Month: September 2023

With Biden’s weaponized Dept of Justice intending to seek a second indictment of Hunter Biden after the catastrophic disaster that was the government’s first sweetheart plea deal, which revealed the corruption of “special counsel” David Weiss, who now is scrambling to slap Hunter’s wrist for the second time over a, drumroll, gun charge which will lead to the president’s crackhead son not spending even a minute in prison for being, along with his senile father, a bought and paid for Chinese muppet, the US Department of “Justice” needed a big enough distraction and got that today when SBF’s former right hand figurehead and former FTX CEO Ryan Salame, pleaded guilty Thursday in New York federal court to campaign finance and money-transmitting crimes, and agreed to forfeit more than $1.5 billion. Yup, Salame had $1.5 billion in cash just hanging around courtesy of the epic criminal syndicate that was FTX, and is about to part with it.

According to CNBC, Salame, during his plea, admitted that from fall 2021 to November 2022 he steered tens of millions of dollars of political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans – but really mostly Democrats…

… in his own name when in actuality the money came from Alameda Research, the hedge fund arm of the cryptocurrency exchange owner FTX. Those contributions were made at the behest of then-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Salame said, making SBF the second biggest Democrat donor during the 2022 midterms, only behind George Soros…

… in which the Dems managed to avoid getting steamrolled thanks to Biden draining the SPR. Oh and, according to Vox, it was SBF who was “one of the people who is most responsible” for Biden being “elected” president.

“From at least in or about 2020, up to and including in or about November 2022, Ryan Salame, the defendant, engaged in multiple conspiracies to advance the interests of Samuel Bankman-Fried … and the cryptocurrency companies Bankman-Fried founded and controlled — including FTX.com (“FTX”) and Alameda Research (“Alameda”) — through the operation of an unlawful money transmitting business and violations of the federal election law,” the charging document filed against Salame says.

That document says that Salame, in a private message to a confidant, wrote that “the purpose of these bipartisan donations would be ‘to weed out anti crypto dems for pro crypto dems and anti crypto repubs for pro crypto repubs,’ and that donations would likely be routed through Salame ‘to weed out that republican side.’”

Salame, who was released on a $1 million bond Thursday, faces a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison for the campaign finance violation and charge of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. His sentencing was scheduled for March 6 by Judge Lewis Kaplan in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

In addition to what must be a record monetary forfeiture, which will be paid to the U.S. government, the 30-year-old Salame will pay $5 million to debtors of FTX and $6 million in fines to the government. Salame also will surrender two houses he owns in Lenox, Massachusetts, and his 2021 Porsche automobile.

Salame’s attorney, Jason Linder of the firm Mayer Brown, in a statement said. “Ryan looks forward to putting this chapter behind him and moving forward with his life.″

A source told CNBC that Salame is not cooperating with federal prosecutors who are preparing for the criminal fraud trial of 31-year-old Bankman-Fried. But three other former executives who previously pleaded guilty in the same court are expected to testify against Bankman-Fried.

They are Caroline Ellison, who had been CEO of Alameda; former FTX technology chief Gary Wang; and Nishad Singh, who was FTX’s engineering boss.

U.S. Attorney Damien Williams, whose office is prosecuting the FTX cases, in a statement said, “Ryan Salame agreed to advance the interests of FTX, Alameda Research, and his co-conspirators through an unlawful political influence campaign and through an unlicensed money transmitting business, which helped FTX grow faster and larger by operating outside the law.”

Meanwhile, SBF – who yesterday lost his appeal to get out of Brooklyn jail where they don’t serve adderall or vegan food. and is set to go on trial Oct. 3 on wire fraud and securities fraud charges related to his alleged looting of billions of dollars in customer funds from FTX courtesy of endorsements from some of the highest profile politicians criminals in the country.

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

U.S. officials are refusing to provide COVID-19 vaccine safety data to a U.S. senator.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the results of analyses on data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in January. The request came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said none of the safety signals it identified for the COVID-19 vaccines were “unexpected.”

