[FoxNews] 'As a well-educated lawyer and businessman, Mr. Biden consciously and willfully chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes,' Weiss wrote of Hunter Biden
Special Counsel David Weiss' final report on his years-long investigation into Hunter Biden determined the first son's drug abuse could not explain away not paying taxes on millions of dollars of income earned off of his "last name and connections."
Is this covered under President Biden’s pardon, or does this count as new business?
"As a well-educated lawyer and businessman, Mr. Biden consciously and willfully chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over a four-year period. From 2016 to 2020, Mr. Biden received more than $7 million in total gross income, including approximately $1.5 million in 2016, $2.3 million in 2017, $2.1 million in 2018, $1 million in 2019 and $188,000 from January through October 15, 2020," Weiss wrote in his final report, which was released Monday.
"Mr. Biden made this money by using his last name and connections to secure lucrative business opportunities, such as a board seat at a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate, Burisma Holdings Limited, and a joint venture with individuals associated with a Chinese energy conglomerate. He negotiated and executed contracts and agreements that paid him millions of dollars for limited work," Weiss continued.
Hunter Biden, 54, had a busy year in court last year, when he was convicted of two separate federal cases prosecuted by Weiss. He kicked off his first trial in Delaware in June, when he faced three felony firearm offenses involving his drug use, before pleading guilty in a separate felony tax case in September.
NEW: Undercover video shows a public school administrator in Texas vowing to "go to jail" to make sure a biological male student can play girl's sports.pic.twitter.com/L6Kx3CiXTk
#9
The soft bigotry of low expectations — I once spent an interesting lunch discussing that to a very bright young Black engineer. There are plenty of serious Black women, and they’re even more frustrated by the current environment that causes so many to assume their incompetence than you are. This one, however, is not one of them.
[GEO.TV] Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman's workshop in rural China the US president-elect sits in divine contemplation.
Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of America's divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi.
The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (about $140 to $2,700) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines.
And ahead of the real estate magnate's inauguration for a second term, they have become hot property again.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2025 00:00 ||
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[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Staggering images appear to show around 100 fire trucks sitting idly in a Los Angeles repair lot as fires ravage the city.
The pictures, captured by a local activist, shows scores of essential firefighting vehicles sitting in the LA Fire Department's Bureau Of Supply and Maintenance lot on North Avenue 19 in the city's northeast.
LA fire chief Kristin Crowley said in an interview with CNN: 'We have over 100 fire apparatus out of service. Having these apparatus, and the proper amount of mechanics would have helped.'
The LAFD has a total of 183 trucks, meaning that more than half of the city's fire trucks are out of commission as the fires continue to burn through dense urban spaces, killing at least 24, displacing more than 200,000 and destroying over 12,000 buildings.
It comes just three months after the LAFD made a request to the city's council to replace the entire fleet at the cost of $96.5million.
The LAFD said in its request: 'Many vehicles have surpasses their expected service life, leading to increased maintenance costs, reduces parts availability and potential downtime.'
The fire service also requested more than $1.9million to restore 16 maintenance positions 'deleted' in last year's budget.
It said in its request: 'The positions support fleet maintenance, equipment engineering, purchasing and warehouse management and distribution.'
[Townhall] Elon Musk's ambitious push to reshape America's financial landscape took a bold step forward this week. His first "DOGE Agents" arrived in Washington, D.C., with a clear target: the Internal Revenue Service (IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... ). These agents are aiming squarely at the agency's grip on taxation and regulation of digital currencies. As Americans watch closely, many see this as a much-needed pushback against bureaucratic overreach. In contrast, others warn that Musk’s growing influence could open the door for unchecked corporate power over public policy.
According to reports, the newly established government agency already has 50 employees working for DOGE out of SpaceX’s Washington offices, configuring ways to lessen the government’s spending. The agents have reportedly been hard at work interviewing more than a dozen executive branch departments, including the U.S. Treasury, IRS, Departments Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services.
The "nongovernmental" body, directed by Musk and Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, aims to cut up to $2 trillion from the federal budget by eliminating redundancies, scaling back the workforce, and dissolving unnecessary agencies.
