Puppet MastersS


Attention

ICE gave $87M no-bid contract to business with Biden ties, raising conflict of interest questions

Anna Giaritelli
Washington Examiner
Wed, 07 Apr 2021 02:45 UTC
Andrew Lorenzen Strait
© endeavors.orgAndrew Lorenzen Strait
The Biden administration did not solicit bids for a multimillion contract to house migrant families in hotels and instead gave the massive contract to an organization whose leadership has ties to the White House, including one official who was on the Biden transition team.

In its rush to stand up facilities to hold families who come over the southern border illegally in rising numbers, the Biden administration signed a deal that a member of Congress and people with knowledge of the matter said presented a conflict of interest and wasted existing government facilities.

Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (an agency of the Department of Homeland Security) signed an $87 million contract to acquire and oversee an operation involving 1,200 hotel beds to house migrant families in Arizona and Texas. The contract was given to the nonprofit organization Family Endeavors, based out of San Antonio, Texas, which has no previous history as an ICE contractor.

But Family Endeavors does have a former senior official on the Biden transition team in its leadership: former ICE official Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, identified as a potential broker in the deal by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who is tracking the contract, as well as two others with knowledge of the situation.

Comment: Desperate times, desperate measures, insider deals and deniable accountability - a Biden family trademark. Legalities? He probably thought nothing of it.

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Arrow Up

Biden $1.5T budget proposes major hike in social programs

Niv Elis
The Hill
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 11:00 UTC
Biden and trillion
© Andrew Harnik/AP/KJNUS President Joe Biden's budget proposal
President Biden on Friday proposed a $1.5 trillion annual budget for fiscal 2022, $118 billion higher than the regular 2020 appropriations, featuring a significant 16 percent boost in nondefense spending.

The $769 billion nondefense budget, which covers government departments such as Transportation, Health and Human Services, Justice and Education, is a $105.7 billion increase from the current level.

Administration officials, who say that the government has underinvested in domestic spending for years, noted that it would be roughly in line with the 30-year nondefense average of 3.3 percent of gross domestic product.

Defense spending, which some budget watchers expected to stay flat in the proposal, would increase by $12.3 billion, or 1.7 percent, to $753 billion, though none of that spending will take place through a decades-old "emergency" bucket of spending that many derided as a budget gimmick and slush fund.

In a stark reversal from four years of budget requests from President Trump, which sought to slash funding for major agencies but were routinely dismissed by Congress, the Biden proposal beefs up government agencies, including a 40.8 percent increase for Education, a 27.7 percent increase for Commerce, a 23.1 percent increase for Health and Human Services and a 16 percent increase for Agriculture.
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Target

Armed Iraq groups threaten to strike US forces if no withdrawal date is set


MEMO
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 01:40 UTC
Iraqi troops
© AP/Khalid MohammedIraq's elite counter-terrorism forces
The Coordinating Body of the Iraqi Resistance Factions yesterday warned that it would direct large and accurate strikes against US forces in Iraq if no clear date is set for their final withdrawal from the country, Anadolu reported. The body, which includes Iran- backed militia groups such as the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, said in a statement:
"Today, the resistance finds itself obliged (...) to direct large and precise blows if this dialogue does not include a clear and explicit declaration of the final withdrawal date for the occupation forces: by land, air, and completely."
Yesterday, Iraqi and US officials held the third round of strategic dialogue to discuss a number of issues including cooperation in combating terrorism. In a joint statement after the talks, the two governments said the mission of US forces was now focused on training Iraqi troops to fight Daesh and as a result US combat troops wouldn't be needed in the country. They added that they had agreed on the eventual withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq and that the two governments would hold further talks to work out the timing.

The Iraqi Resistance Factions said the meeting's final statement was "vague.. and does not contain any indication of the implementation of the Parliament's decision to expel American occupation forces from Iraq."

Comment: 'We don't need you. We can do it ourselves!':
Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said Wednesday:
"A significant growth of our security services potential and the changing nature of the terrorist threat across the world have in recent months provided the ground for the pullout of some 60 percent of international coalition forces from Iraq ... This allows Iraq to move to the stage where there is no more need for the presence of foreign troops."
The prime minister said that foreign forces can soon be limited to advisory, logistical support and intelligence sharing functions until Iraq gains total self-reliance capabilities in these areas as well. The upcoming US-Iraq consultations will deal with a broad range of issues apart from foreign military presence, such as cooperation in politics, economy, health and culture, according to the prime minister's statement.