The two agencies have run different types of analyses on the system’s reports, which are primarily made by health care professionals.

The CDC ran Proportional Reporting Ratio analyses, which involve comparing the number of reported adverse events to the number of adverse events reported after vaccination with other vaccines.

The first time the agency ran analyses using the method for the COVID-19 vaccines, in 2022, hundreds of signals were triggered, files obtained by The Epoch Times show.

The FDA in 2021 started a different type of analysis, called Empirical Bayesian (EB) data mining.

The Proportional Reporting Ratio results “were generally consistent with EB data mining, revealing no additional unexpected safety signals,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director at the time, told Mr. Johnson previously.

Mr. Johnson demanded answers on that claim, prompting the CDC to point him to the FDA.

The FDA recently responded to Mr. Johnson, telling him that it cannot provide the information he seeks.

“FDA’s EB data mining analyses of adverse events contained in VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines are currently the subject of pending FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] litigation. FDA is unable to comment on pending litigation or provide information or data that is currently being considered in pending litigation,” the agency told the senator.

Mr. Johnson in a new letter told FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf that the claim was wrong.

“As you are well aware, Congress has a right to information contained at U.S. federal agencies as it conducts its constitutional oversight responsibilities,” Mr. Johnson said.

“It is outrageous that FDA would assert that pending litigation, and particularly FOIA litigation, would allow your agency to obstruct my congressional oversight,” he added. “Any pending litigation FDA may have relating to its EB data mining records has no bearing on its responsibility to comply with a congressional request.”

Mr. Johnson said in the past he’s repeatedly received from the government documents subject to litigation, including from the FDA’s parent agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

He urged the FDA to produce the EB data mining analyses by Sept. 20.

The FDA declined to immediately provide a comment.

The agency was sued in January over its refusal to provide the results of the EB data mining to The Epoch Times and the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, citing exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Children’s Health Defense, the litigant, said that the refusal to provide the records was illegal.

In the last update in the case, the FDA said it has 150 responsive pages but that it has to do a “page-by-page, line-by-line review” to determine whether any information on the pages should be withheld, or redacted. The agency said it is “facing an unprecedented FOIA workload” stemming from federal courts ordering it to release information it had said would be made public on the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

Ignored Questions

In another new letter, Mr. Johnson pressed the HHS on the program it administers to provide compensation to people injured by the COVID-19 shots.

Despite injections starting in December 2020, and more than 1.5 million reports being lodged with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. HHS has compensated just four people, paying $8,592 in total.

Others have been approved for compensation but the money is still pending.

Mr. Johnson in April asked for more details on the program as the agency has not been forthcoming, including whether there are caps on the amount of money an injured person can receive and whether the government has advertised the program.

Mr. Johnson also demanded communications between HHS and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers regarding compensation claims.

In a recent letter, HHS declined to answer many of the questions.

Mr. Johnson on Sept. 5 urged HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to provide answers to all of his questions.

He pointed to how Mr. Becerra, when being vetted by the Senate, told senators that he would commit to providing a prompt response to any questions addressed by Senate Finance Committee members.

“As a member of the Senate Finance Committee and as ranking member of the Senate’s top investigative subcommittee, your agency’s June 23, 2023 response is completely unacceptable and calls into question the veracity of the commitment you made before the Senate during your confirmation hearing,” Mr. Johnson said. “I call on you to immediately revise HHS’s incomplete response and provide the requested information.“

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

In retrospect, it’s surprising that it took so long.

With Case-Shiller reporting that the nation’s worst-by-far (not to mention feces-covered) real-estate  market is that of San Francisco, where prices have seen annual declines for the past 8 months, half of which have seen double-digit drops…

…. overnight RedFin reports more bad news for those unlucky enough to be living in the socialist utopia that is San Francisco: home sellers in this liberal bastion are four times more likely than the average U.S. home seller to take a loss, as the Bay Area metro reels from an outsized drop in home prices. In fact, according to the report, the typical San Francisco seller who takes a loss sells their home for $100,000 less than they bought it for. And when they do, they have to walk on shit-covered streets, through crowds of homeless, to buy another home one which they pray won’t be burgled in the near future because, well, good luck calling cops in San Fran.