According to Vinay Hiremath’s blog post, the co-founder of tech company Loom, who worked for DOGE for four weeks, the group has gone "from 0 to 100 taking meetings and getting s*** done."
"Within 2 minutes of talking to the final interviewer for DOGE, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said 'yes'. Then he said 'cool,' and I was in multiple Signal groups," Hiremath wrote. "I was immediately acquainted with the software, HR, and legal teams. The next 4 weeks of my life consisted of 100s of calls recruiting the smartest people I’ve ever talked to, working on various projects I’m definitely not able to talk about, and learning how completely dysfunctional the government was. It was a blast."
DOGE hopes to reach at least 100 employees in the next several weeks. The DOGE X account wrote a post to the account seeking full-time salaried Software Engineers and InfoSec Engineers.
"'Recruiting for a very small number of full-time salaried HR, IT, and Finance positions," the DOGE X account posted. 'If interested, please DM us your resume and a few bullet points about why you are interested in DOGE."
[ZeroHedge] Former French European Commissioner Thierry Breton has essentially openly confessed that the West stole the Romanian election and stands ready to do it again in Germany if deemed necessary.
"We did it in Romania, and we will do it in Germany if necessary," a translation from the French of Breton's recent appearance in European media said. Early last month a top Romanian court simply annulled the first round of the country's presidential election in order to create what amounted to a 'do over' election.
The publication Romania Journal highlighted Breton's words as follows: "If, on the other hand, the Tesla and X boss breaks the law, especially in Germany, by supporting the 'extremist' AfD party, the former European Commissioner believes that it will be necessary for the authorities to act as in Romania, where the presidential elections were canceled, writes the website of the French television BFMTV, which recalls Călin Georgescu’s TikTok campaign.
The court had decided "to annul the entire electoral process for the election of the President of Romania… to ensure the correctness and legality of the electoral process" - in the controversial ruling which was completely unprecedented.
The 'problem' was that Calin Georgescu, the widely dubbed 'far-right' contender, came out on top in a first round of voting in a 'shock' outcome which left political opponents claiming Russian election interference.
Apparently the 'smoking gun' is related to mere social media posts on platforms like TikTok. "The Constitutional Court’s unprecedented decision — which is final — came after President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence on Wednesday that alleged Russia ran a sprawling campaign comprising thousands of social media accounts to promote Calin Georgescu across platforms like TikTok and Telegram," The Associated Press noted.
Here's more from Breton's words:
Now we are equipped, and we have to enforce this law to protect our democracies in Europe.
For now, let’s keep calm and enforce our laws in Europe, when there is a risk that they will be bypassed and if they are not enforced, they can lead to interference.
We did it in Romania, and if necessary, we will have to do it in Germany as well.
Elon Musk responded by saying this is what a tyrant sounds like...
#3
IIRC they forced Denmark and Ireland to retake the vote to ratify the EU accord, even though the accord said if anyone didn't join it nullified the pack. We knew then it was all a Trojan horse to authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
[TIME] WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith said his team "stood up for the rule of law" as it investigated President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, writing in a much-anticipated report released Tuesday that he stands fully behind his decision to bring criminal charges he believes would have resulted in a conviction had voters not returned Trump to the White House.
"The throughline of all of Mr. Trump’s criminal efforts was deceit—knowingly false claims of election fraud—and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States’ democratic process," the report states.
The report, arriving just days before Trump is to return to office on Jan. 20, focuses fresh attention on his frantic but failed effort to cling to power in 2020. With the prosecution foreclosed thanks to Trump’s election victory, the document is expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of a dark chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of democracy for centuries, and complements already released indictments and reports.
Trump responded early Tuesday with a post on his Truth Social platform, claiming he was "totally innocent" and calling Smith "a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election." He added, "THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!"
In his statement, Hegseth outlines three main priorities: bringing the "warrior ethos" back to the Pentagon, rebuilding the military, and reestablishing deterrence.
