Quote:Host Matthew Boyle pointed to the release of an FBI document which showed that Ukrainian officials said they were able to pay money to the Bidens to achieve certain objectives, prompting Banks to point out that “we already knew that [the] Bidens are the most corrupt family ever to live in the White House, and that’s saying a lot after the Clintons lived there.”

“But what we saw more of this week is more proof and more evidence,” Banks, who is running for a Senate seat, said, explaining that it means that Republicans must follow through and hold Joe Biden accountable.

“It’s time to impeach him. The evidence was already there, but this is further evidence that this is the type of high crimes and misdemeanors that should prevent this man from serving any day longer in the White House than what he already has. On top of that — man, I mean, this evidence this week proves that they impeached Donald Trump because he was right,” Banks said, calling for the expungement of former President Donald Trump’s political impeachments.

“At the same time that we impeach Joe Biden, it’s also time to expunge the fake impeachment against Donald J. Trump at the same time as well,” he said, concluding that it is clear those impeachments were purely political.

Quote:The report is titled “DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ Dereliction of Duty,” and is part of the five-point Republican effort to build a case for impeaching Mayorkas:

Mayorkas is not an innocent bystander at the mercy of the federal bureaucracy, global events, or political opponents — he is the chief architect of the illegal immigration crisis that Americans have suffered through since January 2021.

He has either willfully sparked the current crisis through his extreme and irresponsible policies, or is such a poorly informed, inefficient, and inflexible leader that he is negligent in his duties. Either way, he has been derelict in his duty to secure the border, defend the homeland, and keep the American people safe, violating his oath to defend the Constitution and faithfully discharge the duties of his office.

However, the report was undermined when it was released on the same day Republicans also held a contentious hearing. That rival event spotlighted evidence that then-Vice President Joe Biden took bribes from foreign officials, often via his son, Hunter Biden, and provided an excuse for media outlets to ignore the GOP report.
...
The report also hides the vast economic damage done to ordinary Americans by Mayorkas’s welcome for wage-cutting, rent-spiking migrants. For example, the terms “wages” and “salaries” are not mentioned in the report, and the only reference to the employment of migrants is related to Footnote 318.

The report also lacks a theme — even a phrase — to help explain why Mayorkas has decided to violate his oath of office. Without that theme, it appears to readers as an endless chain of inexplicable claims.

The silence comes as Mayorkas’ migration is causing voters — including swing voters — to complain about rising rents and house prices throughout the United States. But the Republican report does mention child migrants being forced into work, and also includes much useful data on the tax monies being spent on migrants.

Quote:The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatening legal action if the State does not remove the recently installed floating border barrier. Governor Abbott responded on Twitter, saying, “We will see you in court, Mr. President.”

Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim and U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Jaime Esparza sent a letter to Governor Abbott claiming the State illegally installed a floating border barrier in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas. The letter claims the buoy barrier was installed without the approval of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The DOJ also claims the barrier violates the Rivers and Harbors Act by creating a hazard to navigation on the river.

Governor Abbott responded on Twitter and declared, “Texas has the sovereign right to defend our border, under the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution.” The governor added that President Joe Biden’s refusal to secure the border “encourages migrants to risk their lives crossing illegally through the Rio Grande, instead of safely and legally over a bridge.”
...
The letter gives the State of Texas until 2 p.m. on July 24 to respond “indicating your commitment to expeditiously remove the floating barrier and related structures.” The DOJ claims it will take legal action if this demand is unmet.

Governor Abbott responded, “We will continue to deploy every strategy to protect Texans and Americans — and the migrants risking their lives.”

“We will see you in court, Mr. President,” Abbott stated.

Quote:Russia followed its withdrawal from a grain export deal by expanding its attacks from port infrastructure to farm storage buildings in Ukraine’s Odesa region Friday, while also practicing a Black Sea blockade.
...
Attacks in recent days have put Odesa in Russia’s crosshairs after Moscow abandoned a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine to send grain through the key Black Sea port.

In the attack on the storage site, two low-flying cruise missiles started a blaze, then another struck during firefighting efforts, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. The barrage injured two people, damaged equipment and destroyed 100 metric tons (110 tons) of peas and 20 metric tons (22 tons) of barley, Kiper said.

Russia targeted Ukrainian critical grain export infrastructure after vowing to retaliate for what it said was a Ukrainian attack that damaged a crucial bridge between Russia and the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

“The enemy is continuing terror, and it’s undoubtedly related to the grain deal,” said Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military’s Operational Command South.

Both Russia and Ukraine have announced they will treat ships traveling to each other’s Black Sea ports as potential military targets.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin clarified the Defense Ministry’s announcement earlier this week that Moscow has declared wide areas in the Black Sea dangerous for shipping. The ministry said it would consider incoming vessels as laden with weapons and treat the country of its flag a participant in the conflict on the Ukrainian side.

Vershinin said the Russian navy will inspect the vessels to make sure they aren´t carrying military cargo before taking any other action.

“There is no longer a sea humanitarian corridor, there is a zone of increased military danger,” he told a news briefing.

Quote:Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) reacted to the Biden administration suspending funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology by pointing out that the move took years and the administration is still funding EcoHealth Alliance.
...
[Sen. Marshall uttered] "Over two years ago, we called for this funding to stop, that there was plenty of evidence to say, even then, that, most likely, this virus was made and leaked from that laboratory. But the WIV is just the tip of the iceberg. That’s what — this is how incompetent this particular administration is, they’re still funding EcoHealth…we showed [China] how to make this COVID-19 virus, they’re using that same technology to build bigger and uglier viruses out there as well.”

Quote:Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) has introduced a plan to end the United States’ decades-long, job-killing free trade status with China as multinational corporations in the semiconductor industry plead with the federal government to keep open their access to the Chinese market.

This week, Banks introduced the “Ending Normal Trade Relations with China Act” which would effectively end U.S. free trade with China, thus imposing high tariffs on Chinese imports. The bill was filed in the Senate by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) in March.

Winning the competition with China is my top priority in Congress, and to be successful abroad, we need to be strong at home. Our bill would fix a serious mistake and stop privileging our greatest enemy at the expense of America’s working class.

Charles Benoit, an attorney with the Coalition for a Prosperous America, said the legislation ought to be part of any trade package put forward by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, suggesting it would bring in about $100 billion in annual tariff revenue paid by China.
...
In 2001, China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) with the backing of former President Bush’s administration and was subsequently awarded “permanent normal trade relations status” by the U.S. after congressional approval.

As a result of authorizing U.S. free trade with China, nearly four million American jobs have been eliminated from the U.S. economy from 2001 to 2018

Quote:The U.S. signaled it is bolstering its military presence in the Middle East on Thursday by ordering additional warships and marines to the area to counter Iran’s growing threats to commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The USS Bataan and the USS Carter Hall, along with their personnel and equipment, will be deployed to U.S. Central Command’s Area of Responsibility. Once on station they will join the USS Thomas Hudner and F-35 and F-16 fighter jets that were deployed earlier this week, UPI reports.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the immediate deployment.
...
The boost in assets follows recent destabilizing activities committed by Iran in the Gulf that have required intervention by the U.S. and ally militaries, the UPI report details.
...
According to U.S. Central Command, in the last two years, Iran has either attacked, seized or attempted to seizure nearly 20 internationally flagged merchant vessels within its area of operations.
...
About a fifth of the world’s crude oil and oil products passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow choke point between Iran and Oman.

RFK Jr Wrote:Censorship is antithetical to our party. It was appalling to my father, to my uncle, to FDR, to Harry Truman, to Thomas Jefferson, as the chairman referred to. It is the basis for democracy.
...
They had to invent a new word called ‘malinformation’ to censor people like me  Malinformation is information that is true, but it is inconvenient to the government, that they don’t want people to hear.

