Joe Will Force the U.S. into The Great Reset, Beware

We will be forced to change our behavior and every day common things around us that we rely on will fade away. Biden will put the United States back into the Paris Accord….but read on…

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For decades, progressives have attempted to use climate change to justify liberal policy changes. But their latest attempt – a new proposal called the “Great Reset” – is the most ambitious and radical plan the world has seen in more than a generation.

At a virtual meeting earlier in June hosted by the World Economic Forum, some of the planet’s most powerful business leaders, government officials and activists announced a proposal to “reset” the global economy. Instead of traditional capitalism, the high-profile group said the world should adopt more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and massive Green New Deal-like government programs.

“Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,” wrote Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in an article published on WEF’s website. “In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

Schwab also said that “all aspects of our societies and economies” must be “revamped,” “from education to social contracts and working conditions.”

Joining Schwab at the WEF event was Prince Charles, one of the primary proponents of the Great Reset; Gina Gopinath, the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund; António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations; and CEOs and presidents of major international corporations, such as Microsoft and BP.

Activists from groups such as Greenpeace International and a variety of academics also attended the event or have expressed their support for the Great Reset.

Although many details about the Great Reset won’t be rolled out until the World Economic Forum meets in Davos in January 2021, the general principles of the plan are clear: The world needs massive new government programs and far-reaching policies comparable to those offered by American socialists such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in their Green New Deal plan.

Or, put another way, we need a form of socialism — a word the World Economic Forum has deliberately avoided using, all while calling for countless socialist and progressive plans.

“We need to design policies to align with investment in people and the environment,” said the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Sharan Burrow. “But above all, the longer-term perspective is about rebalancing economies.”

One of the main themes of the June meeting was that the coronavirus pandemic has created an important “opportunity” for many of the World Economic Forum’s members to enact their radical transformation of capitalism, which they acknowledged would likely not have been made possible without the pandemic.

“We have a golden opportunity to seize something good from this crisis — its unprecedented shockwaves may well make people more receptive to big visions of change,” said Prince Charles at the meeting, adding later, “It is an opportunity we have never had before and may never have again.”

You might be wondering how these leaders plan to convince the world to completely alter its economy over the long run, since the COVID-19 pandemic most assuredly won’t remain a crisis forever. The answer is that they’ve already identified another “crisis” that will require expansive government intervention: Climate change.

“The threat of climate change has been more gradual [than COVID-19]—but its devastating reality for many people and their livelihoods around the world, and its ever greater potential to disrupt, surpasses even that of Covid-19,” Prince Charles said.

Of course, these government officials, activists and influencers can’t impose a systemic change of this size on their own. Which is why they have already started to activate vast networks of left-wing activists from around the world, who will throughout 2021 demand changes in line with the Great Reset.

According to the World Economic Forum, its 2021 Davos summit will include thousands of members of the Global Shapers Community, youth activists located in 400 cities across the planet.

The Global Shapers program was involved in the widespread “climate strikes” of 2019, and more than 1,300 have already been trained by the Climate Reality Project, the highly influential, well-funded climate activist organization run by former Vice President Al Gore, who serves on the World Economic Forum’s Board of Trustees.

For those of us who support free markets, the Great Reset is nothing short of terrifying. Our current crony capitalist system has many flaws, to be sure, but granting more power to the government agents who created that crony system and eroding property rights is not the best way forward. America is the world’s most powerful, prosperous nation precisely because of the very market principles the Great Reset supporters loathe, not in spite of them.

Making matters worse, the left has already proven throughout the COVID-19 pandemic that it can radically transform political realities in the midst of a crisis, so it’s not hard to see how the Great Reset could eventually come to fruition.

When Institutions Fail, Consequences are Deadly

We know this to be the case in the United States as a result of sanctuary city policy. Politicians have sovereign immunity, meaning they are not accountable for their policy or legislative action when there are victims including death.

Intelligence agencies in the United States cooperate with each other with intelligence and detentions except when they don’t in hundreds of cities across America. U.S. intelligence agencies also collaborate with foreign services on warnings and cases of criminals and the associated backgrounds including judicial decisions.

While the United States was in the whirlwind of the election, very little was reporting was done on the terror attacks in Europe. Terror and militants are still out there, the war is not over. But for some additional details, read on.

AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS SIGNALED on Thursday the beginning of a major overhaul of the country’s intelligence community, in response to this week’s terrorist attack in Vienna, which killed four people. Another 20 people were wounded by a lone gunman, who used an automatic weapon to spread panic in the Austrian capital before he was shot dead by Austrian police.

The gunman was named as Kujtim Fejzulai, 20, an Isis sympathiser who was able to stay on in Austria after attempts to strip him of citizenship were blocked

Armed with an assault rifle, a pistol and a machete, he injured 22 people on Monday night before being shot dead by police. He was named as Kujtim Fejzulai, 20, who had previously been jailed for attempting to join Islamic State in Syria.
Before his early release in December he had taken part in a deradicalisation course but “deceived” his handlers about his true intentions, Karl Nehammer, the interior minister, said.

The gunman was later identified as Kujtim Fejzulai, an Austrian citizen of Albanian extraction, who was born in North Macedonia and held citizenship there too. The shooter was known to Austrian authorities, as he had been previously convicted of trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State. He had been imprisoned as an Islamic radical, but had been released after allegedly duping Austrian judges, who believed he had reformed.

In the days following the attack, it emerged that Slovakian authorities had notified Austrian security agencies in July that Fejzulai had tried to purchase ammunition in Slovakia. On Wednesday, Austria’s Director General for Public Security, Franz Ruf, said that Austrian intelligence authorities “sent questions back to Bratislava”, but then there had been a “breakdown” in the system. Austrian Minister of the Interior Karl Nehammer added that “something apparently went wrong with the communication in the next steps”.

Nehammer and others, including Austrian Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler, called for the establishment of an independent commission to examine the Fejzulai case and “clarify whether the process went optimally and in line with the law”. The Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said on Thursday that the country did not have “all the legal means necessary to monitor and sanction extremists”, adding that he would initiate the creation of a panel that would supervise a “realignment” of the intelligence agencies. He was referring to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism, known by the initials BVT. He did not provide details.

 

Devin Archer, Hunter and Another Company: Mbloom

Primer: Devon Archer, whose conviction was reinstated a ruling, had partnered with Hunter Biden in Rosemont Seneca, a Washington-based investment firm. Starting in 2014, the pair served together on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company accused of corruption, at the same time that his father oversaw U.S. policy towards Ukraine. Hunter Biden has called his decision to take the board seat “a mistake,” while Joe Biden has defended the decision, saying, “my son did nothing wrong.”

KAHULUI, HI–(Marketwired – Jan 21, 2014)mbloom LLC, a Maui-based technology fund for Hawaii startups, today announced the close of a $10 million early-stage venture capital fund.

The investment, mbloom Fund 1, is a public-private partnership with Hawaii State Development Corporation (HSDC) and Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, an East Coast hedge fund.

“We are excited to use mbloom Fund 1 to create economic growth for Hawaii,” says mbloom co-founder Arben Kryeziu. “Innovation happens in Hawaii, but many companies leave the island for growth opportunities on the mainland. We want to keep Hawaii startups here, giving them opportunities to develop, connect, and make a mark just like the startups in Silicon Valley.”

Tech fund for Hawaii startups mbloom LLC closes $10M early ...

Hat tip source:

A businessman with alleged ties to Russian organized crime and Syria’s ruling regime paid nearly US$3 million into a failed investment fund backed by a longtime business partner of the son of the U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, leaked bank records show.

Hares Youssef, who holds both Ukrainian and Syrian citizenship, invested $2.98 million in late 2015 into mbloom, a now-defunct tech startup fund that was jointly financed by Hawaii’s Strategic State Development Corporation and Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP). RSTP was run by Devon Archer, then a close business partner of Hunter Biden.

Mbloom was shuttered after Archer was arrested in an unrelated fraud case.

While the younger Biden had previously been involved with RSTP, there is no evidence that he played a role in the mbloom deal. An archived version of RSTP’s website from 2014 listed Biden as a Washington, D.C.-based managing director of the company, but his name had been removed from the site by September 2015, when Youssef made his investment.
“Mr. Biden severed his relationship with Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners prior to this transaction,” said George Mesires, a spokesman for Hunter Biden.

Financial records examined by reporters show that money from mbloom was paid into another of Archer’s accounts, which was at the time making regular payments to Biden. Mesires did not respond to questions about whether any of these payments were connected to mbloom.

