Month: March 2022

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

One of the former CIA officers who signed a letter claiming stories about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were disinformation says he helped swing the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump.

“I take special pride in personally swinging the election away from Trump,” John Sipher, who served for decades as a senior operations officer at the CIA, wrote in a recent post on Twitter.

“I lost the election for Trump? Well then I fell [sic] pretty good about my influence,” he also wrote.

Sipher and 50 other former U.S. intelligence officials signed the letter on Oct. 19, 2020, alleging that the effort to distribute its contents “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” despite not knowing whether the laptop was legitimate.

The letter was the core of a story from Politico that claimed the New York Post story on the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

The Post was the first to report on emails on the laptop, which was dropped off at a computer repair store and never picked up by then-candidate Joe Biden’s son, according to the store’s owner.

While the FBI picked up the computer and a hard drive from the owner, the bureau’s apparent inaction in probing the matter prompted him to pass on a copy of the hard drive to a lawyer representing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who in turn passed it on to the Post.

The Oct. 14, 2020, story about the emails came as some voters were still deciding whether to vote for Biden or Trump. The story was widely questioned by legacy news outlets, suppressed by social media platforms, and claimed to be part of a Russian effort, despite top officials like Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe saying there was no evidence that was the case.

Sipher is one of the few former officials who signed the letter to respond to fresh questions about its contents, after more legacy outlets, including Politico, said they’ve confirmed it is legitimate.

Sipher got into arguments with former acting DNI Richard Grenell and others on Twitter, where he later said his claims of helping Trump lose were sarcasm.

He also write that “the letter didn’t say the laptop was disinformation” but in May 2021 posted a link to the Politico story that did say that.

Nick Shapiro, once a top aide to former CIA Director John Brennan—both Shapiro and Brennan signed the missive—and who provided it to Politico, has not responded to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

Most other signers didn’t respond to requests for comment or declined the requests, the Post reported.

James Clapper, a former DNI, told the paper that he stands by the statement “made AT THE TIME,” adding that, “I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate.”

“The letter explicitly stated that we didn’t know if the emails were genuine, but that we were concerned about Russian disinformation efforts,” added Russ Travers, former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “I spent 25 years as a Soviet/Russian analyst. Given the context of what the Russians were doing at the time (and continue to do—Ukraine being just the latest example), I considered the cautionary warning to be prudent.”

In yet another awkward contradiction out of this US administration concerning Ukraine, which at this point seems to come almost daily, the head of US European Command was forced to issue a contrary explanation after Biden on Monday said multiple times that US forces are “helping train” Ukrainian troops in Poland. 

This triggered a rebuttal of the US Commander-in-Chief from Gen. Tod Wolters, who also serves as NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe. On Tuesday Gen. Wolters denied that the US is currently training Ukraine forces in Poland. 

“I do not believe that we are in the process of currently training military forces from Ukraine in Poland,” the top general told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. 

He said further according to The Hill when pressed on Biden’s series of statements, which the White House had later sought to downplay as gaffes and merely lacking in nuance:

“There are liaisons that are there that are being given advice,” Wolters told Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), without elaborating further. “And that’s different than [what] I think you’re referring to with respect training.”

But again, as we detailed earlier, Biden had actually asserted that American forces were training Ukrainians in Poland multiple times, strongly suggesting this was anything but “confusion” or a mere gaffe on the president’s part…

Today Biden said the U.S. is “helping train the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland.”

Biden’s staff has already walked this back, admitting he was confused. pic.twitter.com/Xj59bsPdMe

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 29, 2022

National security adviser Jake Sullivan previously stated that the US currently has 10,500 troops in Poland, some of which the president visited over the weekend. Across Europe, Washington has bolstered its presence to the tune of 100,000 total troops. The U.S. has 10,500 troops in Poland as part of the 100,000 total that it has stationed across Europe, told reporters.

When initially asked Monday about this “training the Ukrainian troops” remark, Biden offered the dubious explanation that he was actually referencing he himself “being with and talking with the Ukrainian troops who are in Poland.”

But it remains that not only his own advisers have had to offer repeat corrections, but now even the US head of European Command in Senate testimony. This goes beyond an awkward situation, but even into the realm of dangerous, given many of these walked-back remarks serve as a huge provocation to Russia (especially Saturday’s regime change statement fiasco from Warsaw).

Authored by Pat Buchanan,

While President Joe Biden was in Brussels and Warsaw showing U.S. solidarity with Ukraine, the 38-year-old autocrat who rules North Korea made a bold bid for the president’s attention.

For the first time since 2017, Kim Jong Un test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-17, the largest road-mobile missile ever launched.

While it flew 600 miles from Pyongyang into the Sea of Japan, the mammoth missile flew for 71 minutes, reaching an altitude of 3,852 miles.

Had it been fired in a normal trajectory, its missile warheads could have reached Washington, D.C., and every city in the USA.