Ms. Morris Wrote:On October nineteenth, five days after the post began publishing, Politico ran a story headlined ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,’ God I can’t even say about with a straight face you know.
[Laughter]
Politico prints it a letter completely uncritically from veteran members of the US intelligence community, falsely claiming that the Post expose a has quote ‘all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,’ like God.
[Laughter]

Ziegler Wrote:The purpose of documenting the foreign sources is part of a normal international tax investigation

James Comer Wrote:Despite creating many companies after vice president took office, the Biden family used associates companies to receive millions of dollars from foreign companies in China, Ukraine and Romania after foreign companies sent money to business associates companies. The Bidens then received incremental payments over time to various different bank accounts. These complicated financial transactions were used deliberately to conceal the source of funds and total amounts. No normal business operates like this.

Quote:The body of former President Barack Obama’s personal chef was reportedly found to have drowned near the family’s estate on Martha’s Vineyard.

On Sunday, Massachusetts State Police enacted a search for a missing paddleboarder after a fellow paddleboarder said that the man had “struggled on the surface, went under, and didn’t surface,” according to the Associated Press. The man was later identified as 45-year-old Tafari Campbell from Dumfries, Virginia, the personal chef of former President Barack Obama, who had been visiting the home on Martha’s Vineyard. None of the Obamas were present at the time of his death.

“The search was paused late Sunday but on Monday state police said sonar from a boat located the body about 100 feet (30 meters) from shore at a depth of about 8 feet (2.4 meters). Campbell was not wearing a life jacket, police said,” noted the AP.

Campbell’s body was recovered from the Edgartown Great Pond on Monday. According to the Vineyard Gazette, environmental police located his body “using sonar from a boat”
...
In a statement, Barack and Michelle Obama hailed Campbell as a creative and passionate man whom they considered family.

Quote:FOX News noted that robbery is up 16 percent, thefts are up 14 percent, and sexual assaults are up five percent in Chicago.

Gun violence has remained a constant throughout Johnson’s first few months as mayor.

This past weekend, Breitbart News pointed out nearly 20 were shot Friday into Saturday night and nearly 30 were shot Friday into mid-afternoon Sunday.

By Monday morning, ABC 7 / Chicago Sun-Times put the total number of shooting victims at 33 with six fatalities.

Chicago, like all of Illinois, has an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, a red flag law, a 72-hour waiting period on gun purchases, and a licensing requirement for gun owners. Cook County — the county in which Chicago sits — has its own ban on “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines.

Quote:On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” CNN Senior National Correspondent Kyung Lah reported on crime in San Francisco and said she witnessed three instances of theft in one Walgreens location in the city in a 30-minute time period and noted that stores are having to lock up items like frozen food, coffee, and lotion.
...
She added that the store — which is located in the Richmond neighborhood of the city — has items like mustard locked up and reported that Walgreens says the store has the highest theft rate of all of their nearly 9,000 locations in the U.S. and is “hit more than a dozen times a day.”

Lah further stated that it isn’t just Walgreens dealing with theft, and reported from stores where frozen food, fake eyelashes, lotion, nail polish, and coffee are behind locks.

She concluded by noting that while property and violent crime rates at the end of 2022 in San Francisco were lower than pre-pandemic levels, things like low-level drug use and retail theft are considered low-level crimes, “but they’re uniformly and widely felt by so many.”

Quote:United Nations Command, the agency responsible for implementing the 1953 armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War, confirmed on Monday that it had begun “conversations” with North Korea about the fate of American soldier Travis King.

King reportedly purchased a ticket to a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea last week and, while in the Panmunjom “peace village” on the border, ran into North Korea. He departed for the DMZ after military escorts accompanied him to Incheon International Airport, in the greater Seoul area, to board a flight to Texas. Rather than boarding the flight, King bizarrely got on a bus for the tour.

Prior to his disappearance, King, believed to be 23 years old, served two months in a South Korean jail for allegedly assaulting South Korean citizens and attacking police.

American officials have emphasized that King “willfully and without authorization” ran into North Korea, meaning he was not under any American military orders to do so nor is there evidence that anyone in the armed forces conspired with him on his flight.
...
American authorities have failed to engage Pyongyang on King’s departure and his exact location and current state remain unknown at press time. Neither the communist North Korean government nor North Korean state media – which, in the past, has been eager to boast of Americans imprisoned in the country – has made any public statement acknowledging King’s illicit entry into the country or his fate. He has not been seen in public, in North Korea or elsewhere, since Tuesday, when he ran across the border.
...
Lieutenant General Andrew Harrison, who Reuters identified as “a British Army officer serving as deputy commander” of the U.N. Command, said on Monday that his organization is in “conversation” with the Korean People’s Army (KPA), the North Korean military, regarding King.
...
Harrison’s remarks at a media briefing on Monday suggest that discussions with North Korea on the matter are being made through the “pink phone,” the Korea JoongAng Daily reported, describing the medium as “a pink phone on the South Korean side of the JSA that links the UNC with the KPA.” The JSA is the Joint Security Area, the part of the DMZ where King disappeared. The pink phone is believed to be located in Panmunjom; the Associated Press noted that U.N. Command boasted of regular conversations with North Korea through the phone as of January.

Quote:Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kyle Anderson has obtained Chinese citizenship and will play for China in the upcoming FIBA World Cup, according to reports.

The 29-year-old, New York-born player whose grandmother was born in Jamaica to a Chinese father and Jamaican mother, is now the first pro basketball player to become a naturalized citizen of China, according to Reuters.

On Monday, the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) announced that Anderson “obtained Chinese nationality this morning and met Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association.”

Anderson was called “Li Kai’er,” his given Chinese name, in the Chinese news release.
...
It was not stated if Anderson renounced his U.S. citizenship, or if he is a dual citizen.

In 2018, Anderson went to China to re-connect with his grandmother’s family in the village of Shenzhen.
...
It seems likely Anderson will fast become a key player for China. The team is ranked 27th in the world and is in the league’s Group B with South Sudan, Serbia, and Puerto Rico.

Quote:The New York Society for Ethical Culture (NYSEC) canceled an event Monday that was to have featured Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivering a pro-Israel speech to a Jewish group Tuesday evening.

The group, the World Values Network, a project of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, will still host the event at another venue. However, the cancelation by NYSEC marks the latest effort by a supposedly liberal organization to marginalize Kennedy.

Kennedy’s address to the group had been arranged prior to a recent controversy in which he had speculated on the development of bioweapons, and had cited a study showing the coronavirus’s different impacts on different population groups — remarks that Kennedy’s critics tried to construe as antisemitic.
...
“At this dangerous time for American and world Jewry, where antisemitism is on the rise across the globe, it is imperative that those seeking the presidency deliver their unambiguous proposals for combatting Jew-hatred and at this communal event no subject will be off limits.”
...
The cancelation inadvertently highlighted Kennedy’s emergence as a free speech advocate. Last week, he testified in Congress about the rise of new forms of censorship, after Democrats tried to stop him from speaking.
...
“Somehow I’m subject to this new form of censorship, which is called ‘targeted propaganda’ … the most appalling, disgusting pejoratives … are applied to me, to silence me,” he told the House Weaponization Subcommittee.

Kennedy has detailed his support for Israel and the Jewish community, saying he wants to make the “moral case for Israel.”

Quote:Smith charged Trump with one count of willful retention of national defense documents and two counts of obstruction.

Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, who was previously charged in the first indictment, also received two new obstruction-related charges.

The superseding indictment also charged Carlos De Oliveira, Mar-a-Lago’s head of maintenance, with altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a document, making false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

“The superseding indictment also charges Trump, De Oliveira, and Nauta with two new obstruction counts based on allegations that the defendants attempted to delete surveillance video footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club in summer 2022,” a statement from the special counsel’s spokesman Peter Carr said.
...
Trump is also newly accused of retaining a classified document detailing a U.S. military plan of attack on Iran, which Trump showed to a writer, publisher and two staff members at his club in Bedminster, N.J., on July 21, 2021.

