Congressional Republicans, eager to recoup fraudulent COVID-19 pandemic aid, are pushing back against the Biden administration for stonewalling efforts to recover payments to criminals and denying the magnitude of the crime.

The House Small Business Committee under Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) marked up several bills Thursday — including two dealing with pandemic fraud that, according to the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General, potentially amount to at least $200 billion in taxpayer funds. Biden’s SBA downplayed the fraud and claimed fraudulent payments amount to only $34 billion — a massive discrepancy from the SBA Inspector General’s report.

In addition to denying the magnitude of the issue, the SBA is making it difficult to report fraud despite the law. In authorizing the aid, Congress required the SBA to include an easily accessible link on its website to report suspected fraud and other measures to ensure it can be easily reported. However, the only link to report fraud on the SBA’s lengthy homepage is at the bottom, nestled within a long list of links.

As recently as Wednesday, that link sent users to a page in Spanish.

Congressional Republicans, eager to recoup fraudulent COVID-19 pandemic aid, are pushing back against the Biden administration for stonewalling efforts to recover payments to criminals and denying the magnitude of the crime.

The House Small Business Committee under Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) marked up several bills Thursday — including two dealing with pandemic fraud that, according to the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Inspector General, potentially amount to at least $200 billion in taxpayer funds. Biden’s SBA downplayed the fraud and claimed fraudulent payments amount to only $34 billion — a massive discrepancy from the SBA Inspector General’s report.

In addition to denying the magnitude of the issue, the SBA is making it difficult to report fraud despite the law. In authorizing the aid, Congress required the SBA to include an easily accessible link on its website to report suspected fraud and other measures to ensure it can be easily reported. However, the only link to report fraud on the SBA’s lengthy homepage is at the bottom, nestled within a long list of links.

As recently as Wednesday, that link sent users to a page in Spanish.

The State of California still leads the United States in poverty, according to new U.S. Census data released Tuesday.

CalMatters.org reported:

The “supplemental” rates are calculated on three years of data and California has held the top spot for a number of years, almost entirely because of its extraordinarily high costs of housing, utilities, fuel and other consumer needs.

Nationally, the new supplemental rate is 9.8% but once again California tops the states at 13.2 percent, more than a third higher than the national rate.

…

The ultimate irony of California’s high poverty rate is that it’s a deep-blue state where all of the political power is held by left-leaning Democrats who profess to sympathize with the plight of the poor.

Within the state, CalMatters.org notes, poverty is highest in the Los Angeles area, and lowest in the San Francisco area.

The District of Columbia is the only jurisdiction with a higher supplemental poverty rate than California, at 14.8%, though it is not a state.

In a key bit of synchronicity, two events took place in close succession that show that the Biden plan to run for 2024 is on the ropes.

The first was that the White House counsel’s office sent letters to major press outlets pressuring effectively directing them to treat the impeachment inquiry as a lie. Mind you, this media meddling comes after the Biden Administration lost its fight against a preliminary injunction, both at the trail court and appeals court level, against its campaign to influence social media platforms not to publish what it deemed to be “misinformation”. If you read Matt Taibbi’s Twitter files revelations, that campaign was light touch compared to this letter.

But the fact that it was Democratic Party fixture CNN that was first to public about the Biden Administration narrative control campaign was a sign that a weakened and desperate Administration had overplayed its hand. We’ll return to the letter later in the post because there are other ways in which it was extremely irregular.

But the big bombshell is the David Ignatius oped in the Washington Post telling Biden not to run again and even going so far as to tell Harris to step aside too. Tellingly, the article was not paywalled:

The significance is not that Ignatiius sticks the shiv in as nicely as possible, spending paragraphs signaling his regret at having to recommend against Biden 2024 despite Ignatius’ view that Biden “has been a successful and effective president.” It’s due to Igantius’ status as whisperer in chief for the surveillance-intelligence industrial complex. Remember, for instance, that Anthony Blinken gave an interview to Ignatius in January in which Blinken effectively committed the US to an open-ended war in Ukraine.

