Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

The war in Ukraine has Added to the Food Crisis/Inflation in the U.S.

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It is well known that Russia had been stealing Ukrainian cargo ships loaded with wheat and other food commodities and then reselling as their own. When it comes to the supply chain related to food, transportation and inflation, neither Biden nor Harris have bothered to report this crisis much less punish Russia for such actions.

But let us understand what Ukraine supplies to not only Africa but to the global inventory and supply in the first place…adding to the shortages in total.

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How could the war in Ukraine impact global food supplies?

Both Ukraine and Russia are some of the world’s largest food exporters. How could global food be impacted?

By: Hannah Ritchie
March 24, 2022

Ukraine has been one of the world’s largest contributors to the World Food Programme – the UN agency that provides food aid to countries in crisis. The Head of the WFP – David Beasley estimates that it provides 40% of its wheat.

The war has now reversed this flow: the WFP is now working to provide Ukrainians with the supplies they need in this crisis.

The war in Ukraine could have profound impacts on global food supplies, with far-reaching consequences for hunger and food security across the world. But it doesn’t have to – there is time to react and to contain a larger crisis.

In this article, I present the data we need to understand the scale of their contribution, and which countries are most reliant on Ukraine for their food supplies.

Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s largest exporters of cereal crops and oils

Ukraine and Russia both play a major role in global food markets. They are net exporters of several of the leading cereal crops: wheat, maize (corn), and barley. Both are also dominant exporters of sunflower oil, one of the world’s dominant vegetable oils. Some countries – such as India – rely heavily on imports of sunflower oil for domestic food supplies.

In the charts I show their contribution to global food exports (how much is traded between countries); and global food production.

The charts show that in 2019 around one-quarter of global wheat exports come from Ukraine and Russia. One-fifth of global maize, and barley too. They are the source of nearly two-thirds of traded sunflower oil, with Ukraine alone accounting for almost half of global exports.

Which countries are most reliant on food imports from Ukraine and Russia?

The potential impacts of reduced food outputs from Ukraine and Russia will not be felt equally everywhere. Some of the most vulnerable are countries that import directly from these countries.

But it will not be contained to these direct importers. Food prices are rising, which means that all countries that are net importers of these commodities could feel significant impacts.

To identify the countries that are most vulnerable – and might need assistance in the months ahead – I have brought together country-by-country import data from these key crops. In the data explorer below you can see the global situation for a range of commodities and metrics.

You can see which countries import the most wheat, maize, barley or sunflower oil; which countries import from Ukraine and/or Russia; and how dependent they were on imports for the domestic supply.

We can see, for example, that many countries across the Middle East and North Africa rely heavily on wheat imports from Ukraine and Russia; they supply more than two-thirds of imports in Egypt, Libya and Lebanon. For maize, the reliance on Ukraine and Russia has a larger geographical reach with countries across East Asia and Europe also importing a large share from them.

To maintain consistency between production, domestic supply and import metrics I have sourced all of the underlying data for these calculations from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. It is all based on physical units i.e. tonnes of crops.

Joe’s Most Jobs Added is Officially Declared a Fraud

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Even former President Obama in his speech at the DNC declared that same thing….millions of jobs created. Ehhhh not so much. When Joe Biden was in fact running for a second term, he often declared he created more jobs than any other president in history. What about Kamala….did she ever question the numbers as she has an under graduate degree in political science and economics. Nah…so the truth is the numbers are a fraud, a lie. Add this lie, a big lie to the many others we have been told and as such, likely more lies to come.

In just one year by the way…

source

From MarketWatch:

The U.S. added 818,000 fewer jobs than previously reported from the spring of 2023 to the spring of 2024, indicating the labor market began to cool off earlier and faster than it appeared at the time.

The government’s revised estimate of employment growth showed the economy gained about 2.1 million jobs from April 2023 to March 2024. Originally the increase in employment during that span was put at 2.9 million.

The updated employment figures mean the economy created an average of 173,000 jobs a month during the period in question instead of 242,000 under the old estimates.

The lower number of new job created gives further impetus for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in September as widely expected. The central bank is required under the law to keep inflation low and employment high.

With inflation gradually slowing toward the Fed’s 2% target, the bank has put greater weight on the health of the labor market in considering when to reduce high U.S. interest rates.

The Fed jacked up a key short-term rate to a 23-year peak in 2022 and 2023 to quell the highest inflation in 40 years.

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In part from the New York Times:

The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in 2023 and early 2024 than previously reported, a sign that cracks in the labor market are more severe — and began forming earlier — than initially believed.

On Wednesday, the Labor Department said that monthly payroll figures overstated job growth by roughly 818,000 in the 12 months that ended in March. That suggests employers added about 174,000 jobs per month during that period, down from the previously reported pace of about 242,000 jobs — a downward revision of about 28 percent.