In August 2020, the sides agreed to pull all foreign troops out of Iraq within three years. In October, a coordination group was formed to set up a timetable for the withdrawal. Since then, the US handed a number of military sites back over to Iraq, including airbases and army headquarters.
Removal of US troops is in progress:
Some 2,700 military advisers out of 5,200 have left Iraq according to Hussein Allawi, adviser for security sector reform to the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office. The Iraqi prime minister additionally ordered a technical committee to be set up for overseeing the negotiations process.
"The American side reduced the number of its troops, 2,700 American advisers left Iraq, and yesterday the US said that there will be no troops in Iraq in the future ... right now there are no foreign combat units in Iraq, all military personnel present are advisers who share information with Iraqi personnel, help structure the Iraqi army and provide support to the Iraqi air force when asked to do so by the Iraqi military command."
The adviser ruled out the possibility that Washington would change its mind, saying that "no one can violate Iraq's sovereignty."

During Wednesday's talks, after discussing security matters, the US and Iraqi sides discussed trade, economy and culture, including the return of cultural artifacts and archives to the country.
Whatever the underlying reasons were for the US troops to remain so long in Iraq, they no longer pertain:
After a first "strategic dialogue" under President Joe Biden's administration, the two nations said that the Iraqi military had made substantial improvements. The moves comes amid near daily rocket fire on US forces attributed to Shiite paramilitary groups linked to Iran, which led Biden to order airstrikes on affiliated camps in Syria.

But Biden, in a rare point of agreement with his predecessor Donald Trump, has been looking for ways to wind down what have come to be dubbed "endless wars." Trump had ordered a drawdown in his final months from Iraq as well as Afghanistan with the number of US troops in each country dipping to 2,500 by January 15.

A joint statement said:
"The transition of US and other international forces away from combat operations to training, equipping and assisting the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) reflects the success of their strategic partnership and ensures support to the ISF's continued efforts to ensure ISIS can never again threaten Iraq's stability."
Iraq in the statement pledged to protect bases with US-led forces, who Washington said were present "solely in support of Iraq's effort in the fight against ISIS."


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Laptop

No doubt Hunter Biden's laptop 'was his all along'. Forensic expert verifies drugs, prostitution and porn pics


RT
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 21:22 UTC
Hunter Biden
© Reuters/Tom BrennerHunter Biden
A digital forensics expert has reviewed the contents of Hunter Biden's infamous laptop, and claims that the contents within - which reveal dodgy business deals, drug abuse and sexual misadventure - are "authentic."

Hunter Biden's laptop was the subject of a smoking-gun story by the New York Post just three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Retrieved from a Delaware computer repair store in 2019 and handed to Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's lawyer, the laptop contained a tranche of emails and texts that appeared to implicate the Biden family in numerous foreign corruption schemes, all while Joe was first in the White House as vice president.

Joe Biden himself dismissed the laptop story as "debunked" and "garbage," his campaign and party claimed it was fabricated by Russia, and much of the mainstream media refused to report on it. However, the Daily Mail hired a computer forensics firm to examine the computer, who declared its contents "authentic."

The firm, Maryman & Associates, is run by a 29-year FBI veteran, and "used the same forensic tools to pick apart the drive as federal and state law enforcement use in criminal investigations," according to a Daily Mail article published on Thursday. The firm concluded:
"The operating system timestamps appear to be authentic, and no evidence was found to suggest that the timestamps or data were altered or manufactured. No indications were found that would indicate the data was manufactured."
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Rocket

Senior NASA official to RT: A 'great working relationship' will allow Russia & US to travel 'further out into space together'


RT
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 19:20 UTC
Soyuz MS-18 ISS
© NASA/Bill Ingalls/Handout via REUTERSThe Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft carrying the crew formed of Mark Vande Hei of NASA and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan April 9, 2021.
Despite their disagreements on Earth, Moscow and Washington enjoy friendly relations in outer space and their continued cooperation will help advance human exploration of the cosmos, a NASA administrator told RT.

"We have a great working relationship with our Russian counterparts. We love working with them. We've worked together for a long time now," said Kenneth Bowersox, acting Deputy Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA, while visiting Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Bowersox added that both countries understand each other's "weaknesses and strengths," and that while sometimes they don't see eye-to-eye on certain matters, like in any friendship they find ways to resolve their differences.

