Author Archives: Denise Simon

The 1023 Redactions Show 17 Audio Tapes of Joe and Burisma

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Primer:Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian owner of Burisma, was the “foreign national” involved in the alleged “criminal bribery scheme” detailed in the FBI form, and Zlochevsky referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy” during a conversation several years before the June 2020 date of the bureau document, according to sources familiar with the FBI record who described its contents to the Washington Examiner.

Hoorah again for Senator Grassley. The Director of the FBI continues to remember that Senator Grassley has seen the whole 1023 form, yes the un-redacted version. So, it appears the Republicans are going on the offense and Grassley took to the Senate floor to announce for the official record the 17 tapes that were used by the top executive at Burisma as an insurance policy. What kind of policy is unclear but for sure there was a lack of trust from the outset.

But read on…

JTN:

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley on Monday announced that the foreign national who allegedly bribed then-former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter kept recordings of his conversations with each as an “insurance policy.”

“The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them. Seventeen total recordings,” Grassley said on the Senate floor. Fifteen audio recordings include conversations between him and Hunter Biden while two include conversations between him and Joe Biden.

“These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” he continued.

A source familiar with the matter told Just the News that the FD-1023 memorializes the conversation between the Burisma executive and the FBI’s confidential human source in which he told the source he was in possession of the recordings. Those recordings are not included in the record, however.

In his remarks, Grassley pointed to the FD-1023 form that members of the House Oversight Committee were recently permitted to view by the FBI, but noted that the bureau still redacted parts of the unclassified document.

“More than that, the FBI made Congress review a redacted unclassified document in a classified facility. That goes to show you the disrespect the FBI has for Congress,” he added (emphasis original).

The FD-1023 includes allegations from a confidential human source that the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board in order to use his father’s influence to stifle an investigation from then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin into the firm. Shokin was removed from his post in 2016 and the FD-1023 indicates that two Biden family members received $5 million each for their trouble.

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The contents of the form last week, the FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI’s interview with a “highly credible” confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. (Obama knew since Biden was tasked with the Ukraine portfolio)

Grassley said the recordings were “allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot.”

“The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” Grassley said.

Grassley demanded answers on “what, if anything has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?”

“The Justice Department and FBI must show their work,” Grassley said. “They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

The FBI brought the document to Capitol Hill last week after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed it last month. The FBI briefed Comer and committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on the form in a SCIF on Capitol Hill, but did not turn over the document. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.

The Mysterious Chinese Space Plane no One Talks About

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Except for a congressman that sent me a text tied to this only this morning.China is paying Cuba to host a spy/eavesdropping facility in Cuba to monitor communications, phone calls and even satellite transmissions. How is that for a country that is just a competitor as Joe Biden tells us?

***

The second orbital mission of China’s robotic space plane has come to a close. It is called Known as Shenlong (“divine dragon”). It docked with or otherwise captured a separate object on multiple occasions, managed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The mysterious reusable vehicle touched down Monday (May 8) at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, wrapping up a 276-day mission to Earth orbit, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

“The success of the experiment marks an important breakthrough in China’s research on reusable spacecraft technologies, which will provide more convenient and affordable round-trip methods for the peaceful use of space in the future.”

The space plane launched from Jiuquan on Aug. 4, 2022, kicking off a mission short on details but long on intrigue.

On Oct. 31, for example, the vehicle ejected something into orbit. Some experts speculated that the object was a service module, possibly indicating that the space plane was getting ready to return to Earth.

Others posited that the new free flyer was a small satellite designed to monitor the Chinese space plane — perhaps the correct guess, given how much longer the robotic spacecraft stayed aloft.

 

***

Experts think the Chinese space plane is likely similar to the Boeing X-37B, a U.S. space plane that debuted in 2010. Kevin Pollpeter, a research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, told Nature.com that the reveal of X-37B sparked concern within the Chinese government over the craft’s military potential. It’s possible that this spurred the country’s space program, which is closely tied to its military, to start developing its own version, Pollpeter said.

