It's going to be a long hot summer in Washington DC if this is what Joe Biden's going to allow in the dead of winter.
No one was arrested for this destruction, just as no one was arrested last time for damage done to the White House gate.
Delaying his response to the Houthis for months of their Red Sea attacks until last week only encouraged them to keep it up. Joe Biden's doing the same with these malcontents.
Meanwhile Joe Biden continues to hunt down leisurely non-violent Jan 6ers and put them in the slammer.
Question 5: Biden 60% Trump 37% among those 65+ (2-way race)
Question 6: Biden 53% Trump 34% among those 65+ (5-way race)
Question 8: Biden favorable rating is highest among those 65+ at 54%
Question 9: Trump favorable rating is lowest among those 65+ at 33%
Question 20: Biden's job approval highest among those 65+ at 55%.
Older Americans haven't forgotten what a disaster Trump was for them personally.
Trump lost older people already early in 2020 because he minimized the pandemic, which ended up victimizing older people the most, whose deaths were north of 70% of the total.
Brad Parscale tried to warn him. He got fired instead.
Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion and mayor of
Kyiv since 2014, was a “core shareholder” and active participant in a
Hunter Biden-chaired subsidiary of Ukrainian energy company Burisma
Holdings, according to emails and an associate with direct knowledge who
spoke with The Post. ...
Klitschko issued a blanket denial of involvement in a statement provided by a spokeswoman.
“I am surprised by such questions. Because: I have never been a
partner in the project you are talking about and had nothing to do with
it,” Klitschko told The Post.
“Accordingly, there is no question of any compensation. I had no ties
to Hunter Biden. And I did not discuss the company you are asking about
with Joe Biden.”
The mayor’s spokeswoman declined to provide answers to follow-up
questions, writing in an email, “The answer I sent before is the most
comprehensive one we can provide.”
Reportedly a boy lost his shirt out the "window" and a bunch of cell phones got sucked out at 16,000 feet, and:
It later emerged that Boeing staff, in internal messages, were cavalier about FAA regulations and critical of the Max's design. One said it the aircraft was 'designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.'
December 2023 came in at 49.5%. Full time usually peaks in summer, and bottoms in winter. January and February 2023 had come in at 49.3% and 49.7% respectively.
Still not quite as good as Trump 2019, which itself wasn't close to what we are capable of as a country:
Uncertainty remains despite a U.S.-led military effort to curb the attacks. Maersk had resumed the Suez route, but suspended it again in recent days after one of its ships was targeted by missiles and small boats.
Asia-Europe is Maersk’s biggest trade lane, and freight rates on the
route have roughly tripled from their early December levels, the Goldman
Sachs analysts said, while “the impact on annual contract rates is
likely to be positive, albeit dependent on how the security situation
evolves.”
Maersk’s
other major routes are seeing “positive second-order effects from the
Suez disruption.” Global trade is also being stymied by drought in the Panama Canal.
However,
analysts do not currently foresee the same level of global supply chain
disruption and capacity constraint as experienced during the Covid-19
pandemic, which triggered a huge spike in freight rates and record
profits for companies including Maersk.
Utilities get to pass through fuel prices, which means customers have
been bearing the burden of higher natural-gas prices that surged
following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On average, monthly electricity
prices rose 13% in 2022 from a year earlier and 6% in the first 11
months of 2023, according to data from the Labor Department. ... Utility commissioners are either appointed by elected officials or
elected themselves, which means they are sensitive to the financial
pressures that ratepayers face. ... utilities were quick to ask for an increase on the allowed return on
equity when market measures of capital cost rose yet slow to adjust
rates when those measures declined.
Has the natural gas portion of your utility bill dropped 60% like the price of natural gas in 2023 from 2022? Mine sure as hell has not.
Here are the average prices per year for Henry Hub natural gas:
2015: 2.62
2016: 2.52
2017: 2.99
2018: 3.15
2019: 2.56
2020: 2.03
2021: 3.89 +91.6%
2022: 6.45 +65.8%
2023: 2.53 -60.7%
That 92% jump in 2021 had nothing to do with Ukraine.
We're being gouged for green energy tomfoolery.
