Category Archives: Biden administration

SCOTUS Unanimous Decision on Temporary Protective Status

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There have been several unanimous decisions out of the Supreme Court lately and this one is curious. The progressive Jurist Elena Kagan wrote this on regarding immigrants obtaining a green cards status….simple description….NO, they can’t have one.

Sounds good…but hold on.

And remember –> The Trump administration has ordered an end to TPS benefits for nearly all immigrants who had them, stating that the program is meant to provide temporary rather than long-term relief. But a series of lawsuits challenging the administration’s decision have blocked those orders from taking effect, giving the vast majority of these immigrants a reprieve until early 2021.

Immigrants from 10 nations have Temporary Protected Status

LATimes:

The Supreme Court on Monday dealt a setback to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have so-called temporary protected status, ruling they can’t have a green card if they entered the country illegally.

That means TPS recipients who entered the county legally as students or tourists, and stayed under TPS may obtain a green card, said Justice Elena Kagan. But the same is not true of those who entered illegally.

“Because a grant of TPS does not come with a ticket of admission,” she wrote in Sanchez vs. Mayorkas, “it does not eliminate the disqualifying effect of an unlawful entry.”

Temporary protected status has been extended to about 320,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.

But lower courts had been divided over whether these migrants, many of whom have lived here for decades, may apply for and receive lawful permanent status. Four years ago, the 9th Circuit Court in California ruled that TPS recipients were eligible for green cards even if they entered the country illegally.

The case decided by the Supreme Court began when Jose Sanchez and his wife, Sonia Gonzalez, sought green cards. They arrived from El Salvador in the late 1990s, established lives and careers in New Jersey and had four sons. But they were not lawfully admitted.

Kagan said Congress is considering legislation that would allow such TPS recipients to obtain lawful permanent resident status, but only Congress, not the court, can change the law in this respect.

“Sanchez was not lawfully admitted, and his TPS does not alter that fact,” she wrote. “He therefore cannot become a permanent resident of this country.”

***

When can the Secretary designate a country for TPS?

The Secretary can designate a country for TPS due to:

  • Ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war),
  • An environmental disaster (such as earthquake or hurricane), or an epidemic, or
  • Other extraordinary and temporary conditions.

Who is eligible for TPS?

TPS can be granted to an individual who is a national of a designated country, has filed for status during a specified registration period, and who has been continuously physically present in the U.S. since a designated date.

What are the benefits of TPS?

During a designated period, TPS holders are:

  • Not removable from the U.S. and not detainable by DHS on the basis of his or her immigration status,
  • Eligible for an employment authorization document (EAD), and
  • Eligible for travel authorization.

How many individuals are currently granted TPS?

The U.S. currently provides TPS to over 400,000 foreign nationals from the following countries, not including individuals from Venezuela and Burma as they were just recently designated:

Country Estimated Number
Venezuela 323,000 eligible
El Salvador 251,567
Honduras 80,709
Haiti 56,453
Nepal 14,575
Syria 7,010
Nicaragua 4,526
Yemen 1,465
Sudan 805
Somalia 465
South Sudan 83
Burma N/A

Where do TPS holders live?

TPS holders reside all over the United States. The largest populations of TPS holders live in California (17.95%), Florida (13.75%), Texas (12.88%), New York (12.33%), and Virginia (6.75%). Most TPS holders from El Salvador live in the Washington, DC (32,359), Los Angeles (30,415) and New York (23,168) metropolitan areas. Honduran TPS holders live mostly in the New York (8,818), Miami (7,467) and Houston (6,060) metropolitan areas. Haitian TPS holders live mainly in the Miami (16,287), New York (9,402) and Boston (4,302) metropolitan areas. source

We have no idea how many people have been granted TPS, there are only estimates as noted here.

(From uscis.gov website)

Schumer and Dark Money Called Majority Forward Investigation

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Points back again to that pesky Marc Elias –>

Majority Forward was incorporated in June by Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias, who represents Senate Majority PAC.

Elias, who is also general counsel for the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Friday night he could not immediately comment.

Forward Majority | Millennial Politics

FNC: A dark money group aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is facing an Internal Revenue Service complaint from a liberal watchdog group for concealing their political activity where they attempted to damper GOP election turnout for certain races in 2018.

