Tag: Zero Hedge

FBI Raids Business Tied To James Biden Influence-Peddling ~ February ~ February 18, 2020


Editor’s Note: (Thanks J for this one!) The drama continues to build. Please read, understand the tide of truth is coming inwards to the shores of America in a hurry, and then BE…

InJoy!

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The FBI raided the home of a CEO of a bankrupt hospital chain last month along with one of its Pennsylvania hospitals central to influence-peddling accusations against Joe Biden’s brother, James, according to RealClearInvestigations.

The CEO, Grant White, was accused in a Kentucky bankruptcy court filing by the trustee of having “grossly mismanaged” Florida-based Americore holdings, which acquires and manages rural hospitals. According to the filing, White “has not operated the hospitals in a manner that is consistent with public safety,” and “improperly siphoned money from the Debtors for his personal benefit.”

In December, the firm declared bankruptcy. On January 29, the FBI raided White’s home, and one of Americore’s hospitals – Ellwood City Medical Center, the next day. One week later, the Kentucky court granted a motion to remove White as CEO.

The Biden connection

Last Summer, White and James Biden were accused of fraud in a lawsuit, along with Biden’s partner, hedge fund manager Michael Lewitt.

The lawsuit, filed by Tennessee businessman Michael Frey and his partner Dr. Mohannad Azzam, owners of Diverse Medical Management, also named Amer Rustom, another investor in Americore along with Biden and Lewitt.

The lawsuit alleges that James Biden had a prominent role in the company. One exhibit filed in the lawsuit is a photograph of an Americore business card that Biden reportedly handed out listing him as a “principal” in the company.

Frey alleges that when Diverse Medical Management and Americore were in talks to merge, Jim Biden promised to exploit his brother’s political influence as vice president to attract international investors and make the venture successful. –RCI

“Jim [Biden] told me. Don’t worry every time someone threatens to sue you you’re with us now nobody is gonna touch you,” Lewitt allegedly bragged over a text message to Frey, who says he was worried about legal liability to his firm over an acquisition.

“It was Frey’s understanding that Lewitt was implying that DMM [Diverse Medical Management] was ‘protected’ because of Jim Biden’s connections.”

The lawsuit also alleges that after failing to deliver on several promises made to Frey and Azzam, Biden took control of their dealings with Americore. “Biden instructed that Plaintiffs should no longer speak with Americore and White, but instead should deal exclusively with the Investor Defendants and their respective agents going forward, who would ensure that Plaintiffs’ model would find its way into hospitals and thrive,” the lawsuit says. –RCI

Biden and the other defendants are accused of pushing Frey and Azzam to take out loans for the purchase of failing rural hospitals they wanted to revive – based on assurances that they would be paid back when Biden helped secure investments from one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates, Dogan Holding.

According to the lawsuit, Biden inadvertently texted Frey and revealed his plans to take over Diverse Medical Management and cut out Frey and Azzam.

“We can wrap [Americore] into Frey’s entity further diluting them both in the process? After we take control of both.  Just a thought. We must have complete control, too many moving pieces. Jim,” the text reportedly read.

Prior to filing their lawsuit, Diverse Medical Management says it was unable to make payroll.

A Biden spokesman disputed the claims last August, saying “It is nothing more than a cynical attempt to manipulate the press by taking advantage of Jim Biden’s public profile as the brother of a presidential candidate.”

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The raids were not the first time the FBI has investigated matters related to Americore. It got involved last August when, soon after the lawsuit was filed, Frey received an envelope at his home containing a thinly veiled threat. “Inside the envelope was what appeared to be blood-stained currency from a Middle Eastern country commonly known as a haven for terror groups and a ‘torture ticket’ — a voucher for the infliction of torture,” according to Knox News, which reviewed the contents of the envelope. –RCI

James was a frequent guest at the White House when Joe was Vice President and scored invites to important state functions which often “dovetailed with his overseas business dealings,” such as the case of construction management firm subsidiary HillStone International, according to journalist Peter Schweizer.

On November 4, 2010, according to White House visitors’ logs, Justice visited the White House and met with Biden adviser Michele Smith in the Office of the Vice President.

Less than three weeks later, HillStone announced that James Biden would be joining the firm as an executive vice president. James appeared to have little or no background in housing construction, but that did not seem to matter to HillStone. –Peter Schweizer, via NY Post

According to Fox Business‘s Charlie Gasparino in 2012, HillStone’s Iraq project was expected to “generate $1.5 billion in revenues over the next three years,” more than tripling their revenue.

