Author: admin

Upon Sunday’s historic expiration of the 13-year long UN weapons embargo on Iran, the AFP and others noted that the Islamic Republic has ruled out a weapons “buying spree” at a moment Russia and China have indicated they’re quite open to selling advanced systems to Tehran.

The Foreign Ministry said of the “momentous day” on Sunday that “as of today, the Islamic Republic of Iran may procure any necessary arms and equipment from any source without any legal restrictions and solely based on its defensive needs.”

However, Iran’s Ministry of Defense has indicated it is ready and willing to sell weapons to “countries despised by the US” – as one state media headline reads. As Al Jazeera has emphasized, “The end of the embargo means Iran will legally be able to buy and sell conventional arms, including missiles, helicopters and tanks.”

Citing the country’s defense minister, the Iranian media report says:

Iran’s defense minister says the country is going to support the countries that seek to defend their existence now that the UN Security Council’s restrictions on Tehran’s arms trade are lifted.

Brigadier General Amir Hatami said Iran will sell arms to the countries despised by the Americans if they ask for it.

He explained in a Sunday night televised interview that “Many countries have already talked to us; we have held negotiations with some countries, and the grounds are totally prepared for exchanges [of weapons], both for selling [arms to other countries] and for supplying certain needs [buying weapons].”

“Of course our sales will be much more extensive than our purchases,” he said.

While finding itself isolated among international powers and unable to deal even with potential ‘friendly’ countries under the pressure of US sanctions reimposed since 2018, Iran has been unable to make major deals, though has closely supported its ally Syria throughout the proxy war in that country.

Iran has also been long accused of supplying ballistic missiles to Yemen’s Houthi rebels as well, resulting in occasional major attacks on Saudi Arabian military and oil facility sites.

Iran has developed a large domestic arms industry in the face of international sanctions and embargoes that have barred it from importing many weapons. https://t.co/oCj3mei6P1

— Algemeiner (@Algemeiner) October 18, 2020

But it’s clear there’s been some significant advances in the Islamic Republic’s domestic production capabilities. Gen. Hatami touted this, saying “Even our enemies admit that Iran today is a significant missile power in the world… It is also a renowned world power in the aerial field.” He highlighted Iranian-build drones and missile defense systems.

“Our Khordad-3 defense system managed to target an expensive American stealth drone which had intruded the Iranian airspace,” the defense minister underscored.

One likely country “despised by the US” – in the top commander’s words – that Iran is likely to sell to is Venezuela.

Over the past two years Washington has actively plotted to topple Nicolas Maduro with the help of local military dissidents, but to no avail. From there, Iran stepped up its support to Caracas, especially by shipping tankers full of gasoline of late.

Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations.com,

Hunter Biden profited from his father’s political connections long before he struck questionable deals in countries where Joe Biden was undertaking diplomatic missions as vice president. In fact, virtually all the jobs listed on his resume going back to his first position out of college, which paid a six-figure salary, came courtesy of the former six-term senator’s donors, lobbyists and allies, a RealClearInvestigations examination has found.

Hunter Biden: Through a lawyer, he maintained he and his father dutifully avoided “conflicts of interest.” Democratic National Convention/YouTube

One document reviewed by RCI reveals that a Biden associate admitted “finding employment” for Hunter Biden specifically as a special favor to his father, then a Senate leader running for president. He secured a $1.2 million gig on Wall Street for his young son, even though it was understood he had no experience in high finance. Many of his generous patrons, in turn, ended up with legislation and policies favorable to their businesses or investments, an RCI review of lobbying records and legislative actions taken by the elder Biden confirms.

That the 50-year-old Hunter has been trading on his Democratic father’s political influence his entire adult life raises legal questions about possible influence-peddling, government watchdogs and former federal investigators say. In addition, the more than two-decades-long pattern of nepotism casts fresh doubt on Joe Biden’s recent statements that he “never discussed” business with his son, and that his activities posed “no conflicts of interest.” 

No fewer than three committees in the Republican-controlled Senate have opened probes into potential Biden family conflicts. Investigators are also poring over Treasury Department records that have flagged suspicious activities involving Hunter’s banking transactions and business deals that may be connected to his father’s political influence. 

U.S. ethics rules require all government officials to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest in taking official actions. The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing.

While most of the attention on Hunter has focused on his dealings in Ukraine and China when his father was in the White House, he also cashed in on cushy jobs and sweetheart deals throughout his dad’s long Senate career, records reveal.

“Hunter Biden’s Ukraine-China connections are just one element of the Biden corruption story,” said Tom Fitton, president of the Washington-based watchdog group Judicial Watch, who contends Biden used both the Office of the Vice President and the Senate to advance his son’s personal interests.

In each case, Hunter Biden appeared under-qualified for the positions he obtained. All the while, he was a chronic abuser of alcohol and drugs, including crack cocaine, and has cycled in and out of no fewer than six drug-rehab treatment programs, according to published reports. He’s also been the subject of at least two drug-related investigations by police, one in 1988 and another in 2016,  according to federal records and reports. A third drug investigation resulted in his discharge from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014.

This comprehensive account of Hunter Biden’s “unique career trajectory,” as one former family friend gently put it, was pieced together through interviews with more than a dozen people, several of whom insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations, and after an in-depth examination of public records, including Securities and Exchange Commission filings, court papers, campaign filings, federal lobbying disclosures, and congressional documents.

Hunter Biden’s resume begins 24 years ago. Here is a rundown of the plum positions he has managed to land since 1996, thanks to his politically connected father and his boosters:

1996-1998: MBNA Corp.  

Fresh out of college, credit-card giant MBNA put him on its payroll as “senior vice president” earning more than $100,000 a year, plus an undisclosed signing bonus. Delaware-based MBNA at the time was Biden’s largest donor and lobbying the Delaware senator for bankruptcy reforms that would make it harder for consumers to declare bankruptcy and write off credit-card debt.

When Tom Brokaw asked Biden in 2008 about whether his son’s job was a conflict of interest, he snapped “Absolutely not.” It was an answer he’d repeat many times in the future. NBC News/YouTube

Besides a job for Hunter, bank executives and employees gave generously to Joe Biden’s campaigns – $214,000 total, federal records show – and one top executive even bought Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home for more than $200,000 above the market value, real estate records show. The exec paid top dollar – $1.2 million – for the old house even though it lacked central air conditioning. MBNA also flew Biden and his wife to events and covered their travel costs, disclosure forms show.

