Libertarian Leanings

Is Anybody Else Wondering...

...how a total disaster like Joe Biden ever got to be the top of the Democrat 2020 presidential ticket? Here's my theory.

I don't think he really wanted to run for president but events forced him into it. Had Hillary won in 2016 Joe would have quietly retired. No scandals, no controversies, just a celebration of his long and brilliant career in public service. Tongue firmly in cheek there. But Trump won.

Back during the Obama administration Democrats had been deeply involved in Ukraine politics. Audio of a phone call purported to be between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt was leaked in 2014. In it the two discussed who should become president of Ukraine. Turned out their guy didn't win, but the call implied serious election meddling on the part of the U.S.

The winner of the Ukraine presidential election in 2014 was businessman and oligarch Petro Poroshenko.  2014, coincidentally, was the same year that Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, which paid him at least $50,000 per month for his services.  In early 2015 State Department officials expressed their concerns over Hunter Biden and the potential conflicts of interest he created with his high priced Burisma board seat.  Contrary to what Joe Biden said about not knowing Hunter's business, documents show he was briefed on it in 2015.  Moving forward to 2018 we have a video of Joe Biden bragging to the Council on Foreign Relations how he got a “corrupt” Ukrainian prosecutor fired. It just so happened that it was a prosecutor who at that  moment was investigating Burisma, the company on whose board sat Hunter Biden.

In April 2019 there was a landslide in the Ukraine presidential elections. Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky defeated the incumbent Poroshenko getting 73% of the vote. Seems Ukrainians were fed up with corruption. Zelensky's victory was announced April 21^st. On April 23^rd Joe Biden Biden announced he was running for President of the United States. Two days after the wrong guy won the Ukraine presidential election?  Zelensky's win was potential trouble for Biden.  Joe's deal with the prior Ukraine administration, ending the criminal investigation into Burisma in return for a billion in loan guarantees, was endangered if not dead.  Hunter Biden resigned from the board of Burisma in October of 2019

Joe Biden had family interests to protect by running, but Democrats saw opportunity in it as well.  Obama holdovers in the State Department's Ukraine mission with their ears to the ground might easily have foreseen that the Trump administration would look into the conflicts of interest that they, themselves, had already found troubling.  Sure enough, Trump asked the new president about the Burisma investigation and Hunter Biden's role. Without Joe running for president, Trump's conversation with Zelensky would have no connection to foreign meddling in a U.S. election, and therefore would offer no grounds for impeachment. Whether he was pressured by Democrats or not, Joe ran and the Dems got their shot.

But damn the luck, double damn!  Not only did impeachment come up empty, Joe Biden won the nomination.  Except for Bernie Sanders, the entire slate of candidates was too pathetic to beat a 77 year old political hack who never accomplished a thing in government except lining his and his family's pockets. Bernie Sanders quickly became the front runner. Had anybody but Bernie taken a lead in delegates ahead of the South Carolina primary, the Dems might have let Joe off the hook. But a socialist at the top to the ticket would have been suicidal for the party, so James Clyburn threw his support behind Biden delivering the African American primary votes and saving the Biden campaign.  Joe took the lead after for good after Super Tuesday.  He was officially stuck.

I thought he would make an early pick of Hillary for running mate, the deal being that Hillary would almost immediately take over as president and Biden would get to retire, which he now probably wishes he had done. I think Democrats had the same idea, except that the leadership wants a new face, so we have a Harris/Biden ticket instead of a Clinton/Biden ticket.  I don't for a second think that Biden is making the decisions in his campaign, which leads me to think he doesn't really want to be there.

ACB

As of this writing Amy Coney Barrett is at the top of Trump's list to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.  Barrett is reliably conservative and a Catholic.  That latter fact assures us of a supremely contentious confirmation, since the Catholic position on abortion puts her squarely in the crosshairs of the now insanely leftist Democrat party.  It promises to be an ugly fight, but my gut says Trump wants to have that fight, and have it right now.

It would give President Trump and his Senate Majority Leader McConnell a campaign promise fulfilled — another conservative on the high court.  Moving to confirm Judge Barrett now seems like great election strategy to me.  The Democrat faithful are already promising more riots and looting (which they and their media allies refer to as "peaceful protests") if the nomination of RBG's replacement goes forward.  This comes at bad time for Democrat leaders who've recently noticed in the opinion polls that the "summer of love" was not a huge hit with voters.  So they've turned around to say rioting and looting are not very good and might even be bad, right when the rioting and looting is about to start up again and go right up to election day.  And when it's all over, there won't be a Supreme Court seat hanging in the balance to motivate the leftist voters.  This isn't likely to lead to a Biden victory.

Though this endless battle royal is waged the name of abortion rights, but I've recently come around to the idea that Roe v. Wade fight is not about abortion as much as it is about filling the court with justices who will deliver the outcomes that progressives in congress are unable to deliver legislatively.  The reality is that America is largely conservative, and Americans are divided on the issue of abortion, even Democrats.

The poll had surveyed more than 4,000 people between late July and early August 2019, asking them not only about their attitudes toward abortion but also about whether they agreed with their party’s stance on the issue.

The survey found that 59 percent of self-identified Democrats support some limits on abortion; only 40 percent said abortion should be “legal in all cases.” It also found that 29 percent of Democrats said they either agreed with Republicans on abortion policy or did not agree with either party’s position.

Years ago when I was stationed at St. Albans Air Force Station in Vermont, my girlfriend at the time and I discussed what we might do if precautions failed.  This was before Roe v. Wade.  We decided that one of our options was to drive over through Rouses Point and into New York state where abortion had recently been legalized.  It never came to that.  The point is, states were already moving to legalize abortion when Roe v. Wade was decided, and that's where we are headed again if it's ever overturned.  If that happens abortion will be legal in some states and not in others.  There will be varying levels of restrictions that will be decided upon by legislators and governors in the various states.  In other words, the people will decide through their elected officials what to do about abortion.