We can only imagine how disappointed James and the rest of the Biden brothers are at Joe’s sagging poll numbers.

US Has Spent $5,900,000,000,000 On War Since 2001 ~ November 19, 2018


Editor’s Note: Wow! And you wondered why you are broke, with America’s infrastructure falling down around us? Just take a look at this report, realize US Military members are not that well-off themselves, wonder where this money really went, and…

InJoy!

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Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

A new report from Brown University is aiming to provide a close estimate of the cost of the overall cost to the US government of its myriad post-9/11 wars and assorted global wars on terror. The estimate is that $5.933 trillion has been spent through fiscal year 2019.

 

This is, of course, vastly higher than official figures, owing to the Pentagon trying to oversimplify the costs into simply overseas contingency operations. It is only when one considers the cost of medical and disability care for soldiers, and future such costs, along with things like the interest on the extra money borrowed for the wars, that the true cost becomes clear.

That sort of vast expenditure is only the costs and obligations of the wars so far, and with little sign of them ending, they are only going to grow. In particular, a generation of wars is going to further add to the medical costs for veterans’ being consistently deployed abroad.

Starting in late 2001, the US has engaged in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere around the world. Many of those wars have become more or less permanent operations, with no consideration of ending them under any circumstances.

Those wishing to read the report can find it here.

Memo Reveals Soros-Funded Social-Media Censorship Plan ~ October 11, 2018


Note: This turned up in the drafts folder after our “issues” and hack attacks. I was quite sure this post was already published but in case it wasn’t, I will publish it now.  ~ BP

George Soros. Isn’t he dead? He looks dead.

I don’t think it matters what the deep state does now; the Trump Train is a runaway with more and more Americans (and patriots from other countries) hopping aboard every day. They can’t stop the train, and the elections will reveal just how many patriots are on board with the President now.

They have to ditch the electronic voting, however, and go back to paper ballots and have strict vote management with the counting. There can’t be one door left open where the crooks can find an opportunity to steal in and affect the results.  ~ BP


reblogged from Deus Nexus…

Memo Reveals Soros-Funded Social-Media Censorship Plan

Plotted with Google, Facebook to eliminate ‘right wing propaganda’

The recent wave of censorship of conservative voices on the internet by tech giants Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Apple mirrors a plan concocted by a coalition of George Soros-funded, progressive groups to take back power in Washington from President Trump’s administration.

A confidential, 49-page memo for defeating Trump by working with the major social-media platforms to eliminate “right wing propaganda and fake news” was presented in January 2017  by Media Matters founder David Brock at a retreat in Florida with about 100 donors, the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time.

On Monday, the Gateway Pundit blog noted the memo’s relationship with recent moves by Silicon Valley tech giants to “shadow ban” conservative political candidates and pundits and remove content.

The Free Beacon obtained a copy of the memo, “Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action,” by attending the retreat.

The memo spells out a four-year agenda that deployed Media Matters along with American Bridge, Shareblue and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to attack Trump and Republicans.

The strategies are impeachment, expanding Media Matters’ mission to combat “government misinformation,” ensuring Democratic control of the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections, filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, monetizing political advocacy, using a “digital attacker” to delegitimize Trump’s presidency and damage Republicans, and partnering with Facebook to combat “fake news.”

Quashing ‘fake news’ with ‘mathematical precision’

The Free Beacon in its January 2017 story said Brock sought to raise $40 million in 2017 for his organizations.

The document claims Media Matters and far-left groups have “access to raw data from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites” so they can “systemically monitor and analyze this unfiltered data.”

“The earlier we can identify a fake news story, the more effectively we can quash it,” the memo states. “With this new technology at our fingertips, researchers monitoring news in real time will be able to identify the origins of a lie with mathematical precision, creating an early warning system for fake news and disinformation.”

Media Matters met with Facebook, which boasts some 2 billion members worldwide, to discuss how to crack down on fake news, according to the memo.

The social media giant was provided with “a detailed map of the constellation of right-wing Facebook pages that had been the biggest purveyors of fake news.”

Brock’s memo also says Media Matters gave Google “the information necessary to identify 40 of the worst fake new sites” so they could be banned from Google’s advertising network.

The Gateway Pundit pointed out that in 2016, Google carried out that plan on the Gateway Pundit blog and other conservative sites, including Breitbart, the Drudge Report, Infowars, Zero Hedge and Conservative Treehouse.

Facebook, meanwhile has changed its newsfeed algorithm, ostensibly to combat “fake news,” causing a precipitous decline in traffic for many conservative sites.

