Anti-war challenger Duntsova barred from running against Russia’s Putin
Sunday, December 24, 2023
Drone launched from Iran attacks chemical tanker in Indian Ocean 200 nautical miles off the coast of India, its seventh such attack on commercial shipping since 2021
“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.
More.
Saturday, December 23, 2023
While everyone watched Hunter Biden grandstand on Dec 14th, the woman at the center of the allegations that the Merrick Garland DOJ slow-walked and obstructed the investigation against the Bidens, Lesley Wolf, did exactly that to Congress
Look! Over there! A deer! And Congressman Eric Swalwell is with him!
Lesley Wolf, prosecutor accused of working to 'limit' questions about 'big guy' in Hunter probe, out at DOJ
Lesley Wolf left the DOJ weeks ago, a source said
Hunter Biden skips deposition and angers Republicans
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 of limiting questions related 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.
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nypost.com
Prosecutor who allegedly shielded Joe, Hunter Biden testified 79 times she's 'not authorized' by DOJ to give answers
Steven Nelson
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
Thursday, December 21, 2023
And just like that, 40-foot ocean freight container costs Shanghai to UK soar from $2,400 to $10,000 because of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea
CNBC reports here:
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.
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Maersk reroutes container ships around Africa to avoid the Houthis in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
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.
More.
Joe Biden imprudently released 255 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve from November 2021 to May 2023
The November 2021 level was about 605 million barrels, about 30 days worth of supply at a 2022 consumption rate of 20 million bpd.
The 350 million barrel level was reached in May 2023 and has been range bound there for eight months. That is about 17.5 days worth of supply.
Crude oil price has not cooperated for refilling what was released. The 2021 price averaged $68 and climbed to nearly $95 in 2022. With 2023 almost over the price has averaged nearly $78.
The release of less than two weeks of supply during 2022 and 2023 as prices skyrocketed looks like a really silly political stunt. Crude oil production has rebounded to what it was under Donald Trump, so there's been plenty of supply in the higher price environment and no need to squander the SPR in this way.
Now it is too expensive to refill cheaply.
Monday, December 18, 2023
That's not what the pope said but that's what Drudge hopes you think he said
Pope says priests can bless same-sex unions...
Meanwhile, newly couples of weds meet with Pope without exhaustive moral analysis.
Thanks to Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the Japs are buying U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion
U.S. Steel also supplies to the renewable energy industry and stands to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which provides tax credits and other incentives for such projects, something that attracted suitors.
More.
There is nothing America will not sell out, as long as the price is right.
BP suspends Red Sea transit while Biden & Co. dither
“In light of the deteriorating security situation for shipping in the Red Sea, bp has decided to temporarily pause all transits through the Red Sea,” it said. “We will keep this precautionary pause under ongoing review, subject to circumstances as they evolve in the region.”
Shipping giants MSC, Hapag-Lloyd , CMA, CGM, and Maersk have also all announced suspensions of travel through the Red Sea due to the drone threat, meaning no access to the key link between Europe and Asia between the Middle East and North Africa.
Violence resumed on Monday in the Red Sea, with the U.K. Maritime Trade Organization saying it was alerted that a vessel nearly 30 miles out from Yemen’s port of Mokha “experienced an explosion on its port side.”
More.
Sunday, December 17, 2023
You know things have to be pretty bad politically at the Arizona border for its Democrat governor to challenge the do-nothing Democrat president
More.
And Reuters.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate RFK Jr now has until March 5 to get on the ballot in Utah
At a recent rally in Kansas City, Missouri, Kennedy asked the crowd
of about 300 voters for help. The state requires independent candidates
to collect 10,000 signatures by July 29 to appear on the 2024 general
election presidential ballot. ...
The requirements for ballot access for candidates who are not the Democratic or Republican nominees vary widely from state to state, and the first deadlines are in early March, for North Carolina and Utah. Utah originally required independent candidates to file by Jan. 8, 2024, but earlier this month — soon after Kennedy filed a lawsuit against the state — it changed the date to March 5. ...
Kennedy's ballot access drive will also be heavily underwritten by the super PAC supporting him, American Values 2024. In December, the super PAC announced it would be investing $10 million to $15 million to put him on the ballot in at least 10 states . . ..
More.
The story likes to compare RFK Jr. to H. Ross Perot, but there's no way that RFK Jr. has anything close to the same appeal Perot once had and which still won him nothing.
Kennedy admits he's a spoiler, but most Americans still want a serious, positive candidacy, not a nattering nabob of negativism.
Saturday, December 16, 2023
World's largest shipping carrier MSC abandons Red Sea/Suez Canal travel, will divert vessels around Africa after Friday attacks by Iran-backed Houthi Rebels of Yemen, Biden administration dithers and jibbers
MSC, the world’s largest shipping carrier, joins shipping giants Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk in Red Sea travel pause amid attacks :
MSC, the world’s largest shipping carrier, said it is no longer traveling through the Suez Canal after its container ship, the MSC PALATIUM III, was attacked Friday while transiting the Red Sea under a subcharter to Messina Line. ...
In response to Friday’s attacks, in which three vessels were attacked, the World Shipping Council said it is deeply alarmed and concerned about the escalating crisis, and that it’s calling for decisive action to protect seafarers.
“The right of freedom of navigation stands as a fundamental right under international law, and must be safeguarded,” the council said. “The time for resolute international engagement is now.”
The U.S. government has been in discussions with countries of the 39-member Combined Maritime Forces to form a maritime task force to “ensure safe passage” of ships in the Red Sea.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees America’s military interests in the Middle East, has told CNBC discussions are ongoing.
Friday, December 15, 2023
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