Like the X-37B space plane, the Chinese craft appears to be uncrewed and relatively small. It probably first flew in September 2020, making a short two-day stint into orbit before returning to the ground. Its most recent mission began in August 2022, when it took off on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northern China, according to a report from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The  exact purpose of the mission remains unclear.

According to the CSIS report, the craft released an “object” into orbit sometime in October. The object apparently disappeared in January, only to suddenly reappear on satellite tracking radar in March. Experts believe this could indicate that the plane has some sort of satellite removal capability, such as a robotic arm.

“[The Chinese] have been working a lot with robot arms in other contexts, like the Chinese space station,” Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Nature.

If that’s the case, then the plane’s primary purpose might be to repair damaged satellites or remove orbital debris. However, this does not rule out military capabilities — either for the Chinese space plane or for the X-37B. Until more details come out, however, the best we can do is speculate. Source and more reading.

Image source

Antiquities Bust Highlights Trafficking of Cultural Heritage

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Low risk and high profits…

From Interpol in part:

Every June and December, we highlight the most wanted works of art through a poster that is distributed to countries.

50b_WOA-poster

The Soufan Center:

Police in Italy recently broke up a major international antiquities trafficking ring, seizing more than 3,500 ancient artifacts and arresting 21 people across multiple locations, in late May. The 21 detained suspects – 30 more remain at large – face charges that include criminal conspiracy, theft, and the illegal export of goods, according to a special unit dedicated to combatting the illicit trafficking of cultural property. The investigation by the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, also known as the Carabinieri “Art Squad,” began last fall and uncovered several sites in southern Italy associated with the trafficking ring, including illegal dig sites and operational bases. During raids on the locations, police found ancient ceramics, jewelry, miniatures, and hundreds of bronze, gold, and silver coins dating from the 4th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. According to the police, the items have “inestimable historical, artistic, and commercial value.” Authorities also recovered excavation tools as well as documentation of illicit transactions in Italy and abroad. The criminal operation involved illicit actors at almost every stage of the process, including grave diggers, “fencers” (individuals who knowingly buy the stolen art to resell for a profit), and exporters (who facilitate sales of illegally sourced relics to auction houses and buyers abroad). Italy has taken a leading role on the issue of cultural heritage trafficking in the United Nations and more broadly.

The operation, which has been heralded by the Carabinieri and Italy’s Minister of Culture as a resounding success, starkly displays not only the vulnerability of ancient Italian artifacts to traffickers, but also the financial incentives that drive illicit actors to exploit cultural heritage more broadly. The estimated worth of the transnational trade in cultural heritage trafficking ranges from several hundred million to billions of dollars annually, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service. Confidentiality, challenges in documenting provenance, the use of intermediaries, and inconsistent due diligence practices all contribute to the illegal trade. Moreover, archaeological sites and artifacts in countries with armed conflict, such as Iraq and Syria, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation, as the chaos of war can enable illicit actors, including terrorists, to illegally obtain, circumvent due diligence practices, and, ultimately, profit from the sale of antiquities abroad. Islamic State’s exploitation of cultural heritage has helped finance the group’s activities and strengthened its ties with transnational organized crime. In response to this threat, the UN Security Council unanimously voted to adopt Resolution 2347 in 2017, warning that any trade involving ISIS, Al Nusra Front, or Al-Qaeda affiliates could cons­­­titute financial support for sanctioned entities.

Beyond the financial incentive, illicit actors have targeted and exploited cultural heritage to further their agendas – either by validating their narratives or providing financial gain – and to marginalize and stigmatize communities. The 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban, the 2014 destruction of the Sukur cultural landscape in Nigeria by Boko Haram, Islamic State’s destruction of historical and cultural sites and works of art in Palmyra, Syria, and the destruction of mausoleums in Timbuktu, Mali, by Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb all exemplify how terrorist groups target cultural heritage to strengthen their narratives. In doing so, these groups may seek to destroy a community’s collective cultural identity by targeting sites that the attackers might deem idolatrous to validate their own narrative, or they may target sites that are an integral part of the cultural or religious life of the community to subjugate their victims. Under the Rome Statute, these actions constitute war crimes. They have been prosecuted as such by the International Criminal Court. In 2016­­, a case was brought against a member of Ansar Dine for intentionally directing attack against religious and historic buildings in Timbuktu. In post-conflict contexts, the destruction of cultural heritage can hinder post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding efforts.

Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine highlights the role that state actors can play in the destruction of cultural heritage, and how the tactic can be used to obliterate a community’s collective identity. As of May 31, 2023, the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had verified that over 250 sites in Ukraine had been damaged, with over 150 partially or totally destroyed, since the beginning of the invasion. These sites include religious sites, museums, monuments, libraries, and an archive. A 2022 New York Times investigation previously identified 339 cultural sites that sustained substantial damage, both as collateral damage and as a result of intentional targeting by Russian soldiers or pro-Russian separatists. Ukraine’s minister of culture, Oleksandr Tkachenko, told reporters last fall that almost 40 museums in Ukraine have been looted of artifacts by Russian soldiers. One of the looted items, a 1,500-year-old tiara dating back to the rule of Attila the Hun, is one of the world’s rarest and most valuable artifacts. By targeting cultural heritage in the conflict, Moscow appears to be intentionally working to eliminate Ukrainian cultural identity. According to the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Alexandra Xanthaki, the invasion’s aim has been not merely the capture of territory, but “a gradual destruction of a whole cultural life.” She also said that “one of the justifications of the war is that Ukrainians don’t have a distinct cultural identity.” Particularly since the lead-up to the war and in the year since, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called Ukrainian nationhood and culture a fiction, claiming the country is rightful Russian territory that was improperly given statehood during the Soviet era. Russian state media has published propaganda calling for Ukraine’s total elimination. The role of state actors in the destruction of cultural heritage further complicates protection efforts, as states have often facilitated prevention, advocacy, documentation, and transitional justice efforts, and, as UN Security Council Resolution 2347 stresses, have the primary responsibility to protect their cultural heritage.

 

Seniors are Forced to Skip Medications

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Primer:

Just yesterday from Yahoo News –>

As cancer drug shortages grow, both doctors and patients say their hands are tied

The there is Axios publishing this in part just a few weeks ago:

Shortages of cancer drugs and other life-saving medications are reaching their worst point in a decade, forcing physicians to develop workarounds and the Biden administration to mount an all-of-government response.

Why it matters: The shortfalls are surfacing deeply entrenched problems in America’s drug supply chain, particularly around commonly-used generic drugs. A recent House hearing examined a “race to the bottom” in price that chills investment in manufacturing and can leave just one or two companies actively producing a drug in shortage.

***

The Biden White House and all the Democrats continue to sell us the false notion that their work to control medical costs and inflation is working. You know, the cost of prescription drugs are controlled and coming down but only insulin is mentioned. Furthermore drug companies are in fact suing the Biden administration over mandates and illegal control(s) of medications.

Meanwhile, the health of Americans across the country is suffering and so far none of the presidential candidates are discussing the fact that the ‘Affordable Healthcare Act’ is not affordable at all and in fact the system is collapsing including Medicare providers bailing out. But read on and consider the consequences.

FNC: A new study found that more seniors are being forced to delay or skip medications as they battle rising prices and rampant inflation at the pharmacy.

The JAMA Network out of Vanderbilt released a study indicating approximately one in five Americans 65 years of age and older modified their prescription routine to make it more cost-effective.

Some delayed their medications, skipping them altogether, and some patients even resorted to taking another individual’s medication, the study found.

“This is a big deal, and it has a lot to do with the fact that as people get over 65, they’re on a fixed income… and with inflation, they may not be able to afford the co-payment that they may have or even with a reduction or some kind of discount card, they may not be able to afford it,” Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News medical contributor, said during “America’s Newsroom” on Monday.

“And the problem is that the formularies are very restricted now. And so what was really interesting about this study out of JAMA Network Open out of Vanderbilt was actually when they were asked, they said if our physician would only guide us, if we could only get guidance to alternative medicines, we would go ahead and take it,” he continued. “That was 80 to 90% of the seniors that were surveyed said that because doctors have restricted time, they may not know the answer and the generic alternatives may not be available also because they may be short.”

