First, there appears to be evidence that Joe
Biden lied to the public for years in denying knowledge of his son’s
business dealings. Hunter Biden’s ex-business associate, Tony
Bobulinski, has said repeatedly that he discussed some dealings directly
with Joe Biden. Devon Archer, Hunter’s close friend and partner,
described the president’s denials of knowledge as “categorically false.”
Second, we know that more than $20 million was
paid to the Bidens by foreign sources, including figures in China,
Ukraine, Russia and Romania. There is no apparent reason for the
multilayers of accounts and companies other than to hide these
transfers. Some of these foreign figures have allegedly told others they
were buying influence with Joe Biden, and Hunter himself repeatedly invoked his father’s name — including a text exchange with a Chinese businessman in
which he said his father was sitting next to him as Hunter demanded
millions in payment. While some Democrats now admit that Hunter was selling the “illusion” of influence and access to
his father, these figures clearly believed they were getting more than
an illusion. That includes one Ukrainian businessman who reportedly
described Hunter as dumber than his dog.
Third, specific demands were made on Hunter,
including dealing with the threat of a Ukrainian prosecutor to the
Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter was given a lucrative
board position. Five days later,
Joe Biden forced the Ukrainians to fire the prosecutor, even though
State Department and intelligence reports suggested that progress was
being made on corruption. Likewise, despite warnings from State
Department officials that Hunter was undermining anti-corruption efforts
in Ukraine, he continued to receive high-level meetings with then-Secretary of State John Kerry and other State Department officials.
Fourth, Hunter repeatedly stated in emails that he paid his father as much as half of
what he earned. There also are references to deals that included free
office space and other perks for Joe Biden and his wife; other emails
reference how Joe and Hunter Biden would use the same accounts and credit cards. Beyond those alleged direct benefits, Joe Biden clearly benefited from money going to his extended family.
Fifth, there is evidence of alleged criminal conduct by Hunter that could be linked to covering up these payments, from the failure to pay taxes to the failure to register as a foreign lobbyist.
What is not established is the assumption by many that Joe Biden was
fully aware of both the business dealings and any efforts to conceal
them.
The White House is reportedly involved in
marshaling the media to swat down any further investigation. In a letter
drafted by the White House Counsel’s office, according to a CNN report media
executives were told they need to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House
Republicans “for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.” It is a
dangerous erosion of separation between the White House and the
president’s personal legal team. Yet, many in the media have previously
followed such directions from the Biden team — from emphasizing the
story that the laptop might be “Russian disinformation” to an
unquestioning acceptance of the president’s denial of any knowledge of
his son’s dealings.
Notably, despite the vast majority of media echoing different defenses for
the Bidens for years, the American public is not buying it. Polls show
that most Americans view the Justice Department as compromised and
Hunter Biden as getting special treatment for his alleged criminal
conduct. According to a recent CNN poll, 61% of Americans believe Joe
Biden was involved in his family’s business deals with China and
Ukraine; only 1% say he was involved but did nothing wrong.
commondreams | An under-the-radar report by U.S. President Joe Biden's National
Infrastructure Advisory Council should not go unnoticed, said the
national watchdog Food & Water Watch
on Thursday, as buried in the document is a call for the privatization
of U.S. water systems, which progressive lawmakers and civil society
groups have long opposed.
On page 15 of the 38-page report, the advisory council said
the federal government should "remove barriers to privatization,
concessions, and other nontraditional models of funding community water
systems in conjunction with each state's development of best practice."
Food
& Water Watch (FWW) suggested that the recommendation goes hand in
hand with the panel chairmanship of Adebayo Ogunlesi, who is the
chairman and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
GIP is
"an infrastructure investment bank with an estimated $100 billion in
assets under management that targets energy, transportation, digital,
and water infrastructure," said FWW, making the takeover of public water
and wastewater utilities by a private corporation—often under the guise
of improving aging systems and lowering costs—financially beneficial
for the bank.
"Instead of relying on Wall Street advisers, President Biden should support policies that will truly help communities."
Mary Grant, Public Water for All campaign director at FWW, called the recommendation "a terrible idea."
"President
Biden should have never appointed an investment banker to chair an
advisory council for the nation's infrastructure," said Grant. "Wall
Street wants to take control of the nation's public water systems to
wring profits from communities that are already struggling with
unaffordable water bills and toxic water."
FWW has analyzed
water privatization schemes for years, finding that they it often leave
communities "with higher water bills, worse service, job losses, and
little control to fix these problems."
A 2018 report by the group titledAmerica's Secret Water Crisisfound
that out of 11 privatized water utilities across the U.S., all but one
refused to provide data about shutoffs for nonpayment. The group's 2011
brief Water = Lifeshowed
that low-income households are disproportionately affected by water
price hikes by private owners, as privatization turns a resource
recognized by the United Nations as an "essential human right" into a
commodity.
"Privatization would deepen the nation's water crises,
leading to higher water bills and less accountable and transparent
services," said Grant. "Privately owned water systems charge 59% more
than local government systems, and private ownership is the single largest factor associated with higher water bills—more than aging infrastructure or drought."
Grant noted that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
passed in 2021 was "a step forward" as it invested $55 billion to
expand water infrastructure, but pointed out that "it provided only
about 7% of the identified needs of our water systems."
"Instead
of relying on Wall Street advisers, President Biden should support
policies that will truly help communities by asking Congress to pass the
Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability (WATER) Act
(H.R. 1729, S. 938)," she added.
kunstler | Beach boy “Joe Biden” will be well-rested
when the plan for his impeachment rolls out after Labor Day. Just
because you’re not hearing any news about it now, with the county fairs
on all over the USA, and the pols busy scarfing corn-dogs and kissing
heifers, doesn’t mean that the key players aren’t confabbing among
themselves. Hey, have you noticed, you’re hardly hearing about anything
else these dwindling days of summer, either? Got any idea what’s up with
that war in Ukraine? Of course you don’t.
A preview for you then: Rep James
Comer’s House Oversight Committee has already assembled a bundle of
evidence tracking the exact ways and means of how the Biden family’s
global bribery operation worked. That includes the bank records, the
emails and deal memos, the chronology of meetings, the FBI documents,
the phone recordings, the photos of “JB” schmoozing with Hunter’s
“clients,” and the famous video of “Joe Biden” bragging onstage at the
Council on Foreign Relations about how he strong-armed Ukraine President
Poroshenko into firing General Prosecutor Viktor Shokin.
