[PJMedia] When Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. An incredibly corrupt version of Jar-Jar Binks, only well into his dotage. The dumbass who abandoned Afghanistan.... rode off into the sunset at the end of his two terms as vice president, he needed something to occupy his time when he wasn’t playing on the Delaware beach. So he backed the formation of the Joe Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Known now as the Penn Biden Center, it’s not exactly clear what the center does or is supposed to do.
The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement hired Biden as an "honorary professor" from 2017-2019.
That explains why he keeps saying he was a professor.
He taught no classes, but his connection to the think tank certainly opened the spigot of donations to the university from one interested party: China.
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) claims the college received $54.6 million in donations from China between 2014 through June 2019, including $23.1 million in 2016. "The Penn Biden Center is a dark money, revolving door nightmare where foreign competitors like China donated millions of dollars to the university so that they could have access to future high-ranking officials," said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center.
"The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity," a front man for the University of Pennsylvania, Stephen MacCarthy, told the New York Post. "In fact, the University has never solicited any gifts for the Center. Since its inception in 2017, there have been three unsolicited gifts (from two donors) which combined total [sic] $1,100. Both donors are Americans. One hundred percent of the budget for the Penn Biden Center comes from university funds."
Yes, but what about "gifts" to the University? When you’re dealing with $54 million, are we really to believe that the school didn’t receive any suggestions on where that money should go?
"MacCarthy was very careful to say Penn ’never solicited any gifts’ to Penn Biden Center," NLPC counsel Paul Kamenar said. "It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to conclude that foreign funds are being directed to the Biden Center even if not solicited or earmarked for the Center."
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... the Penn Biden Center funneled a lot of talent into the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft ...the pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation...
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... former fellows and administrators of the Penn Biden Center now have key positions in the Biden administration.
Michael Carpenter, the former managing director of the Penn Biden Center, was named the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, based in Vienna, in 2021. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also briefly served as director of the think tank before joining the Biden administration in January 2021. Before that, Blinken was a policy advisor for President Joe Biden ...... 46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect hacked up by the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. The guy who single-handedly lost Afghanistan...... ’s 2020 campaign.
Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the center from April 2018 to September 2020, is currently special assistant to the president and the National Security Director for the Western Hemisphere at the White House, according to his LinkedIn page.
Interest in the doings of the Penn Biden Center predates the documents scandal. In 2016 when plans for the Center were being drawn up, Hunter Biden ...son of President Joe: cashiered from the Navy, a crackhead, wheeler dealer, leg humper, horn dog, and general all around ne'er do well. We're supposed to feel sorry for him... discussed the project with advisors, including Creative Artists Agency (CAA) agent Craig Gering. An email from Gering in April 2016 was found on his abandoned laptop.
Fox News:
One of those plans included "wealth creation," with no further explanation, and another included an apparent reference to the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., with a possible job opportunity for Hunter.
"The Biden Institute of Foreign Relations at the University of Pennsylvania," Gering’s email read. "Focus on foreign policy. In addition to the institute at U of Penn, the school has an existing office in DC that will be expanded to house a DC office for VP Biden (and Mike, Hunter and Steve?). Operates like The Clinton Global Initiative without the money raise."
Hunter then confirmed Gering’s notes but emphasized that they needed to be "very confidential" because they were not set in stone.
At least ten senior administration officials have been hired after stints at the Penn Biden Center. And is it just a coincidence, as the Washington Free Beacon noted, that foreign donations to the university tripled in the two years following the Biden Center’s opening in 2017, with most of the money coming from China?
Something stinks in the Penn Biden Center. Perhaps Republicans in Congress can make the Center a particular point of interest in their investigations of the Biden administration.
#1
Whats that old political saying....
If the democrats are accusing you of doing something they are likely the ones doing it.
To our new (R) controlled House.
How about addressing the massive amounts of backdoor deals and $$$$$ floating into DC Swamp Pockets and place a moratorium on family related hires by donors - lobbyists and $$$$ from non-USA sources?
#2
PA gubbamint is R-dominated except for Gov, right? How about some investigative funding hearings into U of Penn?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2023 7:25 Comments ||
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#3
Upping the ante: "Reports compiled by the conservative watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) from disclosures to the Department of Education showed that Penn collected more than $67.6 million in donations and contracts from China between 2013 and 2019."
#4
I'm so damn sick and tired of hearing Putin, Putin, Putin, Russia, Russia, Russia when the Chinese are pulling shit like this. Putin is far too weak to have any impact on my life. Forget Putin and Russia. This is the enemy:
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/13/2023 12:30 Comments ||
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#5
Unfortunately, U Penn is a private (and Ivy League) school.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/13/2023 12:30 Comments ||
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#6
Sorry. It looked OK in preview. I specified style="width:425;". Was that wrong?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/13/2023 12:32 Comments ||
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#7
Try width = 425 instead next time?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2023 13:33 Comments ||
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#8
Cut off all government funding and grants and see how private they are.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/13/2023 20:57 Comments ||
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[Aljazeera] The Central Intelligence Agency chief, William Burns, has made a rare trip to Libya, meeting the country’s interim premier weeks after authorities handed the United States a suspect in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, the Tripoli-based government said.