Here are the details from Redfin:

Roughly one of every eight (12.3%) homes that sold in San Francisco during the three months ending July 31 was purchased for less than the seller bought it for, up from 5% a year earlier. That’s a higher share than any other major U.S. metro and is quadruple the national rate of 3%.

Next came Detroit (6.9%), Chicago (6.5%), New York (5.9%) and Cleveland (5.8%). 

In San Francisco, which tied with New York for the largest median loss in dollar terms, the typical homeowner who took a loss sold their home for $100,000 less than they bought it for. Nationwide, the typical homeowner who sold their home for less than they bought it for lost $35,538.

Homeowners were least likely to sell at a loss in San Diego, Boston, Providence, RI, Kansas City, MO and Fort Lauderdale, FL. In each of those metros, roughly 1% of homes sold for less than the seller originally paid.

* *  *

Turning back to San Francisco, just because it’s both terrifying and amusing to watch a formerly great city implode under the weight of Soros-funded DAs, here home sellers were most likely to lose money because the region has experienced outsized home-price declines. It was one of the first markets to see prices sink when high mortgage rates triggered a slowdown in the housing market last year. By April 2023, San Francisco’s median home sale price was down a record 13.3% year over year, more than triple the nationwide drop of 4.2%. As of July, it was down just 4.3% year over year to $1.4 million, but that compared with a national gain of 1.6%. The total value of homes in San Francisco has fallen by roughly $60 billion since last summer, a separate Redfin analysis found.

Prices in the Bay Area have fallen fast for a few reasons:

• First, it’s home to the most expensive real estate in the country, meaning housing costs had a lot of room to come down. It has also been hit hard by layoffs in the technology sector.
• Additionally, it’s not as popular as it once was; remote work has allowed scores of people to relocate to more affordable areas.

Next, read the following sentence and see if you can spot the common thread:

“San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago and New York, which top the list of metros where home sellers are most likely to take a loss, all rank among the top 10 metros Redfin.com users are looking to leave.”

If you said these are all traditionally Republican-controlled bastions… you failed.

“Some condos in the Bay Area are now worth less than their owners bought them for in 2018 and 2019, in part because commuting from Oakland and other outlying areas into downtown San Francisco isn’t really a thing anymore,” said local Redfin Premier real estate agent Andrea Chopp, who focuses on Oakland and other East Bay neighborhoods. “There are buyers out there, but they’re a lot more cautious and picky than they were when mortgage rates were low. The Bay Area housing market was unsustainable before, so this correction is probably healthy, but the unfortunate thing is prices remain unaffordable for a lot of people—especially with rates now above 7%.”

But while the liberal bastion of San Francisco is now officially America’s worst city, the vast majority of U.S. home sellers are still reaping gains, especially those

Even though home prices have fallen from their peak, a majority of home sellers are still reaping significant financial gains. Nationwide, 97% of home sellers sold for a profit during the three months ending July 31, with the typical home that sold going for 78.4% ($203,232) more than the seller bought it for.

Today’s home sellers are making money despite an ongoing housing downturn in part because a scarcity of homes for sale is fueling bidding wars and propping up home values. Most people who bought when home prices peaked would lose money if they sold now, so they’re not selling. Many of the homeowners who are selling today have owned their homes for long enough to make a profit regardless of month-to-month fluctuations in housing values.

In Boise, ID, Redfin Premier agent Shauna Pendleton has clients who will likely have to take a $100,000 loss on their home because they’re selling it after only about a year. They’re moving back to Seattle because their employer is requiring them to return to the office. Pendleton noted that it’s not common for homeowners to sell at a loss in Boise, but when it does happen, it often involves homes selling for upwards of $750,000.

More in the full Redfin report available here.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Gun sales in the United States exceeded 2 million last month—the 49th straight month in which firearm sales crossed a million.