This Fox segment (yes, I know Fox) which ran there as Jesse Watters: Biden has done his job according to the Democrats, does a good job of describing the CIA’s relationship to the US press and Ignatius in particular:

See video at link!

This week's major Ukrainian attack on the Russian port of Sevastopol in Crimea was likely the largest strike on Russian naval targets since the war's start.

Significantly, the UK's Sky News has confirmed that British-supplied long range missiles were used in the overnight Sept. 12-13 attack which likely damaged a Russian submarine and warship. "A Ukrainian and a Western source said that British Storm Shadow cruise missiles were deployed," Sky News reports.

Kremlin sources counted ten cruise missiles fired against the key Black Sea naval port, and claimed anti-air defenses downed seven of these. An additional attack by unmanned boats was thwarted too, a statement said.

Storm Shadow missiles were supplied to Ukraine after approval to supply these was announced earlier this year from London on May 11. The missiles have a range of 155 miles, making them among the longest range weapons in Ukraine's arsenal, and are fired from aircraft.

The Sky report notes that while Kiev stopped short of confirming outright the type of missiles used, statements from officials strongly point in that direction: 

However, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk, the head of the Ukrainian Air Force, posted an image on his Telegram channel of the burning shipyard, with the caption: "And while the occupiers are 'storming' and they are still recovering from the night cotton [Ukrainian slang for explosions] in Sevastopol, thank you to the pilots of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for their excellent combat work!"

Likely the projectiles were launched from Ukrainian aircraft. Such future attacks could be more devastating if and when Western partners hand over F-16 fighter jets, after training for Ukrainian pilots is complete.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has McFucking had it with GOP threats to remove him for failing to perform on a laundry list of demands from his party's Freedom Caucus members.

"If you want to file the motion, file the fucking motion," McCarthy told GOP colleagues Thursday, after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) criticized him earlier in the week - giving him a list of demands while threatening to bring a motion to vacate McCarthy's chair.

Gaetz and other Republicans have slammed McCarthy for dragging his feet on a Biden impeachment inquiry, which the Speaker finally announced earlier in the week. Gaetz, however, says this isn't enough.

McCarthy also faces another episode of shutdown theater, where Republicans pretend they won't budge unless Democrats cut spending, or separate Ukraine funding from the stopgap bill, only to cave at the 11th hour in dramatic fashion.

"I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated," McCarthy told reporters following the GOP meeting. "Frustrated with some people in the conference."

Gaetz fired back after McCarthy's outburst.

"Instead of emotionally cursing, maybe the Speaker should just keep his word from January on balanced budgets, term limits and single-subject spending bills," he told The Hill.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has remarked that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who used the phrase “it takes two to tango” to explain the absence of peace talks with Ukraine, hails from a nation known for not easily compromising its position.

“As for the Americans, they don’t know how to do this tango themselves. The music is remarkable and the steps are beautiful, but the US seeks to deal with everything from a position of power,” he said on Friday.

Putin added that Washington is unable or unwilling to meet the other party halfway and instead uses economic sanctions, financial restrictions, threats, and force to get what it wants.

Blinken used the idiom during a press conference last week, asserting that Kiev was open to negotiations with Moscow and implying that it was Russia rejecting “meaningful diplomacy.”

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, however, has imposed a legal prohibition on all discussions with Russia. Under the banner of the “Zelensky peace formula,” Kiev’s demands include full control of territories claimed by it, reparations from Russia, and a criminal tribunal for the Russian government.

Washington supports Ukraine’s stance, while Russia has criticized the proposal as detached from reality. Russian officials have repeatedly expressed their willingness to restart peace talks, which were terminated last year when Kiev changed its course during negotiations facilitated by Türkiye, opting instead for a military solution.