Exactly what the left doesn't want.  They've never been able to sell America on the idea that this country should become a socialist Utopia, and for that reason Roe v. Wade means more to progressives than just abortion.  By creating a previously unknown "constitutional right" Roe v. Wade put the issue of abortion beyond the reach of the voters and their elected representatives.  Abortion being such an emotional issue, the left is able to mobilize millions to protest, riot and demand justices that are inclined to dis-empower voters, themselves.  By filling the court with defenders of Roe v. Wade, progressives will create a court, unaccountable to the voters, that decides cases based, not on what the U.S. laws or the constitution say, but on the political winds of the day, or international law, or the influence of liberal billionaires. 

So get ready to hear once again how Republicans are the party of misogyny and the enslavement of women.  Expect more riots and looting.  Democrat leaders have already talked about impeaching Trump and Barr.  Nothing is off the table.  They say they'll add more seats to the Supreme Court and fill them with liberals.  What Democrats really want is to be beyond the reach of the voters, in power permanently.

Pension Funds Start Looking to Gold to Avert Disaster

The following article was provided by Stefan Gleason, President of Money Metals Exchange.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Public and private pension plans face a dual crisis.

The first and most obvious threat to pensioners is that defined-benefit vehicles are severely underfunded. By one estimate, pension systems taken as a whole are $638 billion in the red.

Some are in better shape financially than others. But all pension plans will have to reckon with a second huge challenge going forward.

Namely, they are already entirely unable to meet their stated return objectives by owning conventional “safe” interest-bearing instruments such as Treasury bonds.

Fed Declares War on Savers

The Federal Reserve has effectively declared war on savers by vowing to hold short-term interest rates near zero, likely for years to come. Longer-term bond yields also plummeted to record lows (below 1% for most maturities) this year.

An ultra-low interest rate environment is survivable for investors only so long as rates keep falling, thereby generating capital gains on bond holdings that supplement their diminutive coupon payments.

But what happens when the great bond bull market, which has been intact for nearly four decades, reverses? It will be a disaster for the assets of pension funds.

They could reach for yield elsewhere by owning dividend-paying stocks. But an all-equity portfolio would be too volatile for their conservative investing mandate. Even the highest quality stocks got hammered during the virus-induced economic lockdown hysteria this spring.

Market volatility combined with rising liabilities has driven a 6% increase in total adjusted pension debt this year, according to Moody’s Investor Services.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve recently announced that it would be changing its 2% inflation “target” to an “average.” That gives central bankers the policy leeway to begin pushing inflation well above 2% for an extended period. (And let’s not forget the Fed also uses the U.S. Government’s grossly understated inflation statistics.)

Pension Plans CAN Hold Gold – But Only These Two Do

How can pension funds obtain protection from this threat? They can own gold.

Last week, Ohio's $16 billion Police & Fire Pension Fund approved a 5% allocation to the monetary metal. This relatively small gold allocation provides at least some measure of portfolio diversification and could pay off in an outsized way if the gold market enters into a price-compounding mania phase.

Ohio will join Texas, through its Texas Teacher Retirement System, in having the only known public pension programs that hold precious metals.

Each fund appears to be targeting about $1 billion in gold holdings.

Others have been urged to do so, including by the Sound Money Defense League and Money Metals Exchange, whose Sound Money Index ranks all 50 states on whether they hold gold in their pension or reserve funds.

Wyoming, for example, considered and rejected the idea early last year when gold was trading at just $1,300/oz.

In a contentious Wyoming senate hearing in February 2019, the career deputy to the newly elected State Treasurer – having just turned in a staggering $300+ million loss on the state’s controversial investment in Third World debt – scoffed at gold while openly opposing his own boss who had just testified in favor of holding the monetary metal to protect the state.

Unfortunately, precious metals assets represent only about 0.5% of all savings and investments in the United States. The vast majority of pensioners and workers are thus vulnerable, like sitting ducks, to the threat of an inflation outbreak or a meltdown in the financial system.

Studies show investment portfolios that include a 5% to 10% allocation to physical gold over time enjoy higher returns, and, at the same time, less volatility.  So why do so few investment managers hold even an ounce of gold?

The bias against gold runs deep, according to Larry Parks, Executive Director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education (FAME): “Money managers, lawyers, actuaries, accountants, and other ‘fiduciaries’ recommend pension plans to not have gold in their portfolios. They say that gold is too risky and too volatile.”

But Parks says the opposite is true: “The real reason they try to discredit gold is that gold pays no fees, which is their principal concern. Thus, they have an inherent conflict of interest with pensioners, who are by law the sole plan beneficiaries. It is a scandal how pension trustees have been misled.”

A Secure Retirement Requires Physical Backup

Those who are now, or later will be, relying on a pension as their primary source of retirement income should develop a fail-safe backup plan.

The agency tasked with backing up pension programs, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, is itself underfunded and could quickly become insolvent in the event of a rise in pension failures.

Of course, the risk of a pension program failing to keep pensioners ahead of inflation is closer to a certainty.

Conventional institutional asset allocation models will be exposed as deficient and even dangerous when their stock and bond portfolios wilt under a period of possible stagflation – an economic trend that investors haven’t had to navigate since the late 1970s.

The ultimate hedge against a regime of currency depreciation and an environment of negative real returns on interest-bearing paper is physical precious metals.

As FAME’s Larry Parks advises, “If you want a secure retirement, you better own some physical gold.”