In August, 2.04 million checks were conducted through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), according to an analysis by Guns.com. Though this is a 16.4 percent dip from the 2.45 million checks conducted in August 2022, the numbers are still higher when compared to the years before the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, it said.

This August registered the fifth highest NICS checks for any August in the past 25 years. This was also the 49th consecutive month that gun sales crossed the 1 million mark.

Data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) showed around 1.1 million background checks last month, down 13 percent from the same month last year.

While NICS numbers include checks conducted for reasons like clearing concealed carry permit applications, the NSSF adjusts these numbers. As such, NSSF data is seen as a potentially truer depiction of retail gun sales.

In a statement to Guns.com, Mark Oliva, public affairs officer with the NSSF, said that the 1.1 million gun sales figure shows “the desire for lawful firearm ownership is far from over.”

“Americans, literally by the millions, are investing in exercising their Second Amendment rights. This has happened every month for more than four years continuously.”

“While the Biden administration proposes rules to infringe on fundamental American rights and certain governors, attorneys general and district attorneys general and district attorneys refuse to lock up criminals that prey on communities without consequence, Americans are sending a clear and unequivocal message that their personal safety, and the free exercise of their rights, is non-negotiable.”

According to safety research organization Safehome, around 17.4 million guns were sold across the United States in 2022, a lower number compared to 2021 and 2020.

The organization attributed the decline to “consumers reducing their spending and the economy experiencing inflationary pressures that have led to a slowdown in discretionary expenses overall.”

Gun sales saw a 64 percent increase in 2020, the biggest annual rise in two decades. The current downward trend “indicates a return to the typical sales figures seen in the years prior to 2020.”

The sales boom in 2020 was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to which people spent more time in outdoor activities, Safehome said while pointing out that 2020 was also a presidential election year.

“Traditionally, election years can spark an increase in gun buying as customers may worry new leaders could change laws regarding gun ownership. There were similar smaller increases in gun sales in 2016 and 2012, both presidential election years.”

In 2022, states like Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska had the highest estimated gun sales per capita. In contrast, this figure was the lowest in Iowa, Oregon, and the District of Columbia.

Biden’s Gun Crackdown

While gun sales continue to exceed a million on a monthly basis, the Biden administration is proposing a rule that would essentially classify any American who sells guns as a firearms dealer, thereby tightening gun control measures in the country.

At present, individuals can engage in selling firearms without having to be a registered firearms dealer. The new rules would classify gun sales under business activities and require that individuals get a license as well as undertake background checks.

Randy Kozuch, executive director of the National Rifle Association–Institute for Legislative Action (NRA–ILA), called the move a “war on the Second Amendment.”

The Gun Owners Association said the proposed rule is “virtually outlawing private firearm transactions to ensure the government gets its hands on your personal information and transaction records for their illegal gun registry.”

The Biden administration had also introduced a law that would make Americans felons if caught possessing an unregistered braced firearm.

Multiple federal judges have issued preliminary orders blocking the rule from being enacted. However, these rules only apply to members of the groups who filed lawsuits and in the jurisdictions of the judges who issued the verdicts.

Guns Promote Safety

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are also pushing for a nationwide ban on “assault weapons.” In a statement to Fox News, the NRA criticized such attempts.

The organization pointed out that the AR-15 rifle, which which many gun control advocates refer to as an “assault weapon,” is one of the most popular self-defense rifles in America.

“A testament to this is the 8-month pregnant Florida mother who, with her AR-15, defended her family from two armed intruders who brutally assaulted her husband,” NRA spokesman Billy McLaughlin told the outlet.

He was referring to an incident from 2019 when a pregnant woman shot an armed intruder and sent a second intruder fleeing. “Joe and Kamala ought to speak to the many ignored and forgotten law-abiding Americans who rely on AR-15s for their safety.”

“They’re playing politics with human lives and are blind to the fact that their pro-criminal policies drive more people to buy guns,” he said.

