Cut to the News
Cut through the clutter to today's top news
September 22, 2021
Good morning
Welcome to today's top news.
Leading the News . . .
If you'd like to participate in the Independent Thinkers' Book Club, PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL, indicating your interest and I will send you the Zoom info for this Friday. If you've never corresponded with me before, please briefly tell me who you are and why you want to participate. Thank you to those who have responded. Rebekah
Governors beg Biden to crack down on illegal immigration . . . All but one GOP governor in the United States signed a joint letter to President Joe Biden demanding a crackdown on the flood of illegal migration coming across the U.S. southern border. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Texas Governor Greg Abbott led the 26-state coalition in writing a letter to the White House on Monday demanding an end to the “national security crisis created
by eight months of unenforced borders.” The letter comes as Texas is beset by a surge of illegal immigration near the town of Del Rio, creating dual immigration and humanitarian crises. White House Dossier
Five takeaways from Biden’s U.N. speech . . .
Although Mr. Biden has sought to differentiate himself from Mr. Trump by promoting multilateralism, world leaders remain skeptical. A French politician last week even declared there was no difference between Trump and Biden. Here are five takeaways from Biden's speech Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly:
1. The president is still defensive about the Afghanistan pullout.
2. He is convinced that not being Trump is sufficient
3. Biden wants the U.S. to foot the bill for global problems
4. Biden considers himself a peacenik, boasted that the U.S. is no longer at war for the first time in 20 years.
5. Biden is timid about calling out the big boys. Without mentioning China or Russia by name, Mr. Biden said the U.S. isn’t looking to start a Cold War-type conflict. Instead, he called for the U.S. to stand up to international bullies by using its “values and strength. Washington Times
Biden refuses to take questions from US reporters while Boris calls on Brits . . . President Joe Biden declined to call on U.S. reporters Tuesday after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took questions from reporters from the United Kingdom during an Oval Office meeting. “Would it be okay if we have just a couple of questions, just a couple?” Johnson asked, looking over to Biden, who replied, “Good luck.” After Johnson had taken
several questions from British reporters, the press pool was then corraled out of the Oval Office while Johnson was mid-sentence, prompting a flurry of shouted questions from reporters. Wow. The United States is supposed to be the rollicking democracy while the British are all uptight, right? Meantime, they’re getting their questions answered and U.S. reporters are left dealing with a president who either has no answers or doesn’t want to give them. White House Dossier
Graham tries to help Trump and McConnell bury the hatchet . . . Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has told colleagues that former President Trump has conceded in recent private conversations that Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) “helped” him during his four years in office, even as the former president rails against the Republican leader in public. Two GOP senators told The Hill about the conversations Graham, who played golf with Trump over the
weekend, has had with his GOP colleagues. One GOP senator described Graham as trying to mend fences between the two most powerful Republicans in the country, who have publicly warred throughout 2021. “Lindsey was with the president this last weekend. From what I understand Trump said something complimentary about Mitch,” said a GOP senator, who described Graham’s efforts to help bury the hatchet between McConnell and Trump. The Hill
Donald Trump sues NY Times, his niece for uncovered tax documents . . . Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Tuesday against his niece Mary Trump and the New York Times stemming from explosive news articles about the former president’s taxes and finances. Trump is seeking no less than $100 million in damages, accusing Mary of breaking a non-disclosure agreement by leaking his personal tax documents to the Times. “The defendants engaged in an
insidious plot to obtain confidential and highly-sensitive records which they exploited for their own benefit and utilized as a means of falsely legitimizing their publicized works,” Trump attorney Alina Habba alleges in the 27-page complaint, filed in Dutchess County, New York, Supreme Court. New York
Post
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Congress urged to revive State probe of COVID origin, Chinese bio-weapons push . . . Congress should require a new investigation by the State Department’s arms compliance office into the possible role of China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by two former State Department officials says. The Biden administration earlier this year canceled a probe begun under President Trump into the
virus’s origins by State’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, known as AVC, that also investigated Chinese violations of a treaty banning biological arms, said former State Department arms control leaders Thomas DiNanno and Paula A. DeSutter. “The State Department bureaucracy has raised the bar so high above the criminal ‘reasonable doubt’ standard that holding our adversaries accountable is now nearly impossible,” Mr. DiNanno and Ms. DeSutter wrote in a new report
published by the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Washington Times
Air Force Chief: China Acquiring Nuclear First Strike, Ability To Attack From Space . . . The secretary of the Air Force warned in a Monday speech that China is "acquiring a first-strike capability" with nuclear weapons and an ability to launch attacks from space. Frank Kendall, a former Army officer and top official overseeing the Air and Space Forces, said Beijing’s ability to threaten U.S. national security by air is growing and will require
increased investments in aerospace defense. The Air Force, he stressed, does not have "a moment to lose" in countering China.