We would add that if you want the potential for some spectacular real gains in retirement above and beyond what gold delivers, you better own some physical silver as well.

 

Stefan Gleason is President of the Sound Money Defense League, a national grassroots lobbying organization working to restore gold & silver to their historical role as America's constitutional money. He also leads Money Metals Exchange, a national precious metals dealer with over 75,000 customers. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, & CNBC, & his writings have appeared in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com, Seeking Alpha, Detroit News, Washington Times, & National Review.

Joe Biden on Gun Control: Understanding Biden's 2020 Platform and the Second Amendment

By Sam Jacobs

The one-two punch of the Wuhan Coronavirus explosion, and the civil unrest of early 2020, led to an unprecedented growth in firearms ownership in America. All told, there were about two million firearms sold in the month of March 2020 alone. Between March and July, an additional three million were sold, with about half of those happening in the month of June.

Ammunition sales have similarly spiked, with record sales occurring on this website. However, gun owners don’t need a report to know that there has been a massive surge in demand for ammunition. They need only go down to their local gun store and see that all of the most common rounds are in short supply, sold out or being rationed at the point of sale.

But it’s not just guns and ammo. There has also been a significant increase in the number of Americans obtaining their concealed carry weapons permit and packing on a daily basis. Forbes magazine estimates that 20 million Americans are now carrying as part of their everyday life.

The flipside of this is that Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign has been perhaps the most radically anti-Second Amendment campaign on record. Former Vice President Biden is very proud of his role in spiriting the 1994 gun ban into passage. If he’s elected, we will see an expansion of the power of the federal government and attacks on the rights of Americans that will not be restricted to the ownership of firearms. As president, Biden would resume the Obama-era attacks on the suburbs ended by President Trump, give citizenship (and voting rights) to nearly 30 million illegal aliens and use the Federal Reserve to address a “racial wealth gap.”

However, Biden’s desire to erode the Second Amendment deserves special attention.

Read the rest at Ammo.com.

America's Frontline Doctors

America's Frontline Doctors address hydroxychloroquine misinformation.

Frontline Doctors Press Briefer-540p from kelli on Vimeo.

Update 8/6/2020:  For some reason videos that describe the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine keep getting removed by the host site.  Here is another that was uploaded to replace the previously linked video that was taken down.

Biden — The Wild Card Candidate

A recent column by Conrad Black describes Joe Biden as "a waxwork dummy hiding in his basement."

In the absence of a feasible presidential nominee, the Democratic campaign is being conducted by the national political media with almost the sole exception of Fox News and its affiliates, the Wall Street Journal and New York Post. The New York Times has at least declared that its objective is not simply to report even-handedly but to oppose the Trump Administration. All the others do the same without acknowledging it.

This is the general and entirely voluntary immolation of the professional integrity of the American news media. The majority of Americans recognize and respond in polls that they think the media is untrustworthy. The unofficial opposition to Trump is an informal alliance between hooligans, terrorists, Democratic urban machine crooks, mudslinging media, and a pernicious virus.

With less than four months before the election, this is the campaign: a constant media carpet-bombing of defamatory lies about the president on behalf of a comatose candidate, propagation of unfounded hysteria over a fading pandemic, self-induced and redundant economic depression, open borders to admit and give free medical care to the unskilled peasantry of the world, and national self-abasement before militant African Americans demanding minority rule and the renunciation and degradation of those who founded the United States and led it to a pinnacle of influence in the world unequaled in all history. And this ludicrous, almost unimaginable, mockery of a quest for the world’s highest office is, in the perversity of these times, apparently leading in the polls.

The very apt title to Mr. Black's column is A Nightmare Campaign of Outright Idiocy, and in it Black predicts that it simply cannot last.  Says Black, "It is impossible and it will blow up."  I can't disagree.  Forget about those polls showing Biden in the lead over Trump.  July opinion polls rarely endure, and with Trump supporters disinclined to talk to pollsters, polling accuracy is almost inconceivable.  The networks and the cable outlets have dutifully filled the breach, propping up Biden and promoting the perception that there is actually a race in progress.  While it never pays to underestimate the absurdities of the Democratic voter, I remain confident that Trump will win, and quite possibly in an epic blowout.

But how on earth did Joe Biden get to be the Democratic party's presidential candidate?  I suspect it was by accident.  A series of unfortunate accidents with the catalytic event, perhaps, being the election of Volodymyr Zelensky in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election.

Prior to his election Volodymyr Zelensky was an actor who played the role of Ukraine's president in a popular Ukrainian television comedy.  You wouldn't make this stuff up, but there it is.  On April 21, 2019 Zelensky, the reform candidate, defeated the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, a prominent Ukrainian oligarch, in a landslide victory.  A few days later Joe Biden officially entered the race for the Democratic nomination.  This was after months of deliberation.  Why right then?

A year or so earlier Joe Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations how he threatened the Ukrainian government with the loss of a billion dollars in loan guarantees if it didn't fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian natural gas company on whose board his son Hunter Biden sat.  The younger Biden was hauling in somewhere between $50,000 and $83,000 per month, totaling $3 million plus, for the presence of his butt in a board of directors chair.  Joe's threat was clearly quid pro quo.  Joe got the law off Burisma's back as a favor to Burisma for Hunter's inordinately generous compensation.  The Poroshenko government could shut down the investigation or lose the billion in loan guarantees.  It got the money.  Except now there was a reformer, Volodymyr Zelensky, heading the Ukrainian government.  Had Poroshenko not lost the election, Joe Biden at 77 might not have felt the same urgency about throwing his hat into the presidential ring.