Sen. Biden eventually came through for MBNA by sponsoring and whipping votes in the Senate to pass the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Act.

When NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw asked Biden during the 2008 presidential campaign whether it was wrong “for someone like you in the middle of all this to have your son collecting money from this big credit-card company while you were on the (Senate) floor protecting its interests,” Biden gave an answer he would repeat many times in the future: “Absolutely not,” he snapped, arguing it was completely appropriate and that Hunter deserved the position and generous salary because he graduated from Yale.

1998-2001: Commerce Department 

Hunter also capitalized on the family name in 1998 when he joined President Clinton’s agency. In spite of having no experience in the dot-com industry, he was appointed “executive director of e-commerce policy coordination,” pulling down another six-figure salary plus bonuses.

He landed the job after his father’s longtime campaign manager and lawyer William Oldaker called then-Commerce Secretary William Daley, who’d also worked on Biden’s campaigns, and put in a good word for his son, according to public records. 

2001-2009: Oldaker, Biden & Belair 

After Republican President George W. Bush took over the Commerce Department, Hunter left the government and joined Oldaker to open a lobbying shop in Washington, just blocks from Congress, where he gained access to exclusive business and political deals.

Robert Skomorucha: Hunter had “a very strong last name that really paid off in terms of our lobbying efforts.” LinkedIn

Federal disclosure forms show Hunter Biden and his firm billed millions of dollars while lobbying on behalf of a host of hospitals and private colleges and universities, among other clients. In a 2006 disclosure statement submitted to the Senate, Hunter said his clients were “seeking federal appropriations dollars.”

Hunter won the contract to represent St. Joseph’s University from an old Biden family friend who worked in government relations at the university and proposed he solicit earmarks for one of its programs in Philadelphia. The friend, Robert Skomorucha, remarked in a press interview that Hunter had “a very strong last name that really paid off in terms of our lobbying efforts.”

These clients, like MBNA, also favored bankruptcy reforms to make it harder for patients and students to discharge debt in bankruptcy filings. At the same time Hunter was operating as a Beltway lobbyist, he was receiving “consulting payments” from his old employer MBNA, which was still courting his father over the bankruptcy reforms.

In 2007, Hunter also dined with a private prison lobbyist who had business before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Joe Biden chaired, according to published reports. Senate rules bar members or their staff from having contact with family members who are lobbyists seeking to influence legislation.

William Oldaker: Did not just make Hunter a rich lobbyist, but secured him a $1 million loan that went sour. ldaker & Willison

Hunter’s lawyer-lobbyist firm was embroiled in a conflict-of-interest controversy in 2006 when it was criticized for representing a lobbyist under investigation by the House ethics committee. The lobbyist was still taking payments from his old K street firm while working as a top aide on the House Appropriations Committee. Hunter at the time was lobbying that same committee for earmarks for his clients.

William Oldaker did not just make Hunter a rich lobbyist. Oldaker also secured a $1 million loan for him through a bank he co-founded, WashingtonFirst, that Hunter sought for an investment scheme, which later went sour.

Joe Biden deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign and political action committee donations at WashingtonFirst, while funneling hundreds of thousands in campaign and PAC expenditures to Oldaker, Biden & Belair. Joe Biden’s payments to Hunter’s lobbying firm, including more than $143,000 in 2007 alone, were listed as “legal services” in Federal Election Commission filings. 

Oldaker did not respond to a request for comment left at his office.

National Group: Hunter won earmarks for the University of Delaware and other Biden constituents. thenationalgroup.net

2003-2005: National Group LLP 

While serving as a partner at Oldaker, Biden & Belair, Hunter also registered as a lobbyist for National Group, a lobbying-only subsidiary which shared offices with OB&B  and specialized in targeted spending items inserted into legislation known as “earmarks.”

Hunter represented his father’s alma mater, the University of Delaware, and other Biden constituents and submitted requests to Biden’s office for earmarks benefiting these clients in appropriations bills.

2006-2007: Paradigm Companies LLC

In 2005, when Joe Biden was thinking about making another run at the White House, after a 1987 bid that ended in plagiarism charges, his lobbyist son was looking for a new line of work too. 

In early 2006, Wall Street executive and Biden family friend Anthony Lotito said, Biden’s younger brother, Jim, phoned him on behalf of the senator. He said Biden wanted his youngest son – whom he still called “Honey” – to get out of the lobbying business to avoid allegations of conflicts of interest that might dog Biden’s presidential bid.

“Biden was concerned with the impact that Hunter’s lobbying activities might have on his expected campaign [and asked his brother to] seek Lotito’s assistance in finding employment for Hunter in a non-lobbying capacity,” according to a January 2007 complaint that Lotito filed in New York state court against Hunter over alleged breach of contract in a related venture. (Jim and Hunter Biden denied such a phone call took place as described.)

Lotito told the court he agreed to help Hunter as a favor to the senator, who had served on the powerful banking committee. He figured “the financial community might be a good starting place in which to seek out employment on Hunter’s behalf,” the court documents state. But he quickly found that Wall Street had “no interest” in hiring Biden.

So the Bidens hatched a scheme to buy a hedge fund, “whereby Hunter would then assume a senior executive position with the company.” And Lotito helped broker the deal. Despite having no Wall Street experience, Biden was appointed interim CEO and president of the Paradigm investment fund and given a $1.2 million salary, according to SEC filings. Lotito joined the enterprise as a partner, and agreed to shepherd Hunter, still in his mid-thirties, through his new role in high-finance.

“Given Hunter Biden’s inexperience in the securities industry,” the complaint states, it was agreed that Lotito would maintain an office at the new holding company’s New York headquarters “in order to assist Biden in discharging his duties as president.”

After the venture failed, Lotito sued the Bidens for fraud. The Bidens countersued and the two parties settled in 2008. 

2006-2009: Amtrak

During this same period, Hunter was appointed vice chairman of the taxpayer-subsidized rail line, thanks to the sponsorship of powerful Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, a political ally of his father.