The revisions, which are preliminary, are part of an annual process in which monthly estimates, based on surveys, are reconciled with more accurate but less timely records from state unemployment offices. The new figures, once finalized, will be incorporated into official government employment statistics early next year.

The updated numbers are the latest sign of vulnerability in the job market, which until recently had appeared rock solid despite months of high interest rates and economists’ warnings of an impending recession. More recent data, which wasn’t affected by the revisions, suggest job growth slowed further in the spring and summer, and the unemployment rate, though still relatively low at 4.3 percent, has been gradually rising.

A little bit more About that Harris Joy Campaign

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In her recent campaign speech in Arizona, VP Kamala said there is hard work to do and WE ARE GOING TO DO IT WITH JOY. A joyful campaign…a peculiar description.

It has been reported and righty so that Kamala has complete disdain for Prime Minister Netanyahu and is clearly on the side the the Palestinians. Associated Press revealed that Kamala and her team have met often secretly with ‘uncommitted’ voters especially in Michigan. Only in the last few days did she meet with the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, Abdullah Hammoud who applauded the October 7 attack on Israel…How is that for JOY?

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud announces $30 million investment in the ...

While the DNC hosted in Chicago is full of protestors including anti-capitalists and pro-Hamas, Palestinians and even communists….check this out….about JOY.

Now, exactly where did this ‘joy’ thing originate? well let us go back to 1933 in Germany shall we? Well upon a little digging….check this out.

In part:

Nazi leaders hoped that the athletic and cultural programs of “Strength through Joy” would improve the health and productivity of the German workforce while easing class tensions within the so-called “national community” (“Volksgemeinschaft”). Providing organized alternatives to unstructured leisure time, the first “Strength through Joy” programs focused on filling workers’ evening and weekend time with classes, concerts, theatrical performances, art exhibitions, and sporting events.2 The program also began providing cheap vacation packages to German workers in 1934, but ambitious plans to expand German mass tourism further were abandoned in 1939 with the beginning of World War II.3

The featured photograph shows a “Strength through Joy” event held on the outskirts of Berlin on April 24, 1937. A large group of adults and children are gathered on the popular public beach at Strandbad Wannsee to perform exercises led by a “Strength through Joy” representative holding a bullhorn.4 The public beach facilities shown in this photograph were first constructed during the Weimar Republic (1918–1933) as part of a growing movement toward outdoor recreational activities that would greatly influence Nazi-era public health policies.5

Within months of the establishment of the Nazi regime in early 1933, local officials and business owners began banning Jews from public swimming pools.6 Strandbad Wannsee barred Jews from its beach and its public programs later that summer. As the first Nazi-era acts to exclude all Jewish Germans from public spaces, these prohibitions became a precedent for the increasing marginalization and segregation of Jews from German public life. 

Although Jews were barred from visiting Strandbad Wannsee under the Nazi regime, the beach continued to be a popular getaway for Berlin’s “Aryan” citizens—even during the last years of World War II. In fact, Strandbad Wannsee has remained a popular destination for generations of Berliners ever since the years of the Weimar Republic. The sun decks and walkways on the upper level of the buildings in the featured photograph have fallen into disrepair over the decades, but these very same facilities at Strandbad Wannsee continue to offer public recreation courses to Berlin-area beachgoers.

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Where would some of this creepy stuff come from…what is the basis? Well have you met Phil Gordon, her national security advisor?Phil Gordon, le plus europhile du clan de Kamala Harris - Le Temps

US Vice President Kamala Harris is stonewalling a congressional inquiry into her national security adviser Phil Gordon’s ties to an Iranian government influence network in the US, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The network known as the Iran Experts Initiative was exposed in a joint investigation by Iran International and Semafor last September.

Last month, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) initiated an investigation into Gordon’s ties. The inquiry focuses on Gordon’s longstanding association with Pentagon official Ariane Tabatabai, a senior Department of Defense official involved in an Iranian government operation to expand Tehran’s influence in the United States.

Harris did not respond to an August 9 deadline from Cotton and Stefani to explain Gordon’s ties to Tabatabai and the pro-Tehran network.

“You failed to respond by my deadline or to appropriately address this threat to national security emanating from your staff,” Cotton wrote in a letter to Harris on Thursday.

“The presence of such an obvious security risk in your inner circle should have elicited your utmost attention. It raises the question of whether you’ve been aware of Mr. Gordon’s possible links to the Iranian regime and simply find your policies aligned enough with Tehran’s interests that ties to that regime don’t concern you.”

Earlier this month, top lawmakers overseeing US foreign policy threatened to subpoena the State Department following the agency’s failure to provide information about suspended Iran envoy Robert Malley.

