Biden's America Last Program
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Security experts fume over report linking Pentagon official to covert Iranian influence unit
Ariane Tabatabai currently serves as the chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. She was previously a senior policy advisor to the Department of Defense and a senior advisor to the Department of State, according to her LindkedIn.
She has also written for Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), an independent private foundation specializing in foreign affairs and security issues. ASD is funded by billionaire Pierre Omidyar's "Democracy Fund" and the Sandler Foundation, among others.
An article published in Semafor this week linked Tabatabai to the Iranian Experts Initiative (IEI), a Tehran-backed project to advance its positions and improve its public image across the world. The outlet obtained a litany of communications between IEI participants and the Iranian government. Among those communications was an email from March 2014 in which Iranian diplomat Saeed Khatibzadeh confirmed meetings with Tabatabai and another academic, saying that "]w]e three agreed to be the core group of the IEI."
Critics of the IEI describe it as "a covert operation initiated by Iran’s foreign ministry in 2014", and that the IEI was "meticulously planned to strategically position Iranian analysts within Western think tanks, subtly advancing Iran's diplomatic objectives."
Biden criticizes misinformation on "X" (Twitter), and targets Elon Musk's other companies widely
Following Musk’s takeover of Twitter last year, his companies have been probed by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission as he has been an advocated for free speech on the platform. The probes include the Justice Department’s Immigrant and Employee Rights division investigating a complaint of employment discrimination from a non-U.S. citizen, who alleged that SpaceX discriminated against him based on his citizenship status, according to Reuters.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York are also investigating the personal benefits that Tesla may have provided its CEO Elon Musk since 2017 as part of a criminal probe that is also looking into the use of company funds to build a proposed glass house.
President Joe Biden was asked by ProPublica in an interview aired Sunday if Musk lowering the guardrails against misinformation on Twitter (now X) contributed to the problem of misinformation.
“Yeah, it does,” Biden said. “Where do people get their news?” he later added. “They go on the internet. They go online … and you have no notion whether it’s true or not.”
Musk wrote in a post last year that he has previously “voted Democrat,” but would “vote Republican” because the Democratic Party had “become the party of division & hate.”
“Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold,” he added.
While shutdown battles have become common, this one had absurd moments. Democrats tried to delay votes with everything from “magic minutes,” which allow party leaders to speak at length, to Democrat Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulling a fire alarm in the middle of a vote, forcing the evacuation of a House office building.
With hundreds of Jan. 6 protesters facing excessive sentences, which Department of Justice prosecutors say is because they attempted to delay or obstruct an official congressional proceeding, some Americans began demanding the elected member of Congress be held to the same excruciating standard. Bowman, a former school principal, later claimed he didn’t understand how fire alarms work.
Even after the House passed the bill, Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado further delayed the eventual passage by placing a hold on the bill. The procedural delays were partly a result of efforts to force a shutdown that could be blamed on Republicans. Conventional wisdom in Washington is that Republicans get blamed for government shutdowns regardless of who is responsible.
thefederalist.com
With hundreds of Jan. 6 protesters facing excessive sentences, which Department of Justice prosecutors say is because they attempted to delay or obstruct an official congressional proceeding, some Americans began demanding the elected member of Congress be held to the same excruciating standard. Bowman, a former school principal, later claimed he didn’t understand how fire alarms work.
Even after the House passed the bill, Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado further delayed the eventual passage by placing a hold on the bill. The procedural delays were partly a result of efforts to force a shutdown that could be blamed on Republicans. Conventional wisdom in Washington is that Republicans get blamed for government shutdowns regardless of who is responsible.
Democrats Make Ukraine Funding Their Top Priority
Democrats’ campaign strategy of emphasizing Ukraine war funding at a time of economic distress for many Americans is interesting.
thefederalist.com
If you resold a Taylor Swift ticket for a profit, prepare to pay taxes. Here’s what to know
Taylor Swift fans forked out an average $2,183 for a resold ticket to a concert on the superstar’s The Eras Tour, according to resale research site TicketIQ. Now, ticket resellers may owe taxes on profits made during what may turn to be — for them, at least — a rather “cruel summer.”