Recently released tax records from the liberal nonprofit Majority Forward showed the dark money group gave $2.7 million to a different nonprofit, the Coalition for a Safe and Secure America (CSSA), in 2018, according to Axios.

Majority Forward is part of the Senate Majority PAC, serving as its nonprofit arm. The $2.7 million it gave made up the majority of the $4 million raised by CSSA that year.

CSSA converted that money into multiple direct-mailing campaigns and digital advertisements during the 2018 midterm cycle targeting Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Mike Braun, R-Ind.

The ads were deceptive in their nature, claiming the candidates had changed their position on central conservative tenets, and were posted to state-specific Facebook pages.

The ads led to the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to file an IRS complaint against CSSA. Majority Forward also recently admitted it left off legally required disclosures from direct-mail pieces in the 2018 midterm cycle.

“Coalition for a Safe Secure America appears to have falsely told the IRS they were not involved in politics. Dark money groups too often bypass the law in their efforts to secretly and improperly influence who is elected,” CREW president Noah Bookbinder said in a statement published last month. “We urge the IRS to open an investigation into Coalition for a Safe Secure America and take swift and appropriate action for any potential violations.”

CSSA’s ad targeting Hawley accused him of siding “with Washington liberals against gun owners.” Braun was labeled “Tax-Hike-Mike.”

Additionally, former Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., were targeted by its ads during the 2018 cycle. Heller and Rosendale both lost their races.

Heller was charged with allowing “almost 200,000 foreign workers a backdoor entry into our country.” Rosendale was accused of supporting “drone monitoring” while running for a Montana Senate seat.

Some of the ads also promoted Libertarian Party candidates to siphon votes away from the targeted Republicans.

Majority Forward was able to finance the ads while hiding its true reasons behind the ads through loopholes in campaign finance laws that allowed limited political activity from nonprofits.

Feds Seized 2 Cyber Domains of Hackers/SolarWinds

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DOJ:

Domain Names Were in Part Used to Control a Cobalt Strike Software Tool that the Actors Implanted on Victim Networks

WASHINGTON – On May 28, pursuant to court orders issued in the Eastern District of Virginia, the United States seized two command-and-control (C2) and malware distribution domains used in recent spear-phishing activity that mimicked email communications from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This malicious activity was the subject of a May 27 Microsoft security alert, titled “New sophisticated email-based attack from Nobelium,” and a May 28 FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency joint cybersecurity advisory.

The Department’s seizure of the two domains was aimed at disrupting the malicious actors’ follow-on exploitation of victims, as well as identifying compromised victims. However, the actors may have deployed additional backdoor accesses between the time of the initial compromises and last week’s seizures.

“Last week’s action is a continued demonstration of the Department’s commitment to proactively disrupt hacking activity prior to the conclusion of a criminal investigation,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Law enforcement remains an integral part of the U.S. government’s broader disruption efforts against malicious cyber-enabled activities, even prior to arrest, and we will continue to evaluate all possible opportunities to use our unique authorities to act against such threats.”

“Cyber intrusions and spear-phishing email attacks can cause widespread damage throughout affected computer networks, and can result in significant harm to individual victims, government agencies, NGOs, and private businesses,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh for the Eastern District of Virginia. “As demonstrated by the court-authorized seizure of these malicious domains, we are committed to using all available tools to protect the public and our government from these worldwide hacking threats.”

“Friday’s court-authorized domain seizures reflect the FBI Washington Field Office’s continued commitment to cyber victims in our region,” said Assistant Director in Charge Steven M. D’Antuono of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “These actions demonstrate our ability to quickly respond to malicious cyber activities by leveraging our unique authorities to disrupt our cyber adversaries.”

“The FBI remains committed to disrupting this type of malicious cyber activity targeting our federal agencies and the American public,” said Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran of the FBI’s Cyber Division. “We will continue to use all of the tools in our toolbelt and leverage our domestic and international partnerships to not only disrupt this type of hacking activity but to impose risk and consequences upon our adversaries to combat these threats.”