A notorious Ukrainian government-linked website has added North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to its list of supposed enemies of the state. The ‘Mirotvorets’ database has declared Kim “an accomplice of Russian war criminals,” adding that “civilized nations” had imposed sanctions on him for “human rights violations” and “nuclear blackmail.”

The North Korean leader was added to the website earlier this month under the name “Kim CHen Yn.” The only source cited by Mirotvorets (‘Peacemaker’) is a CNN report from November 2022 featuring claims by the White House that North Korea was secretly supplying artillery shells to Russia. Pyongyang and Moscow have both denied the allegations.

Mirotvorets publishes the personal data of individuals whom anonymous moderators consider hostile to Ukraine. It celebrates the death of anyone on the list by writing “eliminated” in red across their photo. Ukrainian writer and historian Oles Buzina and politician Oleg Kalashnikov were both murdered after Mirotvorets declared them enemies.

NBC News correspondent Keir Simmons, adult film star Eva Elfie, and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev are among the public figures to have been blacklisted by the site for their supposed transgressions against Ukraine.

Washington will easily send the troops of other alliance [NATO] member countries to be slaughtered without risking the lives of its military, says Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.

Patrushev clarified that the US treats the troops of alliance members as "colonial armies," meaning that they are expendable in comparison to the "privileged" American people. He added that international terrorist organizations are also supported and financed by Western secret services and are used to strengthen "Atlanticist influence".

Patrushed added that hundreds of employees of foreign intelligence services and other persons involved in reconnaissance and subversive work against Russia and its strategic partners have been neutralized in recent years.

Back in August, we told you that the left was trying to get Trump removed from the ballot in New Hampshire.

That battle is already over and Trump won.

New Hampshire’s Secretary of State announced this week that Trump will indeed be on the ballot.

RedState reports:

Another One Bites the Dust: New Hampshire Slaps Down Latest Attempt to Keep Trump off the Ballot

Democrats’ effort to rig the outcome of the upcoming 2024 presidential election isn’t going so well. The anti-Trump faction has been trying desperately to ensure that former President Donald Trump does not set foot in the White House as president again. Their plan? Using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to keep his name off the ballots in as many states as they can.

Unfortunately for the left, New Hampshire just became the latest state to reject an effort to disqualify the Orange Man What Is Bad™ from appearing on the ballot.

The top election official in New Hampshire says he won’t invoke the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in order to block former President Donald Trump from the ballot in the state that holds the first primary in the Republican nominating calendar.

New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan on Wednesday also announced that the filing period for the 2024 presidential primary will start on Oct. 11 — meaning it’s nearly all but certain the date of the contest will lead to a collision with the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The government in South Korea has agreed to begin paying out millions of dollars in compensation to victims of the COVID-19 vaccine, no questions asked.

From September, families can get up to 30 million won in compensation money if a family member dies within 90 days of receiving the mRNA jab, even if an autopsy cannot determine the cause. Since July 2022, 10 million won has been given out if the shot caused death within 42 days.

St Vincent Times reports: Separately, families of those who died within three days of immunization but were not qualified for government aid can now receive at least 10 million won, up to 30 million won depending on side effects.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said these measures apply retroactively.

“Korea had a higher inoculation rate than the rest of the world because people trusted the state and got vaccinated,” People Power Party Rep. Park Dae-chul stated at a National Assembly meeting between the party and the administration.

One of the world’s top epidemiologists has warned that the rise in ‘turbo cancers’ is being caused by mRNA chemicals, which will soon result in the deaths of billions of people.

Dr. Harvey Risch is a Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at Yale University. He specializes in the areas of cancer etiology, prevention, and early diagnosis, and in epidemiologic methods.

The professor was awarded a $3.65 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for a five-year study of the etiology of pancreas cancer cases in Connecticut.

After discovering an alarming rise in “turbo cancers,” Risch is now speaking out to warn the public about the depopulation agenda unfolding before our very eyes.

Slaynews.com reports: According to Risch and other leading cancer specialists, cases of this new phenomenon have risen rapidly in the past two years.