The details of Youssef’s investment are contained in the FinCEN Files, a series of suspicious activity reports (SARs), secret alerts issued by bank compliance officers when there are suspicions that a transaction may be linked to crime or money laundering. The existence of a SAR is not itself evidence of wrongdoing.
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About This Investigation

The FinCEN Files is a 16-month-long investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, BuzzFeed News and more than 400 international journalists in 88 countries, including those from OCCRP and its network of member centers.

The investigation is based on more than 2,100 secret bank reports filed to the U.S. Treasury Department’s intelligence unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, other documents, and dozens of interviews.

The documents show that City National Bank in Los Angeles flagged as suspicious two payments sent in September and November 2015 to mbloom, which was based on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

The bank flagged the transaction based on reports tying Youssef to international arms trafficking and to Semion Mogilevich, a Russian organized crime boss dubbed “The Brainy Don.” Given these alleged links, the bank was “unable to validate whether the source of the wires derived are from Mr. YOUSSEF’s legitimate businesses or from his alleged ties to Russian and Ukrainian criminal elements,” the SAR said.

The SAR also cited allegations that Youssef had ties to Maher al-Assad, a senior Syrian general who is the brother of the country’s president.
Graham Barrow, a U.K.-based anti-money laundering expert, told OCCRP that the link between Youssef and mbloom was sure to raise a red flag for compliance officers at the bank.

“The transaction looks every bit as bad as you might presume,” he said. “The bank would be very concerned as to the source of these funds and a lack of detailed narrative as to the business purpose only compounds those concerns.”

Youssef told OCCRP via WhatsApp that the allegations he was linked to organized crime and arms smuggling were “bull shit”.

The investment fund, mbloom, was embroiled in controversy shortly after its founding in 2014 by Kane – also known as Arben Kane Kryreziu – and his business partner, Nick Bicanic. The fund was seeded with $5 million each from Archer’s RSTP and the Hawaiian Strategic Development Corporation, a state government-backed fund intended to create entrepreneurial growth and high wage jobs.

Almost immediately, mbloom attracted controversy after reportedly investing in two startups run by Bicanic and Kane. The fund was shut down in mid-2016 after Archer was arrested for defrauding the Oglala Sioux tribe of tens of millions of dollars. The Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation then withdrew.

In interviews, both Youssef and mbloom’s former manager, Kane, said the investment was the initiative of Archer, who served with Biden at the time on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings. Archer has since been convicted of fraud in the U.S. in the Oglala Sioux case.
Both men characterized Archer as the driving force behind the deal, and said that the younger Biden was not involved.

“Youssef was introduced through Devon Archer as an investor,” Kane told OCCRP, adding that he trusted Archer because he came from a “prestige network” that included his other business partner, Christopher Heinz, the stepson of the then-US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Youssef said he met both Archer and Kane, but never met Biden.

Youssef was indicted in Spain in 2017 for allegedly laundering money for Dmytro Firtash, a Kremlin-linked Ukrainian oligarch currently fighting extradition to the U.S. to face corruption charges. By a strange twist of fate, Firtash last year joined efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to generate unfounded, politically damaging allegations of corruption against the Bidens.

Archer’s lawyer, Matthew Schwartz, did not respond to questions sent by email.
Return to Sender

Youssef told OCCRP he traveled to New York in 2015 to meet Archer and Kane, and that the investment was intended to help create a gold-backed virtual currency named Golden Hearts.

Kane gave a different account, saying the money was intended to finance a planned attempt to take mbloom public.
the-fincen-files/Arben-Kane.jpg
Credit: arbenkane.com
Arben Kane

Whatever the reason for the investment, things quickly turned sour. In its SAR, City National Bank said it had contacted mbloom about its concerns over Youssef’s alleged ties to organized crime. The investment fund told the bank it would return Youssef’s money.

In January 2016, mbloom refunded Youssef $277,000 according to the SAR.

Youssef said he would like to get his remaining millions back, adding, “I wish one day [but] I don’t think it will happen.”

In fact, the SAR shows that most of this money was transferred to another firm related to mbloom called Mbloom BDC Advisor LLC, from which it was disbursed “mostly for legal services, taxes, insurance premiums, etc.”

Just days after Youssef made his investment, Mbloom BDC Advisor LLC transferred $275,000 to the account of Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, another company owned by Archer, according to bank documents posted online by New York Times reporter Kenneth Vogel. It is unclear if this money originated with Youssef.

