Schumer and Dark Money Called Majority Forward Investigation

Posted on June 3, 2021June 3, 2021 by Denise Simon

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

Posted on June 3, 2021June 3, 2021 by Denise Simon

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

Posted on June 3, 2021June 3, 2021 by Denise Simon

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.”

“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

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.

America First Must Build a New Shipping Canal for the Supply Chain

Posted on June 1, 2021June 1, 2021 by Denise Simon

Since 2020 up to now, we in America have suffered through supply chain shortages adding in the matter of ransomware of the Colonial pipeline and now the largest meat processor.

A cyberattack on JBS, the largest meat producer in the world, forced the shutdown of American slaughterhouses, and the closures may be spreading. JBS’s five biggest beef plants in the U.S. halted processing following the weekend attack, equal to one-fifth of all of America’s meat production. Slaughter operations across Australia were also down and one of Canada’s largest beef plants was idled. The prospect of more extensive shutdowns is upending agricultural markets and raising concern about food security as hackers increasingly target critical infrastructure. Livestock futures slumped while pork prices rose. JBS told the White House that the cyberattack, like several previous ransomware assaults, probably originated in Russia.

There are shortages of chicken, chlorine, flour, lumber, computer chips, rare earth minerals like cobalt, rental cars, palm oil, truck drivers, diapers and appliances to list a few. Just imagine the impact of pharmaceuticals via China.

Consider the supply chain dangers if sea shipping was slowed or stopped. Consider the Panama Canal. Why worry?

China is the short answer. And China hates the United States.

In part:

Beijing is currently the second or third largest trading partner with the countries of Central America. Chinese investment in Central America is present in infrastructure projects in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and there are plans for further investment in El Salvador and Guatemala. Excluding a contemplated US $50 billion dollars in a canal project in Nicaragua, Chinese investment in Central American infrastructure has totaled approximately US $2 billion thus far.

In a further demonstration of growing ties between the PRC and the countries of Central America, Costa Rica, Panama, and El Salvador have each broken relations with Taiwan to establish diplomatic ties with China. Other countries in the region could soon follow suit.

Panamanian “Panda Bonds”

Sino-Central American investment is being actively pursued in Panama. The country is one of the nations in Latin America that is part of an ambitious program that Beijing has undertaken in the region.

The PRC’s “Silk Road” initiative is a trading and infrastructure plan that aims to connect Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America in the same way that the trade route existed during ancient times. In addition to this initiative, further Chinese investment in Central America will result from the Panamanian government’s issuance of US $500 million of “Panda Bonds” in 2018. Panda Bonds are Chinese renminbi-denominated bonds from a non-Chinese issuer that are sold into the Chinese market. Panama issued them in order to take advantage of China’s lower borrowing costs.

***

China’s advancement in Central America dates back to 2007, when Costa Rica became the first Central American country to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing. Since then, economic relations between both countries have developed, helping to promote China’s regional brand. Economically, China has presented itself as an attractive partner. In 2008, China purchased Costa Rican bonds in excess of $300m, offered the country aid worth $130m, and funded the $105m construction of the Estadio Nacional. Meanwhile, on March 2 Chinese state media claimed that China will finance the expansion of a highway connecting Costa Rica and the Caribbean.

Chinese activity in Costa Rica is not limited to finance. In terms of culture, students at the University of Costa Rica can study Chinese and enrol in Chinese cultural programmes. The Chinese government has also promoted the development of Chinatown in San José, Costa Rica’s capital.

What is the solution?

America First should consider mobilizing a real infrastructure operation that would build a new shipping canal that would be technologically more advances and handle larger ships. Where to put it? Nicaragua.

Really? Yes, beat China at their own game and do it fast. The Nicaragua Canal was proposed and backed by Chinese investors and was to be completed in 2020 at an estimated cost of $50 billion.

Nicaragua Canal Proposed Routes

Can you see the natural location for such a shipping canal?

This would also stabilized Latin American countries with economic space and stem the immigration chaos. This time, don’t give the canal away either. The cost? Perhaps a mere $15 billion and these days that is much less than the Biden administration budget has proposed to spend…that pesky $6 trillion.

Has China placed some military operatives in Latin America to protect Chinese investments otherwise known as debt trapping? Seems a legit question especially when the left-leaning think tank Foreign Policy Magazine explains the context just as recently in June of 2020.

Furthermore, Iranian warships are headed to Venezuela with 7 high speed missile boats on board. Additionally, China continues to make plays in the energy sector in Cuba. More debt trapping? Yes.

The America First Policy Institute needs to do some immediate forecasts for national security reasons. The AFPI, which holds a stellar staff list has one particular section called ‘Center for New Frontiers’.

America was not founded to restore an imagined past, but to move its people into a bright and brilliant future. In this first half of the twenty-first century, the United States stands on the precipice of an array of extraordinary possibilities. Dreams from our yesterdays — interplanetary travel, autonomous vehicles, subterranean transit systems, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, organ regeneration, extraordinary new power sources, and beyond — are poised to enter our tomorrows. The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) will research and develop policies that nurture America’s experimental spirit.

A new infrastructure plan such as a shipping canal is just the cure for future supply chain protections and stabilizing countries in our own hemisphere when other key industries and manufacturing must relocate to either or both Central America and back to the United States.

Fauci Lands Book Deal, What about Wuhan?

Posted on June 1, 2021June 1, 2021 by Denise Simon

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 ...