But he did, mounting an unimpressive campaign for the Democratic nomination, and when it looked as if socialist Bernie Sanders was going to win it, the Democratic powers that be lined up behind Biden, the electable candidate.  Elizabeth Warren was persuaded to stay in the primary races long enough to siphon votes away from front runner Sanders. An apparently reluctant James Clyburn, Democratic Representative of South Carolina, was persuaded to endorse Biden's candidacy, a crucial factor in securing South Carolina's delegates for Joe, setting off a string of victories that propelled Biden to the nomination.

But the moment Joe Biden threw his hat into the ring he created a shield for himself against possible criminal prosecution for his and Hunter's ethically dubious Ukrainian enterprises.  He was a presidential candidate, a Democratic presidential candidate.  As we have seen with Hillary Clinton and her mishandling of classified email, careerists in the U.S. Department of Justice are loathe to disrupt the campaign of a Democratic presidential candidate. 

Whether by accident or by design, Joe's status as a presidential candidate made it possible for a question about Hunter Biden that President Trump asked of President Zelensky to be considered an impeachable offense.  Without Joe running for president, Trump's question about Hunter had nothing to do with the election and could provide no pretext for impeachment.  But Joe got into the race and Democrats seized the opportunity for a second shot at Trump for colluding-with-foreigners-to-rig-a-US-election.  The House voted to impeach President Trump. 

So here I am, wondering if Joe Biden was really all that enthusiastic about running for president this time around, or was it a combination of the immunity it afforded him and the opportunity for Democrats to get Trump that pressured him into it.  He wasn't presidential material when he launched his first short-lived bid in 1987, and age hasn't improved him.  Are the Democrats looking for presidential timber in their candidate, anyway?  Or do they just want something to prop up in office while their globalist sponsors dictate policy? Biden would be the perfect prop, the ideal placeholder president.

There is one thing we know, because Biden has already said it.  There will not be a Biden administration second term.  In fact, I strongly doubt that he will bother to finish a first term, assuming he beats the odds and gets himself elected in November.  Biden is the Wild Card Candidate, and Biden's pick for VP becomes the President-in-Waiting.  With riots and Black Lives Matter so much in the forefront, Biden is reportedly leaning towards a woman of color to be his running mate.  But are there any among them who can inspire confidence in a "waxwork dummy" administration?  What VP candidate, running as the de facto presidential candidate, can carry the election once gaff-o-matic Joe Biden begins his inevitable collapse on the campaign trail?

Back in February Hillary Clinton was on with Ellen Degeneris and she was asked about the vice presidency.

Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres asked the former Secretary of State on Thursday whether she’d agree to be on the ticket of the of the eventual Democratic nominee, if she were asked.

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Clinton laughed. “But no, probably no.”

Pushed on the question, Clinton, 72, reluctantly said she’d consider it.

“I never say never because I believe in serving my country, but it’s never going to happen,” she said.

Very little has been heard from Hillary since then, and she's not on anybody's list of potential Biden running mates.  But the Vice Presidential Sweepstakes have been under way for months.  The longer they go on the more likely it seems that we'll wait until August and the Democratic National Convention for a dramatic "and the winner is" announcement.  And what could be more dramatic than Hillary Clinton joining the ticket?  With polls currently showing Biden with substantial leads, the Democrats may not realize they're in a tough spot, but if Joe has to come out of his bunker to campaign head to head against Trump before the August convention, that may change.  Hillary might then be seen as the indispensable savior.  With Hillary on the ticket, a vote for Joe would once again be a vote for the Hillary as first woman president in American history. 

A dramatic made-for-Hollywood moment practically writes itself.  Hillary's eleventh hour appearance on the ticket rescues the sinking Biden campaign, powering Joe and Hillary to victory.  Then on January 20, 2021 and the stage is set.  Immediately after taking the oath of office, President Biden stuns the crowd and the country by announcing his resignation.  He steps back, turns to Hillary, and Hillary, herself, steps forward to deliver the Inaugural Address.  America would be delirious with joy.

Or not.

Biden and Clinton would make a perfect match that half of America would despise.  In a Biden-Clinton administration Clinton Foundation fortunes would once again soar.  Hunter Biden would set records for most seats on boards of directors in countries getting massive foreign aid from America. The only downside for Joe Biden is a slightly heightened health risk that increases in direct proportion to the length of time he delays his departure from the Oval Office.

At the moment illegal FBI spying on the Trump campaign, based on improper FISA warrants, and prosecutorial misconduct in the Flynn case are stories that can't be ignored.  Under a Biden-Clinton administration big tech and big media could engineer a cavernous memory hole down which inconvenient news stories, facts, and opinions would disappear forever under the rationale that "misleading information" must be suppressed.  All of those things that we would never have found out about, had Hillary won in 2016, could disappear again.

Potential legal difficulties for the Bidens, the Clintons, and a host of others would disappear.  With constraints removed the FBI and DOJ would once again enjoy great latitude in protecting America from her domestic enemies, just as they have done in recent years with their spying on Carter Page, Sharyl Attkisson, and James Rosen, and their prosecutions of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, George Papadopolous, and General Michael Flynn.  The focus of the Department of Justice would once again be turned to its traditional role of prosecuting Republicans who appear to threaten Democrat political fortunes.

On the foreign policy front America could revive her many previous cordial relationships and reciprocal agreements.  Like the ones where the CIA would spy on their citizens in return for their intelligence agencies spying on Americans.  Iran could get a bomb.  With foreign aid floodgates open to the max, massive aid could be doled out on condition that spending would be directed by well connected non-government organizations who would be well compensated for their efforts.  That's in addition to the billions in aid that simply disappear.  Opportunities would once again abound for the Clinton Foundation and its laundry network.