“These cancers that normally would be kept in check by the body are unexpectedly growing very quickly,” Risch explained in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

O’Keefe Media Group went undercover in Maui this week to check out the burn zone after wildfires destroyed Lahaina.

In early August 2023 a wild fire ripped across Maui. Hundreds were lost in the fire or are still missing.

A recent report from the Hawaii State Department of Education shows that there are more than 2,000 children who are unaccounted for in the public school system.

They’re still digging up charred corpses in the ashes.

With this latest provocation, the UK and NATO have all but officially declared war on Russia, although they will deny it’s an act of war.

Ukraine has said it seriously damaged two Russian naval vessels and struck port infrastructure in the Crimean city of Sevastopol early on Wednesday.

The recent long-range missile attack by Ukraine on the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will not likely change the course of the conflict, nor will it force anyone to the negotiation table and bring the war to an end. Quite the opposite, in fact. It will move Russia to retaliate against a more high value military targets, and extend their security perimeter even further.

Is Britain attempting to provoke a larger Third World War? 

The New York Times and Washington Post both published opinion pieces Wednesday branding 80-year-old President Joe Biden as too old to run for re-election in 2024. 

It comes as Biden faces an impeachment inquiry and recent polling numbers show most consider the president at too advanced an age to serve again.

Ross Douthat, a conservative op-ed writer for the liberal Times, penned a piece titled '2024's Field of Nightmares,' a reference to the 1989 film Field of Dreams.

He said while his concerns with Biden come down to run-of-the-mill political disagreements during his first term, Democrats are playing with fire in allowing the oldest president in American history to run again.

The two risks of Biden running again, according to Douthat: 'The high stakes of the next election, in which a health crisis or just more slippage might be the thing that puts Trump back in the White House, and the different but also substantial stakes of another four-year term.'

Webmaster addition: If the corporate media is turning against Biden, it means the decision has been made not to run him in 2024. Biden is unelectable. Stealing the election for him would be so obvious it risks a bloody civil war (and nobody wants that). They are focusing on his age rather than his corruption because opening up the Burisma can of worms could unravel a massive corruption network entangling a large percentage of politicians, which could bring down the government and end the party for everyone. So the media is doing a dancing act, ejecting Biden without admitting to the corruption. This is not unlike Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face impeachment, because a full investigation would have exposed government links back to the JFK assassination. So Nixon forced Spiro Agnew out as VP and installed Gerald R. Ford, who had served on the Warren Commission and would keep the dark secret after he became President.

An article written by Molly Carter, initially published on ammo.com at an unknown date1 and subsequently republished by The Libertarian Institute in May 2019,2 and psychreg.org in late January 2021,3 noted:

“According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a mass murder occurs when at least four people are murdered, not including the shooter ... during a single incident ...

Seemingly every time a mass shooting occurs ... the anti-gun media and politicians have a knee-jerk response — they blame the tragedy solely on the tool used, namely firearms, and focus all of their proposed ‘solutions’ on more laws, ignoring that the murderer already broke numerous laws when they committed their atrocity.

Facts matter when addressing such an emotionally charged topic, and more gun control legislation has shown that law-abiding Americans who own guns are NOT the problem. Consider the following: The more gun control laws that are passed, the more mass murders have occurred.

Whether or not this is correlation or causation is debatable. What is not debatable is that this sick phenomenon of mass murderers targeting ‘gun-free zones,’ where they know civilian carry isn’t available to law-abiding Americans, is happening.

According to the Crime Prevention Research Center,4 97.8 percent of public shootings occur in ‘gun-free zones’ – and ‘gun-free zones’ are the epitome of the core philosophical tenet of gun control, that laws are all the defense one needs against violence ...

This debate leads them away from the elephant in the room and one of the real issues behind mass shootings — mental health and prescription drugs.

Webmaster addition:

Washington State has been trying to deal with their homeless problem, but they haven’t had much success.

A program designed to close down tent communities and get homeless people into housing has already spent $143 million dollars to house less than a thousand people. That’s a horrible ratio.