Next, Speaker McCarthy has to form an
actual impeachment inquiry committee. (If he tries to demur, there could
be a new Speaker of the House in short order.) That committee will
entertain witnesses, including figures in Justice Department who have
been reluctant to discuss these matters previously. This might entail a
Part B of the inquiry: the blatant obstructions of justice by DOJ
officials in the long-running case on various charges against Hunter
Biden, as supervised by federal attorney in Delaware, now Special
Counsel, David Weiss. Mr. Weiss dawdled so strenuously for five years
that he let the statute of limitations run out on the major tax evasion
charges, while he ignored all the allegations of Hunter’s FARA
violations in seeking money from officials of many foreign governments.
There’s reason to believe that
botching that case was well-coordinated with help from the Biden family
DOJ “mole,” one Alexander S. Mackler, who had served as Senator Joe
Biden’s press secretary in 2007-08, was campaign manager in 2010 for the
Senator’s son, Beau Biden (deceased 2015), when he ran for Delaware
Attorney General, and from 2014-16 was Deputy Counsel to Veep Joe Biden.
Mr. Mackler was later inserted into the Delaware US attorney’s office
as a prosecutor under David Weiss, from August 2016 to May 2019, while
Hunter B’s case was under investigation. Did he function as the Bidens’ consigliere?
Mr. Mackler was logged-in as a White House visitor five times after
“Joe Biden” came to occupy it in 2021. Mr. Mackler is alleged to be
currently serving as Chief Deputy Attorney General of Delaware (since
2019), but his name has been scrubbed by the agency’s website. See for
yourself:https://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov
Perhaps all this will be reserved for
the separate impeachments of Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI
Director Wray. Bribery, racketeering, and treason may be enough for a
presidential impeachment. Would the gravity of an impeachment proceeding
override witnesses’ refusal to testify on the grounds of “an ongoing
investigation?” How could it not, if those investigations are themselves
a subject of the inquiry? Would the mainstream news media ignore the
spectacle to suppress it? They can try, and then maybe we’ll get a test
of how irrelevant they’ve become. The House will surely televise the
proceedings. There are too many other alt.channels that will broadcast
impeachment hearings, probably led by X (formerly Twitter).
All of which raises the question: will
“Joe Biden” really endure this ordeal? Or will the next thirty days be
his window for exiting the scene? He is, after all, a mere prop in a
show directed by others. Those others would include Barack Obama, who
could easily be dragged into an inquiry about the Biden family’s
criminal adventures in global money-grubbbing when Joe was Veep. How is
it possible that President Obama didn’t know what the Bidens were up to?
(The Intel Community can’t be that incompetent.) You see how ugly this
thing could get?
newsweek | According to a conservative nonprofit, the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA) acknowledged being in possession of nearly
5,400 emails, electronic records, and other documents that would
potentially show that Joe Biden used pseudonyms while emailing his son Hunter during his time as vice president.
The
claim came after a Freedom of Information Act request made by the
Atlanta-based legal advocacy group the Southeastern Legal Foundation
(SLF) in June 2022, the nonprofit organization said on Monday.
On the same day, SLF filed a federal lawsuit against NARA to obtain the thousands of emails in NARA's possession.
The emails, allegedly sent by the then-vice president using the three
different pseudonyms, have recently come under scrutiny as the House
Republican investigation continues over Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings.
Joe Biden has consistently rejected accusations of influence peddling,
denying any wrongdoing and saying there was "an absolute wall" between
the business dealings of his family and his role as vice president. Republicans have so far failed to produce any damning evidence tying the president to any wrongdoing.
SLF is a Georgia-based legal advocacy group "dedicated to defending
liberty and Rebuilding the American Republic," according to its own
mission statement. Founded in 1976, the nonprofit declares to act to
protect freedom of speech and property rights, as well as combating
government overreach.
In a press release accompanying the
announcement of its federal lawsuit against NARA, the group wrote that
it had initially requested "these now highly sought after emails" from
NARA on June 9, 2022, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request. But it added that "unfortunately, after identifying nearly
5,400 potentially responsive records, NARA has dragged its feet and
still has not produced a single email."
The conservative law firm
is now asking the court to order NARA to release all nearly 5,400 emails
and documents, which SLF claims might show that Joe Biden forwarded
government information and discussed government business with his son.
According
to the lawsuit, NARA's director of archival operations division
Stephannie Oriabure told them on June 24, 2022: "We have performed a
search of our collection for Vice Presidential records related to your
[June 9, 2022] request and have identified approximately 5,138 email
messages, 25 electronic files and 200 pages of potentially responsive
records that must be processed in order to respond to your request."
What Pseudonyms Did Biden Use?
In
a report from The New York Post in July 2021, the newspaper confirmed
that then-vice president Biden used three pseudonyms for private email
addresses during his time in office: Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB
Ware.
Newsweek attempted to reach out to the
email address cited in that report—Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov—but received a
bounce back early on Tuesday.
Could The Emails Be Released?
A NARA case
record containing four emails featuring Joe Biden's alleged pseudonyms
was first made public by the archive in June. It contained two emails
that were withheld and two others that had redactions.
Two of
those emails were sent from then-Biden aide John Flynn to the then-vice
president on May 27, 2016, and June 15, 2016. Hunter Biden was a CC'd
recipient of those two emails.
"Joe
Biden has stated there was 'an absolute wall' between his family's
foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence
reveals that access was wide open for his family's influence peddling," Comer said in a statement on August 17.
thehill |The White House has tapped retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul Friedrichs to lead a newly created office to manage and respond to future pandemics.
Freidrichs will serve as the inaugural director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy starting Aug. 7, the White House said Friday.
Freidrichs previously served
as joint staff surgeon at the Pentagon, where he coordinated all issues
related to health services, including the military’s COVID-19 response.
A provision creating the office was included in last year’s spending bill as part of a bipartisan pandemic preparedness bill championed by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who retired.
“I’m glad to see my
bipartisan PREVENT Pandemics Act being put into action so our nation is
better prepared for the next threat like COVID,” Murray said in a
statement.
“I worked hard to write and
pass this legislation, because it was painfully clear to me our nation
was not ready for a crisis like COVID, and I think it’s painfully clear
to everyone we cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes.”
