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Senator Bob Menendez Under Federal Investigation for Alleged $400,000 Gold Bar Bribes
Democratic Senator Robert (Bob) Menendez is currently facing a federal investigation into allegations of accepting bribes in the form of gold bars, valued at an astounding $400,000.
The source of these alleged bribes is said to be a developer named Fred Daibes.
At issue are Menendez's ties to New Jersey real estate tycoon and ex-bank chairman Fred Daibes. FBI and national tax investigators are probing if Daibes gave Menendez's wife, Nadine Arslanian, gold bars worth up to $400,000.
The investigation has brought to light a significant turn of events. Fred Daibes, who was originally facing federal bank charges, is accused of providing these gold bars to Senator Menendez in exchange for assistance with his legal troubles.
Remarkably, following negotiations with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, Daibes, who initially faced more than a decade behind bars, ended up serving only probation.
But the gold bars exchange is just one part of the probe.
Authorities are also examining whether Menendez or his wife accepted gifts from IS EG Halal.
The start-up company won a lucrative contract with the Egyptian government to conduct all halal inspections for the US, despite not having any experience in the field.
Investigators are seeking to determine whether Menendez used his seat as Senate Foreign Relations chairman to bolster the New Jersey company’s bid in exchange for gifts.
Menendez and IS EG Halal have denied any wrongdoing.
The gravity of the situation underscores the seriousness of the investigation.
“Those bribes included cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-who job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value,” according to the indictment issued by a grand jury in Manhattan federal court.”
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/22/2023 10:53 Comments ||
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#6
Going to guess this is part of the loose end tie up from the Epstein Chronicles.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/22/2023 11:04 Comments ||
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#7
Glad to see ole Bob indicted, even though it is 20 years or so late.
[Breitbart] The Clinton Foundation is back, and it’s headed to Ukraine.
Founded by former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the foundation put its annual “Clinton Global Initiative” on a hiatus for a few years when their relevance ebbed and fundraising dried up, but their scandal-plagued charity has returned with a plan to provide humanitarian relief to warn-torn Ukraine, complete with a benediction from Pope Francis.
The Clinton Foundation’s shady dealings were exposed in 2015 by Peter Schweizer in the bestselling book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. On the most recent podcast of The Drill Down, Schweizer commented on the return of the Clintons and their historical gift for grift.
“The problem is that the Clintons have turned [disaster relief] into disaster capitalism,” Schweizer said. “What we found is that the Clintons were doing a lot of relief work and then working with major corporations that wanted deals in countries that were having a war.”
Clinton Cash documented examples of this in countries around the world, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, and Haiti, where the Clinton Foundation operated various disaster relief and reconstruction activities. Very often, the companies receiving the government contracts to perform those activities were major donors to the Clinton Foundation, not to mention relatives of the Clintons themselves.
Indeed, the largest single contributor to the Clinton Foundation in the 2010s was one Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch whose fortune came from making piping used in the energy industry. In 2008, Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. The pledge was to fund a program to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals “to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation.
Schweizer and co-host Eric Eggers explained that “for the Clintons, it’s basically an ‘iron triangle.’ It’s them collecting money through their foundation. . . and the poor people of the affected country, in this case Ukraine. Then, the third component are the major companies that want to get the inside track on sweetheart deals in a country that’s at war. This is the iron triangle.”
The Government Accountability Institute did research on the nexus between Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state under President Barack Obama and various oligarchs in both Russia and Ukraine. A great example of that, all part of Hillary’s infamous “Russia Reset” policy, can be found in GAI’s report on the Skolkovo project in Russia.
“We had a whole chapter devoted to Haiti, and all you have to do is look at where Haiti is now and remember that both Bill and Hillary Clinton were singularly positioned to be in charge of the rebuild of Haiti after the earthquake,” Schweizer said. He noted, for example, that one of those contracts in Haiti went to Tony Rodham, Hillary’s brother.
In short, watch where the money raised and awarded for disaster relief in Ukraine winds up.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Changing of the guard.
Rupert Murdoch today announced that he is stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp after 70 years - with second son Lachlan chosen by his father to take over the family's media dynasty.
The Australian-born billionaire, 92, revealed he will move to a new role of Chairman Emeritus, declaring the 'time is right' to take on different responsibilities while insisting 'our companies are in robust health, as am I'.
His son Lachlan, 52, will become the sole chairman of both Fox and News Corp in mid-November - taking on an empire that has made the Murdochs worth an estimated $21.7billion (£17.6billion).
Mr Murdoch has been married four times and has six children. There has long been speculation about which of his four older children — Prue, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James, would take over a media empire spanning from Australia to the US and UK, built over seven decades.
This power struggle was the inspiration for the hit HBO drama Succession, with eventual winner Lachlan reportedly even accusing his older brother James, once the heir apparent, of leaking stories about the family to the show's writers.
In an extraordinary letter to staff today, Mr Murdoch, who owns the The Sun, Times and Sunday Times newspapers in the UK as well as Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the US, said: 'The time is right for me to take on different roles, knowing that we have truly talented teams and a passionate, principled leader in Lachlan.
'We have every reason to be optimistic about the coming years - I certainly am, and plan to be here to participate in them. But the battle for the freedom of speech and, ultimately, the freedom of thought, has never been more intense'.
Insisting that he is not stepping back from the day-to-day running of his empire he said: 'For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change. In my new role, I can guarantee you that I will be involved every day in the contest of ideas'. He also claimed that most of the media were 'in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth'.
James Murdoch, once viewed as the favourite to succeed his father after he led the family's response to the phone hacking scandal in Britain, was reportedly 'iced out' of the Murdoch family reunion on the Amalfi Coast over the summer.