COMPLAIN, not to the utility, but to the utility commission. It's the only way.
The events surrounding the Maersk Hangzhou represented the 23rd illegal attack by the Houthis on international shipping since Nov. 19, the Central Command said. It was the first time the U.S. Navy said its personnel had killed Houthi fighters since the Red Sea attacks started. ...
Since the Pentagon announced Operation Prosperity Guardian to counter the attacks just over 10 days ago, 1,200 merchant ships have traveled through the Red Sea region, and none had been hit by drone or missile strikes, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper told The Associated Press in an interview on Saturday.
Hokuriku’s Shika plant in Ishikawa, the closest nuclear power station to the quake’s epicentre, had already halted its two reactors before the quake for regular inspections and saw no impact from the quake, the agency said.
The January 1, 2024, M7.5 earthquake on the west coast of Japan, on the
island of Honshu, occurred as a result of shallow reverse faulting in
the Earth’s crust. Focal mechanism solutions for the earthquake indicate
faulting occurred on a moderately dipping reverse fault striking to the
southwest or northeast. Japan is a seismically active region, with most
earthquakes occurring off the east coast, where the Pacific plate
subducts beneath Japan. This earthquake occurred on the west coast of
Japan where crustal deformation created by the broader plate motions is
accommodated in shallow faults. Shallow earthquakes cause more damage
than intermediate- and deep-focus ones since the energy generated by the
shallow events is released closer to the surface and therefore produces
stronger shaking relative to earthquakes located deeper within the
Earth. This coastal earthquake produced both strong shaking on land and
generated a tsunami.
While earthquakes are common in Japan, the region surrounding the
January 1, 2024, earthquake sees lower rates of seismicity as compared
to the major subduction zone along its east coast. Still, since 1900, 30
other M6 and larger earthquakes have occurred within 250 km of the
January 1 event. Three of these occurred on or near the Noto Peninsula,
where the January 1 event is located. On May 5, 2023, a M6.2 earthquake
on the Noto Peninsula killed one person and damaged hundreds of
buildings. On April 16, 1964, a M7.6 occurred 205 km east-northeast of
the January 1 event, resulting in 36 fatalities and roughly 3,500
destroyed homes.
Do we really want another pre-civil war election, where one candidate doesn't appear, for whatever reasons, on the ballots of ten Democrat states, as Lincoln did not and became president despite 60% of the country wanting anybody but Lincoln?
Maine’s Shenna Bellows issued
a “decision” that declared Trump an “insurrectionist” and ineligible to
be president. She joined an ignoble list of Democratic officials in
states such as Colorado who claim to safeguard democracy by denying its
exercise to millions of Americans. ...
One columnist wrote that
“Democrats may have to act radically to deny Donald Trump the 2024
Republican nomination. We cannot rely on Republicans to do it…Trump must
be defeated. No matter what it takes.”
The U.S. does not seek to escalate the conflict, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on "Good Morning America" on Sunday.
"We don't seek a conflict wider in the region and we're not looking for a conflict with the Houthis," Kirby told ABC News' Whit Johnson. "The best outcome here would be for the Houthis to stop these attacks as we have made clear over and over again."
Garvey, 74, said his experience with baseball has trained him how to put together a winning team, saying he's"been able to do it in Los Angeles and San Diego and in the community. ... I'll be a one-term, six-year senator who will step up to the plate every day and go to bat for the people of California who know there's a better life and need somebody to be their voice. They'll be the wind beneath my wings, too," he added.
Jesus is unique, and women are free and equal in God’s sight. That is what we should take away from this [virgin birth] story.
Christianity, like many world religions, has often been less than
fair in its treatment of women. But at the heart of historical
Christianity, there has always been the idea that Christmas is a
feminist holiday, a feast that celebrates the choice of an autonomous
woman. As Christianity has risen to become the largest and most
widespread religion in the world, women are coming into their own. It
cannot be otherwise.
