns into stone.

It takes energy to build and run Climeworks’ plants. Throughout the life cycle of the Orca plant, including construction, 10 tons of carbon dioxide are emitted for every 100 tons of carbon dioxide removed from the air. Carbon Engineering’s plants can run on renewable energy or natural gas, and when natural gas is used, the carbon dioxide generated during combustion is captured.

Carbon dioxide can also be injected into geological reservoirs such as depleted oil and gas fields. Carbon Engineering is taking that approach in partnership with Occidental Petroleum to build what’s expected to be the world’s largest direct air capture facility in the Southwest’s Permian Basin — the most productive U.S. oil field.

Direct air capture plants globally are removing about 9,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually, according to the International Energy Agency.

Climeworks built its first direct air capture plant in 2017 in Hinwil, Switzerland, which captured 900 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually that was sold to companies for use in fizzy beverages and fertilizer. The company built another plant, called Artic Fox, in Iceland that same year; it captured up to 50 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually that was injected underground.

“Today we are on a level that we can say it’s on an industrial scale, but it’s not on a level where we need to be to make a difference in stopping climate change,” said Daniel Egger, chief commercial officer at Climeworks.

BIG PLANS, CHALLENGES

Their plans call for scaling up to remove several million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030. And Eggers said that would mean increasing capacity by a factor of 10 almost every three years.

It’s a lofty, and expensive, goal.

Estimates vary, but it currently costs about $500 to $600 per ton to remove carbon dioxide using direct air capture, said Colin McCormick, chief innovation officer at Carbon Direct, which invests in carbon removal projects and advises businesses on buying such services.

As with any new technology, costs can decrease over time. Within the next decade, experts say, the cost of direct air capture could fall to about $200 per ton or lower.

For years, companies bought carbon offsets by doing things like investing in reforestation projects. But recent studies have shown many offsets don’t deliver the promised environmental benefits. So McCormick said companies are looking for more verifiable carbon removal services and are investing in direct air capture, considered the “gold standard.”

“This is really exploding. We really didn’t see hardly any of this until a couple of years ago,” he said, referring to companies investing in the technology. “Two years ago Microsoft, Stripe and Shopify were really the leaders on this who first went out and said, ‘We want to procure carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.’”

Companies are setting targets of net zero carbon emissions for their operations but can only reduce emissions so far. That’s where purchasing carbon removal services such as direct air capture comes in.

Individuals can buy atmosphere-scrubbing services too: Climeworks offers subscriptions starting at $8 a month to people who want to offset emissions.

In the U.S., direct air capture facilities can get a tax credit of $50 a ton, but there are efforts in Congress to increase that to up to $180 a ton, which if passed, could stimulate development.

The Department of Energy announced Friday a goal to reduce the cost of carbon removal and storage to $100 per metric ton, saying it would collaborate with communities, industry and academia to spur technological innovation.

Oil companies such as Occidental and Exxon have been practicing a different form of carbon capture for decades. For the most part, they are taking carbon dioxide emissions from production facilities and injecting it underground to shake loose more oil and gas from between rocks.

Some question the environmental benefits of using captured CO2 to produce more fossil fuels that are eventually burned, producing greenhouse gases. But Occidental says part of the goal is to make products such as aviation fuel with a smaller carbon footprint — since while producing the fuel, they’re also removing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it underground.

Capturing carbon dioxide from oil and gas operations or industrial facilities such as steel plants or coal-burning power plants is technically easier and less costly than drawing it from the air, because plant emissions have much more highly concentrated CO2.

Still, most companies are not capturing carbon dioxide that leaves their facilities.

Worldwide, industrial facilities capturing carbon dioxide from their operations had a combined capacity to capture 40 million tons annually, triple the amount in 2010, according to the International Energy Agency.

But that’s less than 1% of the total emissions that could be captured from industrial facilities globally, said Sean McCoy, assistant professor in the department of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Calgary.