The meeting in Tripoli on Thursday, also reported by Libyan media, was part of the first visit by a CIA director to the North African country since the 2012 attack against a US mission in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador and three others.
The visit and the meeting with Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah were announced by his Government of National Unity on its Facebook page, where a picture of Burns and Dbeibah together was posted.
"Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibeh hosted the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns" at the cabinet office in Tripoli, along with Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush and Libyan intelligence chief Hussein al-Ayeb, Dbeibah’s government said in the post.
Burns "underlined the need to develop economic and security cooperation between the two countries", it said.
Libyan media reported that Burns also met Khalifa Haftar, the eastern Libya-based military strongman who has attempted to march on Tripoli and overthrow the Government of National Unity in the past.
The meeting took place at Haftar’s headquarters in Benghazi.
The CIA, which does not regularly announce such visits, declined to comment.
Libya has been in a tumultuous state since a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 that saw the demise of ruler Muammar Gaddafi and plunged Libya into division and violence.
The country has been de facto divided since 2014 between warring factions based in the west and east of the country.
#1
Burns "underlined the need to develop economic and security cooperation between the two countries", it said.
Why does the head Klingon continue to make country visits? Filling in for the President? Is the head Klingon the actual president. I thought economic and security matters were the purview of national leaders, diplomats, and politicians ?
If I can be helped, someone please help me with this.
#2
In all fairness, 'LOL81million' probably couldn't be relied upon to recite a sentence that complex without some peculiar anecdote. The secretary of state isn't any prize. So what's a world power to do, send Kamala?
#3
It would have been much wiser for Burns to declare from Washington that the administration supports the creation of a Libyan duality. Viz., the old Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. With the Devil taking the hindmost in the south.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2023 7:31 Comments ||
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#5
Haftar is intertwined with Wagner. Wagner secures many of the oil and gas fields in Libya and controls Europe's access...
Bad Agency decisions in the past that pushed that Nation into chaos are coming home to roost and as a result ole Mr. Burns is in the position of beggar.
[American Thinker] Social Security Trust Funds have squandered billions of dollars on an antiquated investment policy.
That loss tells us a lot about the financial crisis coming to Social Security.
In 2019, Social Security lost roughly $1 billion because the system invests the excess reserves on exactly the wrong minute of the year. Any other day or any minute early in the day, saves the program money.
It is 2023, and the beat goes on. Over the course of 2022, Social Security redeemed more than $100 billion in high-yield debt, and lost nearly $5 billion in interest earnings in the process. The program just gave it away.
Here is the problem: Social Security generally needs cash to pay its bills in the back half of the year. Unfortunately, the program locks up all its loose cash on June 30. So, starting July 1, the program needs to redeem bonds, and the Treasury Department picks the wrong bonds for redemption based on a policy that literally dates back to the era of black-and-white TV.
To illustrate, in November, Social Security needed extra cash to pay the bills, and redeemed nearly $100 billion in bonds at par, which earned 4 percent interest. At the same time, it kept bonds that pay less than 1 percent on the books. Given the process, the program lost nearly $2 billion in interest.
For those so inclined to look at the loss in terms of math: 95.7B * (4-.075) * 7/12 months = a lot of money that has been simply thrown away. This is not terribly different from someone spending $1,000 on ATM fees.
This underlying problem was identified more than 20 years ago. Yet, nothing has been done about it since then. The solution is not terribly difficult. For example, the government could change the day on which the money is invested -- it really is that simple.
Interest that flows into the system is vital because this revenue is free cash flow. In contrast, when the program collects a dollar of revenue from the payroll tax, the worker in some fashion is given a promise of benefits in the future.
In this case, "free" means interest income adds to the life expectancy of the program on a dollar for dollar plus interest basis. Of the current $2.8 trillion reserve, the payment of interest from the government and interest on interest accounts for more than 90 percent of the Trust Fund.
To gauge the impact of lost or missing interest, we can look back a few years. In 2017, the experts believed that interest would contribute about $100 billion for 2022 to the reserve, which would finish the year valued slightly below $3 trillion.
As it happens, interest came up $80 billion light over that period, and the reserve finished the year about $150 billion short of the goal.
While I may think the reserve is vital to the program’s prospects, critics of the Trust Fund call it an accounting gimmick. The label somewhat implies that benefits would have been paid whether the Trust Fund existed or not. It is a speculative judgment at best.
For those currently collecting benefits, the distinction is pretty important. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the federal government does not owe anyone benefits. The Social Security program owes benefits based on whatever schedule Congress has in place. With these bonds in place, the government at least owes the program money with which to pay benefits.
Without the Trust Fund today, benefits would have been reduced this year by more than $100 billion without congressional intervention. If you believe that benefits would have been paid in full, you have more faith in politicians than most do.
This takes us back to the lost interest issue. The program lost nearly $5 billion because it invests the money at the wrong minute of the year. How is it possible to lose that much money in this fashion?