But as late as April, when Ashish Jha
was preparing to step down as White House COVID-19 response
coordinator, it was unclear who would run the office or when they would
even formally establish it.
In a statement on Friday,
the White House said the establishment of the office was part of Biden’s
effort to “ensure that our country is more prepared for a pandemic than
we were when he took office.”
Freidrichs will start his
new position as the threat from the coronavirus is fading. The COVID-19
public health emergency ended in May, and the administration has wound
down its response.
But
his office will be focused on more than COVID-19. The White House said
it will address potential public health outbreaks and threats from mpox, polio, avian and human influenza, and RSV.
Among other responsibilities, Freidrichs will oversee efforts to develop, manufacture and procure the next generation of vaccines and treatments, and ensure the Strategic National Stockpile is well stocked.
The law requires the pandemic office to brief Congress every two years.
thegatewaypundit | Author Peter Schweizer went on with Jesse Watters on Monday night
where he proceeded to drop another bomb on the Biden Crime Family.
According to Schweizer, who wrote a best-seller “Secret Empires”
on the Biden Family crimes, told Jesse that one of Vlodomyr Zelensky’s
top officials was sitting in the room when they were discussing bribing
the Bidens, Joe and Hunter.
Ukrainian President Zelensky has a top official who was sitting in on meetings where they talked about bribing the Bidens.
Schweizer suggests Zelensky is using this as leverage over the Biden regime for weapons and billions in US dollars.
Peter Schweizer: We’ve been at this since 2018.
** They initially said there were no foreign deals.
** Then they shifted and said there were. There might have been foreign deals, but the Bidens made no money.
** Then it became Joe Biden didn’t know about any of the deals.
** Then it became Joe Biden didn’t participate in any of the deals.
** And now it’s that he was not in business with his son.
Look, the implications for this are huge, Jesse.
If you look at that 1023 form that the FBI released, if that document is true, that document reveals that one
of the people that was at those meetings that heard the conversations
about bribing the Bidens worked for – President Zelensky. Who
really wants to believe, if that meeting took place and that document is
accurate, that that individual did not go and report to President
Zelensky what he heard?
And again, if that document is true, who wants to believe
that President Zelensky and his administration have not used that as
leverage over Joe Biden when it comes to negotiations on Ukraine policy?
We may all have to start learning the Ukrainian word for compromise
because this is a very clear indication of how this has shaped this
administration’s policy towards Ukraine and also towards China.
It is also convenient for Zelensky that there is not a team of US auditors in his country tracking where all of this money went.
JUST IN: Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer is set to testify this week that Joe Biden was deeply involved with Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings, attending meetings both over the phone and in person.
kunstler.com | The hour is late for “Joe Biden.” His
sojourn in America’s highest office was one long twilight of pretending
to be effectual, or merely present, and now even that abject pantomime
slips into a place of nullity, where all is still and dark. What does he
do these languorous weekends at the fabled Delaware beach house? Stare
out at the empty Atlantic horizon over an uneaten egg salad sandwich
with the crusts cut off? Does he even suspect that the world is already
turning without him?
The pressure is mounting for some
group of somebodies to arrange his exit from the scene. Of course, there
is no public discussion of that among the somebodies because everything
they have been doing for years happens sub rosa, in addition to being
of dubious legality. Despite the most formidable praetorian protections —
a depraved justice department, a Gestapo-caliber FBI, a debauched news
media — the arrows of culpability are flying clean through the beach
house windows at that immobilized figure sitting in the crepuscular
gloom.
RFK JR ON BIDEN: “I think the issues are now coming up are worrying enough that we really need a real investigation… these revelations where you had Burisma, which is a notoriously corrupt company that paid out, apparently, $10M to Hunter and his dad”pic.twitter.com/5Tx3J3fCJx
Forgive me for bringing this up, but
remember the first impeachment of Mr. Trump on the grounds of a phone
call to freshly-minted President Z in Ukraine pertaining to some fishy
matters around the Burisma gas company? Yes, Mr. T was impeached over a
mere inquiry into possible misconduct by a former high US official
(being one “Joe Biden,” ex-veep) and his bag-man son. The setup was
patently obvious even to us bloggers who enjoy no intimate
correspondence with organelles of the DC Blob. A CIA spook
“whistleblower” named Eric Ciaramella (sssshhhh) was injected
into the scene with help from the devious Col. Vindman at NSA and an
assist from Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson… and
voila! Recall the solemn pageantry of Nancy Pelosi’s march across the
Capitol rotunda with the hallowed bill of impeachment on a satin
pillow….
And now, more than three years later,
the nation is informed of all the particulars around those Burisma
Company’s doings with the Biden family in granular detail ($5-million
plus $5-million), laying out just one instance of treasonous
moneygrubbing by this family among many grifts in other nations. And in
case of any lingering questions — if the news media were not a pseudopod
of the Blob — a long roster of bank transfer records has been assembled
by Rep. Comer of the House Oversight Committee to validate the deal
memos, emails and audio recordings already available for inspection in
the alt.news.
You realize, don’t you, that the DOJ
and the FBI had all of this info (a.k.a evidence) in its possession even
before Trump impeachment number one? AG William Barr and FBI Director
Wray could have stepped up at any time after October, 2019, and said,
“Oh, here’s what that phone call to Z was about.” That they didn’t is
arguably the most blatant crime among scores of crimes committed by the
Blob in the Trump and post-Trump years.
Federal Justice Manual 9-5.000, Section B: Constitutional
obligation to ensure a fair trial and disclose material exculpatory and
impeachment evidence. Government disclosure of material exculpatory and
impeachment evidence is part of the constitutional guarantee to a fair
trial. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963). The law requires the disclosure of exculpatory and impeachment evidence when such evidence is material to guilt or punishment.”
So now the Blob is desperate to
jettison this embodiment of its corruption and lawlessness, “Joe Biden,”
before the Trump-deranged masses start paying attention to the distant
yelling from the asteroid belt of actual news beyond noisy Planet MSNBC.