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul expressed deep frustration with the State Department’s lack of transparency regarding the suspension of Robert Malley’s security clearance.

Malley was appointed by President Joe Biden in early 2021 to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, advocating for sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear restrictions. Despite efforts, the deal has not been reinstated since Trump’s 2018 withdrawal. In April 2023, Malley was placed on leave and had his security clearance suspended. Iran International first reported the incident two months later, but the State Department blocked all attempts to find more information about Malley’s case. source

*** Where is the joy now? C’mon readers…we all have work to do.

DHS in Non-Compliance of DNA collection of Unlawful Immigrants

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IMPORTANT UPDATE: Whistleblowers feel heard and validated by the overwhelming support on

@X

. Whistleblowers report “radio silence” from

@CBP
@DHSgov

leadership. They say they feel “uneasy” about further retaliation. That said, whistleblowers remain committed to ensuring the DNA law is fully complied with and the public is not endangered.

@CBP

has disputed their retaliation claims. In response to the investigation, I can report immediate outreach from a house committee with oversight.

Iran’s Mint Sandstorm, are you a Victim?

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So, a senior official in the Trump campaign was the victim of an email phishing trick and it worked….countless emails were hacked/stolen and began to be distributed. Microsoft has confirmed this and several Iranian cyber signatures from previous hack are providing some pretty good attributions to Iran as the hackers. But no worries, the FBI, likely the Pittsburgh office as agreed t investigate.

Just last night after some recent promoting the SPACES event hosted by Donald Trump and Elon Musk was delayed for an estimated 45 minutes due to a DDOS hit. Again, that too had the signature tactics of Iran. Mint Sandstorm Campaign's Targeted Cyber Attacks on Middle Eastern Experts source

Per CSOOnline in part:

The hackers allegedly obtained sensitive data as a result of a successful phishing campaign against Trump officials. Cheung cited the Microsoft report which said in June 2024, Mint Sandstorm, a group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) intelligence unit, sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.

“On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the US presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice-presidential nominee,” Cheung added. More here.

In part:

Threat actor Mint Sandstorm, believed to be linked to Iran, has been observed using bespoke phishing lures to attack high-profile targets while leveraging a new custom backdoor called MediaPI.

In a Jan. 17 blog post, Microsoft Threat Intelligence said the attacks were on individuals working at a high level on Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations in Belgium, France, Gaza, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The Microsoft researchers said Mint Sandstorm — also known as APT35 and APT42 — used legitimate, yet compromised accounts to send phishing lures. The researchers said Mint Sandstorm continues to improve and modify the tooling used in targets’ environments, activity that might help the group persist in a compromised environment and better evade detection.

“Based on the identities of the targets observed in this campaign and the use of lures related to the Israel-Hamas war, it’s possible this campaign is an attempt to gather perspectives on events related to the war from individuals across the ideological spectrum,” wrote the researchers.

Mint Sandstorm operates as a state-sponsored actor from Iran and, as a result, serves government agency and potential military objectives, explained Balazs Greksza, threat response lead at Ontinue. Greksza said the group employs tactics such as watering hole attacks and phishing emails, to target governments, NGOs, private entities, and academia for espionage. They often pose as journalists, government officials, or academics on social media and their primary objective is to get hold of sensitive information.

“Actors like APT35 have primary goals around geopolitics, national security, counter-intelligence,” said Greksza. “As openly shared by different intelligence agencies in the past, intelligence goals may shift rapidly based on the needs of national interests, current political and military leadership and their decision and intelligence needs.”

Ngoc Bui, cybersecurity expert at Menlo Security, added that the deployment of the custom backdoor MediaPI, along with the use of other tools like MischiefTut, indicates a shift in the operational tactics of Mint Sandstorm, marking an evolution in their cyber espionage capabilities.

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This all begs the question, just exactly what is being done to not only protect a political campaign and election, but every website or American out there from Iran, Russia, China or North Korea and their team of hackers?

CSOOnline goes on to read –>

Iran, found extremely capable in the past of conducting cyberattacks against its foes in the Middle East, earlier in 2022 had threatened to avenge the killing of General Qassem Soleimani by the United States in a drone strike ordered by the Trump administration.

During this time, among many other efforts, Mandiant reported that the news site EvenPolitics, a Tehran-controlled disinformation site, had published articles covering the 2022 US midterm elections. An inauthentic amplification network promoting the site was taken down by the X platform that same year, yet EvenPolitics continues to operate, releasing approximately ten articles per week.

Microsoft, in its report, added that Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations “have been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles”.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations, in response to inquiries about the Trump campaign’s allegations, denied any involvement. Speaking to The Associated Press, the mission stated, “We dismiss these reports entirely. The Iranian government has neither the capability nor the intention to interfere in the United States presidential election.”