A CNN poll from May showed that Americans are divided on how the availability of guns affects public safety.

While 36 percent of respondents said the presence of guns would make public places less safe, 32 percent argued that allowing gun owners to carry their firearms would make public places safer.

Five years ago, virtue-signaling American finance executives peeled out of a Saudi Arabian event in Riyadh following the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Now, with Western financiers hampered by rising interest rates and a reduced appetite for dealmaking, private equity, venture capital and real estate funds have come back with hats-in-hand to tap into the Middle East’s vast wealth – which has been bolstered by higher energy prices thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It turns out nothing heals old wounds like money… as major Western financial firms scramble to set up offices in the Middle East to win local investments.

While the Middle East steps on the gas, the traditional backers of investment funds—pension plans and college endowments—are in retreat. The global shift to higher interest rates caused losses in the biggest parts of their portfolios—especially stocks and bonds.

Investors put $33 billion toward U.S.-based venture capital funds in the first half of 2023, less than half the $74 billion in the same period in 2021, according to PitchBook. Global fundraising for all private funds fell 10% last year to $1.5 trillion, according to Preqin—a decline many expect to continue.  -WSJ

“Fundraising has become much, much harder over the past 12 months,” said Brenda Rainey, an executive vice president at Bain & Co. who advises private-equity funds, in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

But not in the Middle East…

To wit, this year’s Future Investment Initiative Institute, known as “Davos in the Desert,” will take place on Riyadh, and is expecting so much demand that it’s charging $15,000 per head to attend, the Journal reports.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has seen commitments rise to $56 billion in 2022, a significant jump from $33 billion last year.

“Now, everybody wants to go to the Middle East—it’s like the gold rush in the U.S. once upon a time,” according to fundraising advisory firm CEO Peter Jädersten of Jade Advisors. “It’s difficult to raise money everywhere.”

Gulf funds now have the upper hand in negotiations, able to be “very thoughtful and selective” about things such as stakes in the fund managers themselves, or side-by-side investments, as per Ibrahim Ajami of Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala.

All eyes on Abu Dhabi

One of the most influential dealmakers to emerge in the last few months is Abu Dhabi’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who has been using the country’s $1.5 trillion investment war chest to make runs at buying Standard Chartered and Lazard, as well as recent deals to buy a $1.2 billion UK healthcare giant and a nearly $6 billion Columbian food company, according to Bloomberg.

In March, Tahnoon was handed control of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) following a March reshuffle. The $993 billion wealth fund is among the world’s largest, and now ranks as the second-largest spender on deals among regional peers since the beginning of last year.

Born in the late 1960s, just after the discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan has graduated from the close-knit circles of the UAE’s royal family to become one of the world’s most potent financial juggernauts.

Over the past few months, he has been on a capital-injecting spree, drawing billionaires like Ray Dalio into his vortex. According to Karen Young, a senior research scholar at Columbia University, “The UAE leadership has recognized its most important source of statecraft is financial. Sheikh Tahnoon is now the strategist behind multiple economic statecraft tools.”

Over the past few months, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan has gained control of the largest sovereign wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates, expanding the assets he oversees to almost $1.5 trillion. He’s proceeded to bankroll billions of dollars in deals via an expanded empire of private and state entities. Drawing in titans of finance such as Rajeev Misra and billionaire Ray Dalio, Sheikh Tahnoon — one of Abu Dhabi’s two deputy rulers, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother to its president — has sought to invest in everything from technology to finance, with varying degrees of success.

Known to be a fan of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, cycling and chess, Sheikh Tahnoon now helms two wealth funds, the region’s most important private investment firm, the country’s largest lender and its biggest listed corporate. That’s made him the defacto business chief of the wealthy Al Nahyan family, with access to seemingly endless reserves of cash in OPEC’s third-largest producer — an unusual amount of financial firepower even in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

Other notable deals Tahnoon has been involved with include an investment in TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance, a $10 billion fund targeting tech opportunities, and a deal to bankroll Softbank Vision Fund’s key architect Rajeev Misra’s new $6.8 billion fund. Another of Tahnoon’s entities, G42, is partnering with Nvidia competitor Cerebras Systems, which just completed the first of nine AI supercomputers aimed at taking a run at Nvidia.