The Blob will be fighting for its very life anyway. The Ukraine
operation is not proceeding according to plan. Do you know why? Answer:
because it was a stupid plan concocted by purblind Neocon idiots. Russia
has been insulted to the degree that it deems America unworthy of
negotiation — meaning Russia will bring the Ukraine mess to a conclusion
on its terms. They will take care to do it gingerly, so as not to
further inflame the psychosis afflicting America and tempt us into even
grosser stupidities. Namely, they will insist on a neutral Ukraine with
no foreign operators in it and some rearrangement of Ukraine’s borders.
America will have to lump it. The Blob Neocon faction will blame the
whole lamentable affair on “Joe Biden,” who, by then, will be gone from
the White House.
How does that happen? The 25th
Amendment, since we are now at the point where his infirmity is as hard
to ignore as the evidence of his crimes. How the Blob deals with his
successor, the distressing Ms. Harris, is another bridge to cross. The
switcheroo itself may be enough to tank the financial markets, which
will give the restive nation something else to think about: the personal
ruin of every household in the land. Then, things get really
interesting.
twitter | The Department of Homeland security is officially out of their fucking mind.
Check out the “reasons” they’re labeling Americans as right wing extremists now:
• Combat veterans who are quote unquote “disgruntled about the takeover of their country.” (Well, at least they’re saying the quiet part out loud now.)
• Anyone that opposes war…because as you know, nothing is more “extreme” than not wanting to drone bomb kids and fight by proxy wars for Lindsay Graham and the rest of the murderers over at the banks and the military industrial complex.
• People that don’t think they should be paying income taxes because Congress violated the Constitution in the first place to push it through by lying to everyone…which is actually 100% accurate. They did the same thing with the Federal Reserve.
• Anyone that opposes the Feds restricting their 2nd amendment rights, even though it’s literally within our rights to.
• Anyone with a better explanation to all these mass shootings and domestic terrorist attacks than our lying ass government who blatantly committed some of them and allowed others to happen while poorly covering it up. (9/11, Oklahoma Bombing, Ruby Ridge, Las Vegas shooting, anyone?)
• Anyone who opposes open borders, which is most people…so good luck with that.
• Anyone against abortion because hey…Planned Parenthood isn’t buying off politicians for nothing.
• Anyone that considers themselves a “Patriot” because….well, you’re getting in the way of them destroying the country you love, silly!
• Anyone that brings up the US Constitution, you know…that thing that restricts these assholes from doing the exact same things they’re doing now.
• Supports a 3rd party candidate, because how dare you not vote for the useless, shit candidates the parties shove down our throats every election cycle! These people need to maintain their privileged status quo!
• Anyone that wants to audit the Federal Reserve… because how dare you want to know how they keep losing track of trillions of dollars! (Meanwhile they hired 87,000 IRS agents to nickel and dime the rest of us about what we sell on EBay.)
• Anyone that opposes a carbon tax to a World Bank. (Yes, that’s literally how they word it too, but I’m glad that was also considered just a “conspiracy theory.”)
• And finally…anyone that opposes the United Nations or the WHO, even though the UN has been raping women and children in 3rd world countries for decades and the WHO just tried to kill everyone with a poisoned shot over a virus they also illegally made in a lab to kill and control everybody.
If I had been a war veteran…I would have dinged for all 13 out of 13 of these. Read between these lines and it becomes clear that our country has been taken over by bad actors, and this is the “defense” against honest Americans and patriots from being vocal in wanting to take it back.
No one is coming to save us and we’re not voting our way out of this. A war of misinformation and manipulation can only be won with the truth…and with FOX dead in the water between firing Tucker and apparently donating money to literal Satanists…we must defend alternative sites like Twitter, Bitchute, Rumble, and GAB with everything we have.
Stop complying to tyranny, stop paying taxes to the people trying to kill you and rape your kids, and stop letting these people get away with doing whatever the hell they want.
They only have “power” because we let them…and I no longer consent to this illegitimate, out of control government that hates me.
ZH | On Tuesday, the Fourth of July, a federal judge in Louisiana kicked the Biden administration's censorship complex in the teeth
- ruling that federal officials (with limited exception) can no longer
communicate or collude with big tech companies to censor "protected
speech."
The order prohibits Biden officials from "collaborating, coordinating,
partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with" key academic
groups behind various censorship campaigns, including the Election Integrity Partnership,
a coalition of researchers led by the Stanford Internet Observatory and
the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public.
This is a huge win for free speech - and comes on the heels of
Twitter Files revelations of government influence and control over
various hot button narratives they wished to steer. And of all
people who deserve to take a victory lap - journalist Matt Taibbi and
Louisiana AG Andrew Baily have opined on the ruling.
Here’s how federal judge Terry Doughty yesterday described the digital censorship controversy at which pundits a half-year now have repeatedly rolled eyes, dismissed, and mocked as a nothingburger:
“If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case
arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United
States’ history.”
Doughty then ordered a sweeping halt to the censorship schemes outlined in both the extant Missouri v. Biden lawsuit
and in the Twitter Files. Critics who’ve been snickering about this
issue might want to read this 155-page ruling now, and ask themselves if
the current Supreme Court would or would not agree with Doughty. Still
think this is a nothingburger?
With this ruling in the Missouri v. Biden censorship case, Doughty went out of his way on the Fourth of July, to issue a stern rebuke at a conga line of government officials, many of them characters in the Twitter Files. Racket
readers will recognize names like Elvis Chan and Laura Dehmlow (of the
FBI), Jen Easterly and Brian Scully (of the Department of Homeland
Security), Laura Rosenberger (Special Assistant to the President, and
one of the creators of Hamilton 68) and Daniel Kimmage (of the Global
Engagement Center), who were all just ordered to get the hell off the
First Amendment’s lawn. Paraphrasing, Doughty enjoined them from:
meeting
with social-media companies for the purpose of pressuring or inducing
in any manner the removal or suppression of protected free speech;
flagging posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding to social-media companies urging the same;
collaborating
with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the
Stanford Internet Observatory, or any “like project” or group for the
same purpose;
threatening or coercing social-media companies to remove protected free speech.
The New York Times, which instantly wrung its hands and stressed the ruling could “curtail efforts to fight disinformation,” grumblingly handed blame to the Twitter Files, without naming them of course, and mislabeling it as a partisan enterprise:
Elon
Musk has echoed Republican arguments, releasing internal company
documents to chosen journalists suggesting what they claimed was
collusion between company and government officials. Though that remains
far from proven, some of the documents Mr. Musk disclosed ended up in
the lawsuit’s arguments.