At the time, Trump had not been president for five months, and his guests “did not have security clearances” to view the document, according to the superseding indictment in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

With the additional charges, Trump is now facing 40 counts in the criminal case.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the U.S. Department of Justice for the new charges, calling it a “continued desperate and flailing attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their Department of Justice to harass President Trump and those around him.”

Quote:Hunter Biden pled not guilty on Wednesday to gun and tax charges, refusing to accept a new plea deal laid out by prosecutors.

The original plea deal fell apart after the judge questioned if it covered future potential charges of the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation. The prosecution reportedly said the deal did not include any alleged Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations.

MSNBC reported the court took a ten-minute recess to determine if the two parties could quickly come to an agreement. When the deal got back on track, reports indicated it would “be more limited in scope,” only including specific charges related to tax and gun wronging. “The two sides have agreed that this deal does not shield him from potential future charges,” CNN reported.

But the judge said she was not ready to accept the plea deal and asked both the prosecutor and Hunter Biden to submit additional briefs, according to reporters inside the courthouse. The parties will have to return to court in the future.

The hearing ended with Hunter Biden pleading not guilty.

Sen. Josh Hawley told CNN the high court drama shows the plea “sweetheart” deal was flawed, and additional charges could be brought.

Quote:Chinese automakers are looking to flood the United States market with cheap Electric Vehicles (EVs) as President Joe Biden’s administration has made a rapid all-electric, green energy push without having first ensured domestic manufacturing capacity.

According to Axios, Chinese automakers like BYD Co. Ltd., Li Auto, Xpeng Motors, Nio Inc., and Geely are looking to the U.S. market to sell cheap EVs to Americans as the Biden administration makes its push for an all-electric economy.
...
In fact, some China-built cars are already for sale in the U.S. under Western brands, including the Buick Envision, Polestar 2 and soon, the Lincoln Nautilus. And China’s BYD is already the largest manufacturer of electric buses in North America. [Emphasis added]
...
Chinese automakers will likely follow the same script as Japanese and Korean brands decades ago: Use imports to exploit a void in the U.S. market, learn quickly and then go deeper with factories on American soil.
...
Already, China is dominating the critical minerals that are needed to produce EV batteries. Supply chains of minerals like nickel, graphite, lithium, and cobalt — all needed to make the batteries — are controlled by China.
...
Most recently, the United Auto Workers (UAW) has blasted the Biden administration for shifting billions to American automakers through its all-electric, green energy agenda, while American auto workers are experiencing wage cuts as a result of moving to EVs.

Quote:One crucial, albeit tacit element in the Venezuelan socialist regime’s narrative is that it needs to portray itself as the hero of its own skewed story. This is something it has been doing since before it took power in 1999.
...
Currently, former President Donald Trump — and, more specifically, the sanctions he imposed on the regime of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro during his time in office — remain the revolution’s main scapegoat, someone to blame for our socialism-induced woes.

While Maduro and high-ranking officials in his regime have been subject to a wide array of sanctions in the past decade, those against the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) oil company — the only lucrative part, at least legally, of the Venezuelan government — were only imposed in 2019. Since these sanctions actually hurt the regime, it has blamed all of Venezuela’s economic collapse on them. The accusations against Trump for destroying Venezuela ignore that the collapse of “Bolivarian Socialism” was inevitable, caused by the incoherence and corruption inherent in the ideology, and began years before Donald Trump had been elected.

Maduro has personally blamed sanctions for everything his socialist regime has wrought upon this country — even the lack of women’s rights, for example, which the United States has no control over.

Those sanctions are the beast that the metaphorical “hero” Maduro regime seeks to defeat, and as such, the regime has taken it upon itself — perhaps inspired by the trials that former President Trump is currently facing in U.S. courts — to prosecute Trump for his alleged “crimes against humanity.”

Quote:The Congress of El Salvador approved transitory provisions and reforms to the nation’s criminal code on Wednesday that will allow courts to conduct mass trials for the tens of thousands arrested in President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on criminal gangs.

The changes, approved by the overwhelming pro-Bukele majority in Congress with 67 votes in favor and six against, will allow Salvadoran courts to hold trials for groups of defendants based on their area of residence and what “clique” gang group they stand accused of belonging to. The changes also allow for prison sentences for those found to be gang leaders going from 45 to 60 years.

The lawmakers argued that the modifications will grant greater order and efficiency to the processes in the courts. Detractors accused the government of legalizing the violation of due process and stripping detainees of their individual presumption of innocence.

El Salvador has been under a de facto state of martial law through a “State of Exception” decree since March 2022. The decree is meant to combat violent gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13) and 18th Street. The original 30-day decree has been continuously renewed on a monthly basis and was renewed for a sixteenth time on July 11.

Quote:A group of soldiers describing themselves as the “National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland” appeared on national television in Niger late Thursday night announcing they had overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum and “suspended” the operations of all government institutions.

The status of the alleged coup remains unclear at press time – reports from Niger’s main cities on Thursday suggested many civilians going to work or otherwise behaving normally, with no indication of whether Bazoum’s government or the military was in charge. Bazoum has not appeared publicly since Thursday, but posted a message on Twitter in the early morning hours of Thursday vowing to protect “democracy and freedom.”

This is the third coup attempt against Bazoum since he took office following elections in 2021. Bazoum is the nation’s first leader to rise to power in a peaceful election.

Niger is a volatile Sahel country facing multiple jihadist insurgencies, including attacks by the Islamic State, its subsidiary Boko Haram, and some al-Qaeda elements. Bazoum’s government has been generally friendly to America – Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the country in March and spoke to Bazoum on Wednesday prior to the alleged coup – and hosts American military assets.

It is currently surrounded by, in addition to jihadists, nations that have turned on the West and sought aid from Russia and the Wagner Private Military Group (PMC), most prominently Burkina Faso, which experienced its own televised coup last year.

Quote:North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on Wednesday led Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu through a tour of a “weaponry exhibition house” in Pyongyang reportedly showcasing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other advanced arms.
...
Shoigu’s team and a partner delegation from China are the first high-profile foreign dignitaries invited to North Korea since the beginning of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
...
Shoigu’s visit appeared to be a test of his diplomatic abilities following an attempt to overthrow him by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder and leader of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), in late June.
...
Kim Jong-un personally greeted Shoigu and scheduled a tour with him of a weaponry exhibition house in North Korea’s capital, according to the regime’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun. The newspaper described their exchange as “friendly” and brimming with “militant comradeship.” Shoigu offered Kim a personal letter written to him by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.
...
Kim and Shoigu reportedly discussed “issues of mutual concern in the struggle to safeguard the sovereignty, development and interests of the two countries from the high-handed and arbitrary practices of the imperialists,” a term typically used to refer to America. Rodong Sinmun claimed the two also discussed “international justice” and Kim predicted Russia would “achieve big successes in the struggle for building a powerful country.”

Shoigu, in turn, reportedly called North Korea “the strongest army in the world.”

Voice of America, citing the images of the tour in the North Korean state newspaper, reported that Kim showed Shoigu homemade ICBMs and other advanced military machinery.

Quote:NBC sports broadcaster Mike Tirico claims that he feared having a suddenly positive planted COVID test after criticizing China’s human rights record during his comments at the Winter Olympics last year.
...
“Our first segment of our first broadcast from Beijing while we were on the ground there was all about the Uyghur population – not all about, but we addressed it right on"
...
“In being honest,” Tirico admitted, “I have to say, I was concerned about if my COVID test was going to come back surprisingly positive all of a sudden after our first night in China, and we made our comments about the treatment of the Uyghurs over there.”

Ultimately, though, Tirico did not test positive during his coverage of the games.

China has faced pressure from all around the world over its treatment of its minority Uyghur population. However, it has made no moves to change its policies.

