[Epoch Times] The White House announced on May 30 that President Joe Biden is formally withdrawing his nomination of Ann Carlson to be administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), just months after she was nominated to the top position.
During her time at the administration, Carlson has overseen safety probes into Tesla, and efforts to reduce traffic deaths and boost vehicle fuel economy requirements. However, her nomination had faced fierce opposition from Republican leaders who raised concerns over Carlson’s track record at the agency, including her past environmentalist positions on climate issues.
In May, all 13 Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), signed a letter (pdf) to Carlson stating their concerns over her past work at NHTSA and past career which they said suggests "NHTSA intends to mimic the EPA’s draconian EV [electric vehicle] mandate."
The letter noted the EPA recently proposed emissions standards for new vehicles that are "so stringent they effectively mandate automakers produce electric vehicles even if Americans do not want them."
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/01/2023 11:47 ||
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Link ||
[11134 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
#1
...and efforts to reduce traffic deaths and boost vehicle fuel economy requirements.
These notions are mutually exclusive. The only practical way to boost MPG is to make the cars smaller & lighter, which means they're the least likely to survive bad accidents. Yet another example of this government being run by complete morons.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/01/2023 12:30 Comments ||
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#3
“If I want to fly, I buy some carbon emission rights from someone who can’t afford to fly, for example… Or if someone lives in a small house, he can sell his carbon emission rights to someone who lives in a big house. This way, poor people can benefit from the green economy.”
#4
If she is in charge of a bank full of fake carbon deposits, she won’t likely be trading money to the poor. Her compensation package will certainly include an infinite number of fake carbon credits.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/01/2023 17:57 Comments ||
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#1
So many corrupt institutions. We will need to reroute the Potomac in an Augean DmStables type move.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/01/2023 12:22 Comments ||
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#2
It's a crazy dream, but imagine all non-elected federal employees, even those now retired, put to hard labor dismantling the entire District, by hand, with wheelbarrows to take the rubble away.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/01/2023 12:27 Comments ||
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#3
More of a beautiful dream, except I am in no shape to dismantle the Navy Yard.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/01/2023 14:12 Comments ||
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[Breitbart] George Soros’ son, Democrat megadonor Alex Soros, reportedly visited the White House at least 17 times since President Joe Biden assumed office.
White House visitor logs show Alex Soros, chair of his father’s far-left Open Society Foundations, maintains a high degree of influence with the Biden administration. Over the course of more than two years, Alex Soros visited the White House at least 17 times, according to visitor logs obtained by Fox News:
The three most recent visits come on the heels of his 14 prior visits to the White House. And while the younger Soros has taken advantage of the Biden connections, he’s also maintained close contact with Democratic lawmakers, which he often boasts about and posts on social media.
It is unknown with whom Alex met during the White House visits. White House visitor logs only show who books the meetings and takes them to White House personnel, Fox News reported.
The Soros family is an influential Democrat donor. During the 2022 midterm elections, George Soros reportedly fueled Democrats with $125 million through a super PAC. Since 2018, Alex Soros Donated $6 million to left-wing political coffers, including a $2 million donation to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Senate PAC. In 2020, Alex Soros donated $700 to President Joe Biden’s political fund.
According to Breitbart News’ Joel B. Pollak, in recent years, George Soros spent time and money on local races for prosecutors and used funds to elect “progressives” who back “criminal justice reform” and support the Black Lives Matter movement:
[WaPo] ...Unlike Walensky — an infectious-disease doctor who had never held a government leadership role — Cohen would arrive at the CDC with considerable experience at the federal and state levels. She served in the Obama administration as a senior official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where she helped oversee federal health insurance programs that provided health coverage to more than 140 million people. She later served as North Carolina’s health secretary for nearly five years....
...Cohen also has close ties to several senior Biden officials. As a young physician, she worked with Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy to co-found Doctors for Obama, a group that initially campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008 and later broadened its focus, under the new name Doctors for America, to champion the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature health law.... Makes you wonder if they were hoping Walensky would leave earlier (article from 30 Nov 21):
[Frontline News] The Biden administration this month began targeting farmers for contributing to "climate change" through the greenhouse gasses emitted by livestock excretions.
Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry blamed food production for global warming at the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate Summit hosted by the Department of Agriculture earlier this month.