If governments created policies to penalize carbon dioxide emissions, that would drive more carbon removal projects and push companies to switch to lower-carbon fuels, McCoy said.

“Direct air capture is something you get people to pay for because they want it,” he said. “Nobody who operates a power plant wants (carbon capture and storage). You’re going to have to hit them with sticks.”

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Associated Press reporter Jamey Keaten contributed from Geneva.

Democrat Legislation is Remaking American using MMT

Government Jobs for Everyone….consider this –>

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic framework that says monetarily sovereign countries like the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Canada, which spend, tax, and borrow in a fiat currency that they fully control, are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending. MMT was pioneered by American economist and theorist Warren Mosler in 1992, along with Bill Mitchell, a university professor based in Australia and a key developer of the theory.

Modern Monetary Theory & Why Central Banks are lost in the ...

AIER: Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) offers some unconventional policy recommendations based on the United States’ monetary sovereignty. MMT proponents also advocate government guaranteed jobs paying a living wage for all Americans. What would be the consequences of such a guarantee?

The Public Service Employment program detailed in a 2018 paper from the Levy Economics Institute would be funded by Washington and administered by states. It would offer full and part-time jobs paying $15 per hour plus benefits. The program’s spending would be mandatory, like other entitlement programs. The jobs would “provide public services in nonprofit community organizations, public schools, and state and local governments.”

The program could accomplish three distinct ends. The first is stabilizing aggregate demand during economic downturns. The second is instituting work-relief in place of cash assistance. The third is implementing a “living wage” for all Americans.

When the economy slips into recession, businesses lay off some workers and cut others’ wages. Reductions in these workers’ spending produce second-round (and third-round) effects: landlords, for example, cut back their spending after not receiving rent. Many economists support macroeconomic stabilization.

Stabilization works much better when automatic. Discretionary stabilization spending, like 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, can take months to enact. Laid off workers can start a guaranteed government job immediately.

Today unemployed workers receive cash assistance. While I do not advocate government make-work jobs, work-relief has two advantages over cash assistance. First, work requirements effectively control fraud, as revealed by the 1990s welfare reforms. People working while on the welfare rolls never showed up for mandatory job training.

Work-relief also denies recipients the leisure of staying home. People will compare the full value of their options. Suppose a person values the freedom of not working at $30,000 a year. If they also receive $10,000, only a $20 per hour job matches the full value of the cash assistance.

The MMT jobs program also implements a living wage providing a “just” level of compensation. Economics shows how workers in a competitive labor market get paid the value they create for businesses. The “problem” of low wages is then inadequate job skills.

The living wage is redistribution disguised as work. Market wages and salaries are not charity; the prices customers willingly pay for goods and services cover workers’ pay. Market-based salaries come entirely from voluntary payment and workers earn their pay by helping produce goods and services.

Guaranteed jobs effectively set a minimum wage because few Americans will work for businesses offering worse compensation packages (wages and benefits). Government jobs would be far more effective in assisting low-wage workers because a minimum wage ends up pricing many out of the labor market altogether.

Government jobs paying $15 an hour plus benefits would likely cost $40,000 per job annually. MMT proponents project 15 million government jobs would be needed even when the economy is strong. MMT can advocate such a budget-busting program because in its view monetary sovereignty renders Federal spending costless under most circumstances.

The biggest potential problem with the jobs guarantee, even at a lower wage, is whether people will have to work. What exactly is a government “guaranteed job?” The term job suggests a person must work satisfactorily or be fired. The guarantee suggests anyone fired must then be given another position.

Government guaranteed no-show jobs would blow up the labor market. If you had a “job” paying $30,000 plus benefits not requiring work, how much would you need to be paid to take a real job? Guaranteed $15 per hour no-show jobs would effectively be a $30 or $40 per hour minimum wage.

The United States is prosperous because we produce goods and services people want in large quantities. Yet production requires real work, not government make-work jobs. By diverting millions out of productive private sector jobs, the MMT jobs guarantee seems guaranteed to impoverish America.