Quote:The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) informed a federal judge late Wednesday it did “not intend to proceed” with a campaign finance charge against disgraced FTX founder and Democrat super donor Sam Bankman-Fried.

Consultation with the Bahamas on the campaign finance charges in Bankman-Fried’s original extradition document last year were behind the decision as part of an effort to adhere to the legal obligations therein, Forbes reports.

The campaign finance violation charge was among eight counts present in the DOJ’s original indictment—which also includes wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering—in December.

In the filing addressed to New York federal judge Lewis Kaplan, the Bahamas did not include the eighth charge from the original indictment, a campaign finance violation, in its extradition treaty.

“The Government has been informed that The Bahamas notified the United States earlier today that The Bahamas did not intend to extradite the defendant on the campaign contributions count,” the DOJ letter said. “Accordingly, in keeping with its treaty obligations to The Bahamas, the Government does not intend to proceed to trial on the campaign contributions count.”

The notice came hours after a hearing over Bankman-Fried’s alleged attempt to discredit former Alameda Research executive Caroline Ellison by sharing private documents with the New York Times.

The FTX founder has been accused of taking more than $2 billion in “loans and payments” from the firm during his time as CEO, as Breitbart News reported.

Quote:Director Oliver Stone said he regrets voting for Joe Biden in the 2020 election, warning that the president is dragging the country into a potential World War III with Russia.

“I voted for him — I made a mistake!” Stone said in a new interview with actor Russell Brand.
...
“This is a potential World War III,” the two-time Oscar-winning director said. “This is the same situation as World War I, in a sense. The stupidity of it — because of the alliances and the fears and the built-up phobias. If we don’t stop this, what Biden is doing, I voted for him — I made a mistake! — thinking that he was an old man now that he would calm down, he’d be more mellow and so forth. I didn’t see that at all.”
...
He added: “I see a man  [Biden] who maybe is not in charge of his own administration. Who knows [if] he’s going to fall down somewhere. It seems that he’s dragging us stupidly into a confrontation with a power that’s not going to give.”

Stone interviewed Russia’s Vladimir Putin for his four-part Showtime docuseries The Putin Interviews in 2017.

Quote:During a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee this week, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) asked Mayorkas his views on sanctuary jurisdictions. The secretary, though, refused to criticize California’s sanctuary state law — the strictest in the nation — and went as far as to say he is unaware of the details of the law.

“I do not consider it in the service to public safety to release an individual into the community when that individual can be released to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for prompt removal,” Mayorkas said when asked by Kiley if he believes sanctuary jurisdictions risk public safety for Americans.

“So you oppose California’s sanctuary state law?” Kiley then asked, to which Mayorkas responded, “I am not familiar with the particulars of that law.”

“I would like to restate for the record, the policies that you’ve said you oppose — overriding the ability for local jurisdictions to cooperate — that’s exactly what California’s sanctuary state law does,” Kiley said.
Mayorkas has made clear that the well-being of illegal aliens is paramount to President Joe Biden’s immigration agenda. Last year, for instance, Mayorkas said “justice and equity” for illegal aliens is central to his mission at DHS.

In addition to the sanctuary state law, many California cities have their own sanctuary policies that reinforce their goal to protect criminal illegal aliens from arrest and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Quote:The Chinese government began erasing mentions of former Foreign Minister Qin Gang — who has not been seen publicly since June 25 and lost his position this week — from the Foreign Ministry’s website on Tuesday and has refused to answer questions about his status in subsequent days.

Qin became the shortest-serving foreign minister in the history of communist China on Tuesday after the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee voted to oust him from office on Tuesday, replacing him with his predecessor Wang Yi. Genocidal dictator Xi Jinping appointed Qin to lead the ministry in December following his tenure as Chinese ambassador to America. At 57 years old, Qin was one of the youngest and fastest-rising Communist Party officials since Xi seized power in 2013.

Wang currently holds the title of foreign minister in addition to leading the foreign policy of the Politburo, making him the most powerful diplomat in modern Chinese history. As Beijing has offered little to no information on what led to Qin’s demise, it remains unclear if Wang played any role in his disappearance.

Qin last made a public appearance in meetings with diplomats from Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Russia on June 25. He has yet to make any public statements or been seen since, leading to speculation that he ran afoul of Xi’s politics, engaged in some inappropriate behavior, or otherwise angered the Party leadership.

Quote:A Ukrainian drone was shot down early Friday outside Moscow, Russia´s defense ministry said. It was the third drone strike or attempt on the capital region this month.

The ministry said there were no injuries or damage in the early morning incident. It did not give details about where the drone was shot down, but said it took place in the Moscow Oblast, a region that surrounds but does not include the city itself.
...
The shootdown adds to concern about Moscow’s vulnerability to attack as the war drags into its 18th month.

Two drones struck the Russian capital on Monday, one of them falling in the center of the city near the Defense Ministry’s headquarters along the Moscow River about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.

Quote:“We don’t have that information, I don’t know where she got it from, the lady from the DEA,” Lopez Obrador said on Friday during his morning news conference. “What proof does she have?”

Lopez Obrador addressed DEA Administrator Anne Milgram’s statement that the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco New Generation have more than 44,800 members, associates, and facilitators in 100 countries. The DEA leader also claimed that drug cartels had a presence in more than 21 states in Mexico. On Thursday, Milgram went to a congressional hearing to provide updates on the current fentanyl crisis where she claimed that those two cartels were the main producers and distributors of the drug.
...
When asked about the comments by the DEA chief, a flustered Lopez Obrador asked for proof of her claims.

“If everyone acts on their own, they don’t move forward,” Lopez Obrador said, claiming that there is no coordination between U.S. agencies. The Mexican politician claimed that earlier this week that his government officials met with White House Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood Randall for a summit on fentanyl, and the information shared there was different from the DEA testimony.

As Breitbart Texas reported, Lopez Obrador has publicly claimed that Mexico does not produce fentanyl as U.S. law enforcement agencies have previously stated.

Quote:The White House has announced a new deal that gives Mexico even more power over the flow of wage-cutting economic migrants into jobs and communities throughout the United States.

“Today we are announcing our full support for an international multipurpose space that the Government of Mexico plans to establish in southern Mexico to offer new refugee and labor options for the most vulnerable people who are currently in Mexico,” said the July 28 announcement by the White House’s top security official, Jake Sullivan.
...
The gatekeeper deal “improves the optics [at the border], but it’s not going to reduce the flow” of migrants into Americans’ workplaces and communities, Vaughan added.

The deal also “suggests that the Biden administration has been willing to sacrifice a deal on the [cartel] drug [smuggling] problem to get the migration deal that it wants,” she said.  On July 25, lower-level Biden officials announced a toothless deal over drug smuggling.

The deal also will not stop the cartels’ labor smuggling, because many people will pay the cartels to help them get around the Mexican gatekeepers as well as U.S. border agents, she added. But it will also allow U.S. elites to hurt Americans’ pocketbooks by using the new migrants to ratchet down Americans’ wages and push up their housing costs and inflation.
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In January 2023, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he favors the continued inflow of Latino migrants into the United States. “What we want is an in-depth solution,” Obrador told a January 10 press conference with Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Quote:During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, Clark revealed Hunter made over one million dollars in foreign business transactions, including $664,000 from CEFC, a company linked to the CCP and Chinese intelligence.

“During calendar year 2017, Biden earned substantial income, including: just under $1 million from a company he formed with the CEO of a Chinese business conglomerate [BHR Partners]; $666,666 from his domestic business interests; approximately $664,000 from a Chinese infrastructure investment company[CEFC]…” Clark told the judge, according to the court transcript obtained by not-for-profit Marco Polo.
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Clark confirmed additional income from Hunter Biden’s business ventures, including $500,000 in director’s fees from his ventures with Burisma Holdings, a company whose executive told an FBI informant he bribed Hunter and President Joe Biden each with $5 million.
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Clark also said the younger Biden made” $70,000 relating to a Romanian business; and $48,000 from the multi-national law firm.”

