RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/blinken-appears-to-confirm-iran-is-targeting-current-u-s-officials/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

Yet he downplayed the practical effect of the IRGC terror label during a Senate hearing today.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemingly confirmed during testimony Tuesday that Iran is plotting attacks on both current and former U.S. officials. While there have been reports about threats to former senior officials, Blinken’s comments appear to be the first disclosure of any plot concerning current officials.

The Biden administration’s top diplomat addressed the threats under questioning from Senator Ted Cruz before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Is it true that the IRGC is actively trying to murder former senior officials of the United States?” Cruz asked.

“I’m not sure what I can say in an open setting, but let me say generically, that there is an ongoing threat against American officials both present and past,” Blinken answered.

The phrasing leaves room for interpretation. But the testimony is likely to feed into congressional concerns about nuclear negotiations with Iran being carried on in spite of these threats.

Blinken, citing the confidentiality of the talks, declined to answer Cruz’s questions about whether the U.S. had offered to lift the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s (IRGC) designation as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) in return for Iranian assurances to end its ongoing assassination plots, as certain news reports had indicated.

The top diplomat did, however, say that he shares Cruz’s concerns about the IRGC and, specifically, its paramilitary Quds unit, saying that “86 of the 107 designations by this administration have been against the IRGC or its component parts.” He also said that the administration told the Iranian government to stop targeting Americans.

Throughout the hearing, Blinken blamed the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement in 2018 and to opt for a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign for a rise in Iranian attacks across the Middle East. He noted that the Bush and Obama administrations declined to put the IRGC on the FTO list in the first place on the advice of the military and the intelligence community.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/04/27/see-if-you-can-follow-yellens-bouncing-inflation-ball/

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said over the weekend that we’re going to have to “put up with inflation for a while longer,” which means that she has now held just about every possible — and almost always wrong — position on an issue about which she is supposedly an expert. Is it any wonder nobody trusts elites anymore?

Yellen was on CNBC over the weekend and, when asked whether inflation had peaked, said:

“Well, it may have peaked, but … I think the shocks emanating from this unjustified attack on Ukraine will prolong inflationary pressures. So, the outlook is uncertain. As you know, the Fed is taking steps to bring inflation down, but I think we will have to put up with high inflation for a while longer.”

Let’s leave aside Yellen’s dubious claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had any meaningful impact on inflation. Why would it? Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, which was far more disruptive to the global oil market, bumped oil prices up for a short period but had no broader inflationary effect.

The Putin-is-to-blame for skyrocketing prices is one of team Biden’s big lies meant to deflect blame. But the press never calls them on it.

No, what’s really troubling is the fact that Biden’s Treasury secretary has been so utterly clueless about inflation since joining his cabinet.

Let’s look at what Yellen has claimed about inflation since early last year and the actual results. The chart shows what inflation was doing when she made these statements.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/26/kamala-harris-joe-bidens-excellent-vp-pick-may-kee/

Joe Biden was darned lucky he chose Kamala Harris as his running mate. If he had teamed up with someone capable, someone who had won the trust of the country, Biden might be headed out to pasture. Good pick, Joe.

This is not, as Joe might say, hyperbole. Over the past few months, the president has shown himself not only confused but dangerously confused. At some point, Democrats dragged down by Mr. Biden’s poor performance would likely step in, demanding he resign.

But then we would have Kamala Harris in the Oval Office, an outcome too dreadful to contemplate, even for Democrats.

Mr. Biden is a liability to the U.S. and to his party. His comments appearing to call for regime change in Russia or suggesting that U.S. GIs were soon to enter Ukraine played into Vladimir Putin’s hands and provided invaluable fodder for his propaganda machine.

Of course, it is not just about the Ukraine war that Mr. Biden has appeared confused about. Just recently, the president was asked about his plans to rescind Title 42, the health emergency measure that has allowed our government to rapidly expel people entering the U.S. illegally. Instead of addressing the border situation, Biden talked about the Department of Justice appealing a judge’s ruling that nixed the federal mask mandate on airplanes, conflating the two issues.

This was not because he didn’t hear the question; there was no Marine One helicopter hovering in the background. This was Mr. Biden, confused.

The steady stream of misstatements and contradictions has taken a toll. As have videos of Mr. Biden shaking hands with thin air or being awkwardly coached by his wife Jill to wave to a crowd.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/25/did-a-key-fbi-agent-in-whitmer-plot-attempt-to-surveil-steven-crowder/

In 2017, Steven Crowder, a conservative activist and host of a popular YouTube channel, infiltrated Antifa with his producer.