The investigation led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri’s Andrew Bailey, produced documents showing overt government requests to censor people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a White House official expressing frustration to Facebook that they weren’t “removing bad information from search,”
and emails in which a Facebook official pleads with the White House to
understand that they’re already “reducing the virality” of “often-true content”
that might promote vaccine hesitancy, among many other things. The
Attorneys General likewise scored depositions with people like Dr.
Anthony Fauci, and confronted him with documents showing Facebook
sending his office updates about how “we are expanding the list of false
claims we will remove.”
Was
this illegal? Unconsititional? Did it show a pattern of mighty tech
companies like Facebook and Twitter acting like they were reporting to
federal officials like Fauci on content moderation? I knew what I
thought it looked like, but what judges or a jury might say, who knew?
MoA | In the 1990s and early 2000s Biden supported bankruptcy reform that made it more difficult, especially for the poor, to get rid of debt:
[Biden] had pushed for two earlier bankruptcy reform bills
in 2000 and 2001, both of which failed. But in 2005, BAPCPA made it
through, successfully erecting all kinds of roadblocks for Americans
struggling with debt, and doing so just before the financial crisis of
2008. Since BAPCPA passed, Chapter 13 filings went from representing
just 24 percent of all bankruptcy filings per year to 39 percent in
2017.
In 1984 he proposed
freezing Social Security benefits — that is, ending cost-of-living
adjustments that boost benefits to keep up with inflation. In January
1995 he gave a speech endorsing a balanced budget amendment (an utterly lunatic policy)
and boasted about his previous record of proposing "that we freeze
every single solitary program in the government, anything the government
had to do with, every single solitary one, that we not spend a penny
more, not even accounting for inflation, than we spent the year before."
In November 1995 he did so again,
boasting that "I tried with Senator Grassley back in the '80s to freeze
all government spending, including Social Security, including
everything."
There are other non-progressive laws and several wars that had
Biden's support. In the current fight over the debt ceiling the
Republicans demand cuts to several welfare bills. It is certainly not
obvious that Biden is against those. He may well be using the debt
ceiling fight to push for politics he favors but which a majority of
Democrats would otherwise oppose.
Talks have been held in the White House with Senate and House
majority and minority leaders. There were no serious results because the
Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer held Biden back from making concessions to the Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy:
The California Republican had vented to his colleagues just
hours before the meeting that the current format of negotiations — with
all four party leaders in a room with the president — wasn’t fruitful.
Speaking to his conference on Tuesday morning, McCarthy said the five of
them had achieved little in their first sitdown last week, arguing that
Schumer had prevented Biden from fully engaging with the speaker and McConnell, according to two people familiar with his remarks. Whenever Biden did seem to agree with Republicans, McCarthy said Schumer would try to cut him off.
The talks will now continue without the Senate leadership:
Leaders agreed to narrow a bicameral negotiation down to
Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden, hoping fewer players might be more
productive in reaching a bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling. Even
then, it looks like a longshot to some Senate Democrats.
That setting will give Biden the opportunity to make 'concessions'
that are favored by his rich donors but opposed by a majority of people
who voted for him. He will then sell those by presenting them as the
only possible step to take. Maggie Thatcher's "There is no alternative!"
will again succeed.
The current due date for a debt ceiling deal is Friday:
Reflecting the growing sense of urgency, the White House
announced Tuesday that the president will cut short his trip to Asia and
now plans return to Washington on Sunday in order to resume
negotiations with Republicans as soon as possible.
Biden will depart Wednesday for a trip to Japan but will no longer
make stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia before returning stateside.
kunstler | Reality has become so elastic in America
now that it stretches to a cosmic event horizon deep in the Twilight
Zone where everything is magically transformed into its opposite. Note The New York Times
report on Thursday saying that the House Oversight Committee showed “no
proof” in its disclosures of the Biden Family’s international money
laundering and racketeering operations.
In fact, the committee outlined a
shit-ton of documentation in the form of bank records detailing exactly
how gobs of money from foreign lands were washed and rinsed through a
dozen shell companies and disbursed to everyone in the immediate Biden
family down to the president’s grandchildren. The committee’s
preliminary report was precise as to the money’s exact origins, its
journey through the laundering apparatus, and the owners of the bank
accounts it landed in. Thus: No evidence of wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, another whistleblower from
the FBI emerged claiming that an unclassified FBI document called an
FD-1023 report exists detailing the Biden Family moneygrubbing scheme.
Rep James Comer (R-KY) formally requested it from FBI Director Chris
Wray, who has declined to furnish it on the grounds that the doc
contains info from a “confidential human source” (CHS), and the bureau
can’t compromise an investigation, blah blah….
Here’s an interesting take from a reader of this blog for your consideration:
I have had a theory that the FBI made Hunter Biden a Confidential Human Source.
They can pretend that they were monitoring CCP figures in the US and that Hunter
was in a position to provide them with counter intelligence. As with Whitey Bulger,
the whole business was just a scam to keep him out of jail on legitimate charges.
This would explain why the FBI’s Wray is claiming national secrets now that Comer
is closing in on Biden family corruption and influence peddling.
It would also help to explain why Hunter Biden has been untouchable
despite clear evidence of firearms felonies, money laundering and
influence peddling crimes. All in plain sight for years. This CHS
bullshit has been used repeatedly by the FBI and DOJ to shield
Democrats and their henchmen from legal jeopardy. Stefan ‘Hamburger’
Halper, Christopher Steele and various other foreign election meddlers
have been shielded by the FBI under the pretense of protecting sensitive
intelligence, methods and foreign sources.
Would they dare pull this one with
Hunter? Why not? The DOJ and the FBI spent years sitting on his laptop
stuffed with incriminating docs and videos, obviously shielding him. The
people running these agencies must be liable now for a range of crimes
running from obstruction of justice to interfering in a presidential
election, to acting as accomplices in the Biden Family bribery crimes.
Mr. Comer’s Oversight Committee has only just started. Soon, they will
be hauling in witnesses, and even if the cable news networks and the big
newspapers don’t report about them, there are too many alt-news outlets
that can only be stifled by a Carrington Event.
Does the Party of Chaos actually
suppose they can keep pretending “Joe Biden” will run for a second term?
