Category Archives: Media corruption

$6.4 Billion in U.S. Pandemic Aid Sent Abroad, Including China

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Did you know this? Anyone reporting this? Anyone in Congress yelling about it? Crickets…. but it is an outrage. You gotta wonder if the FBI has assigned anyone to investigate…oh never mind. A billion here and there….does it matter to anyone in government or to the taxpayers….

Some 2,000 foreign contractors and nonprofits in 177 countries received more than $6.4 billion in United States’ federal pandemic response assistance between the spring of 2020 and the fall of 2021, according to a report by the U.S. Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC).

Most of the “prime recipients” are based in the United States and distributed the funds overseas. The $6.4 billion in foreign payments came from two pandemic relief packages passed by Congress in March 2020 and March 2021 totaling $4.1 trillion.

Those prime recipients include federal agencies, including the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health & Human Services, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and nonprofits, such as North Carolina-based Family Health International and Boston-based JSI Research & Training Institute.

Collectively between spring 2020 and Sept. 30, 2021, these federal agencies and nonprofits have approved more than 4,000 contracts and issued 1,000 grants from pandemic relief funds to “sub-recipients” across the globe, including foreign contractors that provide services for the U.S. government and international development and health care organizations.

The largest single international prime recipient is the United Nations, which received $831.4 million in direct pandemic funding, according to the report.

The United Nations, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees received 43 percent of U.S. pandemic relief funding spent overseas, according to the report.

The other top nine prime recipients which spend the relief funds overseas included were: UNICEF ($224 million); FHI ($99.945 million); General Dynamics Global Force LLC ($96.5 million); United Kingdom-based Acrow Global Ltd. ($83.5 million); International Red Cross/Red Crescent ($73.667 million); International Organization for Migration ($68.242 million); JSI ($64.32 million); the African Field Epidemiology Network ($62.5 million) and “miscellaneous foreign contractors” ($366.5 million).

About $2.132 billion of the $6.4 billion in internationally distributed U.S. pandemic relief funds was deposited and distributed through banks in Switzerland because many international nonprofits and organizations are headquartered in Geneva.

According to PRAC, those Geneva-based recipients include $1.5 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; $401 million for the U.N. High Commission; $87.856 million for the International Organization for Migration; $78.688 million for the World Health Organization; and $61.4 million for Le Comite International de La Croix-Rouge (Red Cross).

The recipient mix varies from nation to nation. For instance, sub-recipients in Kuwait received the second-highest allocation by nation after Switzerland, $411 million, with most providing services for U.S. information technology and defense contractors, such as Colorado-based Vectrus Systems Corp., which distributed $339 million in pandemic relief funds on contractors and organizations in Kuwait.

The pandemic relief funds that went to non-domestic recipients are in addition, or supplementary, to existing U.S. foreign aid programs, which totaled $51 billion in aid obligations to 11,000 recipients across the globe in 2020.

In 2021, while pandemic relief funds were distributed through USAID, its direct allocation actually declined to $36 billion, which was committed to 8,000 “activities” in 181 countries.

Since spring 2020, USAID maintains it has supported “more than 120 countries in their fight to contain and combat the virus” by providing $5.7 billion for vaccinations, including $700 million to strengthen vaccination programs and to purchase 1 billion Pfizer vaccines for distributions around the world.

During fiscal year 2022, USAID reports it had $4.7 billion “obligated”—$502 million in contracts, $4.2 million in grants—and dispersed $3.1 billion in 781 pandemic relief awards to 287 recipients, including many in Africa.

Phone calls and emails left with officials listed as USAID media contacts did not to elicit a response over a two-week period.Watchdogs warn government faces difficulties stopping ...

PRAC was created within the OIG’s independent Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency (CIGIE) in spring 2020 to track the $2.2 trillion in CARES Act allocations to state and local governments, nonprofits, contractors, and individuals.

With the subsequent adoption of additional federal COVID-19 relief and stimulus packages, including the March 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, PRAC’s 22 inspector generals are now tracking more than $5 trillion in federal pandemic allocations and documenting what is reported by “prime recipients” on its webpage that is accessible to the public on the committee’s website.