That said, it’s not all a cakewalk for Sheikh Tahnoon. Navigating the intricate labyrinths of international regulations has proven to be a challenge. As Abu Dhabi inches closer to Beijing, with intentions of joining the BRICS bloc, it’s raising eyebrows across Washington corridors.

Lynn Ammar, an Abu Dhabi-based partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb warns, “The broad geographic scope is likely to continue to attract attention from FDI authorities, such as CFIUS, who may be concerned about potential information flow to China.” This comes as the United States puts foreign investments under the microscope, tightening scrutiny over deals tied to the Chinese government.

What’s more, Tahnoon isn’t just the de facto business chief of the wealthy Al Nahyan family, he’s also the UAE’s national security adviser, wearing a dual hat that integrates economic and geopolitical strategy. Recent reports indicate significant UAE investments in Asian and African economies, marking a clear orientation toward emerging markets.

Wonder if this would be happening under a second Trump term and no Ukraine invasion?

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Georgia judge handling the trials of former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants appeared to be skeptical of prosecutors’ proposals to bring all the co-defendants together for a trial starting next month.

“It just seems a bit unrealistic to think that we can handle all 19 in forty-something days,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee told the court in a Wednesday hearing in regards to motions to sever that were brought by co-defendants Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell. The judge denied the request to split the two cases.

During the hearing, prosecutors estimated the trial would take four months and that they’d call more than 150 witnesses. “That is our time estimate,” prosecutor Nathan Wade told Judge McAfee during the hearing, which was also broadcast live on television and on the judge’s YouTube channel.

But Mr. McAffee told prosecutors that he believes the trial would take twice that—or eight months. “It could easily be twice that,” he said, noting the number of defendants in the case.

“We’re on an expedited timeline with these statutory speedy trial demands,” Judge McAfee said, while adding that he plans to press forward and “make that October 23 trial date stick” for Mr. Chesebro and Mrs. Powell. It’s not clear when the other co-defendants will go to trial.

The judge also suggested that any trial he conducts could be rendered moot if a defendant successfully appeals to a higher court. Already, a federal judge held a hearing in former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who is charged in the case.

“It could potentially even be a six-month turnaround just for the 11th Circuit to come up with a decision,” Judge McAfee said of the appeals process. “Where does that leave us in the middle of a jury trial?” the judge asked.

Mr. Wade, who provided the four-month estimate, said that did not include jury selection and added that whether or not defendants choosing to testify could affect timing. But he said he expects a trial to take that long regardless of how many defendants it includes, arguing that because the trial was brought under Georgia’s anti-racketeering law prosecutors would seek to prove the entire conspiracy against each defendant.

Another prosecutor, Will Wooten, argued that under the state’s RICO—or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—statute, the defendants should be tried together. All 19 defendants were accused of participating in the alleged scheme under Georgia’s RICO law last month.

“Anytime a person enters into a conspiracy they are liable for all of the acts of all of their co-conspirators, and that’s it. Evidence against one is evidence against all, and that’s it,” Mr. Wooten said.

The hearing was also broadcast live on television and on the judge’s YouTube channel, a marked difference from the other three criminal cases against Trump, where cameras have not been allowed in the courtroom during proceedings.

Whenever and wherever any trial in the case ultimately takes place, jury selection is likely to be a significant challenge. Jury selection in a racketeering and gang case brought last year by Ms. Willis began in January and is still ongoing. In another large racketeering case, Ms. Willis tried nearly a decade ago against former Atlanta public schools educators, it took six weeks to seat a jury.

On Tuesday, Ms. Willis’ team asked the judge to allow the use of a jury questionnaire that prospective jurors would have filled out before they show up for jury selection, writing in a court filing that it “will facilitate and streamline the jury selection process in many respects.”