Set up by Archer in Delaware in 2014, Rosemont Seneca Bohai was an “apparent shell entity” that also received nearly $3.5 million in payments from Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Archer and Biden sat on the board, according to a U.S. Senate report.

Among other destinations, Rosemont Seneca Bohai sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in regular transfers to Biden in 2014 and 2015.

Biden’s spokesman, Mesires, didn’t comment on those transfers other than to say, “Mr. Biden has had no ownership interest in Rosemont Seneca Bohai at any time.”

Trump’s Re-Election Could Bring Several New Cabinet Secretaries

Axios reports:
If President Trump wins re-election, he’ll move to immediately fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and also expects to replace CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, two people who’ve discussed these officials’ fates with the president tell Axios.

The big picture: The list of planned replacements is much longer, but these are Trump’s priorities, starting with Wray.

Wray and Haspel are despised and distrusted almost universally in Trump’s inner circle. He would have fired both already, one official said, if not for the political headaches of acting before Nov. 3.

Why it matters: A win, no matter the margin, will embolden Trump to ax anyone he sees as constraining him from enacting desired policies or going after perceived enemies.

Federal Agencies Struggle To Quantify Data Consolidation ...

Trump last week signed an executive order that set off alarm bells as a means to politicize the civil service. An administration official said the order “is a really big deal” that would make it easier for presidents to get rid of career government officials.
There could be shake-ups across other departments. The president has never been impressed with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, for example. But that doesn’t carry the urgency of replacing Wray or Haspel.
The nature of top intelligence and law enforcement posts has traditionally carried an expectation for a higher degree of independence and separation from politics.

Be smart: While Trump has also privately vented about Attorney General Bill Barr, he hasn’t made any formal plans to replace him, an official said.

Trump is furious that Barr isn’t releasing before the election what Trump hoped would be a bombshell report by U.S. Attorney John Durham on the Obama administration’s handling of the Trump-Russia investigation.
Durham’s investigation has yet to produce any high-profile indictments of Obama-era officials as Trump had hoped.
“The attorney general wants to finish the work that he’s been involved in since day one,” a senior administration official told Axios.

Behind the scenes: “The view of Haspel in the West Wing is that she still sees her job as manipulating people and outcomes, the way she must have when she was working assets in the field,” one source with direct knowledge of the internal conversations told Axios. “It’s bred a lot of suspicion of her motives.”

Trump is also increasingly frustrated with Haspel for opposing the declassification of documents that would help the Justice Department’s Durham report.
A source familiar with conversations at the CIA says, “Since the beginning of DNI’s push to declassify documents, and how strongly she feels about protecting sources connected to those materials, there have been rumblings around the agency that the director plans to depart the CIA regardless of who wins the election.”

As for Wray, whose expected firing was first reported by The Daily Beast, Trump is angry his second FBI chief didn’t launch a formal investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business connections — and didn’t purge more officials Trump believes abused power to investigate his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia.

Trump also grew incensed when Wray testified in September that the FBI has not seen widespread election fraud, including with mail-in ballots.
A senior FBI official tells Axios: “Major law enforcement associations representing current and former FBI agents as well as police and sheriff’s departments across the country have consistently expressed their full support of Director Wray’s leadership of the Bureau.”

Trump soured on Esper over the summer when the Defense secretary rebuffed the idea of sending active-duty military into the streets to deal with racial justice protests and distanced himself from the clearing of Lafayette Square for a photo op at St. John’s church.

Trump indicated to Axios then that he “really wasn’t focused on” firing Esper. One senior official cautioned that others who want the Pentagon job could be driving speculation to undercut Esper. But one source, who discussed options with Trump, told Axios he urged the president to wait until post-election to replace him.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement that Esper “has always been and remains committed to doing what is best for the military and the Nation.”

Trump 2.0 would bring more loyalty tests

Chris Liddell, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, is heading the White House’s transition effort, including vetting potential new Cabinet officials, two White House officials told Axios.

He’s working closely with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Johnny McEntee, who runs the Office of Presidential Personnel and has been conducting “loyalty tests” to weed out “Never Trumpers” from the administration.
In 2016, Trump famously blew up his own transition process. The officials said Liddell is determined to avoid a repeat. Liddell declined to comment.
Politico first reported on Trump’s transition team.

Don’t forget: The transition between first and second terms is traditionally a time when presidents who win re-election accept resignations and switch out their teams.