The international media empire being taken over by Lachlan Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch's son, Lachlan Murdoch, will become the sole chairman of News Corp and continue as the chair and CEO of Fox.
There are some of the companies and publications he will run from November.
UNITED STATES
Fox Corporation including Fox News
New York Post
The Wall Street Journal
TMZ
UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun
The Times
The Sunday Times
AUSTRALIA
The Australian
The Daily Telegraph
The Courier-Mail
Herald Sun
Australian Associated Press
news.com.au
He quit the board of the family media in 2020, citing 'disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company's news outlets and certain other strategic decisions' - viewed as an attack on Lachlan, who runs Fox News.
Today it was confirmed Lachlan would take the reins - less than 20 years after he walked out on his father's businesses, only to come back in 2015 and help run Fox News. He has paid tribute to his father's legacy.
In a statement he said: 'On behalf of the FOX and News Corp boards of directors, leadership teams, and all the shareholders who have benefited from his hard work, I congratulate my father on his remarkable 70-year career.
'We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted.
'We are grateful that he will serve as Chairman Emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies'.
A spokesman confirmed that Lachlan's new role will start at the end of the Autumn after two AGMs.
#6
(Newsweek) Lachlan also has a close relationship with former Fox anchor Tucker Carlson, who was the most right-wing of the network's stars and a close ally of former President Donald Trump.
[Epoch Times] After years of condemning ballot harvesting and early voting, Republicans are switching course for 2024 and embracing both policies wholeheartedly. The results, experts say, can bear good and bad consequences. Some foresee legal challenges.
"Ballot harvesting" is a practice where third-party individuals or organizations collect completed mail-in ballots and deliver them to election officials on a voter's behalf.
Hans von Spakovsky—Election Law Reform Initiative Manager and Senior Fellow at The Heritage—prefers to call the practice "Ballot Trafficking."
"You play by the rules that are in place wherever you are but that doesn't mean that you allow the status quo to stay that way," Mr. von Spakovsky told The Epoch Times.
He also suggested that the GOP's decision to play the ballot harvesting game should not stop voters from trying to convince their state legislators "to change the rules to get rid of ballot trafficking and allowing third-party strangers to go pick up a voter's ballot because the risks in allowing that are too great."
However, just as Mr. von Spakovsky suggested, Mr. Gibson said, "We want to ballot harvest until we can make it illegal to ballot harvest."
"The goal of conservatives is to have free and fair elections. Full stop. Period," he explained, saying conservatives "would rather lose an election fairly than to win by cheating."
"It's time for us to figure out if we want to win elections fairly or sit back and lose just because we're too stubborn and keep saying we don't believe in ballot harvesting," he said.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/22/2023 08:07 ||
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#1
Yes, and they will mess up the implementation, too.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/22/2023 8:50 Comments ||
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#2
"Never argue with stupid people.
They will drag you down to their level
and beat you with experience." __ Mark Twain
#3
I swear, if they harvest my ballot I'll scream. Because I can't stop sending them money since I already don't. I've voted in person in all but two elections in my life and only voted early during COVID.
My bet is they will harvest my ballot and vote it for Nikki Haley, even if she is not the nominee.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/22/2023 8:53 Comments ||
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#4
I don’t se any purpose for harvesting other than cheating. I’m sure that there are Republicans that cheat. I don’t trust them any further than I could shotput Stacy Abrams. If we intend to allow the harvesters, they should be bonded and made to deliver in person to a two person judges team with a GOP and DNC member.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/22/2023 19:16 Comments ||
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[Epoch Times] U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra on Sept. 20 defended the Biden administration's widespread promotion of the new COVID-19 vaccines despite the dearth of data supporting their use.
"These vaccines work," Mr. Becerra, who isn't a doctor, said during a briefing at a pharmacy in Washington where he received one of the shots.
Mr. Becerra heads the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an agency of which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are divisions. The FDA recently approved and authorized new COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The CDC then recommended them for nearly all U.S. residents ages 6 months and older.
Asked by The Epoch Times about the dearth of data on the vaccines, Mr. Becerra defended the government's position.
"Actually, there's a lot of data available about the vaccines. There is a lot of data available about the effectiveness of the vaccines. But the best data—the best proof of their effectiveness—is that we're all standing here alive because we've been vaccinated," he claimed.
"No one is safe until everyone is, and so it is time for us to do what we know best during this heightened fall and winter virus season. Let's protect our loved ones," he said.
"Apparently, Secretary Becerra has not reviewed the empirical studies bearing on his ludicrous statements," Dr. Harvey Risch, professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, told The Epoch Times via email. "He is stating the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Substantial fractions of the population alive today have not taken the [COVID-19] vaccines, and they are here too."
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/22/2023 10:27 ||
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#1
Top concerns that are preventing vaccination, according to polls, include worries about side effects, a lack of trust in the government and pharmaceutical companies, and the knowledge that the vaccines aren't that effective.
[Epoch Times] James Ray Epps Sr. pleaded guilty on Sept. 20 to a single misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, bringing to a close a lightning-quick prosecution for his actions in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.
A 14-page plea agreement (pdf) filed by federal prosecutors said Mr. Epps would face no more than six months in jail and a fine in the range of $2,000 to $20,000. The document was dated Sept. 6 and gave Mr. Epps until Sept. 15 to accept or reject the plea offer. The agreement was filed with the court on Sept. 20.
Judge Boasberg set sentencing for 10 a.m. on Dec. 20.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/22/2023 10:03 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] The Clinton Foundation is back, and it’s headed to Ukraine.
"Ballot harvesting" is a practice where third-party individuals or organizations collect completed mail-in ballots and deliver them to election officials on a voter's behalf.
"These vaccines work," Mr. Becerra, who isn't a doctor, said during a briefing at a pharmacy in Washington where he received one of the shots.