The money received by Hunter Biden contradicts Joe Biden’s claims his son never received money from a Chinese entity.
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Suspicious Activity Reports obtained by the committee revealed a Biden associate, Rob Walker, received a $3 million wire transfer from CEFC China Energy Co. In turn, four Biden family members — Hunter, James, Hallie, and an unidentified “Biden” — received a collective $1.3 million cut from the $3 million wire transfer.

Quote:The Nicaraguan communist regime has been funding itself with remittances sent home by Nicaraguans who it banished or forced to flee, turning them into a crucial economic resource, a report published by the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa on Friday revealed.

The report cites the director of the Migration, Remittances, and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, Manuel Orozco, whose recent study found that remittances sent to Nicaragua are expected to total almost $5 billion by the end of this year, exceeding 30 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“Unfortunately, family remittances are economically oxygenating a regime that kills, imprisons, intimidates, and expels its citizens,” Orozco said.

“Without migration and family remittances, the other indicators are recessive; there is no private investment; there is little access to credit; there is no increase in consumption; [there are] informal labor increases.”

“Indebtedness and debt payments increase, taxes grow, but spending does not. Meanwhile, the regime continues to preserve its elite in power,” Orozco concluded.

Quote:General Abdourahmane Tchiani appeared on national television and declared himself the president of Niger on Friday, a day after a group of soldiers claiming to be the “National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland” said they had overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum and suspended government operations.

Tchiani is the leader of Niger’s presidential guard. Prior to his broadcast on Friday, unconfirmed reports claimed that Tchiani was responsible for abducting Bazoum and placing him on house arrest to allow the military to take over the country.

Niger is a turbulent nation with a prolific recent history of coups d’etat in Saharan Africa. Bazoum, the country’s democratically elected leader since 2021, reportedly survived two coup attempts before this week. Neighbors Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Mali have all experienced similar military coups in the past two years.

His foreign policy brought the country closer to the United States and to former colonizer France, whose leadership enthusiastically rejected the coup on Friday and insisted it still recognized Bazoum as the nation’s leader. Bazoum spoke with American Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday following the rebellion, receiving State Department support for his legitimacy.

Bazoum is believed to be trapped in the presidential palace; coup leaders have stated they have no intention of harming him in response to widespread outrage over the mutiny in western Africa.

Quote:Wagner could also facilitate illegal migration from Belarus, which Poland describes as "hybrid warfare", he says.

About 100 Wagner troops have moved near the city of Grodno, close to the Polish and Lithuanian borders, the PM added.

Some Wagner troops have moved to Belarus under a deal to end a brief mutiny in Russia in June.

Warsaw says it sees Wagner's presence in Belarus as a potential threat and is seeking to shore up its eastern flank.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has previously denied provoking a migrant crisis in Europe by luring would-be migrants to its borders with EU nations.

But Mr Morawiecki said on Saturday that more than 100 members of the Wagner group had moved to north-western Belarus near the Suwalki gap - Poland's 60-mile (95km) border with fellow EU state Lithuania, which separates Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

He claimed the mercenaries might pose as Belarusian border guards in order to help migrants cross into the EU, or even pretend to be migrants themselves to enter the bloc.

Quote:The son of Colombian President Gustavo Petro has been arrested for money laundering and illicit enrichment by the country's attorney general.

Nicolas Petro, a politician in Atlantico province, was detained over allegations he was paid by drug traffickers to fund his father's peace efforts and election campaign.

He has denied the claims and welcomed the inquiry when it was launched.

The younger Mr Petro's ex-wife has also been arrested as part of the probe.

President Petro, the country's first left-wing leader, has denied taking money from Colombia's drug traffickers and ordered prosecutors to investigate his son in March.

Writing on social media on Saturday, he said it was painful for one of his children to be sent to prison, but also that he would not interfere with the investigation.
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The attorney general's office said the allegations against Nicolas related to illegal contributions diverted from his father's election campaign last year.

Nicolas and his former wife, Daysuris del Carmen Vásquez, are being transferred from the Caribbean coast to Colombia's capital Bogotá.

Quote:Energy providers are warning Americans to be frugal with air-conditioning this weekend, as intense heat and increased demand could lead to blackouts.

Nearly 200 million Americans are under "dangerously hot conditions" alerts with temperatures expected to soar past 100F (38C) in several major cities.

The country's biggest power grid declared a level one energy emergency alert.

July is expected to be Earth's hottest month since record keeping began.

PJM Interconnection, the company in charge of power supply in 13 states and Washington DC, warned that "extreme heat and/or humidity may cause capacity problems on the grid".

"Temperatures are expected to go above 90F (32°C) across the footprint, which drives up the demand for electricity," the company said in a statement.

In New York, where the heat index is expected to climb as high as 110F, energy provider Con Edison is telling residents to reduce energy usage at home to help avert shutoffs.

Quote:A federal judge has thrown out a $475m (£369m) defamation lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against CNN for allegedly likening him to Adolf Hitler.

The US cable network described Mr Trump's unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him as the "Big Lie".

Mr Trump argued the phrase referred to a Nazi propaganda campaign used to justify the persecution of Jews.

US District Judge Raag Singhal ruled CNN's comments were not defamatory.

In his ruling dismissing the lawsuit, Mr Singhal - who was appointed by Mr Trump - said the comments constituted opinion, and so Mr Trump could not legally sue the network for defamation.

"There is no question that the statements made by CNN meet the publication requirement for defamation under Florida law. The next question is whether the statements were false statements of fact. This is where Trump's defamation claims fail," wrote Mr Singhal in his verdict.

Quote:The Ukrainian armed forces have been using missiles made in North Korea to fire against the Russians despite their notorious unreliability, a report from the Financial Times has claimed.

Ukrainian artillery crews are utilising missiles for the Soviet-era Grad multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) produced in the communist nation of North Korea, according to the Financial Times.

The paper claimed that Ukrainian forces showed off their North Korean military kit to one of its reporters near the heavily damaged city of Bakhmut. The missiles were also photographed by Getty Images and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia region late last month, however, they were not identified as having been produced in North Korea.

Speaking to the FT, a Ukrainian artillery commander identified as Ruslan said that his troops were not inclined to use the missiles from North Korea, which were likely produced in the 1980s and 1990s, as they are unreliable, with a high dud rate, but said: “We need every rocket we can get.”

A soldier in the Grad artillery unit is said to have told the paper’s reporter to not get too close to the launcher as the North Korean missiles “are very unreliable and do crazy things sometimes”. The Soviet-era Grad rockets have also been described by Human Rights Watch as “notoriously indiscriminate”.

The Grad artillery system is a self-propelled 122 mm multiple rocket launcher developed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. The truck-mounted launcher is capable of firing up to 40 missiles within 20 seconds. Due to its simplicity and ubiquity, Grad systems have been widely produced outside of Russia and have been a staple of the fighting in Ukraine since 2014.

The paper noted that it was unlikely for Pyongyang to have supplied the missiles directly to Kyiv given North Korea’s support of Moscow during the invasion

Quote:The 75th Emmy Awards are the latest production to be put on pause due the Hollywood strikes and will not air as planned in September.

A person familiar with the postponement plans but not authorized to speak publicly pending an official announcement confirmed the delay Friday. No information about a new date was immediately available.

The Emmy Awards were scheduled to be broadcast on Fox on Sept. 18. Rules laid out by the actors’ union, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, say stars cannot campaign for the Emmys or attend awards shows while on strike.

Writers are also not permitted from working on awards shows until the strike ends.

Quote:This gives new meaning to the words Great White.

The new Discovery special “Cocaine Sharks” investigates rumors of rampant recreational cocaine use by strung out sharks in the Florida Keys — getting high on millions of pounds of nose candy dumped into the waterway via the area’s illicit drug trafficking trade.