Ticket profits have always been taxable, but the new IRS reporting threshold for business transactions on third-party platforms, such as Ticketmaster or eBay, is now a single payment of $600, down from 200 transactions worth an aggregate of more than $20,000.
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Here’s how to prepare for Form 1099-K
Taxpayers who received business payments from e-commerce platforms such as Ticketmaster, eBay, Venmo and PayPal that exceed $600 will receive Form 1099-K this tax season. While this may be your first time receiving this form, don’t ignore it, experts say.“Before, the IRS did not have any way to know about earnings from resold tickets,” said Lucas. “Now, these platforms are required to notify the IRS and you have to report.”
People who made more than $1,000 reselling Taylor Swift tickets “easily exceed that threshold of $600 for this year,” said CFP James Guarino, managing director at Baker Newman Noyes in Boston. He is also a certified public accountant.
Biden cancels another $9 billion in student loan debt days after payments restart
- U.S. President Joe Biden is set to announce an additional $9 billion in student debt relief for 125,000 borrowers, bringing the total approved debt cancellation by the Biden administration to $127 billion for nearly 3.6 million Americans.
- The announcement includes $5.2 billion in debt relief for 53,000 borrowers under Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs, and nearly $2.8 billion in new debt relief for almost 51,000 borrowers through fixes to "income-driven repayment."
- The new measures aim to alleviate the burden of student loan debt and make college more affordable for Americans, continuing President Biden's commitment to fixing the broken student loan system.
Biden Admin To Give $12.5 Million Grant For Equity-Driven Emissions Reduction Research
In addition to tackling emissions reductions goals, the research center must also be equity-driven: aiming to have “proportional,” not equal, impact on the community in which the research center will be located. The research center must also eliminate any disparities in transportation access.
“[The research center will] create proportional impacts to all populations in a project area, remove transportation related [sic] disparities to all populations in a project area, and increase equitable access to project benefits,” stated the grant opportunity page.
Equity won’t be the only goal of the research center. The full funding goals documents declare that the research center must produce “innovative applications of social and behavioral sciences and other policy interventions” to influence public usage of lower-carbon transportation.
In a press release announcing the funding, DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg claimed that the burden of emissions on the climate were responsible for recent natural disasters like the Maui fire and the Vermont flood.
“In the past few months alone, Americans from Vermont to Hawaii have faced the devastating impact of so-called ‘once-in-a-century’ disasters that are now becoming more frequent, more deadly, and more destructive to our economy than ever,” said Buttigieg. “As we face the profound and urgent threat of the climate crisis, we need cleaner transportation systems, and this investment will help deliver that by harnessing research and technology to find new solutions.”
J.D. Vance Grills Commerce Sec Over ‘Diversity Mandates’ For Fed Funding In Semiconductor Industry
“I’m struggling to make sense of the fact that we apparently have a shortage of skilled labor to manufacture chips on the one hand, and yet the Secretary of Commerce is telling people that they can only hire the people who check the right diversity boxes,” Vance said. “That doesn’t make a ton of sense — and seems to be counterproductive to the goal of bringing this industry back to the United States in the first place.”
The Biden administration signed the act into law last year as an effort to combat supply-driven inflationary pressures and bring American manufacturing industries back to the United States as multiple key Asian manufacturing economies enforced harsh lockdown measures two years ago in response to COVID, creating bottlenecks in the global semiconductor supply chain that persist to the present day.
The department is overseeing a $39 billion semiconductor subsidy program under the act to help create industry jobs. The department reportedly has received over 500 statements of interest from companies to work on semiconductor manufacturing and over 100 applications.
But Vance’s concerns over the particular implementation criteria could sway a company to plant a chip fabrication facility in China rather than the U.S.