Joe Biden: The “senator from Amtrak” had a son from Amtrak too. Michael Perez/AP for Siemens

In a 2006 statement submitted to the Senate during his confirmation, Hunter asserted that he was qualified for the Amtrak board because “as a frequent commuter and Amtrak customer for over 30 years, I have literally logged thousands of miles on Amtrak.”

Amtrak has been a major supporter of Joe Biden, donating to both his Senate and presidential campaigns and even naming a train station after him in Wilmington. In return, Biden has supported taxpayer subsidies for the government railroad throughout his political career.

In his testimony, Hunter denied his Amtrak appointment pushed conflict-of-interest boundaries. 

2009- : Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC

Hunter co-founded the investment firm five months after his father moved into the White House and incorporated it in his father’s home state of Delaware, which has strict corporate secrecy rules.

At the time, Obama had tapped Vice President Biden to oversee the recovery from the financial crisis. Three weeks after Rosemont was incorporated, Hunter and his partners set up a subsidiary called Rosemont TALF and got $24 million in loans from the federal program known as the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. TALF was designed to help bail out banks and auto lenders hit by the crisis.

Within months, Rosemont had secured a total of $130 million from the program. Some of the government cash was then funneled into an investment fund incorporated in the Cayman Islands, SEC records show. Such offshore accounts are commonly used to evade taxes.

The move raised ethical flags with government watchdogs who suspected the bailout cash was used to benefit a well-connected insider.

Other records reveal that another subsidiary created years later – Rosemont Realty – touted to its investors that board adviser Hunter was politically connected. It highlighted in a company prospectus that he was the “son of Vice President Biden.”

2009-2012: Eudora Global 

On his resume, Hunter also lists himself as “founder” of yet another investment firm. But Eudora’s articles of incorporation show it was actually set up by a major Biden donor, Jeffrey Cooper, who put Hunter on his board after his father became vice president.

A self-described “friend of the Biden family,” Cooper also happened to run one of the largest asbestos-litigation firms in the country — SimmonsCooper LLC — and had courted Biden to make it easier to file asbestos lawsuits by defeating tort reforms. As a leader on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden had blocked reform of asbestos litigation every time bills reached the Senate floor.

Cooper’s law firm, which directly lobbied the Delaware senator’s office to kill such bills, donated more than $200,000 to Biden’s campaigns over the years, as well as his Unite Our States PAC, FEC records show. In fact, SimmonsCooper was one of Biden’s biggest donors during his failed 2007-2008 run for president, pumping $53,000 into his campaign.

The firm also put up $1 million in investment capital to help his son buy out the Paradigm hedge fund as part of the arrangement brokered by another Biden family friend, Lotito, to find non-lobbying work for Hunter.. Thanks in large part to Biden’s effort to kill bills reining in asbestos trial lawyers, SimmonsCooper has hauled in more than $1 billion for alleged asbestos victims. 

Attempts to reach Cooper for comment were unsuccessful. 

2009-2016: Boies Schiller Flexner LLP 

When Joe Biden became Vice President, Hunter landed a high-paying, no-show job at the New York-based law firm, a Democrat shop long tied to the Clintons. Another major Biden donor, the firm gave him the title “of counsel.”

Boies Schiller Flexner: Got Fraud charges against Hunter Biden dismissed, then brought him aboard. Boies Schiller Flexner

Boies Schiller brought Hunter aboard in 2009 after the Bidens hired the firm to defend Hunter against charges he defrauded partners in the Paradigm investment venture. Boies Schiller managed to get the case dismissed.

In 2014, a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch, who was under investigation and looking to repair his reputation to attract Western investors, started sending large payments to Boies to support Hunter for unspecified work. It’s unclear what Hunter did for the oligarch, who ran the gas giant Burisma, but $283,000 showed up at the same time his father was tapped by Obama to play a central role in overseeing U.S. energy policy in Ukraine.

Boies Schiller has pumped more than $50,000 into Biden’s campaigns, Federal Election Commission records show.

2013-2019: BHR Partners

After Obama named Biden his point man on China policy, Rosemont Seneca set up a joint venture worth $1 billion with the Bank of China called BHR – and Hunter was named vice-chairman and director of the new concern.

BHR Partners: Hunter arranged for one of his Chinese partners to shake hands with his father, the vice president. Beijing approved a business license shortly afterward. BHR Partners

Following in the shadow of his father’s political trajectory, Hunter’s new venture won the first-of-its-kind investment deal with the Chinese government at the same time Biden was jetting to Beijing to meet with top communist leaders. Secret Service records reveal Hunter flew to China on Air Force Two with his father while brokering the December 2013 deal. He arranged for one of his Chinese partners to shake hands with the vice president. BHR was registered 12 days later. Beijing OK’d a business license shortly afterward.

“No one else had such an arrangement in China,” said Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute.

Hunter resigned from the board of the Beijing-backed equity firm earlier this year as his father faced growing criticism on the campaign trail over what critics called a glaring conflict of interest. He did not, however, divest his 10% equity stake in the Chinese fund, which is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

Schweizer, whose books include “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elites,” said Biden went “soft” on the Chinese communists so his son could “cash in” on China business deals. Biden insists he did not discuss the venture with his son before, during or after his official visit to Beijing. But others see obvious hypocrisy at play in the Biden family’s self-dealing in notoriously corrupt China.

“Biden was one of the most vocal champions of anti-corruption efforts in the Obama administration. So when this same Biden takes his son with him to China aboard Air Force Two, and within days Hunter joins the board of an investment advisory firm with stakes in China, it does not matter what father and son discussed,” said Sarah Chayes, author of “Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens National Security.” “Joe Biden has enabled this brand of practice.”

2013-2014: U.S. Navy Reserve

Hunter was selected for a direct commission as a public affairs officer in a Virginia reserve unit.

He clearly received special treatment in securing the part-time post. Officers had to issue him two waivers – one for his age and one for a previous drug offense.

His vice president father swore him in at the White House in a small, private ceremony.

Barely a year later, authorities booted Hunter from the Navy for cocaine use after he tested positive from a urine test. The reason for his discharge was withheld from the press for several months.

2014-2019: Burisma Holdings

The Ukrainian gas giant added Hunter to its board soon after Obama named his father his point man on Ukraine policy, focusing on energy. The company paid his son as much as $83,000 a month, even though he had no energy experience to bring to the table and was required to attend just one board meeting a year. 