“I firmly believe, and it’s not just a chance of probability, that a shark will come across a floating bale [of cocaine] and take a bite,” Tom “The Blowfish” Hird, who hosts the show as part of Discovery’s annual Shark Week, told The Post.
“What’s interesting is that the sharks we saw … weren’t right, they weren’t just so, they seemed a little bit off — now that was very interesting,” said Hird, a renowned marine biologist.

“One thing is for sure — we had a couple of sharks behaving strangely, and while it may not be cocaine … nothing suggests that it wasn’t.”

In the special, premiering July 26 at 10 p.m., Hird and scientist Dr. Tracy Fanara dive into the waters off the Florida coast, attracting tiger sharks, hammerheads and lemon sharks — some of which exhibit unusually aggressive behavior. Others, as Hird says on-air, appear to “have the spins,” are “slightly twisted” or are “tweaked” as a “junkie shark” might be if it ingested cocaine.

A shark pounces on one of the bales of “cocaine” dropped into the water off the Florida Keys in “Cocaine Sharks.”

To see if sharks will attack bales of cocaine dropped into the water from above, which is how the Florida Keys coke ends up there, Hird and Fanara toss bales filled with fish powder — akin to the stimulant Dopamine found in coke, into the water — then watch as “super-feisty” sharks of all shapes and sizes greedily grab the bales and swim away, ignoring decoy [fake] swans.

It is, as Hird told The Post, a “siren call” for the beasts, who would rather grab a foreign object than feast on a living creature.

“We know that cocaine acts as an analgesic and anesthetic to some extent, so certainly, if a shark got a hold of a big lump of coke, just like a human I think the first thing that would happen is that its gills would be numbed,” Hird said. “But we have no idea of what might happen — if they might become very agitated and much more unpredictable or if they get stoned, becoming lethargic and disinterested in food.

“There really are no guidelines to what may happen.”

While sharks have not (yet) been tested for cocaine consumption, salmon have — and, as seen in “Cocaine Sharks,” they get extremely hyper when exposed to cocaine.

Meanwhile, Hird said that studies in the UK undertaken at 15 sampling sites along London’s River Thames showed some startling results vis-a-vis fish and drugs.

“At each one of those 15 sites they found shrimp, and each shrimp contained cocaine,” he said.

“I was not aware of local stories [in the Florida Keys] about sharks getting on cocaine and going on a three-day bender, but the minute [the ‘Cocaine Sharks’ production company] brought this idea to me — and asked me if it was legit — I said, ‘Yeah, it totally is.’

“We knew then and there that we had a great story to tell that, at its end, has an important conservation message and will hopefully spur a bit more research in this area.”

Quote:

Randy Meisner of The Eagles during an interview in London in 1973

Randy Meisner, bassist and founding member of the Eagles who wrote and sang “Take it to the Limit,” died on Wednesday. He was 77 years old.

The Eagles confirmed Meisner’s death in a statement on their website, stating he died from complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

“The Eagles are sad to report that founding member, bassist, and vocalist, Randy Meisner, passed away last night in Los Angeles,” the band wrote. “Randy was an integral part of the Eagles and instrumental in the early success of the band. His vocal range was astonishing, as is evident on his signature ballad, ‘Take It to the Limit.’”

That song, released off 1975’s One of These Nights, showcased Meisner’s talent — and his soaring falsetto was so iconic that it later inspired Fred Armisen in The Blue Jean Committee, his Seventies parody rock band with Bill Hader from Documentary Now!

Meisner wrote “Take it to the Limit” one night at his home in Los Angeles. “I was feeling kind of lonely and started singing ‘All alone at the end of the evening, and the bright lights have faded to blue,’” he recalled. “And it went from there.”



Randall Herman Meisner was born on March 8, 1946 in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Prior to the Eagles, he was the founding bassist in Poco, which he formed in 1968 with Buffalo Springfield’s Richie Furay and Jim Messina. Meisner left the group after the release of their debut Pickin’ Up the Pieces and briefly joined Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band.

He then became a member of Linda Ronstadt’s backing band alongside Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Bernie Leadon. In 1971, they parted ways with Ronstadt, signed to David Geffen’s Asylum Records, and named themselves the Eagles.

Meisner spent the next six years with the band, singing on tracks like “Tryin'” (1972’s The Eagles), “Certain Kind of Fool” (1973’s Desperado), and “Midnight Flyer” (1974’s On the Border). He also found himself navigating the intense creative direction of Henley and Frey.

“No, I don’t go along with everything they say or do,” he told Cameron Crowe in the Eagles’ 1975 Rolling Stone cover story. “For example, I’m probably the only one in the band who loves funky rock & roll, trashy music and R&B. And I don’t agree with some of our images either. But Don and Glenn have it covered. I guess I’m just very shy and nervous about putting myself on the line. They’re used to doing that.”

That shy and nervous side took a toll on Meisner, especially after the release of “Take it to the Limit,” which peaked at Number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 23 weeks on the charts. “Randy said, ‘If it’s a hit, I’m going to have to hit that note every night,’” recalled producer and engineer Bill Szymczyk. “Which is exactly what happened.”

“Take it to the Limit” became a concert highlight and fan favorite — especially on the massive 1977 tour supporting Hotel California — and Meisner became increasingly reluctant to sing it. This, paired with other factors like his failing marriage and exhaustion from touring, resulted in his departure from the band later that year.

“When the tour ended, I left the band,” he said. “Those last days on the road were the worst. Nobody was talking to me, or would hang out after shows, or do anything. I was made an outcast of the band I’d helped start.”

Meisner’s later years were plagued with hardships, including an alleged threat of murder-suicide in 2015 and the accidental shooting death of his wife, Lana Rae Meisner, a year later. The Los Angeles Coroner’s Office ruled the death an accident, with one LAPD source telling CBS News that there was no indication of foul play.

In a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone, Meisner said he had no regrets about leaving the Eagles despite everything it cost him. “You’re wasting your time thinking about that stuff,” he said. “I got a great business manager. When he invests, you make money.” The musician gushed about his “two little chihuahuas and tomato plants that are five feet high right now,” before adding, “I’m happy as a clam.”

On Friday, fellow Eagles member Joe Walsh took to social media to pen a tribute to Meisner. “An honor and privilege to share the stage with, Randy was a great guy with an unforgettable voice,” wrote Walsh. “Here’s to always being a dreamer, my friend.”

Quote:House Oversight Chairman James Comer told FNC's Maria Bartiromo that the DOJ is trying to stop former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer from testifying on Monday in an act of "obstruction of justice."

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Wrote:I want to ask you about your investigation, but first let me get to this breaking news. I have in my hand a letter from the Department of Justice that was sent to the Southern District of New York on Saturday. By the way, Devon Archer is testifying on Monday. Do you ever see -- do you usually see the DOJ send letters like this out on a Saturday?

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): Wrote:Never. Never. This is the first time I have ever heard of the Department of Justice doing anything on a Saturday.

BARTIROMO: Wrote:So, what is this letter? Can you walk us through it? The government is apprising the court of the status of Devon Archer's appeal of his judgment of conviction. And they request that the court set a surrender date for the defendant to report to a facility. Please walk us through what this letter says.

COMER: Wrote:Yes. The letter from the Department of Justice is trying to nudge the judge to go ahead and sentence Devon Archer for something unrelated to what we're going to be talking to him about tomorrow. It's odd that it was issued on a Saturday. And it's odd that it's right before he's scheduled to come in to have an opportunity to speak in front of the House Oversight Committee and tell the American people the truth about what really went on with Burisma.

So, I don't know if this is a coincidence, Maria, or if this is another example of the weaponization of the Department of Justice, but I can tell you this.

The lengths to which the Biden legal team has gone to try to intimidate our witnesses, to coordinate with the Department of Justice, and to certainly coordinate with the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to encourage people not to cooperate with our investigation, to encourage banks not to turn over bank records. To encourage Treasury not to let us have access to those suspicious activity reports, it's very troubling.