But accessibility and transparency doesn’t always translate into comprehensive accounting; there are 21 million “rows” of data on one of PRAC’s dashboards.

OpenTheBooks.com founder Adam Andrzejewski told Epoch Times that while doing a “deep dive” August analysis of the $282.6 billion the U.S. distributed in foreign aid between 2013-18, researchers found discrepancies between the numbers posted by PRAC, USAID, the Department of Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congressional Research Service.

Many of the discrepancies across the varied tracking and oversight programs are related to specific agency reporting requirements, the type of recipients they deal with, and can mix in assorted federal allocations from different times and programs that are not related to the COVID-19 response.

The bottom line, Andrzejewski said, is it can be daunting to find the bottom line when there are nearly as many haystacks as needles.

“It takes hard work” to ferret through and comprehend the data, he said. “They don’t make it easy.”

According to the Treasury, in 2020 Congress appropriated $3.8 billion for international COVID-19 relief efforts and by April 2021, had added another $10.8 billion in COVID-19 foreign-aid funding, totaling $14.6 billion.

OpenTheBooks maintains the $6.4 billion figure cited by PRAC, and even the $14,6 billion cited by Treasury, does not include all foreign-related COVID-19 spending, such as allocations for the U.S. Health & Human Services global vaccine program, the $9.6 billion in “total COVID-19 budgetary resources” earmarked for USAID, or the American subsidiaries of foreign companies,

According to OpenTheBooks.com, that includes 125 Chinese firms—with “strong ties to the Communist Chinese Party (CCP)”—that received forgivable loans from the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in 2020, which is also not included in the foreign aid outlays.

PRAC’s Award Details Report lists 27 allocations totaling $14.539 million in pandemic assistance on its webpage to contractors in China through U.S.-based organizations and businesses with the largest —$5.18 million—allocated by DHS to U.S. Tactical Supply, Inc., based in Post Falls, Idaho.

According to USASpending, the May 18, 2020 allocation was for U.S. Tactical Supply’s procurement of 5.396 million face masks made in China.

FHI of Durham, N.C., distributed $99.945 million and the JSI Research & Training Institute, based in Boston, dispersed $64.32 million to contractors and organizations overseas.

Why is Senator Schumer Supporting Putin’s Pipeline?

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Washington is a nasty place due to lobbyist and money and Senator Schumer (D., N.Y.) is chin deep in it all especially when it comes to how he votes with particular interest in that globally disputed Nord Stream 2 Pipeline….otherwise known as Putin’s pipeline.

(By the way, after Biden decided to no longer support energy independence of the United States, we too are buying crude oil from Russia and it is dirty oil)

As a primer to this and how politics, diplomacy and military conflict all converge, know this —>>>

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Wednesday the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany will not move forward if Russia invades Ukraine.

But back to Schumer:

Affiliates of two European companies that fund Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline contributed to the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), who Republicans say has blocked sanctions on the Kremlin-backed project.

ENGIE North America and BASF Corporation each gave $2,500 to Schumer in September through their corporate political action committees, according to newly disclosed Federal Election Commission records. ENGIE North America’s parent company and a BASF subsidiary are part of a consortium of five companies that finance Nord Stream 2, which will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. While President Joe Biden has called the pipeline a geopolitical threat to Europe that helps Russian president Vladimir Putin, last year he waived sanctions on the project.

Nord Stream 2 route

Republicans have pushed for legislation to enforce sanctions only to be met with resistance from Senate Democrats and the White House. Schumer for months blocked Republican requests to vote on a sanctions bill. He approved a vote on sanctions legislation proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) earlier this month in exchange for Cruz lifting holds on several State Department nominees. The bill received bipartisan support by a 55-44 vote, but Senate Democrats used filibuster rules to block its passage. Democrats say they want to use sanctions against the pipeline as a last resort should Russia invade Ukraine.

The contributions to Schumer came amid an aggressive lobbying effort in Washington over sanctions on the 764-mile pipeline. The five European companies that back Nord Stream 2—Wintershall, ENGIE, Uniper, Shell, and OMV—have paid millions of dollars to lobbying firms to block sanctions.