Former chiefs of staff to Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, speaking on David Marchick’s “Transition Lab” podcast, said their administrations didn’t prepare enough for a “robust transition” between terms.
Bush’s former chief Josh Bolten said he’d advise Trump to “rethink all of your personnel and know what your priorities are.”

White House spokesman Judd Deere told Axios: “We have no personnel announcements at this time nor would it be appropriate to speculate about changes after the election or in a 2nd term.”

DHS Launches Center for Countering Human Trafficking

FACTOID: Across the United States, illicit massage parlors are often used as covers for sex trafficking operations.  In a recent study, Polaris looked at massage parlors, primarily in the U.S., and found that over 6,500 of them are illicit businesses. In Fairfax County, Virginia — not more than 20 minutes outside of D.C. — they found 108 illicit massage businesses connected to 181 different limited liability companies (LLCs).  In Virginia, as with every other state, none of these companies are required to disclose the real people who own these companies and are benefiting from these crimes. More here.

Ohio offers funds to remove human trafficking marks

Just this week, President Trump signed 2 executive orders, 3 proclamations against human trafficking

Blue Campaign is a national public awareness campaign, designed to educate the public, law enforcement and other industry partners to recognize the indicators of human trafficking, and how to appropriately respond to possible cases. Blue Campaign works closely with DHS Components to create general awareness training and materials for law enforcement and others to increase detection of human trafficking, and to identify victims.

Located within the Office of Partnership and Engagement, Blue Campaign leverages partnerships with the private sector, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), law enforcement and state/local authorities to maximize national public engagement on anti-human trafficking efforts. Blue Campaign’s educational awareness objectives consists of two foundational elements, prevention of human trafficking and protection of exploited persons.

*** Only 38 states have laws requiring human trafficking training.***

Human Trafficking | NCJWC

WASHINGTON—U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Chad Wolf announced Thursday the opening of the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking, the U.S. government’s first-ever integrated law enforcement operations center directly supporting federal criminal investigations, victim assistance efforts, intelligence analysis, and outreach and training activities related to human trafficking and forced labor.

The center, which has been operational since early September, is based in Washington and led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a global leader of criminal investigations into human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The center will be staffed with law enforcement officials from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and across DHS, as well as subject matter experts and support staff from 16 DHS components—all focused on the “4 Ps” of the center’s mission: prevention, protection, prosecution and partnerships.

“Human trafficking is modern day slavery. There is no other way to say it,” said Acting Secretary Chad Wolf. “The words are strong because the actions are evil. The forms of exploitation, sex trafficking, forced labor and domestic servitude that constitute human trafficking are antithetical in every way to the principles of human dignity that Americans hold dear. The launch of this Center for Countering Human Trafficking represents the investment of resources, attention and time by President Trump to combat and dismantle all forms of human trafficking.”

On Jan. 15, Wolf signed and released the DHS Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking, the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor, and Child Sexual Exploitation which pledged to bolster DHS efforts to combat human trafficking and forced labor.
“Human trafficking, whether through sex or labor, is a detriment to our society and threatens the moral conscience of our nation. Criminal organizations target those who are most vulnerable and exploit them through any means necessary, victims are treated as commodities rather than human beings, with no regard for their health and well-being,” said ICE Senior Official Performing the Duties of Director Tony Pham. “ICE, along with our internal and external partners, will continue to fight against these atrocities and answer victims’ cries for help. The Center for Countering Human Trafficking will serve as evidence that when we work collectively against such heinous acts, we combat the threat they pose to national security and to public safety.”

ICE’s HSI has long been a global leader in investigating human trafficking and sexual exploitation cases and bringing offenders to justice. The Center will build on the agency’s “victims first” approach, which balances victim identification, rescue and support with prevention, investigation and prosecution of traffickers. ICE HSI is uniquely positioned to utilize criminal, immigration and trade-based authorities to proactively identify, disrupt and dismantle cross-border human trafficking organizations.

In fiscal year 2019, ICE initiated 1,024 human trafficking and forced labor related cases which led to 2,197 criminal arrests. These effective actions resulted in nearly 700 convictions and the rescue of more than 400 victims.

Reporting suspected sexual or labor exploitation can help decrease or stop further victimization, as well as lead to the identification and rescue of other possible victims. To report suspicious activity or instances of sexual abuse or exploitation, contact your local law enforcement agency. Tips can be submitted online at ice.gov/tipline, by phone at 866-DHS-2-ICE or by contacting your local ICE office.