Amid surging prices, Americans have also been battling shortages of certain drugs. A March 2023 Senate report previously indicated the “triple threat” of COVID-19, influenza and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) caused a spike in patients seeking medication in the winter of 2022.

The massive shortages stemmed from individuals and providers “panic-buying” more medications than they needed amid fear and confusion, according to the report from the Milken Center for Public Health in Washington, D.C.

“Not only that, and this is another piece of the seniors’ problem,” Siegel said. “The intermediary is sucking up the profit here. You got the pharmacy benefit managers that are in the middle of it negotiating with generics from offshore and even in the United States and saying, here’s the price. As long as I get my profit, we’ll get it across and we’ll get it into the hands of the people who need it the most. But the problem is that the generic companies shut down if they’re not guaranteed that they got a buyer.”

Siegel continued by emphasizing the massive drug shortage, noting that the American Society for Health Care Pharmacists claims there are more than 300 medications affected.

He detailed the shortages as detrimental, accounting for the “life-saving” nature of many of the prescriptions.

“We’re talking about chemotherapy, we’re talking about antibiotics, we’re talking about heart drugs. We’re talking about intravenous medications,” Siegel said. “These are crucial life-saving drugs. We’re relying on generics. They’re not made here in the United States.”

“There are supply chain issues and they’re not available. A huge public health crisis,” he stressed.

 

 

SPLC adds Parental Rights Groups to Their List of Hate

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The Southern Poverty Law Center has no shame and these tactics have been going on since the Obama administration. The mainstream media takes queues from the SPLC as does social media such as Facebook but worse, the Department of Justice does too. Democrats certainly celebrate all things Southern Poverty Law Center:

Prominent Democratic legislators congratulated the Southern Poverty Law Center on its 50th anniversary on Thursday, without once mentioning the leftist organization’s 2019 scandal involving claims of sexual harassment, racial discrimination and a deceptive fundraising scheme based on “hate” labeling. They also did not mention the attempted terrorist attack at the Family Research Council in 2012, in which a shooter used the SPLC’s “hate map” to target a conservative Christian nonprofit.

Sens. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., along with Reps. Judy Chu, D-Calif., Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., joined with former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in congratulating the SPLC on its anniversary. They appeared in a video streaming event to commemorate the anniversary.

“Congratulations to the Southern Poverty Law Center on your 50th anniversary, 50 years of defending the rights of the vulnerable, of speaking up for the marginalized, of protecting the disadvantaged,” Abrams said. “We appreciate everything you’ve done.” More here.

***

…with liberty and justice for all…. according to the SPLC not so much…

From the Daily Signal:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups,” placing them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, added a slew of parental rights organizations to that “hate map” for 2022 and labeled them “antigovernment groups.”

“Schools, especially, have been on the receiving end of ramped-up and coordinated hard-right attacks, frequently through the guise of ‘parents’ rights’ groups,” the SPLC’s “Year in Hate and Extremism” report claims.

“These groups were, in part, spurred by the right-wing backlash to COVID-19 public safety measures in schools,” the SPLC report says. “But they have grown into an anti-student inclusion movement that targets any inclusive curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination and LGBTQ identities.”

“At the forefront of this mobilization is Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based group with vast connections to the GOP that this year the SPLC designated as an extremist group,” the report notes. “They can be spotted at school board meetings across the country wearing shirts and carrying signs that declare, ‘We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT.’”

The SPLC report does not once mention the Left’s aggressive promotion of sexualized material for children in schools and at other venues. It does not mention the “Drag Queen Story Hour” movement or the fact that many of the books which parents demand removed from school libraries include pornographic content. It does not mention how many on the Left champion the idea that children should be able to identify with a gender opposite their biological sex, hide that identity from their parents, and even obtain life-altering drugs without parental consent. Instead, it acts as though the parental rights movement emerged in a vacuum, or worse, is motivated by hatred.

The SPLC long has demonized conservative Christian groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom as “anti-LGBT hate groups,” national security groups such as the Center for Security Policy as “anti-Muslim hate groups,” and immigration groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies as “anti-immigrant hate groups.”