God didn’t send Jesus into the world because He was satisfied with
the status quo. God sent Him here because things needed to change—and
right at the top of the list of the things God wanted to change was the
position of women. The change didn’t happen overnight, and even today we
haven’t seen the full consequences of giving half the world its
rightful due; but from the day that Mary answered Gabriel, a new force
has been at work in the world. The rise of women to new freedom and new
dignity, which is one of the primary developments of our time, is the
blossoming of a tree that was planted a very long time ago.
“The motor vessel CHEM PLUTO, a Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned, and
Netherlands-operated chemical tanker was struck at approximately 10 a.m.
local time (6 a.m. GMT) today in the Indian Ocean, 200 nautical miles
from the coast of India, by a one-way attack drone fired from Iran,” a
Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters.
Fox News correspondent David Spunt has the latest on the first son's refusal to testify on 'Special Report.'
The assistant U.S. attorney who was accused oflimiting questionsrelated to President Biden during the federal investigation into Hunter Biden is no longer employed by the Justice Department, Fox News has learned.
Lesley Wolf, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware, is no longer with the DOJ, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The source said Wolf had longstanding plans to leave the Department of Justice and did so weeks ago.
Wolf, who IRS whistleblowers claimed slow-walked the Hunter Biden investigation, is sitting for a transcribed interview before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning.
Specifically, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley alleged that Wolf worked to "limit" questioning related to President Biden and apparent references to Biden as "dad" or "the big guy."
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.
WASHINGTON — The former federal prosecutor who allegedly shielded President Biden and his son Hunter
during a criminal investigation testified 79 times to Congress that she
was “not authorized” by the Justice Department to answer questions
about the case, according to a transcript reviewed by The Post.
Former Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf repeatedly cited a
five-page authorization letter from Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer as she refused to answer questions during a House Judiciary Committee deposition last week.
Weinsheimer’s Dec. 12 letter, also reviewed by The Post, says: “[T]he
Department generally does not authorize congressional testimony from
line-level personnel, especially relating to an ongoing investigation
with charges pending in court. The Department has declined to do so in
connection with this matter.”
Wolf’s dozens of refusals to answer questions — just one day after the full House voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry
into President Biden — frustrated attempts to firm up the storyline
involving what whistleblowers say was a sweeping cover-up by Wolf and
colleagues to protect the Biden family.
A
former federal prosecutor who allegedly shielded President Biden and
his son Hunter during a criminal investigation testified that she was
“not authorized” to answer questions about her actions, according to a
transcript. AP
The near-blanket rejection of questions follows pressure from House
Republicans on the administration to allow witness testimony and could
bolster GOP arguments that the White House is obstructing the inquiry,
which itself could form an article of impeachment.
Two IRS agents who worked on the long-running tax fraud investigation
into Hunter Biden, which focused on his foreign income from countries
such as China and Ukraine, alleged in prior testimony to House
committees that Wolf tipped off the first son’s lawyers to investigative
steps and forbade inquiries into Joe Biden, even when communications
mentioned him.
Wolf served on the squad of prosecutors that signed off on a
probation-only plea deal in June for the first son on tax and gun
charges, which fell apart the following month under scrutiny from a federal judge.
Lesley
Wolf (above) repeatedly cited a five-page authorization letter from
Bradley Weinsheimer as she refused to answer questions during a House
Judiciary Committee deposition. Fedbar.org
IRS supervisor Gary Shapley, who oversaw the Hunter Biden
investigation for three years, and case agent Joseph Ziegler, who worked
on the inquiry for five years, made a series of specific claims against
Wolf, which she did not refute in her testimony.
Tax investigators learned in December 2020 that Wolf “reached out to
Hunter Biden’s defense counsel and told them” about investigators’ plans
to search a northern Virginia storage unit that contained business
records, “circumventing our chance to get to evidence from potentially
being destroyed, manipulated or concealed,” Ziegler testified in July.
Shapley testified that investigators were months earlier barred from
searching a guest house at Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home, where
Hunter often stayed.
Wolf’s
refusals to answer questions come one day after the full House voted to
authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. REUTERS
Shapley said that on Sept. 3, 2020, “Wolf told us there was more than
enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there, but the
question was whether the juice was worth the squeeze.”
Wolf also allegedly objected during a meeting on Dec. 3, 2020, to questioning a key Biden family associate, Rob Walker, about the president.