Golf buddies: White House visitor logs show that Joe Biden met with Hunter’s business partner Devon Archer, far left, on April 16, 2014. Burisma put Archer on its board shortly thereafter, followed by Hunter, far right, the next month. Fox News

At the time, the vice president was steering U.S. aid to Kiev to help develop its gas fields, which stood to benefit Burisma as the holder of permits to develop natural gas in three of Ukraine’s most lucrative fields. Biden promised Ukrainian officials the US would pump more than $1 billion into their energy industry and economy during a visit to Kiev in late April 2014. He urged leaders to increase the country’s gas supply and to rely on Americans to help them. Less than three weeks later, Burisma appointed his son to the board, after already retaining him for undisclosed services through Boies Schiller.

Burisma was run by an oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky, who was under investigation at the time and seeking Western protection from prosecution. In a move observers suspect was intended to send a message to prosecutors, the company sent out a news release in May 2014 claiming, falsely, that Hunter would be in charge of its “legal unit.” Burisma also trumpeted the fact that Hunter was “the son of the current U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden.” 

Biden’s office was aware Burisma was under investigation. The administration had tried to partner with the gas company through U.S. aid programs, but the outreach project was blocked over corruption concerns lodged by career diplomats.

Viktor Shokin, ex-Ukraine prosecutor: “The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma, and Joe Biden’s son was a member of the board,” he said in a recent sworn affidavit prepared for a European court. AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov, File

In early 2016, Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if Ukraine did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma. “If the prosecutor is not fired,” Biden recalled telling Ukraine’s leader, “you’re not getting the money.”

Biden’s muscling worked: Shokin was sacked in March 2016.

The former vice president says he was carrying out official U.S. policy that sought to remove an ineffective prosecutor. But Shokin had raided the home of Burisma’s owner and seized his property.

In addition, Shokin said that as part of his probe he was making plans to interview Hunter about millions of dollars in fees he and his partners had received from Burisma. He insists he was fired because he refused to close the investigation.

“The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma, and Joe Biden’s son was a member of the board,” Shokin said in a recent sworn affidavit prepared for a European court. “I assume Burisma had the support of Joe Biden because his son was on the board.” He added that the vice president himself had “significant interests” in Burisma.

The prosecutor who replaced Shokin shut down the Burisma probe within 10 months. Burisma’s founder was also taken off a U.S. government visa ban list.

Burisma/Wikimedia

Biden claims he only learned of his son joining the Burisma board from the news media. But there is evidence Biden had been consulted in advance. White House visitor logs show that Biden met with Hunter’s business partner Devon Archer on April 16, 2014. Burisma put Archer on its board shortly thereafter, followed by Hunter the next month. (Both Archer and Hunter maintain Burisma never came up during the private visit in Biden’s office, which lasted late into the night.) 

The day after Joe Biden’s meeting with Hunter’s partner in the White House, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi reportedly emailed Hunter to thank him for inviting him to Washington and “giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent[sic] some time together.” The Biden campaign asserts it cannot find a meeting with Pozharskyi on the former vice president’s “schedule,” though it did not deny such a meeting could have taken place. The Ukrainian official mentioned going out for coffee with Hunter on April 17, 2014, which indicated he was physically in D.C. at the time. RCI has not confirmed the authenticity of the April 17 email document, first disclosed by the New York Post after obtaining it from a hard drive allegedly copied from a laptop of Hunter Biden left at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Del. Pozharskyi did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Hunter stepped down from Burisma’s board in April 2019, a month before his father announced his White House bid and after critics made an issue of the conflicts his sinecure posed. He has since kept a very low profile. Unlike Trump’s children, Biden’s son is not out on the trail campaigning for him. 

1,850 Boxes Sealed Until After Election 

“Hunter Biden had no experience in the field, but he did have a notable connection to the vice president, who publicly has bragged about making clear to the Ukrainians that he alone controlled U.S. aid to the country,” noted Jonathan Turley, a public-interest law professor at George Washington University.

Retired FBI official I.C. Smith, who led public corruption investigations in Washington and Little Rock, Ark., said both father and son should have known joining Burisma was a bad idea, adding that it gives at least the appearance he was leveraging his name for payoffs from shady clients abroad.

I.C. Smith, ex-FBI official: “I would think, given Hunter’s past, the father would have asked more questions.” icsmith.com

“Clearly he’s led a troubled life and would be the sort of person susceptible to becoming engaged in this sort of rather sordid deal,” Smith said of Hunter.

“When he said his father asked if the deal was on the up and up and was assured it was, I would think, given Hunter’s past, the father would have asked more questions,” he added.

Hunter acknowledged in an ABC News interview last year that he lacked experience in both energy and Ukraine, but maintained that Burisma was impressed by other things on his resume.

“Ironically, Hunter highlighted his work at MBNA and his work on the board of Amtrak as evidence of his qualifications for the Burisma gig,” said Fitton of Judicial Watch. “But both the MBNA and Amtrak jobs, under any sensible analysis, were obvious favors for Joe Biden.”

Fitton argued that Biden’s claim he never discussed his son’s jobs and business deals rings hollow against the lengthy record of something-for-nothing nepotism.

“That’s campaign spin,” he said. “Hunter has already admitted to having at least one conversation on the Ukraine issue with Vice President Biden.”

Biden defenders argue that many relatives of politicians are often involved in government and politics. Ivanka Trump and Don Trump Jr., for instance, have cozy relationships with, or financial stakes in, companies that may benefit from those decisions. They also point out that, while they may look bad, there’s nothing illegal about such arrangements.

Fitton isn’t so sure. He said Judicial Watch is demanding Obama administration documents related to Hunter’s Ukraine and China deals, as well as other business arrangements potentially monetizing Biden’s political power.

“We can’t be sure if the arrangements were legal,” he said. “If any payments or jobs were neither ordinary nor customary, there may be legal issues.”

It’s a federal crime to provide a government benefit or favorable change in policy in exchange for something of personal value. At a minimum, argued former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, Biden “had a conflict of interest with the position his son had” on the Burisma board, noting that at the time, Biden was pushing energy policies that favored the gas giant.

