[PJMedia] The Obama Foundation stored classified documents in an abandoned furniture warehouse, according to a 2018 letter from the Obama Foundation to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The letter, available on the Obama Foundation website and dated Sept. 11, 2018, reveals that the Obama Foundation not only acknowledged possessing classified documents but also admitted that they kept them in a facility that did not meet NARA standards for the storage of those documents.
Media reports confirm that the Obama Foundation had rented space from Hoffman Estates to store these documents, and extended their original lease for four more years back in August.
“While no firm date has been announced for the completion and opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Library near the University of Chicago, its future contents will stay in Hoffman Estates for four more years,” the Daily Herald reported. “Village board members unanimously approved an extension to the special-use permit that enables landlord Hoffman Estates Medical Development LLC to lease the 74,200-square-foot former Plunkett Furniture store at 2500 W. Golf Road to the National Archives and Records Administration through Dec. 31, 2026.”
This means that, as the debate over the supposedly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is unfolding, the Obama Foundation is, at this very moment, storing classified documents in unused retail space in the suburbs of Chicago.
While the storage of these documents appears to be with the full knowledge and coordination of NARA, it still raises significant questions, not just concerning the raid of Mar-a-Lago, but also surrounding the legal actions being taken by the Biden administration against Trump over the storage of these documents. Seeing as Mar-a-Lago is Trump’s Florida home, it is protected by Secret Service, making it far more secure than whatever setup they likely had at the former furniture store space. There is no mention of what kind of security measures are in place to protect the Obama documents — if there are any at all.
[FoxNews] Despite President Biden's assertion that the COVID-19 pandemic is "over," unvaccinated Air Force pilots seeking religious accommodations to the vaccine mandate are still being prohibited from flying, despite those with medical exemptions being able to perform their usual duties.
Biden said during an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday: "The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. It's – but the pandemic is over."
The president's statement comes amid an ongoing class action lawsuit at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to grant relief to over 10,000 unvaccinated active duty, reserve, and National Guard Air Force and Space Force members who submitted a religious exemption to the Pentagon's vaccine mandate and were denied or are awaiting a decision. Most recently, the 6th Circuit ordered the Air Force to halt "disciplinary or separation measures" taken against the class while the lawsuit continues.
The Air Force told Fox News Digital through a spokesperson that the agency is complying with the 6th Circuit injunction to pause penalties against unvaccinated service members.
"The Department of the Air Force is complying with the court order to pause all disciplinary and adverse actions for those refusing the COVID-19 vaccine who submitted a timely religious accommodation request," the spokesperson said. "This includes the Air Force Reserve Command processing Airmen to the Individual Ready Reserve."
However, plaintiff attorneys say that despite the injunction, there is ongoing discrimination in assignments and operational decisions against unvaccinated Air Force members.
Attorney Chris Wiest told Fox News Digital that language contained in the Supreme Court's order in another case on behalf of unvaccinated Navy SEALs seeking religious accommodation created an exception that the Air Force is using in order to keep pilots grounded.
The Supreme Court said in March that the U.S. military has broad discretion to make "deployment, assignment, and other operational decisions," which gave the Navy, and now extended to other branches of the military, the ability to use vaccination status as a factor in deployments and duty assignments.
As a result, the recent 6th Circuit injunction has made no difference for the fates of grounded pilots, Wiest explained, because unvaccinated Air Force members are still having their assignments pulled or suspended all within the exception that the Supreme Court created in the Navy SEAL case.
"The Air Force continues to prevent its members with religious objections to taking the vaccine from performing many of their regular duties. The best example is that pilots who are unvaccinated for religious reasons have been grounded while pilots who are unvaccinated for medical reasons are flying," said Danielle Runyan, a member of the Air Force Reserve and counsel for First Liberty Institute, which represents service members in both the Air Force and Navy SEAL class cases. She is also one of the plaintiffs in the Air Force case.
"This will eventually lead to thousands of Airmen losing their careers because they will eventually be unable to promote to the next grade. There is nothing operational about these decisions, especially in light of the president announcing that the pandemic is over. In fact, this is grave threat to our national security that should alarm every American," she continued.
The Air Force spokesperson did not respond to Fox News Digital when asked why pilots who requested medical exemptions to the vaccine are able to fly, while those seeking religious accommodations are not.
Last week, the Pentagon's acting inspector general issued a report, obtained by Fox News Digital, which stated that there are "concerning denials of religious liberty accommodation requests from COVID-19 vaccination requirements."
"We found a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by Federal law and DoD and Military Service policies," he continued in the report, issued to the secretary of defense.
Attorneys tell Fox News Digital that they have not heard anything out of the Air Force with respect to the memo, and they have no reason to believe that the agency will reverse course. However, they say that the IG is holding the Air Force's "feet to the fire" and will hopefully lead to greater transparency.
"The Air Force is trying to drive out people who have strong religious beliefs," summarized Wiest.
The White House referred Fox News Digital to the Department of Defense.
[NYPost] National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted Wednesday that he knew the “draconian” COVID-19 policies he pushed for would lead to “collateral negative consequences” for the “economy” and “schoolchildren.”
Fauci’s comments came during day one of The Atlantic Festival, a three-day convention put on by the media outlet The Atlantic featuring speeches and interviews from prominent members of the media, the government and political activists.
