by Harley Schlanger, LaRouche Organization: The imperial oligarchy is unwilling to give up, without a fight, the special privileges they have established, which has made them rich. That is why there is a NATO war against Russia, and threats to China. Those two countries are leaders of the BRICS alliance, which is committed to ending […]
Month: September 2024
Hezbollah chief to make address Thursday after pagers blasts
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah will make an address on Thursday, a statement from the Iran-backed group said, after hundreds of pagers used by his movement’s members exploded across Lebanon. Nasrallah will speak at 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Thursday in a speech addressing “the latest developments”, the group’s statement on Wednesday said.
The post Hezbollah chief to make address Thursday after pagers blasts appeared first on Insider Paper.
Biden’s Department Of Energy Short On Cash To Refill SPR At Low Prices
Biden’s Department Of Energy Short On Cash To Refill SPR At Low Prices
By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com
The price of the U.S. WTI crude oil has finally stayed in the low $70s per barrel for a sustainable period of time, allowing the Biden Administration to ramp up the refill of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which it had said would do at prices of $79 a barrel or below.
WTI Crude is now at $70 per barrel as of Tuesday morning, after spending days below that threshold.
But the Energy Department has just $841 million left to buy crude for the SPR, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing an estimate by ClearView Energy Partners, a consulting firm. That money would be enough to buy only around 12 million barrels of crude at today’s prices, per Bloomberg’s calculations.
This would be a drop in the ocean, considering that the SPR is only just over half full compared to its capacity of 700 million barrels.
DOE’s Office of Petroleum Reserves has recently announced a call for bids to supply up to 1.5 million barrels of oil to the Bayou Choctaw site in January 2025. An additional solicitation will follow on August 12, 2024, for another 2 million barrels destined for the Bryan Mound site, also for delivery in January 2025.
The replenishment strategy comes in the wake of the SPR’s critical role in stabilizing the market during global supply disruptions, notably the release of more than 180 million barrels of oil from the SPR starting in 2021, as gasoline prices remained high. The Department of Treasury claims that these releases, along with coordinated international efforts, helped reduce gasoline prices by up to 40 cents per gallon in 2022.
The SPR currently houses 375 million barrels of crude—a figure that is 263 million barrels less than oil in the SPR at the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term in office. The SPR, capable of storing as many as 714 million barrels of crude oil, is kept in underground salt caverns at four sites in Texas and Louisiana and was designed to protect the economy and American livelihoods during oil shortages.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/18/2024 – 06:30
The Fed Hits the Panic Button and Slashes the Fed Funds Rate
The Fed is desperate for you to think that “this time is different.” Unfortunately, Powell can’t seem to come up with explanation of why that is the case.
The Second Trump Shooter Believed Exactly What the Establishment Media Wanted Him to Believe
After Trump narrowly escaped another assassination attempt, the establishment seems uninterested in the motives of the would-be shooter. Perhaps that’s because he’s echoing the same simplistic narratives about the Ukraine war and Trump that they demand we all believe.
The ‘Big Story’ Isn’t The Second Assassination Attempt Against Donald Trump, It Is How The National Media Has Created An Army Of Unhinged Liberals With Their Fake News
by Stefan Stanford, All News Pipeline: Big news of the day seems to be that another crazed leftist, tried to assassinate the Republican nominee for President, who happens to be a former president, Donald Trump. There were no reported injuries during the incident on Sunday. The Associated Press, CNN, and other outlets citing law enforcement sources identified […]
US Secures Convictions, Guilty Pleas As CCP-Directed Spying Exposed
US Secures Convictions, Guilty Pleas As CCP-Directed Spying Exposed
Authored by Eva Fu, Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
For years, Beijing has been deepening its hold on America, drawing intelligence from the U.S. government while silencing critics with the help of agents embedded in U.S. society.
The United States is now hitting back—and seeing results, according to experts.
In early September, prosecutors arrested Linda Sun, former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, accusing her of acting on behalf of Beijing in exchange for gifts and payouts valued in millions of dollars to her family.
There has also been a marked increase in the rate of convictions or pleas in recent months. The Justice Department has brought forth dozens of CCP-directed espionage and foreign agent cases in the past four years, resulting in at least 13 convictions or pleas, with more than half of those taking place this year—including three in the past month. an Epoch Times review of the court records show.
On Aug. 6, a Chinese American scholar posing as a pro-democracy activist was convicted by a jury for spying on dissidents for the CCP.
On Aug. 13, a U.S. army intelligence analyst from Texas pleaded guilty to selling military secrets to the CCP.
On Aug. 23, a software engineer who worked two decades at Verizon pleaded guilty to gathering intelligence on countless dissidents and organizations targeted by the CCP since 2012.
Case documents reveal a broad range of criminal actions taken by agents, often different from what most may imagine to be spying. Beyond industrial espionage and covert influence campaigns, the regime has directed hacker rings, including a group that was charged and sanctioned this year for waging a 14-year campaign on the United States.
“I feel that our nation must take every opportunity to stop these threats,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), chair of the cybersecurity subcommittee for the House Armed Services Committee, told The Epoch Times, noting that the U.S. intelligence community has identified Beijing as the number one threat to the United States.
Bacon has experienced Chinese espionage attempts firsthand. Last year, he was hacked by CCP-linked hackers who also broke into email systems of State and Commerce department officials and dozens of other groups.
“Can we ever say that whatever actions we are taking are enough? I don’t believe so as the threats are increasing in frequency, sophistication, and national security impact,” Bacon said.