Nord Stream 2 AG, the Swiss company that is building the pipeline, lobbies Congress through Democratic donor Vincent Roberti. Roberti gave maximum donations of $5,800 to Schumer and other Senate Democrats last year, Axios reported. Thomas McLarty, the founder of McLarty Inbound, a firm that lobbies for the five European companies, in April gave $2,500 to Schumer.

ENGIE North America, a subsidiary of the French firm ENGIE, contributed to Schumer’s campaign on Sept. 9. BASF, the parent company of Wintershall, donated to Schumer on Sept. 22. ENGIE also contributed to Schumer’s campaign in 2020, while BASF gave to the Senate leader in 2016, according to FEC records. Each member of the European consortium loaned 1 billion euros to Nord Stream 2 AG in 2017. Nord Stream 2 AG is controlled by Russian state oil company Gazprom. Nord Stream 2 AG’s chief executive officer, Matthias Warnig, is a Putin ally and former officer of the East German secret police.

The pipeline has caused a rift in Europe. Germany supports the project because it will provide the country with relatively cheap natural gas. But Eastern European countries, such as Ukraine and Poland, oppose the pipeline because it will give more leverage to Russia and because they will lose substantial amounts of revenue from energy transfer fees.

Democrats’ position on the pipeline has puzzled Ukraine and other nations that oppose the project. Biden has called the pipeline a “bad deal” for Europe and said Putin will use it to gain political influence. But Biden waived sanctions in May, saying that he wanted to avoid a confrontation with Germany. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky blasted Biden after waiving the sanctions, saying Biden handed “a weapon” to Putin.

Schumer’s office did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Free Beacon. ENGIE North America did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for BASF said that its American subsidiary does not lobby Congress on Nord Stream 2 and that Wintershall has no presence in the United States.

“Any implied connection between our Employee PAC contributions and Nord Stream 2 is incorrect,” the spokesman said.

***

Nord Stream 2 runs parallel to the project Nord Stream 1, which has been in operation since 2011 at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The pipeline stretches for roughly 1,230 km and connects Ust-Luga in Russia with Greifswald in north-eastern Germany.

The construction began in May 2018 and was completed on 10 September 2021, a year and a half behind schedule.

The owner of the pipeline is the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, taking over half of the costs of the €9.5-billion project.

The remaining costs were financed by a European consortium of companies including OMV (Austria), Wintershall Dea (Germany), Engie (France), Uniper (Germany) and Shell (UK).

The pipes are supposed to deliver 55 billion cubic metres of gas each year — but the project still needs certification from the German authorities before it can begin delivering gas.

Who supports the pipeline?

Clearly, Russia and Germany both support the project, but in Berlin, especially against the backdrop of the newly formed government consisting of three different parties, there have repeatedly been different views on whether and when Nord Stream 2 should be launched. The Greens, for example, reject the project for geostrategic and climate policy reasons. The liberal FDP sees a need for action.

In principle, Germany relies on Russian gas, considered to be a transition fuel in the green transition. The pipeline would be a relatively cheap way to obtain the raw material and cover the country’s energy needs.

Moscow would benefit from this, as it could sell its gas, which would bring financial returns. About 55 billion cubic metres of gas are to be delivered from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea every year. According to the operating company, this could supply 26 million households.

 

Will Justice Sotomayor Recuse on the Mandate Cases?

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If Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor reads the New York Times and watches CNN, then we clearly understand how her alleged knowledge of all things vaccines and mandates are so wrong and exaggerated. This Judge made statements during oral arguments that were wildly wrong. Yeesh. The Justices do gather after arguments are presented and confab on the cases and then collaborate with their clerks. We can only hope Sotomayor gets the memo on how wrong she is or she must recuse from the case(s) dealing with OSHA, vaccines and mandates.

If the Supreme Court rules on the side of the Federal government then the power of the government over all citizens is limitless and tyranny is in stone.

As noted by The Federalist in part for more details –>

Brian Fletcher, U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General, representing the federal government in Biden v. Missouri, told justices that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra should be allowed to keep the mandate. Challengers, however, noted that the rule forces a medical procedure on healthcare workers who could leave the workforce, and leave rural and poor populations in need of care vulnerable.