Standing in the way of this Dream Administration are only the deplorable voters.  Perhaps a minor obstacle.  With many states on the verge of approving mail in voting for the November presidential elections, it might just be possible to correct the predictably erroneous voting by those unsuitable voters.  Election workers could assist those unable, unwilling, ineligible, or even too dead to get to the polls.  As one success builds on another, Democrats will enjoy ever greater popularity.  Could we imagine a time when Democrats become so popular they win one hundred percent of the vote?  Years ago I would never have thought so, but now I'm not so sure.

In 2016 the alliance of Democrats, corporate media, and key members of the administrative state were right on the cusp of achieving the level of control that would assure Democrat "popularity" for years to come.  An obstacle named Trump unexpectedly has delayed them. 

Even more unexpectedly, Trump has successfully resisted all of the Democrats' subsequent efforts to remove him from office.  He wisely avoided the Mueller obstruction of justice trap.  Impeachment was a farce from the word go.  The coronavirus has all but killed the economy, inducing a recession that Democrats hope to extend with lockdowns.  It will recover, as will Trump's re-election prospects.

Four years ago Trump got in the way.  2020 Democrats may turn with desperate hope toward Hillary to prevent him from doing it again.

Kayleigh McEnany

Suggested nickname for Kayleigh McEnany:  The Assassin.  Watch this:

House Intelligence Committee Releases Transcripts

This past Thursday the House Intelligence Committee released transcripts of closed-door interviews from its probe into Russia Collusion Fantasy.  Committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif. has been sitting on them since November of 2018.

In a statement after making the transcripts public, Schiff said that they “show precisely what Special Counsel Robert Mueller also revealed: That the Trump campaign, and Donald Trump himself, invited illicit Russian help, made full use of that help, and then lied and obstructed the investigations in order to cover up this misconduct.”

Without reading any of the transcripts, know that they say no such thing.  If the transcripts truly did reveal what Schiff said they did, they would have been made public years ago.  Here they are:

Correspondence:

• Letter from HPSCI to Acting Director of Intelligence Richard Grenell (May 7, 2020)
• Correspondence between HPSCI and Office of Director of National Intelligence and White House (November 2018 – May 2020)

Interview Transcripts:

• Interview Transcript of Rinat Akhmetshin (November 13, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Stephen Bannon (January 16, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Stephen Bannon (February 15, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Andrew Brown (August 30, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Caputo (July 14, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of John Carlin (July 27, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Thomas Catan (October 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of James Clapper (July 17, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Samuel Clovis (December 12, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Dan Coats (June 22, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Cohen (October 24, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Rick Dearborn (January 17, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Diana Denman (December 5, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Marc Elias (December 13, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Boris Ephsteyn (September 28, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Evelyn Farkas (June 26, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Peter Fritsch (October 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Goldfarb (December 12, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Rob Goldstone (December 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jeffrey Gordon (July 26, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Rhona Graff (December 22, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Shawn Henry (December 5, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Hope Hicks (February 27, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Ike Kaveladze (November 2, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of David Kramer (December 19, 2017)
• Letter from Counsel to David Kramer to HPSCI (December 23, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of David Kramer (January 10, 2018)
• Letter from Counsel to David Kramer to HPSCI (January 5, 2018)
• Letter from Counsel to David Kramer to HPSCI (January 10, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Jared Kushner (July 25, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Corey Lewandowski (January 17, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Corey Lewandowski (March 8, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Loretta Lynch (October 20, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Simona Mangiante (July 18, 2018)
• Interview Transcript of Andrew McCabe (December 19, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Mary McCord (November 1, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Alexander Nix (December 14, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Carter Page (November 2, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Brad Parscale (October 24, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Walid Phares (December 8, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of John Podesta (June 27, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of John Podesta (December 4, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Samantha Power (October 13, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Erik Prince (November 30, 2017)
• Letter from HPSCI to Department of Justice (April 30, 2019)
• Interview Transcript of Benjamin Rhodes (October 25, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Susan Rice (September 8, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jonathan Saffron (October 12, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Anatoli Samochornov (November 28, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Felix Sater (December 20, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Keith Schiller (November 7, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jefferson Sessions (November 30, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Roger J. Stone, Jr. (September 26, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Jake Sullivan (December 21, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Michael Sussman (December 18, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Matthew Tait (October 6, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Yared Tamene Wolde-Yohannes (August 30, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Donald Trump, Jr. (December 6, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Witness Name Redacted (December 20, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Sally Yates (November 3, 2017)
• Interview Transcript of Christopher Wylie (April 25, 2018)

Reports

• House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – Democratic Minority Views (March 26, 2018)
• House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence – Republican Report on Russian Active Measures (March 22, 2018)

Motion To Dismiss With Prejudice

The U.S. Department of Justice has moved to dismiss charges against General Michael Flynn.  PDF of the Government's 20-page motion is here.  The following excerpt captures the essence.

[P]rior to the interview, there were internal FBI discussions about whether to show Mr. Flynn the transcripts of his calls with Mr. Kislyak.⁵ In light of the fact that the FBI already had these transcripts in its possessions, Mr. Flynn’s answers would have shed no light on whether and what he communicated with Mr. Kislyak.—and those issues were immaterial to the no longer justifiably predicated counterintelligence investigation. Similarly, whether Mr. Flynn did or “did not recall” (ECF No. 1) communications already known by the FBI was assuredly not material.

Under these circumstances, the Government cannot explain, much less prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, how false statements are “material” to an investigation that—as explained above—seems to have been undertaken only to elicit those very false statements and thereby criminalize Mr. Flynn.