Our strategic competitors have studied how we fight, and they have taken asymmetric steps to exploit our vulnerabilities and to defeat us. Washington Free Beacon
Ditto for Russia. But don't expect the Biden Administration to acknowledge it. Joe is busy working on another "reset" with Putin, showing him "flexibility" on Nordstream 2 and ceding control in Afghanistan, Syria, etc.
U.S., Russian Military Officials Meet Amid Concerns About Terrorism Fight . . . The Pentagon’s top officer met with his Russian counterpart in the Finnish capital Wednesday amid American and allied efforts to find ways to fight terrorism after the departure of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan last month.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley met here with Chief of Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov, officials said. U.S. military officials declined to provide any details of the meeting, except to issue a brief statement saying the two discussed “risk reduction and operational de-confliction.” The U.S. and Russia have in the past discussed how to avoid conflict in Syria, where both countries maintain troops, and in the Black Sea, where both militaries
conduct naval patrols. The two sides have also discussed Moscow’s incursion into Crimea and its massing of forces along Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders. But Gen. Milley, on a tour through Europe this week, has been focused on terrorism and countering violent extremism in the region. Wall Street
Journal
Mark Milley probably doesn't no this because his "experts" didn't either, but General Gerasimov is the thought leader behind Russia's strategy of "controlled instability." It was developed, on Putin's orders to de-stabilize, weaken, and if necessary, defeat by military means, the United States. For details, see my new book, Putin's Playbook: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America.
Apologies for plugging my book again (Keith will be mad), but I want my fellow Americans to know what the government doesn't tell you. The "experts" running our country have no idea how to deal with Putin and our bureaucracy is unprepared for a kinetic conflict that Russia views as inevitable. This is why DIA and CIA tried to sabotage the publication of my book.
Russian hackers target Iowa grain co-op in $5.9 million ransomware attack . . . Russian hackers leveled a ransomware attack on an Iowa farming co-op and demanded $5.9 million to unlock the computer networks used to keep food supply chains and feeding schedules on track for millions of chickens, hogs and cattle. Fort Dodge-based New Cooperative, a member-owned alliance of farmers that sells corn and soy products, contained the breach and
developed a workaround to continue accepting grain shipments and distributing feed, a person close to the company told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. But the cooperative took its computer network offline to isolate the incursion, the person said, and shuttered its soil-mapping software — a master-control system that optimizes irrigation and fertilization — as a precaution. Farmers, meanwhile, have taken to using paper scale
tickets to log their grain hauls as they drop them off at the cooperative, said Tim Luginsland, Wells Fargo’s food and agribusiness sector manager. Washington Post
Joe Biden is developing another target list of US critical infrastructure for Putin to attack.
‘You Took It Hook, Line And Sinker’: Rand Paul Grills FBI Director Over 2016 Trump-Russia Investigation . . . Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray Tuesday over his alleged bias in connection to the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation. During the Crossfire Hurricane investigation launched Jul. 31, 2016, which evaluated whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016
presidential election, the FBI applied for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrants to conduct surveillance against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. The Kentucky senator said the Intelligence agencies can “take over our political process” and advised Wray that the FISA system should be reformed to prevent American citizens from being future targets. Daily Caller
And they did take over the political process in 2016, by concocting the "Russia-Trump collusion," hoax, doing Putin's bidding to divide and de-stabilize our country. The US apparatchiks deployed Putin's Playbook against their fellow Americans.
SAVE THE DATE: Putin's Playbook Virtual Book Talk: Would you like to know what I did not include in the book? (Not the text that was redacted, due to the government's censorship - can't talk about that, although I strongly disagree that it's classified. Rather the personal stories and information that you will find interesting but I couldn't include them because I was already way over my word
count limit.) October 16 @ 1:00 - 1:45 PM Eastern. Zoom info will be sent out prior.