Articles of impeachment await for bribery, at least, and perhaps
treason. At this point, the case couldn’t be more clear-cut. The House
is solely in-charge of the impeachment process. The hearings will be
brutal. A bill of impeachment would then go to the Senate for trial, as
we’ve seen twice before recently. Do you think the mainstream media can
avoid covering that?
You must conclude that there is no
way that “Joe Biden” will run for president again. He may resign rather
than face impeachment. And then what? I’ll tell you what: Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr. starts making-over the Democratic Party the way that Donald
Trump transformed the Republican Party in 2016. Bobby Kennedy has the
tremendous advantage of standing completely outside the matrix of
corruption, lying, and Woke mental illness that the Dems have made of
themselves, and the voters are going to notice, even if The New York Times doesn’t.
counterpunch | Our government is run by second-raters.
Mediocrities in the state department and national security apparatus
have seized the political steering wheel, because president Joe Biden,
like senator Dianne “No Show” Feinstein and many others in our extensive
gerontocracy do not inspire confidence. And the results are disastrous
for Americans. De-dollarization across much of the planet and the
possibility of a two-front, conceivably radioactive war against China
and/or Russia. You think these two developments sound far-fetched? Well,
the former is already underway, and as for the latter, rabid neo-cons
and jingoistic four-star generals have stepped into the vacuum at the
top and on your TV screen, and these dimwits can’t imagine losing, so
now we move closer than ever before, even during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, to igniting nuclear Armageddon.
Just picture the Ukrainian drone that
struck the Kremlin May 3 and ask yourself what would have happened had a
Russian drone collided with the roof of the white house? The U.S. might
well have launched nuclear missiles – amirite? We denizens of planet
earth are all very lucky, and especially those of us who reside in
American cities, that Russian leaders were rational enough not to target
western metropolises with nuclear warheads. They have made clear that
they won’t be further provoked, even by preposterous U.S. media claims
that the Kremlin droned itself, claims that reveal yet again two sorry
facts: first, our press outlets think we are morons and second, they
parrot CIA talking points.
That’s the hot war. Then there’s the
economic one. Dollar boosters like Treasury secretary Janet Yellen like
to note that it would be very difficult for any other country’s money to
replace the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. True enough. But
who says the world has to HAVE a reserve currency? What China, Russia
and the Global South show, as they stop trading in dollars and dump U.S.
Treasuries, is that they can conduct business in their own currencies
and will do so, having witnessed Washington’s idiotic sanctions on
numerous nations and thus having been terrorized by the imbecilic
weaponization of the dollar. So most of the world, aside from the west,
now takes steps to abandon the U.S. financially. The dollar’s reign is
ending, and soon we Americans will face a radically altered and
indisputably grimmer future. All thanks to the stupidity of the very
pedestrian people at the top in Washington, starting back in the Clinton
administration.
As for the China-Russia alliance, anyone
with a brain could see that coming. But not our congressmembers. And
those forewarned had not a care in the world. As long ago as 1997,
senator Joe Biden proclaimed: “And then the Russians say to me ‘You keep
expanding NATO, we’re going to make friends with China.’ I almost burst
out laughing. I could barely contain myself, I said ‘Good luck to you
guys. If China doesn’t work out, try Iran.’” Well, who’s laughing now?
Not the U.S. president, who can’t even get China’s leader to answer his
phone calls. Not the American people, who, according to some polls (58
percent, said a Reuters-Ipsos poll in October), worry that this
administration of very unexceptional people will enrage the Russia-China
colossus and thus stumble into a nuclear holocaust.
Meanwhile congress throws gasoline on this
political dumpster fire with its Ukrainian Victory Resolution. In the
House, Tennessee Dem Steve Cohen and South Carolina Republican Joe
Wilson sponsored this bill. A companion resolution, introduced by
senators – Connecticut Dem Richard Blumenthal, liberal darling and Rhode
Island Dem Sheldon Whitehouse, and South Carolina Republican Lindsay
“Bombs Away” Graham – now percolates through that chamber of the
capitol. This very unfortunate and wildly provocative legislation
mandates “the restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders and to bring Ukraine
into NATO after the war is over,” according to Daniel Larison in
Responsible Statecraft April 28.
This is called asking for trouble. Because
these are precisely the points that led to Russia’s invasion in the
first place. Moscow tried to negotiate over Kiev joining NATO, but
Washington turned up its nose. And as far as the Russians who populate
the Donbas are concerned, well, it looked like Ukraine had ethnic
cleansing for them on the schedule, and the west didn’t object. So
Russia invaded. In short, congress now actively touts its own recipe for
nuclear World War III, since that is what the Ukrainian Victory
Resolution will bring.
sonar21 | Until I saw the document labeled, CIA Operations Center Intelligence
Update, I was inclined to believe that the leaked documents were the
work of a frustrated whistleblower. But I have changed my mind. This
looks like a controlled, directed leak by individuals who manipulated
the 21 year old National Guard troop into taking certain documents and
posting them on a public server.
The CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update is a document produced
by analysts in the Operations Center to be delivered to the regular CIA
analysts. When I worked in the Ops Center I was responsible for
monitoring traffic from Latin American posts and flagging items that the
analysts in the Latin American Division need to know. I would write up
summary paragraphs just like the ones in the documents leaked on line.
This was an internal CIA document. It was not broadcast to the other
intelligence agencies. In my 23 years working with U.S. military
commands around the world, I never saw a copy of this type of report
circulating among those with the highest clearances. Never. How did a 21
year old kid get his hands on at least two of these?
The classified documents now in the public domain are focused
primarily on Russia and Ukraine. The CIA Ops Center docs now floating
around the internet are only partial copies. For example, there are
three pages, all classified Top Secret, from an eight page document. If
you’re a goofy 21 year old gamer simply intent on impressing your young
proteges, why not take all eight pages. My guess is that the other five
pages contained no intelligence information on Ukraine or Russia.
The 102nd ISS provides intelligence systems maintenance, integration,
and operations for the AN/GSQ-272 SENTINEL weapon system, as part of
the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (AF-DCGS) Enterprise,
enabling near real-time Collection, Processing, Exploitation, and
Dissemination (CPED) of
The Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber),
headquartered at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, focuses on information
warfare in the modern age. Information Warfare requires integrating:
Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance; Cyber Warfare;
Electromagnetic Warfare; Weather; Public Affairs; and Information
Operations capabilities. 16th Air Force ensures that our Air Force and
Nation are fast, resilient, and fully integrated in competition, crisis,
and conflict by incorporating Information Warfare at operational and
tactical levels, capitalizing on the value of information by leading the
charge for uniquely-21st century challenges in the highly dynamic,
seamless, and global information domain..