On or about May 25, malicious actors commenced a wide-scale spear-phishing campaign leveraging a compromised USAID account at an identified mass email marketing company. Specifically, the compromised account was used to send spear-phishing emails, purporting to be from USAID email accounts and containing a “special alert,” to thousands of email accounts at over one hundred entities. More here.

Solarwinds Management Tools - Full Control Networks source

More details on the backstory of SolarWinds

“This release includes bug fixes, increased stability and performance improvements.”

The routine software update may be one of the most familiar and least understood parts of our digital lives. A pop-up window announces its arrival and all that is required of us is to plug everything in before bed. The next morning, rather like the shoemaker and the elves, our software is magically transformed.

Last spring, a Texas-based company called SolarWinds made one such software update available to its customers. It was supposed to provide the regular fare — bug fixes, performance enhancements — to the company’s popular network management system, a software program called Orion that keeps a watchful eye on all the various components in a company’s network. Customers simply had to log into the company’s software development website, type a password and then wait for the update to land seamlessly onto their servers.

The routine update, it turns out, is no longer so routine.

Hackers believed to be directed by the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, used that routine software update to slip malicious code into Orion’s software and then used it as a vehicle for a massive cyberattack against America.

“Eighteen thousand [customers] was our best estimate of who may have downloaded the code between March and June of 2020,” Sudhakar Ramakrishna, SolarWinds president and CEO, told NPR. “If you then take 18,000 and start sifting through it, the actual number of impacted customers is far less. We don’t know the exact numbers. We are still conducting the investigation.”

On Thursday, the Biden administration announced a roster of tough sanctions against Russia as part of what it characterized as the “seen and unseen” response to the SolarWinds breach.

NPR’s months-long examination of that landmark attack — based on interviews with dozens of players from company officials to victims to cyber forensics experts who investigated, and intelligence officials who are in the process of calibrating the Biden administration’s response — reveals a hack unlike any other, launched by a sophisticated adversary who took aim at a soft underbelly of digital life: the routine software update.

By design, the hack appeared to work only under very specific circumstances. Its victims had to download the tainted update and then actually deploy it. That was the first condition. The second was that their compromised networks needed to be connected to the Internet, so the hackers could communicate with their servers.

For that reason, Ramakrishna figures the Russians successfully compromised about 100 companies and about a dozen government agencies. The companies included Microsoft, Intel and Cisco; the list of federal agencies so far includes the Treasury, Justice and Energy departments and the Pentagon.

Hunter’s Baby Mama was Actually on the Payroll

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Until Hunter took her off the payroll and canceled her health insurance after the baby was born….

The former stripper who bore Hunter Biden’s out-of-wedlock child — and who he claims that he has no memory of meeting — was on his consulting firm’s payroll during her pregnancy, text messages retrieved from his laptop reveal.

And the first son made sure she was booted off the company insurance plan months after she gave birth, according to the texts.

The messages, which are contained on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, shed new light on the relationship between him and Lunden Roberts, who gave birth to their daughter Navy Joan Roberts in August of 2018, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

Roberts messaged Biden on July 24 of that year to let him know that their child’s due date was Sept. 8. (“Amoeba DD Sep 8, 2018 All Good,” she wrote.), the Mail reported. The message received no response from Hunter.

Fifteen days later, on Aug. 8, Roberts messaged him again.

“Reached out a few times, it’s clear you don’t want to be reached,” she wrote. “Need to talk to you. If you feel the need to reach out, my line is always open. Hope all is well.”

Again, Biden did not respond. Screenshots taken by the Mail showed that message appeared four times, though it’s not clear whether Roberts actually sent the message four times.

That December, Hunter Biden messaged assistant Katie Dodge asking for information about his firm, Rosemont Seneca.

“And just for clarification who is pay roll paid to now and for past nine months?” he asked, adding in subsequent messages, “So when you took what’s her name off and re directed her income did it also End my insurance.”

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“Past nine months has been you, me, Lunden, Hallie, Liz & Erin,” Dodge responded. “But currently only you me & Erin.”

Dodge later reassured Hunter: “No, Lunden’s removal doesn’t jeopardize insurance.”