As any first strike on the United States with such a weapon would ensure the destruction of Kim’s dynasty, regime and country, clearly, this ICBM test is a bid to demand new negotiations with the U.S.

Kim’s goals are to have the U.S. lift sanctions, recognize his regime, remove U.S. bases and troops from South Korea, and start up trade while he steadily expands his arsenal of missiles and nuclear warheads as both an insurance policy and an instrument of extortion.

The U.S. and South Korea have both expressed skepticism about the launch, believing Pyongyang may have test-fired an upgraded and older Hwasong-15 that carries a single warhead.

But Kim is not the only Asian autocrat on the move.

China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin lately sent a flotilla of 10 warships — destroyers, frigates, corvettes — five Chinese and five Russian — through the Tsugaru Strait between Japan’s home islands of Honshu and Hokkaido and then back again through the Osumi Strait off the Japanese island of Kyushu.

This is believed to be the first joint Chinese-Russian naval patrol ever conducted in the Western Pacific.

Beijing has also begun anew flying fleets of dozens of jet fighters and bombers into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, to test the island’s defenses and send a message to Taipei as to whom it is that the island truly belongs.

China also continues to press its claim to Japan’s Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, even as it completes the militarization of Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea.

Last week, the New York Post reported:

“China has equipped at least three islands it has built in a disputed area of the South China Sea with anti-aircraft missile systems, fighter jets and laser and jamming equipment — a buildup that threatens all other nations in the region, a top US military commander said.”

Adm. John Aquilino, who heads the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, is quoted as telling the Associated Press that China’s activity in East Asia is part of “the largest military buildup since World War II.”

To what end?

China’s Navy now has 355 warships if all vessels from corvettes to carriers are counted. That is 50 more vessels than the U.S. Navy, though the U.S. Navy has many more missile tubes for firing weapons and Beijing has no warship of the size or firepower of a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Yet, again, China seems on the move far beyond what it claims as its territorial waters in the South and East China Seas.

Last week, in what Australia’s former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called “one of the most significant security developments … in decades,” the Solomon Islands revealed that it was signing a security pact with Beijing that would permit the establishment of Chinese bases there.

Among the Solomons chain is Guadalcanal, familiar to U.S. Marines from the first days of fighting in the Pacific in World War II.

The Solomon Islands are 1,400 miles from Australia, and the alarm in Canberra at the prospect of a Solomons-China security treaty is shared by New Zealand.

Again, what would be the purpose of Chinese security ties to unthreatened islands so far from China but so close to Australia?

Beijing appears to be playing a long game, the goal of which is domination of East Asia and the Western pacific, severance of the U.S. alliances there and the expulsion of American power back to Guam and Hawaii.

Consider the state of play:

China’s partners in East Asia, North Korea and Russia possess nuclear weapons. But none of America’s allies — Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines — has ever tested a nuclear weapon.

Nor has Taiwan, which spends a piddling 2% of GDP on defense, despite the growing menace of Beijing. In the final analysis, all of our allies and partners on the far side of the Pacific depend for their defense on America.

Yet of all those Asian nations allied with the United States, every one is more economically dependent on their trade with China than they are with their trade with the United States.

Before the Ukraine crisis exploded with the invasion ordered by Putin’s Russia, the foreign policy consensus was that America would be making a historic “pivot to Asia.” For that is where the challenges of the future to America’s global primacy would appear to come.

That may still be true.

The White House’s chief economist told reporters at a daily press briefing on Monday that American farmers will respond to “price signals” to increase crop production to mitigate food shortages worldwide following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

A reporter asked Cecilia Rouse, the chair of President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, about the White House’s plan to deal with food shortages when it comes to wheat. 

Rouse said, “well, first we are a net exporter of many food commodities, and farmers respond to price signals, and so with the price of food rising, they will be responding by making additional plantings and try to take advantage of increase pricing.” 

She added: “The market will work as the market will work.” 

Council of Economic Advisers Chair Cecilia Rouse is asked how the White House is planning on dealing with food shortages. pic.twitter.com/MpJUghx63R

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 28, 2022

The war in Ukraine has disrupted the global food supply. Russia and Ukraine account for more than a quarter of the international wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally. 

We’ve outlined the emerging market countries that will first feel the brunt of food price shocks and shortages. Bloomberg data shows the most reliant countries on Ukraine wheat, including Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Turkey. 

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization forecasts that global food prices could soar another 8%-20%. 

The issue with Rouse’s response is that the costs of plantings have skyrocketed. Fertilizer and diesel prices are at record highs, and this may deter some farmers from additional plantings or even switching crops that require less fertilizer. The farmers who decide to plant wheat may spread less fertilizer on fields, which could impact harvest yields later this year. 

Bread, cooking oils, and meat prices have surged. Countries are now adopting food protectionism (see: Argentina) by limiting or ceasing exports of farm goods to mitigate domestic shortages. 