The Biden School, part of the University of Delaware, which is keeping a lid on Biden records.  Biden School of Public Policy and Administration

Not all of Hunter Biden’s critics are coming from the right, either.

“It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Hunter’s foreign employers and partners were seeking to leverage Hunter’s relationship with Joe, either by seeking improper influence or to project access to him,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a liberal watchdog group based in Washington. 

The Biden Institute: Maggie Haberman, New York Times White House correspondent, was a featured speaker in 2018, according to its website. The University of Delaware holds more than 1,850 boxes of Biden records under seal. Biden Institute/University of Delaware

While Joe Biden insists “there’s been no indication of any conflict of interest from Ukraine or anywhere else,” Senate investigators are seeking a number of related emails and memos generated during the Obama administration, as well as his 36-year Senate career. That period, spanning from 1973 to 2009, coincides with a large chunk of his son’s resume.

However, Biden has sealed the bulk of the records at the University of Delaware Library, which refuses to release any of his papers until after the election. It maintains more than 1,850 boxes of Biden records, including his speeches, voting records, position papers and notes from confidential interviews he’s conducted with foreign leaders, among other documents. The papers the university is keeping a lid on could shed light on Biden’s thinking behind foreign policies and controversial bills he sponsored.

A spokeswoman said the library will not release any of Biden’s papers to the public until they are “properly processed and archived.” Until then, “access is only available with Vice President Biden’s express consent,” she said, while declining to answer whether the university would comply if the Senate subpoenaed documents as part of its investigation of the Bidens.

The university houses the Biden Institute, which is part of the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration.

Through a lawyer, Hunter maintained he and his father dutifully avoided “conflicts of interest” — or even “the appearance of such conflicts.” In every business pursuit, he asserted, they acted “appropriately and in good faith.”

However, in a moment of candor during a recent ABC News interview, Hunter confessed: “I don’t think that there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden,” before adding, “There’s literally nothing my father in some way hasn’t had influence over.” 

Still, the elder Biden argues it’s the Trump family who has the nepotism problem. In a recent CBS “60 Minutes” interview, he slammed the president for letting his daughter and son-in-law “sit in on Cabinet meetings.”

“It’s just simply improper because you should make it clear to the American public that everything you’re doing is for them,” he intoned. “For them.” 

A Chinese PLA soldier has been apprehended by the Indian Army in the western Himalayan border region of Ladakh on Monday, where both sides have been locked in a fierce border dispute which over the summer broke into hand-to-hand clashes that left at least 20 Indian troops killed. 

While the Chinese side has kept quiet about it, Indian military officials say the lone Chinese soldier appears to have strayed across the contested border line where thousands on each side have been based amid a military build-up. Indian media is so far widely reporting the soldier is expected to be returned based on official statements.

“The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier was captured in the Demchok area of eastern Ladakh and would be returned after the completion of formalities,” the Indian Army said according to Al Jazeera. 

“The PLA soldier has been provided medical assistance including oxygen, food and warm clothes to protect him from the vagaries of extreme altitude and harsh climatic conditions,” the statement said.

It’s unclear how quickly the soldier is expected to be returned to the Chinese side, but it’s a very rare occurrence, also coming at a moment of continued high tensions.

China and India have been engaged in military-to-military talks to attempt to return the region to a peaceful status quo amid the border dispute, which reaches back decades. 

Each side has accused the other of violating prior agreements, but for now that talks appear to have kept the peace even as a military build-up on each side has continued.

However, as of September both sides were witnessed sending additional troops and supplies to the harsh high-altitude region, strongly suggesting the standoff will continue for the long haul.

When winter hits, all roads leading to the area are blocked, so it appears the rival militaries are digging in for the long harsh winter. 

 

Authored by Angelo Codevilla via AmGreatness.com,

The FBI-generated indictment of six men on charges of terrorism for planning to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has all the earmarks of what has become that corrupt agency’s standard operating procedure.

Their lawyers are sure to claim they were victims of entrapment. If the case comes to trial, I doubt a jury will convict them.

During the eight years I spent supervising the intelligence agencies for the Senate Intelligence Committee, I watched as what had been a clerisy of strait-laced guardians of truth and justice was becoming a bunch of lazy bureaucrats eager to serve the ruling class’ prejudices. 

No longer doing the hard and dangerous work of investigating deeply connected criminals and subversives such as the Mafia and well-financed, politically supported subversives, the FBI limited its vision to politically correct “profiles,” and started chasing small fry. Easy targets, defended by no one. What’s not to like?

After 9/11, the FBI spent few years going after very petty Islamists while covering its collective eyes to the work of major sources of trouble, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia—each beloved by parts of the ruling class. But before and after this period, these profiles more often than not pointed to the ruling class’ favorite enemy: fellow Americans “excessively concerned with their liberties.” 

The FBI’s method? Place agents among the target group, stoke their sentiments, and lead them to say or do something that could be characterized as a crime, then arrest them and claim credit for foiling a plot. In intelligence lingo, that is provocation. In legal terms, it’s entrapment. By whatever name, this is the work of cheap, dirty cops.

In the 1950s, the joke was that any meeting of a Communist Party cell in the New York area was likely to consist of two-thirds infiltrators, half from the FBI and the other half from the New York Police Department. But these FBI infiltrators, like those of the Vietnam era in the 1960s and early ’70s, and like those who penetrated organized crime were merely watching. Doing an honest job. They were not provoking or entrapping, not creating something that would never have been there except for their presence.

Fast forward to our time. The contrast between how the FBI behaves with regard to persons connected to the ruling class and those who are not speaks for itself. The 918 Americans who died in mass suicide in Jonestown Guyana in November 1978 were victims of a cult that had been closely associated with the California Democratic Party. Relatives of the people who were being drawn in had complained to the FBI. But the FBI had refused to keep an eye on the movement, and later officially argued that doing so would have infringed on its political and religious liberties. 

And yet when the Tea Party movement arose to protest collusion between the Republican and Democratic parties against popular sentiment on a host of political issues, the FBI rushed to infiltrate it.