I do not believe it is a coincidence that he served in an information
warfare unit. Remember, he was a low ranked enlisted guy. He had a
chain of command. He did not show up to work and decide what duties he
had to perform while on the job. He reported to and worked at the
direction of Non-Commissioned Officers and Commissioned Officers. He
did not just waltz into a SCIF and print documents at his leisure. A guy
at his level would attract attention if he was printing off a document
like the CIA Ops Center report.
I believe that the alleged leaker did have access to Top Secret
intelligence by virtue of his job. I don’t know if there was a polygraph
requirement for him and his cohorts. Regardless, all of the
intelligence that has been leaked was on a Top Secret computer net and
could only be accessed inside a SCIF.
Let me explain why I think the story currently being sold to the
public about this young man is too good to be true and, in my view, is a
smoke screen.
The first problem is BELLINGCAT. Bellingcat is an Open Source Intelligence outfit
that has been funded by U.S. and British intelligence. BELLINGCAT is
“credited” with sleuthing out the identity of the site where the
classified documents were posted and the name of the leaker.
sputnikglobe | The appearance online of what looks like secret documents concerning US intelligence assessments of the conflict in Ukraine and their proliferation by media have sparked widespread controversy, with observers divided into two broad camps: those who believe the docs are genuine, and those who have reservations. Here’s what we know right now.
The leak of over 100 photographed pages of documents dated between late February and early March and labeled “Secret,” “Top Secret,” and “NOFORN” (not for viewing by foreign nationals) related to the ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine continues to generate global headlines. It has also had a real world impact, with Washington officials scrambling to contact and reassure allies amid embarrassing revelations that the US has been spying on its own allies (although, of course, that’s nothing new to anyone who’s been paying attention).
Key Takeaways As the dust settles and the potential security implications of the leaks (including, potentially, the judiciousness of further US and NATO military assistance to Kiev), several facts seem to stand out among the info gleaned.
1. A page from a “Top Secret” assessment from February highlights apparent major “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” within Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and warns that Kiev would be able to secure only “modest territorial gains” if it decided to launch a spring offensive.
The assessment is significant because it highlights the contrast between the glum internal appraisal by the Pentagon, and the gung ho, everything-is-awesome sentiment expressed by officials in Washington and Brussels, and by President Joe Biden’s brash talk of Kiev’s impressive capabilities to conduct large-scale offensive operations with US support.
The information also raises questions about just where the tens of billions of dollars in US and NATO security assistance to Kiev has gone, given growing concerns about Western weapons sent to Ukraine somehow popping up in the hands of European gangs and African and Middle Eastern rebels and terrorist groups, while the dollar value of arms deliveries to Ukraine comes close to matching Russia’s entire annual defense budget.2. Another significant document, also dating from February, highlights President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recommendation that Ukrainian forces carry out massed drone strikes against “Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast,” and complaints that Kiev does not have the necessary long-range missile capabilities for such strikes.This piece of info is significant because it highlights President Zelensky’s apparent desperation and readiness to attack Russia directly despite warnings by some of his NATO paymasters that doing so might undermine their support for Kiev.3. The leaks challenge longstanding claims by the Pentagon and the Ukrainian military about casualties. A document entitled “Top Secret – Status of the Conflict as of March 01, 2023” estimates total Russian losses could be up to 16,000-17,500 killed in action, and 61,000-71,500 on the Ukrainian side.
That’s a far cry from the assessment by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley in November, which estimated Russian deaths at “well over” 100,000 troops, as well as the Ukrainian military’s pie in the sky “eliminated personnel” figures of 180,050 (i.e. nearly matching the 190,000 troop total that Western intelligence estimated were near Donbass in February 2022 before the escalation of the crisis).
Ukrainian officials and Western media have sought to downplay these figures, accusing Russia of “doctoring” the stats (despite possible secondary corroboration) and assuring that Russian casualties are much higher, and Ukrainian ones much lower. Wherever the truth lies, the figures serve to undermine confidence in Ukraine’s NATO-supported and equipped army of super soldiers.
4. Another key revelation relates to the extent of NATO involvement. While alliance officials have consistently assured that no Western forces are on the ground fighting against Russia, a “Top Secret” document dated March 23 indicates that nearly half-a-dozen NATO powers do in fact have “boots on the ground” in the form of special forces troops. These include Britain (50 troops), Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14), and the Netherlands (1).
It’s unclear what exactly these forces are doing there. The document doesn’t say. Apparently realizing the grave implications of this information, Britain’s Defense Ministry offered a catch-all dismissal of the documents, assuring in a Tweet Tuesday that “the widely reported leak of alleged classified US information has demonstrated a serious level of inaccuracy,” and that “readers should be cautious about taking at face value allegations that have the potential to spread disinformation.”
What’s significant about the NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine? Well, for one thing, they serve to confirm longstanding allegations made by senior Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the US and its allies are waging a “total war” against Russia. Moreover, it raises important questions about the dangerous potential future of proxy wars. How, for example, would the US react if Russia or China deployed special forces troops to fight NATO forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, or Yugoslavia? The presence of Western alliance forces in Ukraine has effectively opened that can of worms.5. One final significant piece of information that can be gleaned from the documents relates to the state of Ukraine’s air defenses. A Pentagon assessment dated February 28 projected that Kiev’s stocks of Soviet-made Buk and S-300 missile systems – which make up almost 90 percent of the country’s air defenses, would be “fully depleted” by mid-April and May 3, respectively. A second slide from an assessment from February 23 predicts that Ukrainian forces’ frontline protection would be “completely reduced” by May 23.
This information is significant because it seems to confirm that the US and its allies are running out of time to shore up their client’s air defense protection before Russia gains total air superiority similar to the kind its Air Force enjoyed in the counterterrorism operation in Syria, or the kind the US and its allies typically have when they decide to bomb a third world country.