The SPLC’s 2022 report—released Tuesday—includes a new designation: the “antigovernment movement.”

A red map of the United States plotting organizations branded

“Hate and antigovernment groups make up the extreme edge of America’s hard right, an inherently antidemocratic movement that rejects pluralism and equity,” the SPLC report states. “The movement instead strives to build a society dominated by hierarchy, where people whom far rightists deem lesser or threatening—women, Black and Brown people, LGBTQ people, non-Christians and others—are socially and politically subjugated. The hard right has the advantage of building on already existing structural white supremacy, as well as its persistent and regular manifestations in everyday life and in politics.”

The SPLC report includes 523 “hate groups” and 702 “antigovernment extremist groups,” for a total of 1,225 organizations.

The list of “hate groups” names numerous parental rights organizations, including 230 chapters of Moms for Liberty, No Left Turn in Education (based in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania), 12 chapters of Parental Rights in Education, and many state-based chapters of Parents Involved in Education.

Virginia, the state in which Glenn Youngkin won a gubernatorial election by running on parental involvement in education, includes many such groups. Parents Against Critical Race Theory in Ashburn; Parents Defending Education in Arlington; Virginia Moms for America; and Virginia Parents Involved in Education all appear on the SPLC’s new list of “antigovernment extremist groups.”

Militia organizations such as III Percenters also appear in the same SPLC category, as do many chapters of Eagle Forum, a conservative women’s group headquarted in Alton, Illinois.

The SPLC revealed a focus on parental rights groups in April, when the organization’s Maya Henson Carey compared parental rights advocates to the “Uptown Klans” of white Southerners trying to maintain segregation after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

Writing in “State of Black America,” an annual report from the National Urban League, Carey warned that “groups like Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education, and Parents Against CRT work diligently with politicians, right-wing celebrities, and extremist groups to spread their messages of hate, lobbying for anti-CRT and anti-LGBTQ legislation and making sweeping changes by influencing school boards to fire superintendents, constrain diverse curricula and ban books.”

Notably, the SPLC kept many organizations on its “hate group” list, including Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, and the Foundation for American Immigration Reform.

As I explain in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC’s accusation against the Family Research Council inspired a terrorist attack in 2012. A shooter targeted the council’s Washington, D.C., office, using the “hate map.” He intended to kill everyone in the building, but a brave security guard prevented him. The shooter is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.

The SPLC also kept the Dustin Inman Society on the list. The society’s founder and president, D.A. King, filed a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC, specifically challenging its “hate group” accusation. His lawsuit became the first such lawsuit to reach the discovery stage earlier this year. D. James Kennedy Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that previously sued the SPLC for defamation and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, also remains on the list.

The SPLC has faced numerous scandals and hits to its credibility. In 2019, it fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, amid accusations of racial discrimination and sexual harassment tracing back decades. Amid that scandal, a former employee came forward as having been “part of the con.” He wrote that the SPLC’s hate accusations are a “highly profitable scam.”

Parental rights groups slammed the SPLC attack in comments to The Daily Signal.

Parents Defending Education President Nicole Neily called the SPLC attacks “as malicious as they are ridiculous.”

“At PDE, we have fought alongside parents of every background to end government-sponsored segregation programs, because no student should be treated differently because of his or her skin color or ethnicity,” Neily told The Daily Signal. “SPLC and its designations are as malicious as they are ridiculous. No partisan PR stunt from a dishonest scam group like SPLC will impede our important work for America’s students.”

“Two-thirds of Americans think the public education system is on the wrong track today,” Moms for Liberty Co-Founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich told The Daily Signal. “That is why our organization is devoted to empowering parents to be a part of their child’s public school education.”

“That is our fundamental goal, which began just two years ago when teacher’s unions locked students out of schools during the pandemic,” Justice and Descovich added. “Empowering parents continues to be our mission today and that has fueled our organization’s growth – like wildfire to now 45 states in the country.”

“Name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child’s education as ‘hate groups’ or ‘bigoted’ just further exposes what this battle is all about: Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school – parents or government employees? We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that,” they concluded.