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Brazilian president's son slams 'Marxist' de Blasio for warning father not to go to UN over lack of vaccine . . . The lower chamber leader of Brazil's right-wing political party, who is also the son of President Jair Bolsonaro, fired back at New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, after the liberal Democrat singled the Brazilian president out and warned him not to come to the Big Apple for the United Nations General Assembly. " We need to
send the message to all the world leaders, including most notably Bolsonaro from Brazil… If you don't want to be vaccinated, don't bother coming because everyone should be safe together," de Blasio said, as the mayor enacted a stringent mandate this month requiring proof of vaccine for any individual who wants to engage in basic commerce in the city. Eduardo Bolsonaro told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that de Blasio is a textbook Marxist who seeks to control the lives of everyone in his
constituency. Fox News
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Pressure Grows on U.S. Companies to Share Covid Vaccine Technology . . . Moderna accepted $2.5 billion in taxpayer money to develop its Covid-19 vaccine. But officials in the U.S. and overseas are having trouble persuading the company to license its technology. As President Biden convenes heads of state for a Covid-19 summit on Wednesday, pressure is growing on American drug companies — particularly Moderna, the upstart biotech firm that
developed its coronavirus vaccine with billions of dollars in taxpayer money — to share their formulas with manufacturers in nations that desperately need more shots. Less than 10 percent of those in many poor nations fully vaccinated and a dearth of doses contributing to millions of deaths, health officials in the United States and abroad are pressing the companies to do more to address the global shortage. New York Times
Wait till the confiscators force socialism on Americans, who will be developing the vaccines then and whom will the poor nations be asking to help them? We will all be equal under socialism. Equally poor that is.
Pandemic causes childhood obesity to worsen . . . The more sedentary lifestyles children experienced during the pandemic have resulted in substantial weight gain. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined the weight of over 432,000 persons age 2-19 from March 2020 to November 2020. It found that the rate of increase of body mass index among that cohort nearly doubled, from 0.052 to 0.100. During the
pandemic, many schools reverted to online learning partially or in full. Experts warned that without recess and other school-related physical activity, children would gain more weight, exacerbating the already serious public health problem of childhood obesity. Washington Examiner
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Fed expected to provide taper timeline hints at key policy meeting this week . . . The Federal Reserve kicked off a much-anticipated meeting this week during which policymakers are widely expected to shed light on their plans to begin dialing back support for the U.S. economy – a decision complicated by rising inflation and lackluster job growth. For months, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has promised the U.S. central bank
will not start unwinding the ultra-easy monetary policies put in place during the coronavirus pandemic until the economy saw "substantial further progress" toward full employment and consumer prices stabilized. During the Fed's annual symposium last month, Powell signaled the Fed would soon start reducing its $120 billion monthly purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. Fox Business
Most of $9.2 Billion in Questionable Medicare Payments Went to 20 Insurers, Federal Investigators Say . . . Medicare insurers drew $9.2 billion in federal payments in one year through controversial billing practices, with 20 companies benefiting disproportionately and together accounting for more than half of the total, according to federal health investigators. The findings by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health
and Human Services are the latest sign of growing scrutiny of Medicare Advantage insurers, which offer private plans under the federal benefit program. The inspector general’s report focuses on certain procedures used by insurers to document health conditions, which helps determine how much they are paid. The investigators said the findings raise concerns that insurers might be gaming the process to improperly boost federal payments. Wall Street Journal
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Critics claim ‘missing white woman syndrome’ has overshadowed these missing persons cases . . . Most disappearance cases involving people of color quickly fall off the national radar, if they ever even make it that far — a racist double-standard considering the current Gabby Petito saga, critics claim. “Missing white woman syndrome’’ — a term used to describe the perceived disproportionate attention paid to white
females who disappear, as opposed to people of color — was trending on social media Tuesday as hordes of news outlets and local and federal authorities focused on the Petito case. “We would not know that Gabby Petito existed if she was Native American or black and not a pretty white blonde,’’ fumed Twitter user Hart-Van ‘n Leeu. Here are some cases of missing people of color that have failed to garner a fraction of the attention given Petito’s case. Daily Caller
Finally, someone spoke up.
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Kamala Harris Hoping Her Unlikability Will Distract From Her Terrible Job Fixing The Border . . . Surveys asking the average American if they like Kamala Harris have found answers ranging from "Yikes" to "this ain't it, chief" to uncontrollable vomiting. But there's an upside to this for the VP. By being such a bad person and not actually doing anything, the Vice President has not given any ammo to her critics except
the fact that she's "just the worst". And without being able to name her terrible policies, her critics end up just looking like woman-hating racists.
"She was a genius pick for VP," said political consultant David Axelrod. "When Joe Biden chose her as his running mate, her unlikability was so all-consuming that mounting a logical offense was near impossible. Like someone asking you to name 3 songs from your favorite band, when asked to name what Kamala has done wrong, most people's nervous systems become so overwhelmed with rage, well, they just can’t do it. Babylon Bee
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Rebekah Koffler
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