The US has promised to provide Ukraine with its bulky Patriot missile system and to ramp up deliveries of other anti-air weaponry, but observers have expressed concerns about the ability of the US military-industrial complex to ramp up production quickly enough, and questioned whether Washington will be willing to send additional sophisticated air defense hardware to a conflict zone where losses would mean a significant hit to US weapons makers if the equipment is lost.
Skepticism is Healthy The leak of the documents online, and the fact that they were picked up by major legacy media resources in the West, has caused understandable consternation in some circles about whether or not they are genuine. After all, these are the same newspapers, outlets, and television networks that have pumped out story after debunked Russia-related story over the years and decades, from the claim that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill US troops in Afghanistan, to the allegation that Moscow meddled in America’s elections in 2016 and secretly installed a “Manchurian Candidate” named Donald Trump.
“We don’t have a position,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik when asked about the leaks. “Maybe it’s a fake, deliberate misinformation.”
Ryabkov explained that since Washington is a key party to the Ukraine conflict and is waging a hybrid war against Russia, the documents may be a ploy to mislead the Russian side. “I’m not confirming anything, but understand that various scenarios are conceivable here,” he said.
Publicly, at least, officials in Washington have treated the leaks as if they’re the real thing. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin vowed that his department would “turn over every rock” until the “source” of the leaks was found and their extent clarified. CIA chief William Burns echoed Austin’s performance, calling the leaks “deeply unfortunate” and saying they were something the US government “takes extremely seriously.”
Amid reports that the Pentagon has been trying to scrub the leaked docs from the net, Twitter CEO Elon Musk sarcastically quipped that “yeah, you can totally delete things from the internet – it works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”
Kiev, predictably, has blamed Moscow, calling the leaks a “Russian propaganda ploy.” Chinese media dismissed these assertions, suggesting that if Russia had gotten its hands on the documents, it would likely hold onto them and use them to its advantage against Ukraine and NATO instead of spreading them online.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the leaks “quite interesting.” As for the suggestion that Moscow might somehow be involved, he said that “the tendency to constantly blame Russia for everything is a widespread disease right now.”
The truth about who leaked the documents and why may never be found. However, a stream of retired US officials, Washington-based security advisors, and CIA analysts have told Sputnik that the “leaks” may be an attempt by “dissenters” and “realists” within the US security state establishment to provide Washington with a much-needed “offramp” from the ever-escalating conflict with Russia in Ukraine before it turns into a world war.
foxnews |EXCLUSIVE: The Biden
administration has led "the largest speech censorship operation in
recent history" by working with social media companies to suppress and
censor information later acknowledged as truthful," former Missouri
attorney general Eric Schmitt will tell the House Weaponization
Committee Thursday.
Schmitt, now a Republican
senator from Missouri, is expected to testify alongside Louisiana
Attorney General Jeff Landry and former Missouri deputy attorney general
for special litigation, D. John Sauer.
The three witnesses will discuss the findings of their federal government censorship lawsuit, Louisiana and Missouri v. Biden et al—which they filed in May 2022 and which they describe as "the most important free speech lawsuit of this generation."
The testimony comes after Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit
against the Biden administration, alleging that President Biden and
members of his team "colluded with social media giants Meta, Twitter,
and YouTube to censor free speech in the name of combating so-called
‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation.’"
The lawsuit alleges that
coordination led to the suppression and censorship of truthful
information "on a scale never before seen" using examples of the COVID
lab-leak theory, information about COVID vaccinations, Hunter Biden’s
laptop, and more.
The lawsuit is currently in discovery, and Thursday’s hearing is
expected to feature witness testimony that will detail evidence
collected to show the Biden administration has "coerced social media
companies to censor disfavored speech."
"Discovery obtained by
Missouri and Louisiana demonstrated that the Biden administration’s
coordination with social media companies and collusion with
non-governmental organizations to censor speech was far more pervasive
and destructive than ever known," Schmitt will testify, according to
prepared testimony obtained by Fox News Digital.
wired |When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, Garry Tan, president and CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator, called SVB’s failure “an extinction level event for startups” that “will set startups and innovation back by 10 years or more.” People have been quicktopointout
how quickly the cadre of small-government, libertarian tech bros has
come calling for government intervention in the form of a bailout when
it’s their money on the line.
Late yesterday, the US government announced
that SVB depositors will regain access to all their money, thanks to
the Federal Deposit Insurance Company's backstop funded by member banks.
Yet the shock to the tech ecosystem and its elite may still bring down a
reckoning for many who believe it’s got nothing to do with them.
SVB’s 40,000 customers are mostly tech companies—the bank provided services to around half of US startups—but
those tech companies are tattooed into the fabric of daily lives across
the US and beyond. The power of the West Coast tech industry means that
most digital lives are rarely more than a single degree of separation
away from a startup banking with SVB.
The
bank's customers may now be getting their money back but the services
SVB once provided are gone. That void and the shock of last week may
cause—or force—startups and their investors to drastically change how
they manage their money and businesses, with effects far beyond Silicon
Valley.
Most immediately, the many startups who
depended on SVB have workers far from the bank’s home turf. “These
companies and people are not just in Silicon Valley,” says Sarah Kunst,
managing director of Cleo Capital, a San Francisco firm that invests in
early-stage startups.
Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham said yesterday that the incubator’s companies banking with SVB have more than a quarter of a million employers,
around a third of whom are based outside California. If they and other
SVB customers suffer cash crunches or cut back expansion plans, rent
payments in many parts of the world may be delayed and staff may no
longer buy coffees and lunches at the corner deli. Cautious about the
future, businesses may withhold new hires, and staff who remain may
respond in kind, cutting local spending or delaying home purchases or
renovation work.
The second- and third-order
impacts of startups hitting financial trouble or just slowing down could
be more pernicious. “When you say: ‘Oh, I don’t care about Silicon
Valley,’ yes, that might sound fine. But the reality is very few of us
are Luddites,” Kunst says. “Imagine you wake up and go to unlock your
door, and because they’re a tech company banking with SVB who can no
longer make payroll, your app isn’t working and you’re struggling to
unlock your door.” Perhaps you try a rideshare company or want to hop on
a pay-by-the-hour electric scooter, but can’t because their payment
system is provided by an SVB client who now can’t operate.
A Foundation of Joy
-
Two years and I've lost count of how many times my eye has been operated
on, either beating the fuck out of the tumor, or reattaching that slippery
eel ...
April Three
-
4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
-
Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
-
sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...