"A lot of people have no clue that agriculture contributes about 33 percent of all the emissions of the world depending a little bit on how you count it, but it's anywhere from 26 to 33," Kerry said. "And we can't get to net zero, we don't get this job done, unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution. So all of us understand here. The depths of this mission."
The climate commissar went on to say that the agriculture sector "needs innovation now more than ever. We're facing record malnutrition, at a time when agriculture more than any other sector is suffering from the impacts of the climate crisis."
Kerry announced that he is changing the term from "climate change" to "climate crisis" and warned about the emissions from "food systems".
But even according to "climate science" estimates, all the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely entirely absorbed by trees, which then emit enough clean oxygen for all Earth’s residents.
Kerry’s remarks are a worrying harbinger for the agriculture sector if the Biden administration follows its globalist colleagues in Europe, who are shutting down farms to appease the climate.
#2
Climate change has become the new religion, offering the ignorant but zealous a way to demonstrated their sense of virtue and superiority. John Kerry, the most profoundly pompous imbecile in the Demokrat firmament, is the perfect spokesman for their never-ending drivel.
#3
The industrial mega-farms just pay off the inspector's political bosses. Family farms don't have deep enough pockets for this game... Crony Capitalism 101.
#5
"Kerry announced that he is changing the term from "climate change" to "climate crisis"..."
This is the fourth or fifth time they've moved this goal post. We've gone from global cooling to global warming to climate change to climate disruption (Obama's second term, IIRC) and now, of course, it's climate crisis.
On a geological time scale, fifty years is barely a blink of an eye. I'd love to hear one of these clowns try to explain how it's possible to go from global cooling to global warming, the two extreme positions, in this time frame.
[Federalist] After a confidential human source claimed then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions, FBI agents used what’s called an FD-1023 form to record the allegation. Now FBI Director Christopher Wray is defying a May 3 congressional subpoena to provide this form. On Tuesday, in response to Wray’s refusal to hand over the documents, Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer announced the House will move to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress.
It isn’t that announcement — or even the other explosive ones released over the past year by Comer’s Senate colleague, Chuck Grassley — that prove the most telling, however. Rather, it is the combination of all the details, big and small, that suggests the scandal set to unfold over the coming weeks will be bigger than anyone imagined.
The Dirt Is in the Details
Take recent big news from whistleblower disclosures revealing that the Justice Department and the FBI have the unclassified FD-1023 form spelling out Biden’s alleged criminal behavior. Then combine that with other known information to discover the bigger picture.
For instance, in response to Wray’s failure to comply with the subpoena, Grassley, who had previously noted the FD-1023 form was five or six pages long, indicated that the confidential human source (CHS) was "an apparent trusted FBI source." This is huge because Grassley wouldn’t make that claim unless the whistleblower had. That means the source is not some random guy walking in off the street, but rather an existing "trusted" CHS, which is why the FBI used the FD-1023 form.
In response to Wray’s stonewalling, Comer likewise revealed some significant details, clarifying late last week that the CHS reporting document was dated June 30, 2020, and referenced "the amount of money the foreign national allegedly paid to receive the desired policy outcome" as "five million." These details could only have come from a whistleblower with deep knowledge of the investigation, meaning the whistleblower’s characterization of the CHS as "trusted" carries more weight. Likewise, the whistleblower’s claim that the FD-1023 "includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose," is more credible given the whistleblower’s knowledge of other details.
Comer’s reference to "five million" is also intriguing. In a letter to Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, Grassley had previously revealed a promise by a Chinese communist government-connected enterprise to funnel $5 million to "Hunter and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president." Records released by Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also confirmed a $5 million payment to James and Hunter Biden from another Chinese-connected business.
The date of the FD-1023 form, June 30, 2020, also proves significant when read in conjunction with Grassley’s letter to Wray in July 2022. In that letter, Grassley said the whistleblower had claimed that "the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity," but "that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (’FBI HQ’) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease."
The whistleblower further alleged that in September 2020, the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access.
Several points merit mention here: First, Auten is the same agent responsible for some of the shenanigans in Crossfire Hurricane. Second, Grassley’s letter indicates Auten did not open the "assessment" on Hunter Biden or other members of the Biden family. The senator’s correspondence actually suggests the assessment may have been opened on the CHS.