Having addressed countless meetings of Tea Parties in Northern California from 2010 to 2012, I experienced this infiltration directly. The audiences were respectful, and asked informative questions. When, occasionally, I got a question that seemed to push me to say something inflammatory, I made it a point to find and speak to the individual who had asked it. Invariably, the person fit a profile with which I had become familiar from my years overseeing the FBI: a man in his late 30s, who had recently moved into the community and worked for a big company, often remotely, and whose echoing of the sentiments surrounding him sounded studied. I would then advise him on how to write his report to headquarters. Generally, the man would walk away.

In the Michigan case, it seems the FBI had started by monitoring the men’s social media traffic and, on the basis of “excess concern for liberty” (prithee, what is that?) had obtained warrants for wiretaps and had inserted one or more infiltrators. But up to this time, no crime could be alleged—only what the FBI and its local affiliate considered a bad attitude. 

What exactly was the infiltrator’s role in moving the men from mere talk to incipient, allegedly criminal action? That is going to be the essence of the trial. The FBI will produce recordings made by the infiltrator. When was the device turned on, and when off? To what extent do those intermissions and/or additions made to the recording contribute to the impression that this was a real plot hatched autonomously? 

The accused will have the government’s and media’s full weights used against them, as would you or I.

The jury will have to decide whether the FBI was protecting society from sociopaths or whether it is itself sociopathic.

DC lobbyists are licking their chops at the prospect of a Biden win in November, as a flood of new regulations means they’ll have their work cut out for them.

“There is a huge amount of planning going on in our client base for what this could look like,” according to Holland & Knight LLP lobbyist, Rich Gold. “It’s highly likely the first six months of 2021 are some of the biggest legislative months I will have in my career in terms of things moving.“

Gold represents the American Chemistry Council, education technology provider Zovio, Inc., agriculture giant Corteva and several local governments.

According to Bloomberg, K Street lobbyists began planning for major changes when polling began to show former Vice President Biden leading President Trump, as well as the possibility that Democrats would regain control of the Senate.

“Not since 2008, when President George W. Bush was leaving the White House, have lobbyists planned for the possibility of so sweeping a change in Washington’s corridors of power,” writes Bloomberg‘s Jennifer Dlouhy and Ben Brody.

The presidential race remains tight in key states and the firms remain vigilant for another Trump victory like the one that caught many by surprise in 2016. But they are hedging their bets and increasingly planning around Biden’s polling lead.

One firm is developing dossiers on potential appointees, selling them to clients under the maxim “people are policy.” Another has created flow charts outlining possible committee leadership changes on Capitol Hill. And at least one group has established a war room to brainstorm strategies for countering policy proposals. –Bloomberg

One oil lobbyist told Bloomberg on condition of anonymity that the election would be a “rack-and-stack” exercise when it comes to the multitude of actions the Biden administration could undertake, while a Democratic sweep of the Senate has caused many lobbyists to begin cultivating relationships with moderate Democrats, including Jon Tester of Montana, Kyrsten Sinema of Zrizona, and Joe Machin of West Virginia.

According to lobbyists interviewed by Bloomberg News, a Biden administration would likely take immediate action on a new COVID-19 relief bill to help stimulate the US economy, along with their healthcare agenda and an increase in the corporate tax rate.

The stimulus bill alone would generate a whirlwind of activity for corporate interests – such as drugmakers who want to fend off the Trump administration’s efforts to limit drug prices, while the renewable energy industry will be looking for ways to get in on the COVID-19 package to foster clean energy programs.

“It’s so difficult to play out some of these scenarios here, and as a committed Democrat, I think we’re all still suffering from a little post-traumatic stress from 2016,” said former Al Gore aide and current partner at Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, David Thomas. “Everything comes with qualifiers.”

The energy industry, meanwhile, will be girding their loins in anticipation that a Biden administration would undo much of the deregulation enacted by the Trump administration.

Companies are trying to figure out “what do Biden’s first 100 days look like,” and “how do they impact us and how do we begin planning for that, according to longtime energy consultant, Stephen Brown.

“You can’t just be against everything; it’s what you can be for and how can you be for it,” he added. “That creates a huge internal discussion, not just by company by company but also trade association by trade association.”

Tony Podesta’s ex-wife, Heather Podesta – a Democratic lobbyist and CEO of lobbying firm Invariant – says that “Sophisticated corporations are in a constant state of re-evaluating their consulting teams, understanding that they’ve got to be nimble and have the best possible folks advising them and representing them in Washington.” Podesta represents Apple, Yelp, PelsiCo and the Business Roundtable.

“Right now, everybody is in a state of speed dating,” she added.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog, originally posted at The Asia Times,

No Washington-designed “maximum pressure” has been able to derail a crucial milestone this Sunday: the end of the UN arms embargo on Iran, in accordance with UN Security Council 2231, which has endorsed the 2015 JCPOA deal.

The JCPOA – or Iran nuclear deal – was unilaterally ditched by the Trump administration. But that, notoriously, did not prevent it from engaging in a massive campaign since April to convince the proverbial “allies” to extend the arms embargo and simultaneously trigger a snapback mechanism, thus re-imposing all UN sanctions on Tehran.

Foad Izadi, professor of International Studies at Tehran University, summed it all up:

“The US wanted to overthrow the government in Iran but failed obviously, they wanted to get more concessions out of Iran, but they have not been successful and they actually lost concessions. So the policy of maximum pressure campaign has failed.”

Under the current US electoral shadow play, no one can tell what happens next. Trump 2 most certainly would turbo-charge “maximum pressure”, while Biden-Harris would go for re-incorporating Washington to the JCPOA. In both options, Persian Gulf oil monarchies are bound to increase the proverbial hysteria about “Iranian aggression”.

The end of the arms embargo does not imply a renewed arms race in Southwest Asia. The real story is how the Russia-China strategic partnership will be collaborating with their key geostrategic ally. It’s never enough to remember that this Eurasian integration trio is regarded as the top “existential threat” to Washington.

Tehran patiently waited for October 18. Now it’s free to import a full range of advanced weaponry, especially from Moscow and Beijing.

Moscow has hinted that as long as Tehran keeps buying Su-30s, Russia is ready to build a production line of these fighter jets for Iran. Tehran is very much interested in producing its own advanced fighters.

Iran’s own weapons industry is relatively advanced. According to Brigadier General Amir Hatami, Iran is among a select group of nations able to manufacture over 90% of its military equipment – including tanks, armored personnel carriers, radars, boats, submarines, drones, fighter jets and, crucially, land and seaborne cruise missiles with a respective range of 1000 km and 1400 km.