Below is a transcript of his remarks:
…As I've said to many of you in our private meetings, when President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was — to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense. He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness. That's it. That is my job.
To that end, if confirmed, I'm going to work with President Trump — and this committee — to:
Restore the Warrior Ethos to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force; in doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military — and address the recruiting, retention and readiness crisis in our ranks. The strength of our military is our unity — our shared purpose — not our differences.
Rebuild our Military, always matching threats to capabilities; this includes reviving our defense industrial base, reforming the acquisition process (no more "Valley of Death" for new defense companies), modernizing our nuclear triad, ensuring the Pentagon can pass an audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies.
Reestablish Deterrence. First and foremost, we will defend our homeland — our borders and our skies. Second, we will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific from the communist Chinese. Finally, we will responsibly end wars to ensure we can prioritize our resources — and reorient to larger threats. We can no longer count on "reputational deterrence" — we need real deterrence.
The Defense Department under Donald Trump will achieve Peace Through Strength. And in pursuing these America First national security goals, we will remain patriotically a-political and stridently Constitutional. Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans or Democrats — we are American warriors. Our standards will be high, and they will be equal (not equitable, that is a very different word).
We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapon system, every pilot is fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying, and every general or flag officer is selected for leadership based purely on performance, readiness, and merit.
Leaders — at all levels — will be held accountable. And warfighting and lethality — and the readiness of the troops and their families — will be our only focus.
That has been my focus ever since I first put on the uniform as a young Army ROTC cadet at Princeton University in 2001. I joined the military because I love my country and felt an obligation to defend it. I served with incredible Americans in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan and in the streets of Washington, D.C. — many of which are here today. This includes enlisted soldiers I helped become American citizens, and Muslim allies I helped immigrate from Iraq and Afghanistan. And when I took off the uniform, my mission never stopped.
It is true that I don't have a similar biography to Defense Secretaries of the last 30 years. But, as President Trump also told me, we've repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly "the right credentials" — whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives — and where has it gotten us? He believes, and I humbly agree, that it's time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm. A change agent. Someone with no vested interest in certain companies or specific programs or approved narratives. …
4 hours ago
Katie Pavlich
Good morning and welcome to the first day of confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees. First up, U.S. Army veteran and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee at 9:30 a.m. eastern. We'll keep you up to speed with developments.
#3
The enemy doesn't care except to kill you. You must not allow anything to interfere with your ability to provide the enemy the same intent in return. Anything that degrades that ability works for the enemy.
#4
Many Sen Democrats complained he didn't meet personally with them. It would have changed heir mewling lies at NO point. They will vote against him even if he did. F*&k them
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/14/2025 18:37 Comments ||
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#5
He smokechecked the hearing. Great job by the first in the door!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/14/2025 19:05 Comments ||
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#6
Democrats complaining about him not wasting time meeting with them even though not one of them will vote to confirm him.
It's "The Resistance" all over again. The "Not My Presidnet" brigade is back.
Not that it will do them any good. President Trump crushed Harris in both the Electoral College and Popular Vote. He's more experienced this time and has a better machine in place.
#7
It is absolutely precious this comes on the heels, no pun intended, at the same time the LA Fire Diversity Hire Woman released a video clarifying her position about if you find yourself in a fire and can't self extract, you just found yourself in the wrong place and time, oopsies, she won't get you out of danger.
Joe Biden’s on a farewell tour and he’s ending his presidency the same way he started it: whispering and yelling. @JoeBiden drove the country into quicksand, but now he’s spending his last week in the Oval saying he nailed it. Trade, the border, Afghanistan, Russia, the Middle… pic.twitter.com/Vzp6jtVv91
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Kamala Harris stunningly ended her 2024 presidential campaign leaving Democrats $20 million in debt. But her defeated campaign's joint fundraising committee is still charging supporters recurring donations that were set up during the vice president's bid for a promotion, according to a new report from Politico.And many feel seeing the continued charge on their credit cards adds salt to the wound of an already stinging loss.