Last week, President Biden warned that there could be global food shortages: 

“We did talk about food shortages. And it’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well,” Biden said at a presser in Brussels. 

As we’ve previously noted, the “”Media Isn’t Warning You” That US Careening Towards Food Crisis,” maybe the White House should refocus its efforts on securing domestic supplies first before exporting farm goods abroad. The last thing Biden needs before midterms this fall are food riots. 

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The NFL will require every team to hire a minority or female offensive assistant coach for the 2022 season in an effort to ensure more opportunities for diverse candidates.

The policy was adopted by NFL owners during their annual meeting on March 28 and requires all 32 NFL teams to hire an offensive assistant coach who is “a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority,” regardless of whether or not the team already has a coach who satisfies those requirements among their staff.

It is unclear exactly when the policy goes into effect.

According to the NFL, the individual hired will “receive a one-year contract and work closely with the head coach and offensive staff to gain experience.”

Teams will receive funding toward the coach’s salary for up to two years from a league-wide fund.

“In recent years, head coaches have predominantly had offensive backgrounds. We believe this resolution will assist greatly in continuing to source and identify diverse candidates earlier in their career, providing pipeline depth and furthering developing the diverse offensive pipeline,” the updated NFL policy reads.

The policy adopted Monday is an adjustment to the Rooney Rule adopted by the National Football League in 2003 which requires league teams to interview ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation vacancies.

That rule was adopted based on recommendations by the league’s Workplace Diversity Committee in an attempt to “develop a deep, sustainable talent pool at all levels of the organization” and “increase the number of minorities hired in head coach, general manager, and executive positions,” according to the NFL.

The Rooney Rule has regularly been updated and expanded since it went into effect.

However, there were just five minority head coaches in the NFL last season: Ron Rivera, Mike Tomlin, Brian Flores, David Culler, and Robert Saleh.

Over 60 percent of the NFL players in 2021 identified as non-white, according to Market Watch, citing data from Statista.

In February, former Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit in federal court against the NFL and three football teams accusing them of discrimination after he was fired as head coach at the end of the season.

“However, well-intentioned or not, what is clear is that the Rooney Rule is not working,” Flores said in a legal complaint.

Elsewhere on Monday, the NFL announced a number of other policy changes, which included ownership diversity, to encourage and attract a diverse range of prospective ownership groups.

“Accordingly, when evaluating a prospective ownership group of a member club pursuant to League policies, the membership will regard it as a positive and meaningful factor if the group includes diverse individuals who would have a significant equity stake in and involvement with the club, including serving as the controlling owner of the club,” the policy reads.

Officials also announced a Diversity Advisory Committee which is being set up to examine how diverse hiring practices are among the league and its teams.

Outside experts on the committee include former Houston Texans general manager Rick Smith and former New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey, as well as Pamela Carlton, the founder and president of Springboard, ESPN reported.

A former Yale Medical School administrator has pleaded guilty to embezzling $40 million from the school in an electronics purchasing scheme.

According to federal prosecutors, Jamie Petrone, 42, took advantage of her position as the director of finance for the emergency medicine department to authorize equipment purchases without additional approvals, which weren’t required as long as the amounts were below $10,000, according to MarketWatch.

In total, prosecutors say she caused Yale $40,504,200 in losses – which she never declared as income on her ‘false’ tax returns for years 2013 through 2016. She filed no returns between 2017 and 2020, defrauding the IRS out of more than $6 million according to prosecutors.

Petrone, who began working at Yale in 1999 and then for the medical school in 2008, used the money to buy several properties across several states, as well as luxury cars which included Land Rovers, Cadillac Escalades and Mercedes Benz’s.

On Monday she pleaded guilty to wire fraud and filing false tax returns – for which she faces up to 30 years in prison. She is set to be sentenced in June, and is currently f ree on $1million bond.

The scheme began in 2013, when Petrone began making numerous small orders of tablet computers and other equipment, which she would then sell to a business in New York state, which would then send proceeds to a wedding photography and videography company she controlled.

Prosecutors say that in 2021 alone, she purchased more than 8,000 tablet computers, all in orders smaller than $10,000. In one 10-week period that year, she ordered $2.1 million worth of equipment. 

During the eight years that authorities say she ran the scam, Petrone told investigators that “90% of her computer-related purchases were fraudulent,” according to court documents.

To explain the purchases to university officials, Petrone would claim the equipment was needed for certain medical studies being performed at the school, according to court papers. -Marketwatch

Yale alerted authorities to the fraud last year after discovering “evidence of suspected criminal behavior.

“Since the incident, Yale has worked to identify and correct gaps in its internal financial controls,” said the university.

In addition to three properties that she co-owns in Connecticut and another in Georgia, Petrone has agreed to forefit $560,421.14 that was seized from her accounts, two Mercedes-Benzes valued at $135,000, a $90,000 Range Rover, two Cadillac Escalades and a Dodge Charger.