And I believe that this is another violation of the law. This is obstruction of justice. But, nevertheless, we're going to continue to move forward and try to present the American people with the facts and the truth about this president and his family.

Quote:Amidst apocalyptic-themed news coverage about the wildfires in Europe from the mainstream media, Greece’s climate change minister has admitted that the majority of the fires that have ravaged his country were a result of arson.

Greek Climate Change Minister Vassilis Kikilias has revealed that the majority of the 667 fires that have erupted across the country in recent weeks were ignited by “were caused by human hand”.

Kikilias told reporters that the people responsible were guilty of “arsons either by criminal negligence or by intention”, according to Sky News.

While legacy media outlets have begun to begrudgingly admit that arson is playing a major role in the fires, they continue to claim that supposed climate change has made it easier for the fires to spread.

The Greek newspaper Kathimerini noted, however, that a significant element in the annual problem of wildfires is that “arsonists, who are usually tried for negligence since intent is extremely hard to prove, tend to get away with small sentences, rarely serve any prison time and face no other penalty for the terrible destruction they cause to humans, animals, the environment etc.”

Quote:Russian authorities say three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure for traffic of one of four airports around the Russian capital.

It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fueling concerns about Moscow´s vulnerability to attacks as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.

The Russian Defense Ministry referred to the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defense systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed into the Moscow City business district in the capital.

Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack “insignificantly damaged” the outsides of two buildings in the Moscow City district. A security guard was injured, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.

No flights went into or out of the Vnukovo airport on the southern outskirts of the city for about an hour, according to Tass, and the air space over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed for any aircraft. Those restrictions have since been lifted.

Moscow authorities have also closed a street for traffic near the site of the crash in the Moscow City area.

Quote:France’s finance minister said during a visit to Beijing on Sunday that cutting all economic ties with China was “an illusion”, as some Western countries question their reliance on the Asian giant.

“We are totally opposed to the idea of decoupling. Decoupling is an illusion,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told reporters at the French embassy.

“There is no possibility of having any kind of decoupling between the American, European and Chinese economies.”

Le Maire nonetheless defended France’s ambition to become more economically independent in certain sectors. But, he added, the concept of de-risking, which has become a byword in the West in recent months, “does not mean that China is a risk”.
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Le Maire’s remarks come as some Western countries seek to reduce their economic dependence on China, particularly Germany, which counts the Asian country as its top trading partner and an important market for its automotive industry.

The United States has also advocated de-risking from China, though US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a visit to Beijing earlier this month that a decoupling of the US and Chinese economies would be “virtually impossible”.

China, meanwhile, has lashed out at Western efforts to de-risk, with Premier Li Qiang last month calling the concept a “false proposition”.

Quote:The United States will expand its military industrial base by helping Australia manufacture guided missiles and rockets for both countries within two years, the allies announced on Saturday as they ramped up defense cooperation to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.

The new cooperation on guided weapon production follows a trilateral partnership announcement in March that will see Britain provide Australia with a fleet of eight submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology.

The greater integration of U.S. and Australian militaries was announced after annual talks between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Australian counterparts, Defense Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

They agreed to cooperate on Australia producing Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems by 2025, a communique said.

U.S. companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin only established an Australian enterprise to build such weapons last year. That followed the drain on Western countries’ munitions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Austin said the move on missiles would strengthen the two allies’ defense industrial base and technological edge.

Quote:Nine women were shot Sunday morning just before 1 a.m. when multiple gunmen exited a vehicle and opened fire on a group of people in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood.

ABC 7 reported the women were gathered “in the 1500-block of South Keeler Avenue” when the shots rang out. The Chicago Sun-Times pointed out the shots were fired by multiple gunmen who exited a Black Jeep and opened fire.

FOX 32 noted one of the nine shooting victims was a 21-year-old who was shot in the face. She was transported to a hospital where she died.

A 28-year-old woman “was shot eight times in her torso” during the attack, and is in critical condition.

No suspect descriptions were released in the connection with the shooting and no arrests have been made.

The Sun-Times explained 340 people were killed in Chicago January 1, 2023, through July 29, 2023.

Quote:Moscow will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine’s counteroffensive efforts are successful and recapture “Russian land”, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Sunday.

The war of words once again escalated in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, with Zelensky declaring that it is “absolutely fair” for targets within Russia to be attacked and top-Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev explicitly threatening to resort to a nuclear strike to win the war.

Taking to his personal Telegram channel to mark the Russian military holiday of Navy Day, the former president said: “Our Armed Forces, repelling the counteroffensive of the collective enemy, protect the citizens of Russia and our land. This is obvious to all decent people.

“But beyond that, they prevent world conflict. After all, if we imagine that the offensive of the [Ukrainian Nazis] with the support of NATO was successful and they seized part of our land, then we would have to, by virtue of the rules of the decree of the President of Russia dated 06/02/2020, go for the use of nuclear weapons.”

“There is simply no other way out. Therefore, our enemies must pray to our warriors. They do not allow the global nuclear fire to flare up,” Medvedev concluded.

Quote:An illegal medical laboratory with apparent links to China was discovered in a warehouse in the town of Reedley, California, near Fresno, in April, new reports reveal.
...
The disturbing discovery was made in April and was prompted by a simple garden hose that was illegally attached to the back of the building, officials said.
...
Officials said they found over 800 different chemicals – many of which couldn’t be immediately identified.
...
According to court documents, the Centers for Disease Control tested what they could and determined that at least 20 potentially infectious viral, bacterial, and parasitic agents were present including E. Coli, malaria, and even COVID.

NBC also noted that investigators found hundreds of laboratory mice, many of which had to be euthanized, as well as human tissue samples.

Quote:A suspected suicide bombing killed at least 46 people and injured over 150 at an Islamist political event near the Afghan border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan, on Sunday, believed to have been attended by hundreds of people.

The event was a convention for the Islamist political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Pakistan Fazl (JUI-F), an Islamist party local outlets described as “hardline” whose name roughly translates to the “Assembly of Islamic Clerics.” Police told reporters on Monday that, while no individual or group has taken responsibility for the bombing, the prime suspect is the Islamic State’s Afghan offshoot, Khorasan Province (ISIS-K).

Analysts speculated that ISIS-K targeted the JUI-F because it participates in Pakistani elections, is relatively popular in the Afghan border area of Pakistan, and poses a challenge to ISIS-K’s attempts to recruit members.

Political violence is common in Pakistan, which has seen throngs of radical Islamists take the streets for months in defense of ousted Islamist Prime Minister Imran Khan. Khan himself was shot in the leg during a political rally in November.

Quote:Paul Reubens — who played the zany, red bow-tied manchild Pee-wee Herman for nearly four decades across multiple shows and movies — has died. He was 70.

His death following a private battle with cancer was announced Monday on Instagram accompanied by a brief, posthumous note penned by Reubens himself.

“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” wrote Reubens. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

The Instagram post said Reubens “bravely and privately fought cancer for years with his trademark tenacity and wit.”

Quote:New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) is calling on President Joe Biden to “control the border,” warning that “there is no more room” in the city for border crossers and illegal aliens.

Since the spring of last year, more than 90,000 border crossers and illegal aliens have arrived in New York City. Under Adams’ vast migrant hotel scheme, thousands have been put up for free in luxury hotels like the Roosevelt Hotel, but room has since run out, spurring migrants to flood out onto the city streets.
...
“We need to control the border. We need to call a state of emergency, and we need to properly fund this national crisis,” Adams said, suggesting that the future for New Yorkers is grim, as there are no signs showing the migrant surge to the city will end anytime soon:

We need help. And it’s not going to get any better. From this moment on it’s downhill. There is no more room. I was at the Roosevelt on Saturday, and I went there on Sunday. They lined up around the block, hurting the businesses there; this is not going to get better. We put buses there for cooling systems, but it is just not sustainable. And I’m just real.
...
“We have to localize this madness. We have to figure out a way of how we don’t have what’s in other municipalities where you have tent cities all over the city,” Adams said.