Roberts slapped Hunter Biden with a paternity suit in May 2019. The suit was settled in March of last year with Biden agreeing to pay an undisclosed monthly sum in child support and health insurance premiums. More here from the NY Post

*** Hunter Biden subpoena seeks info on Burisma, other entities source

Related reading: Dem Lobbyists Under Investigation over Work for Hunter Biden Linked Ukrainian Energy Firm

There is more actually and this deals with Hunter’s salary. It was cut in half because dad was no longer Vice President…..

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter had his salary cut by the Ukrainian energy company that put him on their board while Joe served as President Barack Obama’s vice president — just two months after the end of the Obama administration.

A new book from New York Post columnist Miranda Devine includes an email sent to Hunter on March 19, 2017 — two months after President Donald Trump was inaugurated — that asked the younger Biden to sign a new director’s agreement. The email, sent by Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, stated that “the only thing that was amended is the compensation rate.”

“We are very much interested in working closely together, and the remuneration is still the highest in the company and higher than the standard director’s monthly fees. I am sure you will find it both fair and reasonable,” the email said.

Prior to the email, while Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter was paid $83,333 a month to sit on Burisma’s board. After the new agreement was signed, his compensation was slashed by half, to $41,500. To be sure, still an exorbitant monthly sum for someone with no qualifications to sit on the board, but far less than the $1 million-a-year salary he was commanding.

The email, published by the Post, contains no documented reason for the pay cut. As Devine wrote, the “only change in circumstance appears to be that Hunter’s father was no longer in office.” Hat tip to The Daily Wire.

Hunter resigned from the board in April 2019 when his continued employment caused headaches for Joe’s presidential campaign.

Devine added that this email, as well as invoices and other emails, were included on the damaged laptop obtained by the Post ahead of the 2020 election. The Post reported on the contents of the laptop, but the story was suppressed by social media platforms and the mainstream media.

Fauci Lands Book Deal, What about Wuhan?

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Dr. Anthony Fauci landed a book deal and will be the subject of a documentary featuring his work during the COVID-19 pandemic despite his constant flip-flopping on virus-related topics such as prolonged lockdowns, school reopenings, and the origins of the coronavirus.

“Expect the Unexpected: Ten Lessons on Truth, Service, and the Way Forward,” the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director’s book, will be published by National Geographic Books and available to the public by as early as November 2.

“In his own words, world-renowned infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci shares the lessons that have shaped his life philosophy, offering an intimate view of one of the world’s greatest medical minds as well as universal advice to live by,” the book description on Amazon reads. More book details here.

Dr. Fauci is the highest paid government employee and frankly should be prosecuted that is before he is fired.

*** Fauci said he tested negative for coronavirus Saturday ...

Related reading:

In a newly resurfaced paper from 2012, Dr. Anthony Fauci argued that the benefits of gain-of-function research are worth the increased risk of a potential pandemic-causing lab accident.

The Weekend Australian unearthed a paper Fauci wrote for the American Society for Microbiology in October 2012 in which he argued in support of gain-of-function research. Such research involves making viruses more infectious and/or deadly. Experts have raised the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic could have originated from a potential lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, where gain-of-function experiments on bat coronaviruses have been conducted.

***

Here is a tip sheet for the gigantic number of questions that still need to be asked about the China virus.

Since we don’t trust U.S. media sources and rightly so, it is prudent to go elsewhere in the world and learn what other experts know. Additionally, it is important to add in other U.S. agencies that have a conduit to all things China virus.

Consider the following below:

  1. How about USAID?

    PREDICT is enabling global surveillance for pathogens that can spillover from animal hosts to people by building capacities to detect and discover viruses of pandemic potential. The project is part of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats program and is led by the UC Davis One Health Intitute.

    PREDICT was initiated in 2009 to strengthen global capacity for detection and discovery of viruses with pandemic potential that can move between animals and people. Those include coronaviruses, the family to which SARS and MERS belong; paramyxoviruses, like Nipah virus; influenza viruses; and filoviruses, like the ebolavirus.

    Working with partners in over 30 countries, the project is investigating the behaviors, practices and ecological and biological factors driving disease emergence, transmission and spread using the One Health approach.

    Through these efforts, PREDICT has improved global disease recognition and has developed strategies and policy recommendations to minimize pandemic risk. Read more here.

