swordfish

Lest we forget - None of this "classified document discovery" would be occurring right now had Biden kept the "Executive Privilege" in place that was afforded to every former POTUS prior to Trump. https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-joe-biden-us-supreme-court-congress-capitol-siege-13803c23a094992233df3b6880d2808b Risky move: Biden undercuts WH executive privilege shield Biden’s decision not to block the information sought by Congress challenges a tested norm — one in which presidents enjoy the secrecy of records of their own terms in office, both mundane and highly sensitive, for a period of at least five years, and often far longer. That means Biden and future presidents, as well as Trump. While not spelled out in the Constitution, executive privilege has developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect his confidential communications relating to official responsibilities. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/aug/23/newly-revealed-memos-undercut-white-house-claims-b/ A newly revealed letter shows that President Biden authorized the National Archives and Records Administration to reject any executive privilege claims that former President Donald Trump might use to stop the Justice Department from accessing classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate. A letter posted late Monday on the website of conservative journalist John Solomon — one of the few people authorized by Mr. Trump to review National Archives records — revealed that Mr. Biden ordered the National Archives to share all materials it had requested from Mr. Trump to be shared with the Justice Department and the FBI. SF is pretty sure former POTUS(s) Obama and Bush are meticulously combing their files right now to avoid any potential conflict because of this dust-up (maybe).

A basic difference between the Trump classified documents and the Biden classified documents - Trump was a President before the documents were in his possession. He had the ultimate power of declassifying anything he chose to. Biden was a former VP, he did not have the same authority, in fact he had no authority over classified documents. BUT - at least they weren't "in the streets".....

Could the latest (2) "classified documents" scandal(s) be the catalyst for this theory? https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ag-garland-expected-address-biden-classified-documents-matter/story?id=96391629 He sure takes his classified documents seriously........Biden has defended storing the documents at a storage space in his home garage, saying on Thursday that "it's not like they're sitting in the street." So Trump had classified papers locked in a secured room that the FBI approved once then felt they had to come back and raid Mar a largo. Biden had classified papers in his locked garage next to his Corvette.

https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/penn-biden-center-is-dark-money-nightmare-patronage-mill/ The Ivy League think tank where lawyers found classified materials linked to the Obama White House is a patronage mill for the Biden administration, raising suspicions among critics that its establishment attracted tens of millions in donations from anonymous Chinese donors. The Department of Justice is probing how “a small number” of classified documents from President Biden’s years as vice president ended up at the Washington, DC, think tank that bears his name, the White House confirmed Monday. A second batch of papers was found at an additional location, it was reported Wednesday. The University of Pennsylvania received more than $30 million from Chinese donors shortly after the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which functioned as an office for Joe Biden before he was elected president, was announced in 2017, according to public records. “The Penn Biden Center is a dark-money, revolving-door nightmare where foreign competitors like China donated millions of dollars to the university so that they could have access to future high-ranking officials,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center. The University of Pennsylvania raked in a total of $54.6 million from 2014 through June 2019 in donations from China, including $23.1 million in anonymous gifts starting in 2016, according to public records. Most of the anonymous donations came after the university officially announced in February 2017 that it would create the academic center named for Biden, whose term as vice president under Barack Obama had just ended. In addition to leading the think tank, Biden was named a professor at the school. The Ivy League institution received $15.8 million in anonymous Chinese gifts in 2017 and one $14.5 million donation in May 2018, three months after the center opened, records show. “The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity,” said a spokesman for the University of Pennsylvania. “In fact, the University has never solicited any gifts for the Center. Since its inception in 2017 there have been three unsolicited gifts (from two donors) which combined total $1,100. Both donors are Americans. One hundred percent of the budget for the Penn Biden Center comes from university funds.” The center does not list any of its fellows or administrators on its website, and does not have separate financial filings. It operates under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania with a mission of engaging “fellow citizens in shaping this world, while ensuring the gains of global engagement are widely shared,” according to its website. Meanwhile, former fellows and administrators of the Penn Biden Center now have key positions in the Biden administration. Michael Carpenter, the former managing director of the Penn Biden Center, was named the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, based in Vienna, in 2021. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also briefly served as director of the think tank before joining the Biden administration in January 2021. Before that, Blinken was a policy adviser for Biden’s 2020 campaign. Juan Sebastian Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the center from April 2018 to September 2020, is special assistant to the president and the national security director for the Western Hemisphere at the White House, according to his LinkedIn page. The sensitive material at the center was discovered by Biden’s personal lawyers on Nov. 2, 2022, while they “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space,” according to a statement from Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president. Sauber said Biden used the Washington, DC, office space from “mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign” in April 2019. After Biden was elected president in 2020, the center said it would operate “completely independent of the Biden administration.” Yeah - I'm pretty sure the former Vice President surely wasn't keeping classified documents there. I mean he was the VP, not POTUS, so he really didn't have the clearance anyway, right? I meant the generous Chinese would have given millions of dollars to the university anyhow......Yeah, nothing to see here.....But - TRUMP - What's he doing?!!!!