The Harris Victory Fund did not seek donors' explicit approval to keep withdrawing cash after the 2024 election on November 5, 2024. Rather, an email claims they would continue seeing the charge 'until you contact us' to stop it.
A staffer who worked on former Sen. Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign says that the charges are 'super shady' and called it a sort of 'grift.' They disclosed how Romney's campaign immediately canceled all recurring donations a few days after his election loss to President Barack Obama.
'These people didn't sign up to be paying bills in January,' the former Romney staffer claimed.
The move is also seen as tone deaf and 'out of touch' considering Harris drove her party into massive debt and ran up a huge bill after taking over President Joe Biden's campaign.
There's usually an expectation that campaigns shut down recurring donations once their bid for office ends – whether in victory or defeat.
A Democratic National Committee official explained to Politico that the Harris Victory Fund is defunct.They claim that the contributions collected for Harris' campaign through recurring charges set up during the 2024 presidential race are now transferred to the DNC 'to help Democrats across the country as we rebuild the party.'
'It's silly, out of touch, and needlessly takes advantage of our most loyal supporters,' one Democrat told Politico when sharing screenshots of charges to their accounts continuing into the new year.
Donors spent $4.7 billion backing both the Democratic and Republican tickets in the 2024 presidential election.
Federal Election Commission data shows that Harris and her Democratic allied groups raised roughly $2.9 billion over the Republicans who brought in $1.8 billion to back Trump's third straight White House bid.
Mike Nellis, who runs Democratic online fundraising firm Authentic, said that among losing campaigns 'there's an expectation that they're going to shut down the recurring donations because there's no need.'
He admitted, however, that there is some 'comfort' in knowing that the committee is rolled into donating the funds to the DNC as long as they are transparents to their donors about where the money is going.
Recurring contributions are a common tactic in political campaigns to secure steady bankroll for the election. Many candidates and the groups backing them encourage supporters to sign up for low recurring donations rather than higher, one-time contributions.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2025 00:00 ||
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#1
I guess GibberishPost was already taken.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/14/2025 17:54 Comments ||
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#2
Romney staffer get a surprise credit card charge?
The Biden administration throwing absolutely everything against the wall in these last days, in the hope that some of it will stick, unnoticed, after President Trump is sworn in next Monday.
[Jpost] NVIDIA, one of America's leading semiconductor companies, has strongly criticized the Biden Administration's new "AI Diffusion" rule, calling it an unprecedented overreach that threatens global innovation and US technological leadership.
In a statement released by Ned Finkle, NVIDIA's Vice President of Government Affairs, the company argues that the 200+ page regulation, which was reportedly drafted without proper legislative review, would impose bureaucratic control over the design and marketing of American semiconductors, computers, systems, and software globally.
The new rules aim to restrict access to mainstream computing applications, including technology currently available in gaming PCs and consumer hardware.
While presented as an anti-China measure, NVIDIA contends that these restrictions would affect technology deployment worldwide and ultimately weaken America's competitive position in the global market.
Finkle drew a contrast with the previous Trump Administration's approach, which he credited for establishing the foundation of America's current AI leadership by allowing US industry to compete freely while maintaining national security.
Under those policies, mainstream AI has become integral to applications across healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and education sectors.
UNDERMINES US INTERESTS?
Although the rule won't be enforceable for 120 days,
See?
NVIDIA claims it is already undermining US interests. The company argues that America's technological advantage is best maintained through innovation and competition, rather than government restrictions on technology sharing.
The statement reflects growing tension between the tech industry and the Biden Administration over the regulation of artificial intelligence technologies, particularly regarding international trade and competition with China.
The controversy comes at a time when AI technology has become increasingly central to global economic growth and technological advancement, with American companies playing a leading role in its development and deployment.
[IsraelTimes] Experts quoted saying framework, which tries to balance US national security concerns with economic interests, could prevent 120 countries, including Israel, from competing in AI.
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.
...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania...
[Townhall] Elon Musk's ambitious push to reshape America's financial landscape took a bold step forward this week. His first "DOGE Agents" arrived in Washington, D.C., with a clear target: the Internal Revenue Service (