“Exercising this kind of power to force the individual to submit to a medical treatment has never ever been something that has been authorized by Congress or done by an agency on an emergency basis,” Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill said. “But I don’t think in this case that justifies them co-opting a quintessential state police power. In fact, the opposite is true.”

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch all seemed skeptical of the vaccine mandate on the grounds that the federal government was extending its reach into state issues. In his questioning, Gorsuch emphasized that the mandate seems less effective as a health and safety protocol and is more of an issue of control.

“Could CMS also implement regulations about exercise regimes?” Gorsuch asked, wondering if “substances that must be ingested by hospital employees” could be implemented “in the name of health and safety?”

Part of this control, Gorsuch hinted, is coming via funding threats.

“These statutes sometimes constitute, we’re told, 10 percent of all the funding state governments receive. This regulation affects, we’re told, 10 million healthcare workers and will cost over a billion dollars for employers to comply with. So what’s your reaction to that? Why isn’t this a regulation that effectively controls the employment and tenure of healthcare workers at hospitals, an issue Congress said the agency didn’t have the authority, that that should be left to the states to regulate?” Gorsuch asked.

In response, Sotomayor asserted her belief that “if you want my money your facility has to do this.”

“This is not an issue of power between the states and federal government. This is an issue of what right does the federal government [have] to dictate what it wants to buy,” Sotomayor said.

“Your Honor, it is a vaccine requirement masquerading as a condition of participation,” Jesus Osete, Missouri Deputy Attorney General, replied.

During the arguments, Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Stephen Breyer, and the counsel arguing in favor of the mandate continued to spew misinformation about COVID-19 and the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. Kagan repeatedly lied that vaccinated workers couldn’t transmit the virus despite numerous admissions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the jab doesn’t stop viral spread and data showing a significant number of breakthrough COVID cases.

“All the Secretary is doing here is to say to providers, you know what? Basically, the one thing you can’t do is to kill your patients. So you have to get vaccinated so that you’re not transmitting the disease that can kill elderly Medicare patients, that can kill sick Medicaid patients,” Kagan said. “I mean, that seems like a pretty basic infection prevention measure. You can’t be the carrier of disease.”

She later claimed, without evidence, that “people are not showing up to hospitals because they’re afraid of getting COVID from staff.”

Breyer, who used rising COVID-19 case numbers to justify his support for the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for the private sector, also lied about the shot and COVID hospitalizations.

“There are 750,000 people got this yesterday, but the hospitals are full to overflowing, that there is a problem worse than diptheria,” Breyer said. “They’re filling up hospital beds and others are dying because they can’t get in. Okay. Now public interest, call it something else, call it what you might, but it seems to me, it’s hard for me to believe, but it seems to me that every minute that these things are not in effect, thousands of more people are getting this disease. And we have some discretionary power.”

 

Chinese Military Aggression Towards Taiwan is Escalating, Biden Ignores

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A small congressional delegation arrived in Taiwan last week to assess the defense conditions and operations in Asia. It is remarkable however that prior to the departure, the Chinese embassy in Washington DC sent an email demanding the trio be cancelled. Imagine that…our elected officials are supposed to comply to the Chinese Communist Party and their demands?

In part from Axios:

  • Six Republican lawmakers who visited Taiwan earlier this month to meet with Tsai and other Taipei officials faced similar calls from Beijing’s embassy in Washington, per Foreign Policy.
  • Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the House Veterans’ Affairs chair, and leader of the delegation to Taiwan, praised Taiwan to Tsai as a “democratic success story, a reliable partner and a force for good in the world,” in comments that are sure to further anger Beijing, per Reuters.

“Under [Tsai’s] administration, the bonds between us are more positive and productive than they have been for decades. Our commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and has remained steadfast as the ties between us have deepened. Taiwan is a democratic success story, a reliable partner and a force for good in the world.”

— Rep. Takano

The big picture: Takano, Slotkin and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Colin Allred (D-Texas) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) were in Taiwan to discuss matters including regional security, U.S.-Taiwan relations “and other significant issues of mutual interest” with Taipei officials, per a statement from the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy.