It would create a new commission, made up primarily of lawmakers, charged with studying the state's current tax climate. In addition to looking for ways to eliminate the state's personal income tax, the commission would also examine the state's unfunded pension liabilities, debt obligations, property tax structure and overall financial position. It would not, Holdman said, impact local income taxes that vary by county. Should the bill pass, the commission would meet over the next two years with the goal of delivering findings and recommendations to the legislature by Dec. 1, 2024 — just in advance of the state's next two-year budget writing session. (Not just a unilateral effort to eliminate it, but a commission to test the validity of such an idea and whether a form of it could be implemented - why wouldn't a taxpayer want this?)

Time to read 1984 again?

So the former President's tax returns are now public, but the most important (IMHO) part of the returns is being largely overlooked, swept aside, not reported, or simply ignored......The fact that his net worth declined as President. In case any one wonders, I also included a report on the past Presidents - whose net worth actually increased (substantially) https://nypost.com/2022/12/21/trumps-claimed-negative-income-in-four-of-six-years-between-2015-2020-report/ The tax returns of former President Donald Trump and his wife Melania show they reported negative income in four of the six years between 2015 and 2020, according to a report. In three of those years, the Trumps reported income tax liability of $750 or less, the Wall Street Journal reported. The House Ways and Means Committee voted 24-16 along party lines Tuesday evening to release the Trumps’ tax returns for the years 2015 through 2020 following a legal battle that began in 2016. The full release of the returns is expected in the coming days after all personal information is redacted from them. In the six-year period covered by the returns, the Trumps’ adjusted gross income totaled negative $53.2 million and their total federal tax liability was $4.4 million, the report said. The Trumps reported positive adjusted gross income in only two of those six years — $24.4 million in 2018 and $4.4 million in 2019, according to the Journal. The Trumps paid roughly $1 million in taxes in 2018 and $133,445 in 2019, according to an analysis by the New York Times. In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic raged across the country, the Trumps reported a loss of $4.8 million and paid $0 in federal taxes. Here is the data on the Presidents since Jimmy Carter. https://blog.cheapism.com/what-presidents-are-worth/#slide=14 Donald Trump Before: $3 billion After: $2.3 billion Barack Obama Before: $1.3 million After: $70 million George W. Bush Before: $20 million After: $40 million Bill Clinton Before: $1.3 million After: $241.5 million George H.W. Bush Before: $4 million After: $23 million Ronald Reagan Before: $10.6 million After: $15.4 million Jimmy Carter Before: $2.3 million After: $10 million