During the event, Fauci spoke with The Atlantic editor Ross Andersen in front of a live audience about his experiences as the leading medical professional working in the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In one segment of his talk, the doctor spoke about his guidance in instituting “draconian” pandemic guidance knowing full well there would be “collateral” damage stemming from it.
Before making his central point, Fauci first blamed the “divisiveness” of “social media” for turning every piece of his guidance during the pandemic into a confusing and controversial statement.
“When you have a divisiveness in society where every time you say something, you have X number of people with social media looking to attack it, that adds to the understandable confusion when you’re dealing with an evolving outbreak,” Fauci stated.
He then justified his harsh COVID guidance, including pushing the federal government to mandate lockdowns, masking, and later, vaccination, because hospitals were being “overrun.”
“Of course, when you make recommendations, if the primary goal when you’re dealing with a situation where the hospitals were being overrun in New York, intensive care units were being put in hallways, you have to do something that’s rather draconian,” the doctor admitted.
He continued, “And sometimes when you do draconian things, it has collateral negative consequences, just like when you shut things down, even temporarily, it does have deleterious consequences on the economy, on the schoolchildren. You know that.”
Fauci confirmed he risked these harms, adding, “But you have to make a balance when you’re dealing with — we know the only way to stop something cold in its track is to try and shut things down.”
“If you shut things down just for the sake of it, that’s bad,” he said, adding, “But if you do it with the purpose of being able to regroup so that you can then open up in a more safe way, that’s the best way to do it.”
Fauci’s comments followed a bombshell education report from earlier this month revealing that COVID-19 lockdowns, which led to school closures and virtual learning policies, resulted in what the Department of Education said was “the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics” among the nation’s schoolchildren.
#3
Kerry: I don't think the everyday person really understands economics.
Big Pizza Chain: because of high gas prices (and the labor market) we will take 20% off the order if everyday person comes and picks it up instead of delivery.
#4
If everyone in the elites who "believe they understand economics" would be denied any power over the economy, it would no doubt flourish on its own.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/22/2022 17:07 Comments ||
Top||
#5
And that includes these Ivy League professors who only know economics/finance from a book, never ever worked in the pits of an exchange or even a normal company that has a profit motive.
[DW] A federal appeals court has allowed the US Justice Department to resume its review of sensitive records seized from Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... ’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The US Justice Department (DOJ) can resume its review of classified records seized by the FBI ...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time... from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home as part of its ongoing criminal probe, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
The ruling came from a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
It was in response to a request by federal prosecutors to block an order by US District Judge Aileen Cannon— a Trump appointee — to halt the review of the documents pending a further order or until the completion of a report of an independent arbiter called a special master.
The special master would do an independent review of the classified records and weed out any that may be covered by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.
On Wednesday, the federal appeals court also agreed with the Justice Department that the special master need not look at the classified documents.
The government had argued that the lower court stay was impeding the investigation to assess whether to bring criminal charges over the storage of confidential records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.
"We conclude that the United States would suffer irreparable harm from the district court’s restrictions on its access to this narrow—and potentially critical—set of materials, as well as the court’s requirement that the United States submit the classified records to the special master for review," the appeals court said.
On August 8, the FBI seized over 11,000 documents — including some 100 with classified markings— in a court-approved search at Trump’s Palm Beach club.
It has launched a criminal probe into whether the sensitive documents were mishandled or compromised.
[DW] New York Attorney General Letitia James said Trump provided false information on asset valuation and his net worth to enrich himself and "cheat the system."
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil lawsuit on Wednesday against former President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... , accusing him and members of his family of "numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation."
"With the help of his children and senior executives at the Trump Organization, Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and cheat the system," James said in a statement.
The aim was to boost Trump's billionaire image by overstating his asset values to obtain favorable loans, and understating them for tax breaks.
"Claiming you have money that you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal. It's the art of the steal,'' James said.
She also referred the case to federal prosecutors and the US Internal Revenue Service for criminal investigation.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said James, a Democrat running for a second term in November, was busy waging a "bitter crusade" against him.
"A tale of two justice systems — yes where criminals go free, and the Democrats only go after their political opponents!" Trump’s spokesperson, Liz Harrington wrote on his online platform Truth Social.
WHAT IS THE LAWSUIT ABOUT?
The lawsuit accused the Trump Organization of wrongdoing in preparing Trump's annual statements of financial condition from 2011 to 2021.
It also named Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump as defendants, along with two longtime company executives, Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney.
Trump's adult children Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, are also named in the lawsuit
James has been conducting a civil investigation into Trump's business practices for more than three years.
James told news hounds she is seeking to have the defendants give up all the benefits he obtained from fraud, estimated at $250 million (€254 million).
"The pattern of fraud and deception that was used by Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization for their own financial benefit is astounding," James said
The lawsuit also seeks to bar Trump and his children from running companies in New York, and to bar the Trump Organization from engaging in real estate transactions.
James' civil probe is separate from a criminal tax fraud probe against the Trump Organization by Manhattan's district attorney, Alvin Bragg that was due to come before court in October.
[Breitbart] Unexpectedly. And as long as there is a Democrat in the White House it will continue — so until the Republicans have veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress or a Republican president plus majorities in both House and Senate, if I understand the process correctly.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
09/22/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Sounds like the investigation went up in smoke.
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.