Professor Mohammad Marandi from the Faculty of Policy Studies at the University of Tehran confirms, “Iran’s military industry is the most advanced in the region and most of its needs are provided by the Ministry of Defense.”

So yes, Tehran will certainly buy military jets, “but Iranian made drones are the best in the region and they’re improving”, Marandi adds. “There is no urgency, and we don’t know what Iran has up its sleeves. What we see in public is not everything.”

A classic case of the public face of something that can’t be seen was just offered by the meeting last Sunday in Yunnan province in China, between excellent pals Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister, and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

That’s of course part of their own strategic partnership – to be sealed by the now notorious $400 billion, 25-year, trade, investment and energy deal.

Both China and Iran happen to be encircled by rings of the US Empire of Bases and have been targets of varying, relentless brands of Hybrid War. Needless to add, Zarif and Wang Yi reaffirmed the partnership evolves in direct contrast with US unilateralism. And they must have discussed weapons trade, but there were no leaks.

Crucially, Wang Yi wants to set up a new dialogue forum “with equal participation of all stakeholders” to deal with important security issues in West Asia. The top precondition for joining the forum is to support the JCPOA, which was always staunchly defended by the Russia-China strategic partnership.

There won’t be an October Surprise targeting Iran. But then there’s the crucial interregnum between the US presidential election and the inauguration. All bets remain off.

It looks like the exodus out of the city, first catalyzed by the pandemic and then helped along by Bill De Blasio’s commitment to allow criminals to overtake the city, is continuing at a blistering pace. 

Home sales in Greenwich had their strongest quarter in “more than a decade” as people looked to escape the city. Single family home purchases were up 70% in Q3 to 311 sales, the most in a 3 month period in records that date back to 2010, per Bloomberg. 

According to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate, the median price of the sales was up 18% to $2.13 million. 

Discounts in Greenwich have averaged just 4.4%, the smallest in a decade – and properties are staying on the market for 25% less time than they were a year ago. 

The suburb had been coming off of a long stretch where home prices were faltering and sales were slowing. But the large estates that had fallen out of favor are now once again in demand. Buyers are once again placing premiums on luxuries like swimming pools and “enough land for socially distant gatherings”, Bloomberg notes.

Brokerage manager David Haffenreffer said: “With bigger homes, you’ve got the opportunity to have extended family with you, but also more amenities on-site. You can spread out and live that quarantine life in a more-liberated way.”

The section of town called “Back Country”, which features large properties on large lots, saw the biggest leap in prices. 

Scott Durkin, president of Douglas Elliman said: “We couldn’t give Back Country away, it was too far away from downtown.” Now, he says the area has become the “most requested”. 

And the trend shows no sign of slowing. As of September, there were 172 homes under contract, an almost 100% increase from the year prior. Haffenreffer concluded: “This could last a while. I don’t see what it is that could turn this on its head.”

Authored by Masooma Haq via The Epoch Times,

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Monday suggested that the Trump administration would bring a lawsuit against the social media companies that have recently restricted and blocked news reports about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

In an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Meadows said that the online platforms try to censor conservatives and suggested that if the story about Joe and Hunter Biden was about President Donald Trump and his family, tech companies would have not blocked the story.

“They have two standards: one for one campaign, one for the other. But I do believe that additional lawsuits will be filed perhaps as early as today to go after that,” Meadows said.

“Listen, it’s not just the campaigns,” he added. “They’re now starting to censor, actually, reporters. That’s a dangerous place for them to go when they’re the arbiter of what they deem to be the truth.”

The Chief of Staff’s comments come in the wake of a report by the New York Post alleging to have obtained emails from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. Many Democrats have claimed the story is an effort to discredit Joe Biden and an attempt by Russia to help elect Trump. So far, neither of the Bidens have denied the authenticity of the emails.

The threat of a lawsuit was also prompted by the actions Twitter took to lock Trump’s reelection campaign account last Thursday for trying to share the New York Post story.

Meadows said he has not received any intelligence suggesting that the Russians were involved in the emails being extracted from Hunter Biden’s laptop as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has alleged.

“All of this narrative that is out there that would suggest that it’s not real, that’s the disinformation. You know, Adam Schiff came on and said, ‘Oh, this is Russia, Russia, Russia,’ and again, I can tell you this is Adam Schiff once again trying to spin a story that’s not accurate.” Meadows said,

“I talked to director Ratcliffe over the weekend and I said, ‘Listen, if this is a Russian disinformation campaign, we need to make sure the American people know that.’ His response to me is that he had no knowledge of that.”

Schiff, who is the chairman of the House intelligence committee, has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that the Trump 2016 campaign colluded with Russia and now is claiming that Trump is working with Russia to hurt Biden’s campaign.

“We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” the California Democrat said on CNN last week, claiming that “the Kremlin has an obvious interest in denigrating Joe Biden,” and that “they want Donald Trump to win.”

When Schiff was asked about specific intelligence about the Kremlin’s involvement with disinformation about Biden, the Representative was unable to provide any evidence, saying that the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe was not “forthcoming” with intelligence.

“And frankly, we haven’t got much from the intelligence community very recently, which concerns me,” added Schiff.

Meanwhile, Ratcliffe told Fox News on Monday that there is no intelligence to suggest the Hunter Biden email scandal is led by Russia.

“It’s funny that some of the people who complain the most about intelligence being politicized are the ones politicizing the intelligence,” Ratcliffe said. “Unfortunately, in this case it is Adam Schiff, who said the intelligence community believes the Hunter Biden laptop and emails on it are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

He continued, “Let me be clear: the intelligence community doesn’t believe that, because there is no intelligence that supports that. And we have shared no [such] intelligence with Chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress.”

One month ago, when we first reported that SoftBank was the “Nasdaq Whale” responsible for the gamma meltup across some of the largest tech names which quickly led to marketwide levitation across the entire stock market – as the Japanese conglomerate was furiously buying call spreads in a generally illiquid market and forcing dealers who were short gamma to delta hedge at ever higher prices creating a upward price feedback loop – we observed that according to Bloomberg’s previous reporting, SoftBank had been targeting investments of approximately $10 billion in public stocks as part of a new asset management arm, far exceeding the initial holdings that founder Masayoshi Son outlined to shareholders in the company’s latest earnings call, and a break from the company’s strategy of investing in private names.