  2. From a media source in India in part:This research paper has been published by a newspaper in Australia. It has been said that the discussion of using the coronavirus as a biological weapon started in China in 2015 itself. At that time, scientists of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and senior health officials in China had prepared a research paper, titled “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bio-weapons”.

    This means that in the year 2019, when the first case of coronavirus came to light in the city of Wuhan, China, a research paper was already prepared 4 years before that and it was prepared by the Chinese army scientists and senior health officers. More details here.

  3. How about a media source from Taiwan?TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Amid concerns about the safety and efficacy of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine, the history of the company’s lab in Wuhan has raised suspicions among biowarfare experts, the U.S. government, and the Taiwanese military over whether it continues to serve as a dual-use biological warfare (BW) facility for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

    In 1993 and again in 1995, China declared the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products (WIBP), the hub of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine development, to be one of eight dual-use BW research facilities under its “national defensive biological warfare R&D program.” Although China has denied having an “offensive” biological warfare program since signing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), also known as the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), in 1984, the U.S. State Department in 2005 alleged that “China maintains some elements of an offensive [biological weapon] capability in violation of its BTWC obligations” and repeated the same charges in 2010, 2012, and 2014. The .pdf summary is found here –> https://idsa.in/system/files/jds/jds_9_2_2015_DanyShoham.pdf

  4. How about British Intelligence?The former head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Sir Richard Dearlove, said that the question of a lab leak has become an “intelligence issue” in which British spies may need to “incentivise” defectors within the communist country to come forward and reveal the truth of the origin of the Wuhan virus.

    A senior Whitehall security source told the Daily Telegraph — a newspaper with close ties to the ruling Conservative government — that British intelligence investigators are working alongside their American counterparts to uncover the real origin of the pandemic.

    “We are contributing what intelligence we have on Wuhan, as well as offering to help the American to corroborate and analyse any intelligence they have that we can assist with,” said the source.

    “What is required to establish the truth behind the coronavirus outbreak is well-sourced intelligence rather than informed analysis, and that is difficult to come by.”

    Sir Richard Dearlove, who has been a vocal proponent of the idea that the virus emanated from the Wuhan laboratory, said that many scientists refrained from backing the idea out of fear of appearing to side with former President Donald Trump. source

  5. How about Ft. Detrick? That is the location for the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, which by the way is under the supervision of DHS…  NBACC’s 160,000 square-foot facility and 51,927 square feet of lab space includes two centers: the National Bioforensic Analysis Center (NBFAC), which conducts technical analyses in support of federal law enforcement investigations, and the National Biological Threat Characterization Center, which conducts experiments and studies to better understand biological vulnerabilities and hazards. NBACC is committed to maintaining a culture of safety. Its fully accredited, state-of-the-art lab facilities are at the biosafety levels (BSL) 2, 3, and 4, providing the highest standards of safety and experimental capability available. Its BSL-4 accreditation allows NBACC to perform R&D on pathogens for which no vaccine or treatment exists and makes it one of seven such facilities in the United States. NBACC is a partner in the National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research at Fort Detrick. This consortium includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration; National Cancer Institute; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Integrated Research Facility; Naval Medical Research Center Biological Defense Research Directorate; U.S. Army Installation Management Command; U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command; U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases; and U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research Unit. As an interagency partner, NBACC coordinates a range of scientific, technical, operational, and infrastructure-related activities that enhance scientific collaboration and productivity. The fact sheet is here.
  6. We have forgotten the Chinese scientists and other operatives working at U.S. universities or other American agencies. Harvard University Professor and Two Chinese Nationals Charged in Three Separate China Related Cases
  7. Anyone asking questions of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana? NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Montana, produced images of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, previously known as 2019-nCoV) on its scanning and transmission electron microscopes on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020. SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19 disease, which has grown to be a global public health emergency since cases were first detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. RML investigator Emmie de Wit, Ph.D., provided the virus samples as part of her studies, microscopist Elizabeth Fischer produced the images, and the RML visual medical arts office digitally colorized the images.
  8. There is the University of Texas, the University of Alabama and last but not least the University of California at Irvine.

There are likely around thousands that know more but they remain silent. Why?