Comment:

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Chess

Trump, other potential 2024 GOP contenders, gather at major retreat — on The Donald's home turf

Paul Steinhauser
Fox News
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 18:58 UTC
Trump speaks at vaccine press conference
© Fox NewsPresident Trump speaks at one of his many press conferences on the development of a covid vaccine
The GOP's wealthiest contributors and biggest fundraisers will be in Palm Beach, Fla., this weekend for a Republican National Committee (RNC) donor retreat that's also attracting more than half a dozen potential 2024 presidential contenders.

Among those expected to show up and mingle with some of the Republican Party's biggest powerbrokers and rainmakers - according to multiple sources -- are Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rick Scott (the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair) and Marco Rubio of Florida. All six politicians are considered possible hopefuls in the next race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Also speaking at the conference is another GOP politician who's flirting with a 2024 White House run - former President Trump.

Comment: Oh to be a fly on the wall at this gathering. Will it be a love-fest for far and way the Republican Party's most electable prospect, Donald Trump, or quiet melee of backstabbing, as lesser lights jockey for position?

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Eye 1

Ice Age Farmer Report: ABSOLUTE SLAVERY: Zero Carbon Agenda Deconstructed


Ice Age Farmer
Tue, 06 Apr 2021 18:33 UTC
ice age
What is a zero-carbon future? What does it look like? To imagine, turn off your heater. No airports. No shipping. No animals. Perfect surveillance state.

In this Ice Age Farmer special report, Christian breaks The "Absolute Zero" plan and how governments are actively taking drastic steps every day to meet these dystopian goals for Travel, Transport, Energy, Manufacturing, Recycling, and Food.

We must understand the reality underneath their flowery philanthropic language: Absolute Slavery.

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Eye 1

Ice Age Farmer Report: FARMERS FIGHT BACK: French, Croatians Protest Seed Law & Takeover of Food


Ice Age Farmer
Wed, 07 Apr 2021 18:17 UTC
FARMERS
Farmers in France and Croatia are standing up to EU policies that are designed to end traditional farming and ranching: Even as a new seed law CRIMINALIZES traditional seed saving, drones and satellites are launched to monitor all fishing in realtime.

Croatians are wary of the EU Ag Census which takes total inventory of all food production -- farms, animals, bees, anything -- because it was only 1945 when Yugoslavia LAST conducted a census ... right before they collectivized the farms and kicked people off their land. They remember. They recognize a total takeover of food. Do you?


Sources
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Attention

Amazon is shielding Hunter Biden's memoir from bad reviews

Matt Margolis
PJ Media
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 17:08 UTC
amazon sign
© AP Photo/Michel Spingler
As an author, I have a love-hate relationship with Amazon. In the past, Amazon has inexplicably purged reviews from conservative books, including my own, without explanation.

My book, The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama, is routinely targeted by the Left for bogus negative reviews. Roughly 25 percent of the book's reviews have always been bogus one-star reviews that are not tagged as a "verified purchase" that simply accuse me of being racist, claim the book is poorly researched (it has over 1,000 endnotes), or involve some other attack. Since its original publication in 2016, the percentage of these bogus reviews appears virtually unchanged.

I've made many complaints to Amazon over the years for the incredible number of undeniably bogus reviews that make it through the company's screening process.

Comment: The "right sort of people" have been getting this cushioning for a while. Amazon has not confined itself to protecting favored political figures and views, but has actively suppressed the opposite, in a kind of digital book burning:

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NPC

Twitter posturing: Will not allow access to Trump account archive on platform

Jordan Williams
The Hill
Wed, 07 Apr 2021 16:27 UTC
trump twitter
Twitter will not allow an archive of former President Trump's @realDonaldTrump account on its platform.

A Twitter spokesperson told The Hill that the platform has been working with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on preserving tweets from the account, as they've done in the past with government Twitter accounts.

However, content from the account will not appear on the platform itself.

Comment: Empty bravura from libtard Twitter. The alternate social media site Gab archived all of Trump's tweets back in January, where they continue to be available to the public. Trump posts there on a daily basis.

Gab CEO pulls off the impossible for Trump...
Gab CEO completely backed up President Trump's Twitter account before it was deleted and recreated him on Gab! What's even more impressive is the did this while traffic was up 700% and under attack from leftists. Gab is currently having servers upgraded to handle the large influx in traffic but we're told it should stabilize soon.

President Trump's new account: https://gab.com/realdonaldtrump
From Trump's page:
About

Reserved for the 45th President of the United States of America This account is an uncensored Twitter archive and shares email statements sent by The Office of Donald J. Trump.


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