Here’s the relevant language:
The basis for how the FBI HQ team selected the specific information for inclusion in Auten’s assessment is unknown, but in more than one instance the focus of the FBI HQ team’s attention involved derogatory information about Hunter Biden.
The whistleblower also reportedly told Grassley that FBI HQ later closed sources after branding their info as disinformation. Given the timing of the assessment (August 2020) and the date of the CHS report (June 2020), it seems likely the FBI used the CHS report as part of the "assessment" and that the "assessment" was of the CHS.
This leads to the next significant point: According to the whistleblower, Auten’s assessment led to the "improper discrediting" of the verified and verifiable derogatory information about Hunter Biden. Worse, based on several hints dropped by Grassley over the last year, FBI headquarters conducted little to no investigation on the CHS and other derogatory info before labeling it "disinformation."
The timing of the CHS report in June 2020 also proves conveniently coincidental to the decision by Democrat Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Rep. Adam Schiff to send a letter just two weeks later, on July 13, 2020, to the FBI claiming Congress was being subjected to a foreign disinformation campaign. On July 16, 2020, the then-ranking members of two congressional committees asked the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force — the same one that handled the "assessment" that branded the Hunter Biden intel as disinformation — to give the committees a defensive briefing. News of that "Russian disinformation" briefing soon leaked to the press.
What About a Recording?
Grassley’s correspondence and statements over the last year hint at one more possibility: The FBI had at least one recording that implicated members of the Biden family in a criminal enterprise and buried that evidence.
Specifically, in one letter to the bureau, Grassley said other FBI records "shed light on Hunter Biden’s business and financial relationship with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky," and those "documents include specific details about conversations by non-government individuals relevant to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden." Grassley had previously requested interview summary forms that referenced Zlochevsky, and in seeking FBI records, the senator’s letter made clear that "records" included "recorded or graphic material," including "recordings of verbal communications."
This possibility fits with the whistleblower’s description of "an avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting" that FBI HQ shut down in October 2020 "in furtherance of Mr. Auten’s assessment," even though, according to the whistleblower, the intel could have been verified by use of search warrants.
A follow-up question Grassley asked Wray further suggests the possibility of recorded conversations implicating the Bidens: "Does the Justice Department have a specific policy regarding the use of materials and information related to U.S. citizens who reside in the United States provided by foreign governments, including the fruits of surveillance carried out by a foreign state’s intelligence service?"
Whether these possibilities pan out remains to be seen, but what should be clear to all now is that the whistleblower knows where the evidence is buried — and Grassley and Comer have brought their shovels.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/01/2023 10:49 ||
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Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
As a Congressman I would probably take the FBI up on their SCIF offer. I would then divulge the contents on the floor of Congress, if the report was not classified. I don’t believe they could arrest me for that.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/01/2023 12:29 Comments ||
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I’m willing to believe they are a left-right neutral cabal out to get Republicans, if that will help...
[BREITBART] Former FBI Director JamesThe spine of the FBI is the rule of law Comey The disgraced, except in his own mind, former head of the FBI... said Wednesday on CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... ’s "CNN This Morning" that the notion the FBI is a "leftist cabal out to get the Republicans" was crazy.
On Fox News, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said, "The Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the DOJ and FBI are, quote, ’independent.’ They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected president of the United States. So as president, you have a responsibility to be involved in holding those agencies accountable."
Co-host Poppy Harlow said, "Historically, previously until the last few years it has been those on the left who have been critical of the FBI. You were a Republican for most of your life until you say the party left you. Why do you think so many Republicans have turned on the FBI?"
Comey said, "I think it’s largely because Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and whatever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... and those around him have seen the FBI as a threat, and so they have take an blowtorch to try to tear down that threat. It’s really unfortunate. The notion that the FBI is some sort of leftist cabal out to get the Republicans is so crazy. It shows you how crazy our times are."
He added, "The FBI will be fine in the long run. This fever around Donald Trump and the MAGA world will eventually break, but it’s become somehow a nutty article of faith that the FBI is out to get Republicans. If you ask people 20 years ago whether that would someday be the accusation, they’d say that’s nuts. It’s nuts, but it will pass."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/01/2023 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yes, just a bunch of regular guys trying to maintain effective law and order.