In the coming days and weeks, Adams said his office will unveil the “next phase” for the city’s handling of illegal immigration that ultimately grapples with the fact that “there’s no more room indoors.”

Quote:Hunter Biden’s best friend in business, Devon Archer, told House investigators that Burisma Holdings would have gone out of business if it were not for the so-called Biden brand, which Joe Biden promoted on phone calls with Burisma executives.

In 2014 Archer and Hunter Biden both joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company with legal challenges, as it was under investigation for wrongdoing. Burisma paid Hunter Biden $83,000 a month to sit on its board.

Archer testified that in December 2015, co-founder of Burisma Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharski, an executive of Burisma, put pressure on Hunter Biden to get help from Washington, DC, regarding the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma for corruption.

In 2018, Joe Biden bragged about the firing of prosecutor Viktor Shokin during an official visit to Ukraine in 2015. During the visit, he met with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev about Ukraine’s corruption.

Four months after the meeting, Poroshenko fired Shokin.

An FBI informant alleges Joe and Hunter Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from Zlochevsky.

Archer said that Hunter Biden, along with Zlochevsky and Pozharski, “called D.C.” to speak about the legal situation. “Biden, Zlochevsky, and Pozharski stepped away to take make the call.”

Over 20 times, Hunter Biden placed Joe Biden on speakerphone during business meetings with Archer present, he told House investigators. Archer also testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”

The 20 phone calls also included a dinner in China with Jonathan Li of Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). Hunter Biden and Archer held their interests in the company through a shell company called Rosemont Seneca Thornton.

Quote:House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) opened a probe into a buyer of Hunter Biden’s artwork to ascertain if Hunter used his novice art career to “peddle influence in and access to the White House.”

Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a prominent Biden donor and Biden appointee to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, reportedly bought Hunter Biden’s art in July 2022. It is unknown if Hirsh’s purchase occurred before or after her appointment to that position.


“The White House has stated that ‘Hunter Biden would be walled off from knowing the identities of his buyers in an attempt to separate his business dealings from his father’s administration,'” Comer wrote in a statement, continuing:

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, told reporters that the gallery “does not disclose the names of any purchasers to Mr. Biden.” This system, however, seems to have failed, because Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali’s identity as a purchaser of this art has become public.

“Her position on the Commission is particularly suspicious because of Hunter Biden’s previous actions to elevate his business partner—Eric Schwerin—to the same post while his father was Vice President,” he added.

Naftali also reportedly visited the White House 13 times after the president’s son first showcased his paintings at his art dealer’s gallery in New York City.

Naftali is not the only purchaser of Hunter Biden’s art. A mystery buyer reportedly spent $875,000 on 11 Hunter Biden paintings from his art dealer, Georges Bergès, who previously boasted strong ties to businessmen in Communist China.

Hunter Biden also reportedly sold art to his top lawyer, Kevin Morris, who also paid Hunter’s IRS bill of about $2 million. The entertainment lawyer is at the center of Hunter Biden’s new-found career of painting modern art, an occupation connected to the art market known for corruption.

Quote:Trump was indicted by a Washington, DC, grand jury on Tuesday on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights, in relation to the January 6 capitol riots.

Smith described the Capitol riots as “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” and claimed it was “fueled by lies” during a press conference shortly after the indictment against Trump was unsealed.

“Lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, a nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election,” Smith said.

Smith praised the law enforcement officers who “defended the U.S. Capitol” on January 6 as “heroes.”
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Smith announced his team is still investigating “other individuals” in connection with January 6.

In a statement released just before the indictment was unsealed, Trump’s campaign blasted it as “the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Smith plans to seek a “speedy trial” to ensure the DOJ’s “evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens,” he added.

Quote:Smith has charged Trump with 40 counts in the so-called “documents” case. Among them is the accusation that Trump caused his lawyers to tell the government that they had handed over all of the documents the government wanted, when in fact they had not.

The indictment against Trump alleges that he conspired with his staff to move boxes of documents, and to attempt to delete some video footage, without telling his attorneys, so that the final delivery of documents and video to the government was incomplete.

But in an ironic twist, Smith’s team had to admit to the court in a July 31 filing that it had not, in fact, uploaded all of the video footage that it had taken from Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to a platform established by the court for the defense to review it.
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“The Government’s representation at the July 18 hearing that all surveillance footage the Government had obtained pre-indictment had been produced was therefore incorrect,” Julie Edelstein, a Smith assistant, told the court.

In criminal trials, the defense is entitled to see all of the evidence that the government plans to introduce at trial. Under a rule called the Brady rule, the prosecution has a special duty to disclose anything to the defense that might prove to be exculpatory.

Quote:Appointed in 2014 to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Obama, Judge Tanya Chutkan has been known to give some of the harshest sentences for January 6 defendants, with some even going beyond government recommendations.
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That’s the same Tanya Chutkan who represented Theranos at Boies Schiller (the firm that hired Fusion GPS to attack Theranos whistleblowers) and then presided as judge in the U.S. House lawsuit against Fusion GPS. Completely corrupt.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 1, 2023
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In 2021, Chutkan ruled hundreds of pages of the former president’s White House records could be turned over to the January 6 investigating committee despite Trump’s objections.

“The court holds that the public interest lies in permitting—not enjoining—the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again,” Chutkan wrote.

According to Open Secrets, Chutkan also donated to the 2008 and 2012 political campaigns of Barack Obama.

Quote:The village of Hajdukovo/Hajdújárás, a small farming community in the north of Serbia on the Hungarian border has been described as a terrifying warzone this past week as what are reported to be migrant smuggler gangs face off in hours-long gun battles, with household security footage audio attesting to the persistent sound of automatic gunfire.
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The battles started last Monday, in a two-hour long fight which left one dead and several injured, and “pools of blood” and discarded bandages littering the streets and orchards of the village the next morning. Hungarian state broadcaster MTVA reports on the plight of the locals, who are ethnically majority Hungarian, describing how the migrant smuggler gangs were “shooting indiscriminately at everything and everyone between the houses and in the gardens” on Monday 24th.

Because of the weakness of the European Union’s external border and asylum policies, human trafficking has become an extremely lucrative — if deadly — business in Europe. In Hajdukovo, gangs may be fighting over territory and customers.
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“Presumably, Afghan migrants wanted to settle scores with each other”, one report caustically notes, but nevertheless as well as shooting at one another, the gangs also exchanged fire with the police, Serbian broadcaster Pannon RTV reports.

An official announcement on Monday’s battle revealed medics discovered several victims, including a dead Afghan lying near a main road, and an injured Afghan male lying nearby.

The violence continued through the week, local witnesses state, and there was another major battle on Friday evening, just hours after a local resident’s meeting to address the problem of shootings took place with the regional mayor in the village.

Quote:Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta announced Monday that the nation’s socialist president, Luis Arce, will attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, hoping to join the China-led trade bloc.

According to Mayta, Arce will attend the trade and security bloc’s summit at the invitation of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The Bolivian president will seek investment and partnership opportunities to help boost Bolivia’s exports and nascent lithium industry after signing contracts in June that gave away control of two of the country’s largest lithium deposits to China and Russia.
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Bolivia is home to some of the world’s largest known lithium resources at 21 million tons, but the South American nation has almost no industrial production or commercially viable reserves. Lithium is an indispensable material for manufacturing electric vehicle batteries and batteries used in a wide range of devices.
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Mayta reiterated Bolivia’s “willingness and interest” to join the BRICS coalition, explaining that the Bolivian government issued a letter in June addressed to the five presidents of the bloc’s founding members. According to Mayta, the Bolivian government asserted that it “shares a common vision regarding an international order founded on equality, solidarity, inclusion, consensus, mutually beneficial cooperation, and multilateralism, without hegemonies.”