The DOJ has been out of control for a long time.  Scooter Libby was convicted of criminal disagreement with the late Tim Russert over who heard from whom that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.  James Comey was the Acting Attorney General who appointed his pal Patrick Fitzgerald to be the Special Prosecutor in that case.  The conviction of Arthur Andersen in a phony criminal case was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision, but only years after the company was destroyed.  The prosecutor was Andrew Weissmann, one of Mueller's Special Counsel prosecutors in the Russian Collusion Fantasy.  The conviction of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens for political corruption was obtained through the misconduct of two Justice Department prosecutors.

While political enemies were persecuted, transgressions by political allies were overlooked.  The Fast and Furious gun-running scandal and the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, the IRS targeting of conservative political groups, and the kid glove treatment of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information in the email scandal are all instances where federal agencies were illegally or unethically put to work for political purposes.  In all of the cases mentioned above, no one was held accountable for their misconduct.

Maybe now they will.

This Is J. Edgar Hoover Stuff

Lindsey Graham: The legal foundation for Mueller's appointment is crumbling.

The Backfiring Case Against General Flynn

This article by James A. Gagliano, CNN analyst, assistant professor at St. John's, and retired 25-year veteran of the FBI, concludes that General Michael Flynn was railroaded for no other reason but political bias. It goes way beyond political bias in my view.

The final nail in the coffin of those who pretend political bias did not influence the FBI’s decisions in 2016 and 2017 is a text exchange between Strzok and Page on Feb. 25, 2016, discussing how to approach the Clinton interview:

Page: “One more thing: She might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more DOJ than FBI?”

Strzok: “I called Bill and relayed what we discussed. He agrees.”

Compare that to Priestap's quote: “What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or get him to lie, so we can get him fired?”

This was all about the DOJ and the Intelligence Community taking it upon themselves to prevent Donald Trump from winning the 2016 election, or upon failing that, to get him turned out of office if he somehow won anyway. The crucial first step in getting Trump thrown out of office was to get rid of Flynn, Trump's newly appointed Director of National Intelligence, who would have discovered what they were up to. This is about unaccountable members of the Washington bureaucracy overturning a federal election. What's truly frightening is how they went about it with such confidence, never imagining that they would be found out.

What happened next infuriates me.

The Flynn FD-302 interview notes appear to have been manipulated by Strzok and Page. Pientka was apparently the note taker. Consistent with FBI protocols, Strzok, as a party to the interview, can certainly discuss recollections with Pientka prior to the final document being approved by both. But somehow, Page, the DOJ attorney who was not present at the interview and was not an FBI agent, was involved in the edits.

Strzok advises Page, in a newly released batch of text exchanges between the two, that he was “trying to not completely rewrite” the FD-302, “so as to save [redacted] voice.” The redacted name is most likely Pientka. Strzok wants the document to appear to be voiced by the other agent. But only after he and Page can craft the words to make Flynn appear guilty of lying to the FBI.

It's a frightening prospect to consider, what would America be, if they had gotten away with it? Are anyone's constitutional rights protected when career federal employees are entitled to monitor, frame, or entrap elected leaders with whom they disagree. They might still get away with it, sacrificing some low level fall guy while the real criminals remain untouched.

The Doctors Argue It's Time To End The Lockdown

Dr. Dan Erickson and his business partner Dr. Artin Massihi, both former emergency room physicians, co-own Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield, California.  They've tested thousands of people, they've analyzed the current CDC statistical data on COVID-19, and they've come to the conclusion that it's time to end the lockdown. 

Pandemia_ opinión académica - dr Dan erickson from Jose Luis Gil Terron Lull on Vimeo.

Their message:  Quarantine the sick, not the healthy.  Open up the businesses and bring back the workers.  Re-open the hospitals and bring back the furloughed doctors.

Watch the whole thing.

Update 4/28/2020, 3:39pm:  This is not a message YouTube would like the rest of us to hear.  "This video has been removed for violating YouTube's Terms of Service," says YouTube. Whatever those might happen to be.  This new video is a slightly longer version of the previous one.  Let's see how long it will remain available for public viewing.

Update 4/28/2020, 4:05pm:  I've replaced the YouTube embedded video by another version of the same video on Vimeo.

Update 4/30/2020. 1:25pm:  The previous Vimeo video was removed. I've replaced it again.

Update 5/5/2020. 1:10pm:  These videos of Dr. Erickson keep disappearing.  And I keep finding another one.

Update 5/8/2020 10:08am:  Once again Dr. Erickson has disappeared.  Found another one, this one posted by and for our Spanish speaking friends.

Is Physical Money on the Verge of Elimination?

The following article was provided by Stefan Gleason, President of Money Metals Exchange.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The metals markets are being pulled in multiple directions simultaneously like never before. The global virus-triggered economic freeze has caused industrial demand for all commodities to crater.

At the same time, mining output is also crashing as virus fears force many mines around the world to suspend operations.

What is the “right” equilibrium price for copper, silver, gold, and other metals in an environment of such extreme and unstable supply and demand stresses? The verdict of the market changes – often dramatically – day by day.

In March, hard assets tumbled along with stocks as investors priced in increasingly dire scenarios for the economy. A double-digit contraction in U.S. GDP and double-digit spike in unemployment became inevitable after economic lockdowns spread across the country.

Now hopes are growing for the economy being able to start reopening in May and reverse some of the damage done by the draconian policies prescribed Dr. Fauci and adopted by most state governors.

Still unknowable, however, is how quickly the economy will be able to heal itself… and to what extent demand for raw materials will recover toward pre-virus levels.

The biggest wild card in all this may be the effects of unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Already the federal budget deficit is set to explode to an all-time record over $3 trillion (likely closer to $4 trillion) and represent a greater share of the U.S. economy than at any time since World War II. Already the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has ballooned to $6.1 trillion as central bankers furiously try to prop up everything from mortgages to junk bonds.