#7
The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it was suing West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice to collect allegedly-owed funds stemming from environmental and health violations by his family’s coal empire.
The agency seeks $7.6 million in total restitution, which the DOJ says belongs to the Department of the Interior, according to the Washington Times. In the suit, the DOJ names 13 coal companies under the control of Justice and his son, James C. Justice III.
Under intense scrutiny from Republicans over its alleged political biases, the suit has intensified claims of a partisan DOJ because of Justice’s status as a Republican candidate for Senate.
[Well, no kidding. It’s a curious moment for this action, no? Especially considering that the same DoJ has been stalling for two years on Hunter Biden’s criminal activities? — Ed]
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/01/2023 9:52 Comments ||
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#8
The FBI is not after all Republicans- just the good ones.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/01/2023 10:33 Comments ||
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#9
I get so confused...
A cabal is a group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, a state, or another community, often by intrigue and usually unbeknownst to those who are outside their group. The use of this term usually carries negative connotations of political purpose, conspiracy and secrecy.
A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. A cartel is an organization formed by producers to limit competition and increase prices by creating artificial shortages through low production quotas, stockpiling, and marketing quotas.
#1
Charles Ortel used to write often about the Clintons. I have not heard anything from him in quite a while. I haven't looked, either, but often times this type of material finds you.
[BBC] The billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma will be protected from lawsuits linked to the US opioid crisis in exchange for a $6bn (£4.85bn) settlement.
Purdue, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019 amid thousands of lawsuits, made drugs like OxyContin and is blamed for fuelling the crisis.
On Tuesday, an appeals court ruled that its owners, the Sackler family, would receive full immunity from civil suits.
In exchange, they will pay $6bn to help address opioid addiction.
A 2021 investigation by the US House Oversight Committee indicated that members of the family, "who have owned a controlling share of Purdue Pharma since 1952, are collectively worth a total of $11bn".
The family have long demanded civil immunity, and the court's ruling removes a key barrier to the money being paid out.
The payments will be spread over multiple years. Funds will go to local and state governments and is expected to fund rehabilitation programmes and other addiction treatments.
Roughly $750m of the settlement will be distributed to individual victims of the opioid crisis and their families.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued the ruling. The details of the settlement have been contested in the courts for several years.
Judge Eunice Lee said the claims filed against Purdue Pharma were inextricably linked to the Sackler family. She ruled that if lawsuits were permitted to continue targeting them, Purdue Pharma would not be able to reach a bankruptcy deal.
The ruling paves the way for the settlement which must now receive final approval from a court. While it protects the family from any future civil cases, it does not protect them from potential criminal charges.
As a part of the settlement the Sackler family will give up ownership of the company, which will be rebranded as Knoa, and send its profits to a fund to help treat addiction.
The family has been made to listen to stories of those impacted by the drug as part of the deal. Many of the complainants were state and local governments who alleged OxyContin triggered an opioid epidemic.
The family will also allow their name to be removed from buildings and scholarships.
Some organisations have already, including the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York, which last year removed the family name from an arts education centre, and the Louvre in Paris, which removed it from a 12-room wing following protests led by US photographer and activist Nan Goldin.
[FoxNews] The California State Legislature's LGBTQ Caucus is poised to honor a member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the controversial group at the center of a backlash engulfing the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who identify as a group of "queer and trans nuns," are known for mocking Christian beliefs, including holding an annual "Foxy Mary" and "Hunky Jesus" contest, pole dancing on crosses, and using the saying, "Go forth and sin some more!"
Michael Williams, a member of the group known as "Sister Roma" who runs a podcast covering pornographic movies and LGBTQ issues, is on the honoree list for the California Senate's upcoming Pride recognition night.
"For more than three decades, Sister Roma has been one of the most outspoken and globally recognized members of San Francisco's Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," the LGBTQ Caucus' announcement said.
"Honoring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group whose sole mission is to sexualize nuns and mock Jesus, reveals the true depth of hatred California’s elected officials have for the millions of Catholics residing in the state," Mark Trammell, the executive director of the Center for American Liberty, told Fox News Digital.
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.
[Epoch Times] The White House announced on May 30 that President Joe Biden is formally withdrawing his nomination of Ann Carlson to be administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), just months after she was nominated to the top position.
[WaPo] ...Unlike 