SMH trying to figure out why we can't find workers. This story sheds some light on it. unemployment insurance benefits can be equivalent to a job with annual pay of $100,000 https://nypost.com/2022/12/18/it-pays-not-to-work-in-bidens-america-thanks-to-welfare-benefits/ Most Americans believe, as we do, in a reliable government safety net in America, so that when people fall on tough times or lose their jobs, their families will not go hungry, lose their homes or suffer deprivation. But most Americans also believe that government assistance should be short-term and aimed at quickly getting people back on their feet, into a job and on the road to being financially self-sufficient and a contributor to our economy. Today’s welfare programs are failing to accomplish that goal. Did you know that families earning half a million dollars a year can receive ObamaCare subsidies? Or that in some states, unemployment insurance benefits can be equivalent to a job with annual pay of $100,000? It’s shocking but true, and it might explain why so many businesses can’t get workers back on the job almost three years after COVID-19 hit these shores. Today there are still at least 3 million fewer Americans working than there were in 2019. Middle class last There are many reasons for the worker shortage, but one is that in many states, welfare pays more than or nearly as much as respectable middle-class jobs. Under Presidents Barack Obama and Biden, many of the highly effective work requirements, which were instituted in the historic 1996 bipartisan welfare reforms, have been eviscerated. Often limits for public benefits have also disappeared while Congress and states have made benefits more generous.

If you are a member of Congress that is working on a "Crypto Regulatory Bill" wouldn't you (maybe) want to steer clear of donations from one of the very companies that would be covered under those regulations? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11543163/Members-Congress-wipe-hands-Sam-Bankman-Frieds-donations.html Dealing with a problem like Sam's dirty money: How a QUARTER of congress (130 Democrats AND Republicans) took donations from fallen crypto king SBF - and now find themselves in a VERY tricky spot Lawmakers from both parties are washing their hands of donations from disgraced crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried amid arrest in Bahamas on Tuesday Just months ago, Bankman-Fried was touted as the next George Soros, second only to the famed liberal donor in contributions to Democrats in 2022 Prosecutors now claim Bankman-Fried tried to bilk investors out of more than $1.8 billion and used customer funds to make illegal political donations The campaign of Beto O'Rourke was one of the first to return a massive $1 million check from SBF Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D, and John Boozman, R, who co-sponsored a crypto regulatory bill SBF supports, gave their FTX-linked donations to charity Bankman-Fried publicly donated some $46.5 million in the 2022 election cycle, with all but about $240,000 going to Democrats

Shhhh - She's my stock picks guide!! On another Pelosi topic: https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/boehner-bawls-at-unveiling-of-pelosis-official-portrait-in-the-us-capitol/ Former House Speaker John Boehner, famed for his tan, love of wine, and ability to cry almost spontaneously, showed some things never change Wednesday when he had to choke back sobs during the unveiling of outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s official portrait at the US Capitol. Boehner, a Republican from Ohio who resigned from the House in 2015, turned emotional as he spoke about the California Democrat in Statuary Hall. “You’ve been unfailingly gracious to me, to my family, and, frankly, my team here in Washington,” said Boehner, 73. “And Madam Speaker, I have to say, my girls told me, ‘Tell the Speaker how much we admire her.'” At that, Boehner’s lips began to quiver and he began sobbing. Must have been a really ugly portrait......

I wonder who those officers were trying to impress.......They obviously didn't give a darn about those teenage kids.....

https://nypost.com/2022/12/14/the-curious-timing-of-scammy-sam-bankman-frieds-crypto-bust/ When alleged crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried finished testifying at a congressional hearing last December, Democrat Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, blew him a kiss as he walked by. And why not, since the shambolic 30-year-old former multibillionaire is acknowledged to be the second-biggest donor to the Democrats, after George Soros. He helped bankroll Joe Biden into the White House and had promised to donate $1 billion to help the party win the 2024 presidential election. There are those, such as Elon Musk, who allege that SBF, as he is called, already has funneled $1 billion of stolen customer funds to Dem causes via various dark money PACs. Others on Wall Street put the number lower, at maybe $500 million. Perhaps that was the entire point of FTX, at least in the end. "Scammy Sammy" - a pawn for the establishment's money launderers..... Wouldn't be surprised if he winds up "suicided".......

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11535201/White-House-insists-say-Biden-campaign-donations-Sam-Bankman-Fried.html The White House on Tuesday wouldn't say if President Biden will ask his aides to return $5.2 million in donations made to his presidential election campaign from disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in 2020. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11534523/Sam-Bankman-Frieds-planned-testimony-prior-arrest.html More than $1 billion has been recovered so far, he said, a majority of which were 'coins of various nature.' But Ray would not give an estimate of when the remaining funds would be found. 'These bankruptcies take time, the money will take time to locate…we tried to do this in the most expeditious way possible,' he said. I guess now we know why SBF won't be testifying to Congress........