“From China, they get cheap labor, massive subsidies, and a government that seems to want to work with them,” he said. “From the United States, they get a little bit of money and a human resources statement that looks like it was written by a 22-year-old gender studies graduate of Harvard or Yale.”
Raimondo acknowledged during the hearing the need for the U.S. to produce chips and said the federal government would use the legislation toward labor, training, and workforce, but denied companies are mandated to hire so-called diversity applicants.
“What would you call it when the Secretary of Commerce says you must do this in order to receive funding? If it’s not a mandate, what is it?” Vance asked. “They have to show us a workforce plan in order to receive money from the federal government — that is the definition of a mandate. You must do X in order to receive Y dollars.”
“Why would you locate your facility in the United States of America when you get a human resources lecture from us, but from China, you get a whole lot of money and a whole lot of facilitation for your business? What’s the market economy here? Is it the economy that makes it hard to do business or easier to do business?”
Raimondo contended her job is to “protect taxpayer money.”
Where is this money coming from .? One of his spending bills .?
Hijinx
Well-Known Member
Ya know what, If this dog bit 11 times how many times did it threaten to bite.
Dogs don't just bite they growl, they sneak to get a better position, If this dog bit 11 times it was threatening a helluva lot more.
The dog needs to be put down.
White House In FULL PANIC MODE Over Border Crisis
“How bad is the border crisis, really?” you might ask. You’re probably aware that a mini Democrat Civil War is brewing — in New York, of all places — where the arrival of a few tens of thousands of illegals had Gov. Kathy Hochul sniping at Presidentish Joe Biden last week. Just a couple of days ago, in Chicago, residents of the West Side’s Galewood neighborhood were “livid” over plans to house illegals there.
None of that is anything compared to today’s news that the White House just hit the panic button so hard that it almost made me spill my martini.
I’m kidding, of course — I’d never spill a martini. Besides, it’s far too early in the day for one of those; I’m having a Bloody Mary, like a civilized human being. But read on to see why I came close to shooting spicy tomato juice and vodka out of my nose, totally unlike a civilized human being.
It was shocking enough when I read that the White House was engaged in a “stark reversal of its previous stance on the physical barrier,” as the New York Post put it with uncharacteristic dryness.
Immigrants frustrated after waiting on the southern side of the United States border wall staged a mass crossing late Tuesday, captured in a video that has since gone viral.
Several hundred immigrants stormed past Mexican authorities, chanting and cheering in a chaotic scene as they paraded toward the border, intent on crossing and being admitted through locked gates in the wall.
Mexican officials did nothing to stop the caravan. One officer smoked as he watched the group walk past him and others watched the group march by.
The crossing came just a day after local Mexican media reported that as many as 3,000 immigrants from South America and Central America had arrived in Juarez on freight trains that carried them north.
Immigrants apprehended by Border Patrol are typically allowed through the gates and then held at the border for several hours while agents arrange transportation to processing centers, where each person is interviewed, fingerprinted, and given the chance to shower and eat.
www.washingtonexaminer.com
Several hundred immigrants stormed past Mexican authorities, chanting and cheering in a chaotic scene as they paraded toward the border, intent on crossing and being admitted through locked gates in the wall.
Mexican officials did nothing to stop the caravan. One officer smoked as he watched the group walk past him and others watched the group march by.
The crossing came just a day after local Mexican media reported that as many as 3,000 immigrants from South America and Central America had arrived in Juarez on freight trains that carried them north.
Immigrants apprehended by Border Patrol are typically allowed through the gates and then held at the border for several hours while agents arrange transportation to processing centers, where each person is interviewed, fingerprinted, and given the chance to shower and eat.
Immigrants parade across El Paso border in chaotic scene - Washington Examiner
Immigrants frustrated after waiting on the southern side of the United States border wall staged a mass crossing late Tuesday, captured in a video that has since gone viral.Several hundred immigrants stormed past Mexican authorities, chanting and cheering in a chaotic scene as they paraded...
www.washingtonexaminer.com