“Wolf interjected and said she did not want to ask about the big guy
and stated she did not want to ask questions about ‘dad,’” he said.
“When multiple people in the room spoke up and objected that we had
to ask, she responded, there’s no specific criminality to that line of
questioning. This upset the FBI, too,” Shapley testified.
Wolf served as a key point person for the investigation, serving under Delaware US Attorney David Weiss.
The whistleblowers accused Weiss’ office of giving Hunter Biden’s
legal team advance knowledge of a planned interview attempt in late
2020, scuttling a planned approach, and said prosecutors didn’t pass
along a paid FBI informant’s tip that Joe and Hunter Biden received $10 million in bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma,
which paid Hunter a salary of up to $1 million to serve on its board
beginning in 2014 when his vice president dad led US policy toward the
country.
Wolf allegedly instructed FBI agents in August 2020 to remove
references to Joe Biden from a search warrant affidavit, writing,
“Someone needs to redraft [the affidavit] … There should be nothing
about Political Figure 1 in here,” according to an email released by the Ways & Means Committee.
“That email, I think, is super important because it’s a one-off
example in writing of the constant concern of following investigative
leads that might lead to Joe Biden,” Ziegler said last week in a Fox
News interview.
“The FBI agents who drafted that affidavit, they believed that they
had sufficient evidence — probable cause — to support including
Political Figure 1 in that affidavit,” said the self-identified Democrat.
IRS supervisor Gary Shapley (not pictured) oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation for three years. REUTERS
“That related to [Ukrainian energy company] Burisma, access to Joe
Biden and access to the administration and there was ample evidence that
was included in that affidavit that’s supported including Political
Figure 1. That has a waterfall effect on the investigation because those
emails that we’re searching for might not come through to the team.”
Shapley and Ziegler said they were not allowed to get cellphone
geolocation data that could have proved Joe Biden was with his son in
July 2017 when Hunter sent a threatening text message to a Chinese government-linked businessman saying, “I am sitting here with my father,” and warning of retribution.
Within 10 days of that message, $5.1 million flowed to accounts
linked to Hunter and first brother James Biden from CEFC China Energy —
after a tranche of $1 million earlier that year, less than two months
after Biden left office as vice president.
Internal
Revenue Service whistleblowers Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley testify
in the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing
about alleged meddling in the Justice Department’s investigation of
Hunter Biden. REUTERS
A May 2017 email penciled in Joe Biden, referred to as the “big guy,” for a 10% cut from CEFC dealings.
The IRS whistleblowers say that — in addition to preferential
treatment for Joe and Hunter Biden — Attorney General Merrick Garland
misled Congress under oath about Weiss’ ability to independently bring
criminal charges against Hunter Biden.
Biden-appointed US attorneys in Los Angeles and Washington have
confirmed in testimony that they declined to partner with Weiss, who in
August was elevated by Garland to be a special counsel, allowing him to bring charges independently outside of Delaware.
The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Wolf’s testimony.
The ceiling in ocean freight prices shot up in a matter of hours on
Thursday as a result of more vessels diverting from the Red Sea. CNBC
has learned that logistics managers were quoted this morning an ocean
freight rate of $10,000 per 40-foot container from Shanghai to the U.K.
Last week, rates were $1,900 for a 20-foot container, to $2,400 for a
40-foot container. Truck rates in the Middle East now being quoted are
more than double. ... As of Thursday morning, 158 vessels are currently re-routing away
from the Rea Sea carrying over 2.1 million cargo containers, Kuehne +
Nagel tells CNBC. The value of this cargo based on MDS Transmodal
estimates of $50,000 per container is $105 billion.
Maersk said that, after monitoring the situation since suspending the
routes on Friday, it had decided all vessels currently on hold and
previously scheduled to travel via the Red Sea would take the Cape of
Good Hope.
The vessels will continue on diverted routes “as soon as
operationally feasible,” the company added. As of Monday, Maersk said it
had around 20 vessels stopped en route, around half of which are east
of the Gulf of Aden. The remainder are located south of the Suez Canal
in the Red Sea, or north of it in the Mediterranean Sea.