All this is leading toward a devaluation of the U.S. dollar. That should naturally make sound money – gold and silver – more valuable in dollar terms.

However, as we saw last month, demand destruction amidst a wrecked economy pull down precious metals prices quite suddenly – if only temporarily. Gold has since rebounded strongly to a new 8-year high while silver is regaining its footing from historically depressed levels.

Drilling Down into Supply and Demand Fundamentals

The Silver Institute had forecasted in early February – back when the economic impact of the virus was thought to be minimal outside of China – that global silver demand would rise by 3% in 2020. The Institute projected supply would nearly keep pace with 2% growth (which would be the first annual increase in five years).

Those forecasts now have to be thrown out the window. Both demand and supply are set to plummet in the near term.

On the plus side, investment demand for silver bullion products spiked last month to levels dealers had never seen before, clearing out inventories of most coins, rounds, and bars.

Bullion buying has receded from the frantic pace seen at the peak of the panic but remains strong. Safe-haven buying could remain a feature of investor psychology for many months ahead until an effective COVID-19 vaccine is widely available – and that figures to be 12-18 months out.

As for mining supply, it’s going to be a long road ahead before mines are fully operational again. Platinum and palladium production is largely offline in South Africa. Mexico’s giant Peñasquito mine, one of the country’s leading sources of gold and silver, suspended operations on Monday.

The silver supply picture is complicated by the fact that few primary silver mines exist. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of mining other metals (copper, lead, zinc, gold).

Base metals producers are shutting down. As Reuters reported, “Copper prices advanced on Tuesday, with London copper touching a four-week high, as more virus-related mining disruptions in key producing countries sparked global supply concerns.”

Best-Case and Worst-Case Scenarios

Given the extreme dynamics setting up in supply, demand, and monetary expansionism, market conditions are likely to remain volatile. We do think we have seen “peak fear” in this cycle – but not the end of uncertainty surrounding the virus and the economic damage it could continue to inflict.

In a best-case scenario, COVID-19’s spread steadily declines into the summer and the economy embarks on a V-shaped recovery. In a worst-case scenario, the virus makes a devastating resurgence in the fall, the economy locks down all over again, and markets descend back into chaos.

If the optimistic outlook prevails, then rising industrial demand for copper, silver, platinum, and palladium can be expected to drive those metals higher. Demand can recover faster than supply, which can’t simply be turned back on like a switch.

If the pessimists prevail, then all bets are off. Rounds of asset deflation will lead to accelerating hyperinflationary monetary responses. Social chaos, martial law, and possibly a postponement of elections could result.

In such a scenario, no investment could be counted on to perform well. But gold, the ultimate money, can always be counted on retain value even during the worst of times.

Stefan Gleason is President of Money Metals Exchange, the national precious metals company named 2015 "Dealer of the Year" in the United States by an independent global ratings group. A graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader, investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC, and his writings have appeared in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Detroit News, Washington Times, and National Review.

Silence

On March 22, 2020 the New York Post published a story about a Florida man who credits hydroxychloroquine with saving his life.

Trump last week said he was instructing the FDA to fast-track testing of hydroxychloroquine and a related drug, chloroquine, as treatment for COVID-19.

Giardinieri said he contacted an infectious disease doctor about the drug.

“He gave me all the reasons why I would probably not want to try it because there are no trials, there’s no testing, it was not something that was approved,” said Giardinieri.

“And I said, ‘Look, I don’t know if I’m going to make it until the morning,’ because at that point I really thought I was coming to the end because I couldn’t breathe anymore,” Giardinieri continued.

“He agreed and authorized the use of it and 30 minutes later the nurse gave it to me.”

After about an hour after taking the pills, Giardinieri said, it felt like his heart was beating out of his chest and, about two hours later, he had another episode where he couldn’t breathe.

He says he was given Benadryl and some other drugs and that when he woke up around 4:45 a.m., it was “like nothing ever happened.”

Also on March 22, 2020 Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that New York would begin clinical trials in which a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin would be used in treating coronavirus patients.

As more and more cases emerge, there is a growing and desperate need to not only adequately treat, but to find a cure for COVID-19. This is true particularly in New York, which is grappling with skyrocketing coronavirus cases.

Due to the increase in numbers, New York is set to launch a clinical trial for an experimental drug treatment Tuesday, March 24. It also plans to be the nation's first state to try to heal critically ill patients using the antibodies extracted from the plasma of individuals who have recovered from the virus.

The federal government cleared the way for New York to experiment with the malaria and lupus drug hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Zithromax (generic name azithromycin) as a treatment for COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said over the weekend.

On March 24, 2020 the New York Post reported that massive doses of vitamin C showed promising results when administered to patients suffering from the coronavirus in a New York test.

About 700 patients are being treated for coronavirus across the hospital network, Molinet said, but it’s unclear how many are getting the vitamin C treatment.

The vitamin C is administered in addition to such medicines as the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin, various biologics and blood thinners, Weber said.

As of Tuesday, New York hospitals have federal permission to give a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to desperately ill patients on a “compassionate care” basis.

There was nothing in the article to indicate how many patients were given the vitamin C, nor how many patients were given hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.  Nor was there any information on the outcome of the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin treatments, either in the Post or anywhere else for that matter.  It's as if there's a gag order.  I went so far as to search the NH.gov COVID-19 webpage for hydroxychloroquine, and got these results.

Since the FDA approved the use of the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination for COVID-19, I've found no news articles in the mainstream media outlets with results of patient treatments.  It's been well over a week.  However, a website called Tech Startups has been publishing stories about Dr. Vladimir Zelenko of Monroe, New York who claims to have successfully treated over 600 patients with a 5-day regimen of hydroxychloroquine sulfate, zinc, and arithromycin.  Dr. Zelenko defines success as "not to die."