Then, two weeks ago, the Nasdaq Whale made a repeat appearance, when we reported that SoftBank was back for round two: as SpotGamma wrote, highlighting the strong rally in many tech names “there are notes out detailing large options positions building in tech. Looking at FB as an example you can see how call activity has picked up over the last two weeks” and “this chasm between call & put gamma is starting to look similar to that of early August.”

This was confirmed that same day by CNBC’s David Faber who said that on Oct 1, SoftBank had bought $200M worth of calls in NFLX, AMZN, FB and GOOGL.

But if SoftBank had built up a $10 billion stake in public tech stocks by mid-August, how big was its position now that it appeared to be doubling down? Well, there’s your hint right there: according to a new Bloomberg report, SoftBank has doubled its equity positions to more than $20 billion despite what was initially a skeptical response from shareholders, one which prompted the bank to announce it would not act as a Robinhood-esque hedge fund chasing momentum stocks, and would consider tempering its trading plans in early September after reports that SoftBank’s spending spree was stirring froth in tech stocks.

Yet despite the news costing SoftBank about $9 billion in market value at the time, with the stock rebounding Masa Son has re-reconsidered and is now literally doubling down.

In its public filings, SoftBank disclosed holdings of “only” $3.9 billion in stocks such high beta tech names as Amazon, Alphabet NVidia and Netflix…

… however, it has since bought a lot more stocks. Curiously, according to Bloomberg, while focusing on major tech stocks, SoftBank has also been expanding to smaller companies. Last week, it invested $215 million in Norway-based Kahoot, which makes education software.

So what is SoftBank’s thinking this time behind its “renewed commitment” to the public equities trading arm? According to Bloomberg sources, the strategy – which consists of buying out-of-the-money call options funded by selling calls at even higher prices – is “built around expectations of a volatile third-quarter earnings season.” That, however, makes no sense because SoftBank’s strategy is fundamentally a bullish bet, and anything but a vol hedge. In fact, as August demonstrated, if done in size and if it triggers another gamma melt-up, such call spread buying itself can become the catalyst the pushes stocks higher. And that’s precisely the strategy adopted by Masa Son and implemented by former Deutsche Bank trader Akshay Naheta, first identified here and whom we called the “gamma whale.“

And now that this information is public amid renewed chatter of yet another gamma squeeze, will SoftBank fade away as it did in early September when it was first identified? Hardly: if anything Masa Son will triple down. After all, for the Japanese billionaire, the only thing that matters is SoftBank’s stock price, and that just happened to hit a 20 year high on monday, the highest since the March 2000 dot com boom.

In fact, looking at the chart above, it is very likely that Masa Son will aggressively continue to expand this strategy until softbank’s stock price regains it all time bubble highs.

One month ago, when we first reported that SoftBank was the “Nasdaq Whale” responsible for the gamma meltup across some of the largest tech names which quickly led to marketwide levitation across the entire stock market – as the Japanese conglomerate was furiously buying call spreads in a generally illiquid market and forcing dealers who were short gamma to delta hedge at ever higher prices creating a upward price feedback loop – we observed that according to Bloomberg’s previous reporting, SoftBank had been targeting investments of approximately $10 billion in public stocks as part of a new asset management arm, far exceeding the initial holdings that founder Masayoshi Son outlined to shareholders in the company’s latest earnings call, and a break from the company’s strategy of investing in private names.

Then, two weeks ago, the Nasdaq Whale made a repeat appearance, when we reported that SoftBank was back for round two: as SpotGamma wrote, highlighting the strong rally in many tech names “there are notes out detailing large options positions building in tech. Looking at FB as an example you can see how call activity has picked up over the last two weeks” and “this chasm between call & put gamma is starting to look similar to that of early August.”

This was confirmed that same day by CNBC’s David Faber who said that on Oct 1, SoftBank had bought $200M worth of calls in NFLX, AMZN, FB and GOOGL.

But if SoftBank had built up a $10 billion stake in public tech stocks by mid-August, how big was its position now that it appeared to be doubling down? Well, there’s your hint right there: according to a new Bloomberg report, SoftBank has doubled its equity positions to more than $20 billion despite what was initially a skeptical response from shareholders, one which prompted the bank to announce it would not act as a Robinhood-esque hedge fund chasing momentum stocks, and would consider tempering its trading plans in early September after reports that SoftBank’s spending spree was stirring froth in tech stocks.

Yet despite the news costing SoftBank about $9 billion in market value at the time, with the stock rebounding Masa Son has re-reconsidered and is now literally doubling down.

In its public filings, SoftBank disclosed holdings of “only” $3.9 billion in stocks such high beta tech names as Amazon, Alphabet NVidia and Netflix…

… however, it has since bought a lot more stocks. Curiously, according to Bloomberg, while focusing on major tech stocks, SoftBank has also been expanding to smaller companies. Last week, it invested $215 million in Norway-based Kahoot, which makes education software.

So what is SoftBank’s thinking this time behind its “renewed commitment” to the public equities trading arm? According to Bloomberg sources, the strategy – which consists of buying out-of-the-money call options funded by selling calls at even higher prices – is “built around expectations of a volatile third-quarter earnings season.” That, however, makes no sense because SoftBank’s strategy is fundamentally a bullish bet, and anything but a vol hedge. In fact, as August demonstrated, if done in size and if it triggers another gamma melt-up, such call spread buying itself can become the catalyst the pushes stocks higher. And that’s precisely the strategy adopted by Masa Son and implemented by former Deutsche Bank trader Akshay Naheta, first identified here and whom we called the “gamma whale.“

And now that this information is public amid renewed chatter of yet another gamma squeeze, will SoftBank fade away as it did in early September when it was first identified? Hardly: if anything Masa Son will triple down. After all, for the Japanese billionaire, the only thing that matters is SoftBank’s stock price, and that just happened to hit a 20 year high on monday, the highest since the March 2000 dot com boom.

In fact, looking at the chart above, it is very likely that Masa Son will aggressively continue to expand this strategy until softbank’s stock price regains it all time bubble highs.