President Donald Trump himself was affected, with his engagement on Facebook dropping by 45 percent.

A study in June by Gateway Pundit found Facebook had eliminated 93 percent of the traffic of top conservative news outlets.

Western Journal, in its own study, found that while left-wing publishers saw a roughly 2 percent increase in web traffic from Facebook following the algorithm changes, conservative sites saw a loss of traffic averaging around 14 percent.

‘Totalitarian impulse’ of the left

President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, charged last week the giants of Silicon Valley are stifling free speech, particularly conservative speech, manifesting the “inherent totalitarian impulse” of the left.

On Friday, Facebook appeared to be “shadow banning” the non-profit education site PragerU, founded by talk-host Dennis Prager, causing a drop in engagement of 99.9999 percent while removing two videos regarded as “hate speech.”

After Facebook rejected a highly inspirational ad for a Republican congressional candidate that included images depicting her parents’ persecution under the Khmer Rouge communist regime in Cambodia, Twitter followed up with its own ban.

WND reported earlier this month Facebook banned a pro-life video ad by a judicial candidate, giving the same explanation.

On Aug. 6,  WND reported, Facebook, YouTube and Apple banned commentator Alex Jones and his Infowars website within hours of each other.

Last month, WND reported moderate Muslims and counter-terrorist activists were increasingly being restricted by Silicon Valley, while terrorist content remains on social-media platforms, according to researchers.

Trump campaign chief Parscale said last week the banning of Jones “will inevitably lead to the silencing of those with far less controversial opinions.”

“What we are seeing in Big Tech is the inherent totalitarian impulse of the Left come into full focus,” Parscale said.

About the Author

Art Moore, co-author of the best-selling book “See Something, Say Nothing,” entered the media world as a PR assistant for the Seattle Mariners and a correspondent covering pro and college sports for Associated Press Radio. He reported for a Chicago-area daily newspaper and was senior news writer for Christianity Today magazine and an editor for Worldwide Newsroom before joining WND shortly after 9/11. He earned a master’s degree in communications from Wheaton College.

Trump Will Send “Presidential Alert” To Every Cell Phone In America On Thursday ~ September 16, 2018


Editor’s Note: Thanks to J. for sending report from Tyler Durden from Zero hedge to me…it’s a pretty important indicator of “something” getting ready to happen for us ALL! Pretty positive movement in my book…please read, understand what’s going on, and…

InJoy!

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he Federal Emergency Management Agency  (FEMA), in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) on September 20th.

The emergency communications drill will begin at 2:18 p.m. EDT through 2:20 p.m. EDT. Every cell phone in the US will receive a text message from President Trump.

 

All US wireless firms and more than 100 mobile carriers are participating in the exercise that allows for presidential alerts, FEMA wrote in a Thursday press release.

“The EAS [Emergency Alert System] is a national public warning system that provides the president with the communications capability to address the nation during a national emergency,” FEMA said in a statement.

Cell phones will receive a text message that states “Presidential Alert” and “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

Separate from the FEMA statement, a FEMA National Test Fact Sheet detailed how the EAS is used with radio and television broadcasters, cable systems, satellite radio and television providers, and wireline video providers. The upcoming FEMA EAS message will read:

“THIS IS A TEST of the National Emergency Alert System. This system was developed by broadcast and cable operators in voluntary cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, and local authorities to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, an official message would have followed the tone alert you heard at the start of this message. A similar Wireless Emergency Alert test message has been sent to all cell phones nationwide. Some cell phones will receive the message; others will not. No action is required.”

The WEA system is currently in use to warn the public about dangerous weather, missing children, and other vital information. The FEMA WEA message will read:

“THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

The goal of the test will evaluate the readiness to distribute an emergency message nationwide and determine whether improvements are needed, FEMA said in a statement. The upcoming alerts will be sent using FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), which allows government officials to send emergency messages to multiple communications networks, including the EAS and WEA as part of the nation’s modern alert and warning infrastructure.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai explains how the Wireless Emergency Alert system works

Despite Trump’s obsession with Twitter as a direct means of communicating, experts told NBC News last week that President Trump will not abuse the “Presidential Alert” system.

“If you separate this from the politics and personality of any individual president then this is a great idea and an amazing use of technology to reach everybody if they’re in harms way,” said Karen North, director of the Annenberg Digital Social Media program at the University of Southern California.

UCLA communications professor Tim Groeling agreed, told NBC via email, “broadcast-based emergency alert systems … have remained professional and impartial over decades.”