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11529519/Largest-migrant-caravan-HISTORY-illegally-crosses-Rio-Grande-El-Paso.html?fbclid=IwAR3HPBpKiscW8n7ZwBtOyssLr8Fi2JzZN1yilVKRtosaPGyRb46-rXcEudQ Mexican authorities appeared to have assisted the illegal crossings, with images emerging of police escorting nearly 20 buses filled with migrants into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which is directly across the border from El Paso. As the pandemic-era policy winds down just before Christmas, House Republicans warn in a letter obtained by DailyMail.com that the Biden administration's use of Air Marshals to assist along the border could put 'the lives and safety of airline passengers at risk' over the holidays.

December 21, 2022 is coming, but Brittney Griner....and Russian arms dealer, and anything else we can talk about...... https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/some-1500-migrants-crossed-rio-grande-into-el-paso-sunday-witness-2022-12-12/ CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Dec 12 (Reuters) - About 1,500 people crossed the Rio Grande overnight from Mexico into El Paso, Texas, a Reuters witness said on Monday, amid an increase in migrant arrivals in the area ahead of the expiry of a pandemic-era order that blocks them at the U.S.-Mexico border. Some of the migrants were clutching bags in their arms and children on their back as they waded into the river to cross from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico into the United States, according to a Reuters witness who photographed the events. The migrants who crossed on Sunday included a group of Nicaraguans who said they were freed by Mexican authorities after being kidnapped last week in the state of Durango. Reuters spoke to seven Nicaraguans who said they were kidnapped. Some showed videos they filmed after being freed and had their phones returned to them, including images of the place where they said they were held. After being released, Mexican authorities loaded some of the Nicaraguan migrants on buses and ferried them to Ciudad Juarez.

So what good is the jury?

Ukraine corruption? Only they know is my point. For some reason, Zelinsky, elected in 2019 - is still alive. (IMHO) If Putin really felt he and the other parties (from the US and Russia) involved could get away with it free and clear without repercussions, Kyiv would be levelled, Zelinsky dead and Ukraine back under Russian control by now.......I believe Zelinsky has the goods, Putin and the US knows this and knows it will become widely know if something happens to Zelinsky. Remember Biden's billion dollar Quid-Pro-Quo when he was the Vice President? Yeah, probably nothing, but could be something......

Answer to the first question - Yes, and yes, I was aware of the history of the man's bad conduct discharge. I also fully understood the reasoning behind the former President's decision to turn a cold shoulder to Russia over prisoner exchanges to get the "Merchant of Death" back to the former USSR. They wanted him back bad for some reason. Either way, this guy in an exchange for a former service man AND a WNBA star would have had my vote. An all or nothing negotiation since we (the current US administration) are clearly hoping Russia is able to re-take Ukraine (somehow) so the powers that be (US and Russia) can secure all the evidence Zelinsky has on them (but no one wants to talk about)...... Again, (IMHO) there was a reason Vlad halted further aggression in Ukraine after Trump's election for 4 years having just took over Crimea in 2014 under Obama, waiting until Biden was elected with (somehow) the most votes EVER for an American President......There is also a reason Zelinsky is still alive.....Additionally (IMHO) there is a reason we somehow traded a pretty bad man (that as I said earlier in this thread - we will be reading sometime in the future how this guy had a connection with the deaths of a whole lot of innocent people somewhere) and that Russia has been trying to get back for quite a while for a wrongfully detained (for about 10 months) top women's basketball player who is assuradly going to get the absolute most press coverage for the President. (IMHO) it's much deeper than just a prisoner for a prisoner, it's a mediocre Checkers player competing against a champion Chess player on a multi-level chess board..... You want to talk about wrongfully imprisoned individuals in the US (that we would probably agree on) - start a different thread. There is my righteous indignation BS for you.......