When Trump offered hope that these drugs could help, the New York Times quickly countered with an expert opinion piece, No, These Medicines Cannot Cure Coronavirus.  The experts went on to blame Trump for the death of an Arizona man whose wife fed him chloroquine phosphate, fish tank cleaner.  CNN blamed Trump for the hospitalization of three NIgerians who overdosed on chloroquine after they heard what Trump had to say.

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You!

That was on March 21st.  It's been over a week since treatments using the various combinations of hydroxychloroquine sulfate, zinc, and arithromycin began in the U.S.  The treatment takes five days, so there's been plenty of time to see if those treatments were not working out.  I have a hard time believing that no news is bad news.  The Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and other like oriented news outlets would on be it at the first sign of failure, saturating the news cycles with stories of how wrong, irresponsible, and dangerous Trump had been with his cheerleading.  So, why the silence?

Dr. Zelenko may have the answer.

In a new video post, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko provides important update regarding the treatment regimen. He’s also sounded warning about shortage of the Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate, Zinc and Z-Pak.

Dr. Zelenko asks people to return drugs they don't need and haven't used, so that patients who need them may get them.

In the meantime, media dreams of Trump's Katrina are on hold.

Bafflingly Silent?

In a column in Reason Magazine, Robby Soave asks the question, "Why Are the Mainstream Media Ignoring Tara Reade's Sexual Assault Accusation Against Joe Biden?"

On September 14, 2018, The New York Times reported the existence of an unverified sexual misconduct allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The story cited three people who had read a letter sent by the accuser—Christine Blasey Ford—to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D–Calif.). Ford was not interviewed for the story; indeed, she wasn't named.

Unconfirmed reports of a teenaged Kavanaugh assaulting a teenaged Ford evidently merited coverage from The Times. This prompts an obvious question: Why is the paper of record now declining to publicize a very troubling allegation against former Vice President Joe Biden?

The Times is hardly alone in this regard. The mainstream media have remained bafflingly silent about Tara Reade, a former member of then-Senator Biden's staff who claims that he sexually assaulted her in 1993.

What is so baffling?  News outlets are going broke left and right.  Find out who is propping them up.  Billionaires can lose money on media ventures if those media ventures return value in some other form.

Israel's Coronavirus Vaccine Prototype

The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is testing a coronavirus vaccine prototype on rodents at a defense laboratory.

JERUSALEM - Israel has begun testing a COVID-19 vaccine prototype on rodents at its bio-chemical defense laboratory, a source said on Tuesday.

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), in rural Ness Ziona, to join the fight against the coronavirus pandemic on Feb. 1, prompting an easing of its secrecy as it cooperates with civilian scientists and private firms.

 

 

In a statement, Netanyahu's office said IIBR director Shmuel Shapira had informed him of "significant progress" in designing a vaccine prototype and that the institute "is now preparing a model for commencing an animal trial."

 

A source familiar with IIBR activities told Reuters that trials were already under way on rodents.

Israel has reported 4,473 cases.  There have been 19 deaths

 

FDA Approves Hydroxochoroquine and Chloroquine for COVID-19

From the WSJ, An FDA Breakthrough on Treatment.

The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday green-lighted two malaria medicines that have shown some promise treating the novel coronavirus, and the emergency approvals couldn’t come soon enough. Expanding their use could bring quicker relief to patients and hospitals while allowing scientists to better assess their efficacy.

The malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine (HC) and chloroquine have been around for more than five decades, so their safety is well documented. New evidence suggests that they could also help fight the novel coronavirus, as op-eds by Dr. Jeff Colyer on these pages have reported. Both chloroquine and HC in vitro block the replication of RNA viruses like the novel coronavirus.

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko has had impressive success treating patients afflicted with the Wuhan Virus.  Of 699 patients treated with the combination of hydroxochloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin, no one died and no one had to be intubated.

Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin

From this morning's WSJ, An Update on the Coronavirus Treatment: Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin continue to show results for patients.

For my entire career, I have taken a conservative approach to medicine. I don’t want to give false or premature hope. All of this is subject to further refinement as more information arrives. But likewise I can’t ignore the available evidence. This appears to be the best widely available option for treating Covid-19 and not merely easing the suffering from the disease. It would be irresponsible not to pursue this option aggressively.

The author, Dr. Jeff Colyer, is a practicing physician who served as governor of Kansas from 2018 to 2019.

Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, Azithromycin

In a study conducted by Dr. Vladmir Zelenko, a board-certified family practitioner in New York, 699 coronavirus patients were treated with a combination of hydroxychloroquine sulfate, zinc, and azithromycin.  No patients died, no patients were intubated, and only four were hospitalized.

More Coronavirus Hoarding

It's not just toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and paper towels that have been flying off store shelves.

Updated March 24, 2020: As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread across the United States, its impact can be seen in every community. Businesses and schools are closed, the stock market is exceptionally volatile, and store shelves are empty as the American public has scrambled to prepare for the worldwide pandemic and social distancing prescribed by the WHO and CDC.

While people have stockpiled toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and pantry essentials, they've also purchased ammunition at an unprecedented rate. Here at Ammo.com, our growth in sales directly correlates with the rise of COVID-19 and its spread across the country. Starting on February 23rd, sales began to increase as the search term “coronavirus” gained traction, according to Google Trends. This increase in sales has continued as follows:

• 720% increase in revenue
• 434% increase in transactions
• 334% increase in site traffic
• 27% increase in conversion rate
• 45% increase in average order value

Read the rest here.