Well, it isn’t that Social Security Trust Funds are "an accounting gimmick." The fact is that voters allow them to be treated like one, where earnings are really beside the point.
#1
That loss tells us a lot about the financial crisis coming to Social Security.
Once again, the straw man arguments. In the 1960s, Prez Johnson and the Donk Congress did away with separate books for Social Security. It was simply thrown in with the general revenue. There is no real pension fund. As long as the government can print money, there will be money. What that money is worth is a different subject.
[Dawn] It appears that promises made by ex-COAS to withdraw military from politics have not been fulfilled
Whenever general elections draw close, the nation’s ’electables’ and ’influentials’ begin a frantic search for political platforms which they can attach themselves to, to ensure they get a share of power. And often the invisible hands that play an oversized role in managing Pakistain’s politics are at work ’guiding’ these political nomads towards what are likely to be winning tickets.
Though no schedule for the polls has been announced, these activities have begun in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , as well as in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and south Punjab, as electables size up their prospects, and the establishment continues its efforts to mould outcomes.
In Balochistan, an unlikely candidate in the shape of former chief minister Aslam Raisani recently joined the JUI-F, even though the Baloch sardar has little in common with the ideology of Maulana Fazlur Rehman ...Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty... ’s party. Earlier, other Baloch notables also joined the JUI-F. Meanwhile, ...back at the palazzo, Don Smilzo looked for an avenue of escape. The only window opened a hundred feet above the moat. The nearest of the hired assassins hold a bloody axe.
The window was looking better all the time.... a number of provincial politicians of BAP, which runs Balochistan, have jumped ship and joined the PPP under Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari ...former president of Pakistain, husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in... ’s watchful eye. BAP itself is believed to be an artificial construct, created in 2018 by the powers that be to rule Balochistan.
Over in Karachi, efforts continue under the Sindh governor’s tutelage to unite the different factions of the MQM, namely Bahadurabad, PSP and the Farooq Sattar group, though the pro-Altaf London faction is likely to be left out of this formula. The wheeling and dealing in Karachi is also believed to have the blessings of the gentlemen in Rawalpindi.
In south Punjab, electables are reportedly waiting for a signal from higher powers to make their move.
The fact that political engineering continues was highlighted recently by Imran Khan ...aka The Great Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... , when the PTI leader made specific mention of the BAP and MQM developments.
It appears that promises made by the former army chief to withdraw the military from politics have not been fulfilled. To assume that the establishment would totally withdraw from the political game it has dominated for decades was naïve, but there should at least be some effort to disengage and let civilian politicians sort out matters. Yet it is also sadly true that many politicians themselves are to blame for looking to GHQ for ’guidance.’
In Balochistan’s case, the establishment’s involvement has retarded political evolution in the province, adding to the people’s alienation with the state. The electables that are herded together to run Balochistan have repeatedly failed to solve the province’s myriad problems, leaving the common voter disillusioned with the system.
Only by allowing the organic growth of the political system in Balochistan can stability come to this troubled province, and the healing process begin in earnest. This also rings true for Karachi and the rest of Pakistain. Instead of manufacturing alliances, let all stakeholders — primarily the political class and the military — work to strengthen grassroots democracy.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/13/2023 00:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Yeah? That's what they said about Planet Four, and look how that turned out.
by Rachel Lang
[UNILAD] NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has locked eyes with a planet that could one day be our new home.
Okay, that might be jumping the gun just a tad, but LHS 475 b is almost exactly the same size as our home planet, clocking in at 99 per cent of Earth’s diameter.
The planet also boasts a rocky dry land, which NASA reckons is also rather similar to Earth.
But before we start sending out ships to colonise the planet, NASA needs to ascertain what sort of atmosphere the planet has.
We also need a significant development in technology to allow humans to travel that far...but that sort of finer detail is future NASA's problem.
Space science boffins haven't yet been able to conclude what the planet's atmosphere is made out of.
They have, however, been able to rule out what it isn't.
Basically, they've concluded the atmosphere is not made up of a thick methane, similar to Titan, one of Saturn's moons.
Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters Mark Clampin said the telescope's first discovery of a new planet will open multiple avenues for researchers trying to understand what lies amongst the stars.
planet surface will be hot and exposed to gobs of radiation
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/13/2023 12:36 Comments ||
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#5
I have a friend who foams at the mouth every time someone who takes Bezos' 61 mile suborbital ride is called an "astronaut." But he salivates about Musk's chemical rocket "starship."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/13/2023 13:08 Comments ||
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#6
I just read that Dollar General has opened a store on LHS 475.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...son of President Joe: cashiered from the Navy, a crackhead, wheeler dealer, leg humper, horn dog, and general all around ne'er do well. We're supposed to feel sorry for him...
[Aljazeera] The Central Intelligence Agency chief, William Burns, has made a rare trip to Libya, meeting the country’s interim premier weeks after authorities handed the United States a suspect in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, the Tripoli-based government said.
...former president of Pakistain, husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in...