And now they want more cash, because they think this program has been so effective.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is known for scoring major wins for his state. Even during the dark days of COVID, he saw the Sunshine State thrive, as other states crumpled. A mass exodus of Americans moved from many blue states to Florida in the ensuing years. That has led to a boom in building and commerce, as Americans resettle in the state.

It appears DeSantis continues to make efforts to improve Florida. While other states defund police departments, DeSantis gave police pay bonuses for relocating there. Now, it appears the governor is on a warpath to send a message to “defund” states. Because he just targeted a major blue state with billboards.

From Fox News:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office is launching billboards in Illinois to encourage law enforcement officers in the state to “make the smart move” to Florida after Illinois approved allowing noncitizens to become officers and is eliminating cash bail…

The billboards tout a $5,000 signing bonus for out-of-state police officers who relocate to the Sunshine State as part of its law enforcement recruitment bonus payment program signed into law by the Republican governor in 2022.

This week, House Republicans announced an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden. House Speaker McCarthy had vowed to open a probe, should the evidence warrant it. The Republican listed six major allegations that triggered the investigation, which could led to the impeachment of the Democrat.

The mainstream media has tried to dismiss or downplay the news. Democrats have seemingly tried to distract from Biden’s scandals, by indicting Donald Trump, his chief political rival. Reporters pegged White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the bombshell news. This is how she responded.

From The Post Millennial:

During a press conference on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre walked out as a reporter pressed her for answers on why Biden interacted with Hunter Biden’s business associates.

“Can you explain why the president interacted with so many of his son’s foreign business associates? More than half of voters told CNN they believe the president was involved and he lied. You can’t have a response to that, Karine?” a reporter shouted as Jean-Pierre packed up her belongings and left.

Democrat socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has long claimed to be a champion of ethics and transparency. She has frequently complained about “dark money” in politics and has even pushed for term limits for members of Congress. But despite these stances, the New Yorker has been accused of a variety of ethics violations herself.

AOC has been challenged by the House Ethics Committee over questionable uses of campaign money. In the past, she has faced scrutiny over receiving gifts from the Met, after her infamous “Tax the Rich” red carpet appearance. But it looks like she is facing even more ethics violations. This time, it could involve prosecution.

From Breitbart:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — known as AOC — is under scrutiny for describing her fiancé, Riley Roberts, as her “spouse” in forms filed with the House Ethics Committee in 2023, despite not being married to him…

The snafu is drawing attention, since Ocasio-Cortez has positioned herself as a champion of ethics in Congress, and willful misrepresentations on disclosure forms could subject her to criminal prosecution, the WFB noted.

It appears AOC is facing problems due to disclosure forms she filled out for the House Ethics Committee. In February she traveled to Japan and South Korea, on a trip funded by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. In August, she traveled to South America on a trip paid for by George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society and the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The Democrat-run state of California has frequently run afoul of federal courts in recent years. The heavily left-leaning legislature has pushed many progressive laws and rules, prompting backlash from conservative residents and other groups. One particularly controversial move has been the possibility of race reparations, which could spark a long-term legal battle.

Recently, the state passed a law that could potentially impact businesses and private citizens. Critics of the law have questioned its constitutionality, which has led to a lawsuit. The case was taken to the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a notoriously liberal court that historically sided with Democrats. But, thanks to former President Trump’s diligent work reforming the courts, California experienced a rude wake-up call.

From The Post Millennial:

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that California’s minor firearm advertising law likely violates the US Constitution, saying “The First Amendment demands more than good intentions and wishful thinking to warrant the government’s muzzling of speech.” […]

Judge Lee, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, concluded that the state of California “cannot ban truthful ads about lawful firearm use among adults and minors unless it can show that such an intrusion into the First Amendment will significantly further the state’s interest in curtailing unlawful and violent use of firearms by minors.”

Webmaster addition: This is how children and guns were handled when I was a boy!