Weeks before a speaking engagement by Ben Shapiro at the University of Utah—an event Antifa planned to disrupt violently—Crowder worked his way into the group through the use of burner phones and encrypted chats. Crowder secretly recorded discussions between Antifa thugs promising to use “plain clothes and hard tactics” to shut down Shapiro’s speech on September 28, 2017. This included distributing weapons such as ice picks, combat knives, and guns.

Despite a heavy law enforcement presence for Shapiro’s speech, pockets of violence did erupt as Antifa confronted police and Shapiro supporters outside the venue, resulting in the arrest of a handful of rabble-rousers. Crowder then posted a video account of his undercover operation and noted a collective lack of interest by major news organizations in Antifa’s violent pre-planning efforts.

An FBI agent, however, appeared to want more information from Crowder about Antifa’s behind-the-scenes work. It’s unclear how Crowder contacted this particular FBI agent shortly after the Shapiro protest but he described the encounter on Megyn Kelly’s podcast last week: “We got on the phone with a guy at the FBI and he asked ‘how did you get involved, how did you get on this Antifa app?’” Crowder told Kelly about the initial call, wondering aloud why the FBI didn’t know how to access the encrypted chat. The FBI, Crowder said, didn’t express any interest in capturing the perpetrators, which Crowder found “odd.”

The correspondence with this FBI agent, working out of the FBI’s counterterrorism unit in Michigan, continued for some time then tapered off. It wasn’t until recently that Crowder heard the name of his one-time FBI contact: Jayson Chambers.

Chambers was one of the key agents involved in the FBI-concocted plot to “kidnap” and “assassinate” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. He was primarily responsible for handling Dan Chappel, the informant hired by the FBI in the spring of 2020 and compensated at least $60,000 to execute the scheme. “This was the guy on a fishing expedition with my office!” Crowder told Kelly about Chambers. 

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/04/25/smoking-gun-white-house-visitor-logs-prove-joe-biden-met-with-hunters-business-associates-n1592526

Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any involvement with or knowledge of his son Hunter’s business dealings,

But according to visitor logs from the Obama administration, Eric Schwerin, Hunter Biden’s top business partner, visited the White House 19 times between 2009 and 2015 and met with then-Vice President Biden on at least one of those occasions.

Schwerin is the former president of Hunter’s now-dissolved firm Rosemont Seneca, and logs show that he met with Vice President Joe Biden on November 17, 2010, which was when Hunter was striking multi-million-dollar deals in foreign countries, including China.

In addition to meeting with Joe Biden, Schwerin’s other visits involved meetings with Biden’s staff and second lady Jill Biden’s staff.

“In October 2009, just months after Hunter co-founded Rosemont Seneca, Schwerin met with Evan Ryan, Vice President Biden’s assistant for intergovernmental affairs and public liaison, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building where the vice president’s office is based, according to the visitor logs,” the New York Post reports. Emails also show that Ryan “acted as a conduit for Hunter Biden and his cronies.”

According to the logs, the following visits to the White House were amongst those made by Schwerin:

Meeting with Joe Biden aide Evan Ryan (10/28/2009)
Meeting with Jill Biden special assistant Meg Campbell (2/13/2010)
Meeting with Joe Biden assistant Michele Smith (10/24/2010)
Meeting with Joe Biden (11/17/2010)
Meeting with Joe Biden assistant Kellen Suber (8/22/2011)
Meeting with Jill Biden aide Betsy Massey (3/31/2012)
Meeting with Joe Biden assistant Michele Smith (2/7/2012)
Meeting with Joe Biden’s Director of Administration, Faisal Amin (3/28/2013)
Meeting with Joe Biden assistant Kathy Chung (5/20/2013)

https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/biden-says-emmanuel-macron-didnt-take-his-election-night-call/

President Biden said Monday that French President Emmanuel Macron didn’t come to the phone when he called to congratulate him on his landslide reelection.

Biden said he spoke with Macron’s staff instead on Sunday night as the French president partied at the Eiffel Tower — requiring the US president to call back Monday.

“I feel good about the French election,” Biden said as he returned to DC from a weekend trip home to Delaware. “I tried to talk to him last night. I spoke to his staff and he was at the Eiffel Tower having a good time. And I’m going to be talking to him today.”

Presidential calls to foreign leaders typically are arranged by White House staff to avoid unscripted or embarrassing moments for the leader of the world’s sole superpower.

Biden reached Macron on Monday before hosting the Stanley Cup championship-winning Tampa Bay Lightning team on the White House lawn.