  • Slotkin tweeted Thursday, “The auto industry’s largest supplier of microchips is here in Taiwan, so supply chain issues will most definitely be on the agenda.”

Background: The Chinese government has in recent months escalated military and political pressure in its claims over the island, which separated from China in 1949 amid civil war.

Go deeper: Taiwan among 110 participants invited to Biden’s “Summit for Democracy”

Meanwhile, as a response to the trip, China decided to once again threaten the region with 27 aircraft invading a ‘buffer zone‘.

Taiwan’s defense ministry says its air forces were mobilized to warn off 27 Chinese warplanes. The incursion into Taiwan’s air defense zone included 18 fighter jets, five nuclear-capable bombers and a refueling aircraft.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said Sunday the island’s air force had scrambled fighter jets to warn off 27 Chinese aircraft that had entered its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) while missile systems were deployed for monitoring purposes.

Taiwan’s ADIZ is not the same as its territorial air space but instead is self-declared airspace that is monitored for national security purposes.

The latest ratcheting up of tensions comes on the heels of a US Congressional delegation to the island, the second this month in support of Taiwan.

China has vowed to take back Taiwan by force if necessary.

Beijing disapproves of anything that lends international legitimacy and recognition to the government in Taipei and registered its disapproval of American lawmakers visiting the island.

Taiwan Scrambles Fighters to Warn Off Chinese Aircraft as ...

What happened in Taiwan’s ADIZ?

The Chinese air force sent 18 fighter jets, five nuclear-capable H-6 bombers and a Y-20 aerial refueling jet, suggesting China may have refueled mid-flight. The Chinese military is still working on its mid-air refueling capabilities as it seeks to project power around the globe.

In the map provided by the Taiwanese defense ministry, the H-6 bombers and six of the fighter jets flew south of Taiwan into the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines before steering out into the Pacific and returning to China.

Taiwan has complained for months of incursions into its ADIZ by China’s air force, usually in the southwestern part near the Pratas Islands which it controls.

Why are tensions high between Beijing and Taipei now?

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army said the Chinese military carried out “naval and air force combat readiness patrol in the direction of the Taiwan Strait.”

Challenging the Most Recent FBI/DHS Domestic Terrorism Report

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Terrorism appears to have taken on a wider set of definitions and is no longer confined to militant Islam. Seems on the domestic front, there are all kinds of profiles, groups, politics and criminals now in the classification according to the most recent government report.

After the January 6th event in Washington DC, the FBI applied every available human resource and technology to identify potential criminals that they deemed performed a criminal act such as parading. Meanwhile, we have heard little if anything about convictions from all the destruction, death and looting from last summer much less how it continues now with the smash and grabs. It has been reported that the FBI embedded some point people in the J6 Trump rally and that is a common practice with thousands of cases for decades by the FBI, so the did the FBI embed anyone in any of the ANTIFA or BLM or with these large groups across the country doing smash and grabs?

We should have regard for the rank and file FBI and DHS employees but we must challenge management for obvious reasons. Let’s go a little deeper shall we?

Notice ‘intimidate civilian’ population…

Notice ‘destruction of critical infrastructure’…

The report is not very long and it is suggested you read it here. 

The next scandal to be mentioned is the school boards versus parents and the Department of Justice. It is not just about critical race theory, it also includes forced mask wearing and then what else is being taught in the classroom without parental knowledge or consent such as sexual diversity. In fact much of what is taught when it comes to sexual diversity is actually pornography. No one at the Department of Education or the Department of Justice even cares about those violations of laws involving minors. Riots in America: Why is the Fuse So Short? | Clarion Project

Simply Americans are being coerced into believing application of the law is fair and equal, that is hardly the case. We have an activist government and it is being propped up by activists in every agency at the Federal level and now we are seeing it at the state level as we discover these ‘Soros’ District Attorneys refused to prosecute and the same goes for hundreds of judges. It goes far beyond the defunding of the police.

America is in a bad place when it comes to law and order. Laws have no value unless they are applied and applied equally. Criminals and activists are using social media apps and encrypted apps to communicate and coordinate…is that being investigated?