Who Are the Spies?
The CCP has long targeted people of Chinese descent—of whom there are more than 60 million people outside China—as potential assets in its intelligence operations.
Among those charged by the DOJ in the foreign agent cases are officials of the CCP’s top intelligence gathering agency Ministry of State Security (MSS), Chinese citizens traveling to the United States under false pretenses, hackers residing in Asian countries; as well as asylees, permanent residents, and U.S. citizens of Chinese descent.
Some reside in the United States while dozens of others charged are known to reside in China, and will now face arrest if they ever set foot on American soil.
There are also many who are U.S. citizens that aren’t of Chinese descent. They include active military members, former law enforcement, and experts in competitive fields.
The CCP engages in what experts such as Casey Fleming, chair and CEO of risk consultancy BlackOps Partners, describe as “unrestricted warfare,” meaning there are no legal, ethical, or moral lines it will not cross to pursue its objectives. It capitalizes on one’s baser instincts—greed, pride, lust, shame—to recruit assets.
“Number one, it’s money. Number two, it’s ego. Number three, it’s blackmail,” Fleming, who advises the DOJ, FBI, and Congress on the CCP threat, told The Epoch Times.
In May, two New Yorkers pleaded guilty in an indictment that charged seven, including MSS officials in China, for trying to coerce an American family to go back to China to be imprisoned by the CCP.
The defendant had harassed the Chinese man with bogus lawsuits and told the victim it “really is a drop in the bucket for a country to spend $1 billion” to achieve what the CCP ordered, promising “endless misery” for the victim, he said. “It is definitely true that all of your relatives will be involved.”
In January, a former U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced to 27 months for giving sensitive military information to the CCP over the course of almost two years, in return for about $14,000.
“I mean, he’s paying me so I was like, okay, I’ll just do whatever he says,” the sailor told the FBI in an interview, describing the job as “easy money.”
Several other cases involving former military members include an indicted Navy sailor and army soldier, and a former U.S. army helicopter pilot who pleaded guilty.
Last month, Sgt. Korbein Schultz, an army intelligence analyst with the First Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment at Fort Campbell, pleaded guilty to sending military secrets to a CCP agent, receiving $42,000 in return.
Beginning around June 2022, Schultz began sending sensitive military files to an unnamed conspirator working for the CCP. Schultz received payment up to $1,000 per document in return.
A month into the partnership, Schultz told the conspirator he would like to turn the relationship into a long term one, according to the indictment. He provided materials including details about U.S. precision rockets, their performance, and how they would be used. He also shared manuals and technical data of several US aircraft, documents referencing the Chinese military, and documents related to the U.S. military forces in the Indo-Pacific.
The conspirator asked for information of higher levels of classification as the partnership progressed and promised higher payments for more exclusive information.
“I hope so! I need to get my other BMW back!” Schultz wrote in response to the promise of higher pay. He told the conspirator he wished he could be “Jason Bourne,” and brought up the idea of moving to Hong Kong so he could work for the conspirator in person.
Four months into the partnership, the conspirator raised the suggestion of recruiting another service member who had access to higher classified information, and Schultz set out to do so over the next few months.
In another case, two men who pleaded guilty in July to acting as CCP agents had tried to bribe an IRS agent to target Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice with five meditative exercises and teaches the principles truth, compassion, and tolerance. Since 1999, the CCP has sought to “eradicate” the practice in a whole-of-state approach.
Unbeknownst to the two men, the IRS agent was an undercover FBI agent, who took the $5,000 bribe and offer of $50,000 total as evidence in their case. In a recorded call, one of the two men, John Chen, said the money came from Chinese authorities, who were “very generous” when it came to their goal to “topple” Falun Gong.
Insider Threat
Fleming says some “insider threats” were planted in companies and the military decades ago, pointing to the former Verizon software engineer who had been sending the CCP data on Chinese dissidents in America since at least 2012 as an example, and companies are now beginning to recognize the long term effort with these high profile cases.
Some recruits are attracted by the money, others prestige. “They’ve done that to Harvard professors and so on: ‘We’re going to let you set up a sister lab in China … and you’ll be the head of the lab,‘” Fleming said as an example. “’You’re so smart and accomplished. We‘d like you to do a white paper.’”
Fleming said he receives a few of these offers a year himself. The most recent one, from Hong Kong, came just months ago. He promptly deleted it. “I know what’s going on, but many people don’t, and they take $7,500 to do a white paper,” Fleming said.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Tue, 09/17/2024 – 23:25
Ads in Swing States Criticize Harris for Supporting Teen Trans Surgeries
Attack ads airing in the swing states of Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have been criticizing Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris for her past support of taxpayer-funded transition of teenagers.
The post Ads in Four Swing States Criticize Kamala Harris for Supporting Teenage Gender Transitions appeared first on Breitbart.
Tim Walz Stumped By Question on Inflation; Repeats Lie About Trump ‘Sales Tax’
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president, was stumped Tuesday when asked by a reporter to explain what he and Vice President Kamala Harris would do for families struggling financially.
The post Tim Walz Stumped By Question on Inflation; Repeats Lie About Trump ‘Sales Tax’ appeared first on Breitbart.
JACK POSOBIEC and MIKE DAVIS: ‘President Trump either goes back to the White House after November 5 or he goes to Rikers Island’
“And that sounds like a doomsday scenario, but it’s on track for that to happen.”