Prospective jurors may be more comfortable answering personal questions on paper than in open court and lawyers for both sides could agree that certain jurors aren’t qualified without additional questioning, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Meadows was in federal court last week arguing that he was acting in his capacity as a federal official and his case should be heard by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones has yet to rule on that request. Four other defendants who are also seeking to move their cases to federal court have hearings set before Jones later this month.

As for President Trump, the former president on Wednesday told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would “absolutely” testify in one of the four trials against him. He was charged in separate cases in Georgia, New York, Florida, and Washington, D.C., pleading not guilty to all the charges.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

US lawmakers have been infuriated with Huawei Technologies Co.’s ability to produce a new smartphone with a cutting-edge processor despite mounting US sanctions. The inquiry into Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro started when Bloomberg hired TechInsights to conduct a complete teardown of the smartphone, which released the report earlier this week. 

Huawei uses an advanced 7-nanometer processor built by China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. But another report from TechInsights shows memory and flash in the Mate 60 Pro comes from SK Hynix Inc. 

Bloomberg said Mate 60 Pro’s components are almost entirely sourced from domestic suppliers, “and Hynix’s hardware is an isolated example of materials sourced from overseas, according to TechInsights.” 

South Korea-based Hynix told Bloomberg that it “no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the US restrictions against the company and, with regard to the issue, we started an investigation to find out more details.” 

The mystery of how Huawei sourced the memory chips deepens, as Hynix said it “is strictly abiding by the US government’s export restrictions.” 

Bloomberg offers some ideas of how Huawei might have procured the Hynix chips: 

“Huawei may have procured the memory chips from Hynix, whose Chinese base cranks out an estimated one-third to half of its DRAM for global markets. One possibility is that Huawei may be tapping a stockpile of components it accumulated as far back as 2020 before the full set of US trade curbs had been imposed on it. International suppliers of advanced technology have been prohibited from supplying Huawei over the past three years by US trade curbs, implemented on fears of the hardware being used to aid China’s military.”

News of the Bloomberg/TechInsights report enraged some US lawmakers who have spent the last several years slapping China with sanctions to curb its progress in chip technology. Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Competition with China, said Wednesday the US should end all its exports to both Huawei and SMIC: 

“The time has come to end all US technology exports to both Huawei and SMIC to make clear any firm that flouts US law and undermines our national security will be cut off from our technology.” 

How Huawei obtained the memory chips from Hynix remains unclear. However, given this week’s developments, US lawmakers will likely not be done imposing tech sanctions on Beijing.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

How far would you go to feed your family? 

Hopefully that is a question that you will not have to answer any time soon, but right now we are seeing millions upon millions of people become more desperate as economic conditions rapidly deteriorate and food costs soar.  At this point, most Americans are just barely scraping by from month to month, and in poorer countries on the other side of the world there are people that are literally starving to death. 

As I have detailed previously, the UN has reported that 2.4 billion people did not have enough food to eat last year, and 900 million of them were facing severe food insecurity.  Sadly, those numbers will inevitably be even higher for 2023.  A global rice crisis has erupted, and the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal has greatly restricted the flow of agricultural goods from that part of the globe.  Food costs are spiking all over the planet, and that is really bad news for all of us.

For those of us that live in the United States, the good news is that nobody is starving at this stage.

But food prices have become extremely oppressive, and economic conditions are quickly moving in the wrong direction.

670,000 full-time jobs have been lost in just the past two months, and on Friday we witnessed the worst unadjusted payrolls report for the month of August since the Great Recession.

Yes, things really are that bad.

One recent survey discovered that 61 percent of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck, but I expect this number to go even higher in the months ahead…

Inflation, mortgage rates over 7% and credit card APR’s north of 20% have pushed all income brackets into living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new survey from Lending Club Bank.

“In July 2023, 61% of U.S. consumers live paycheck to paycheck, unchanged from June 2023, but 2 percentage points higher than July 2022. Generally, more consumers of all income brackets reported living paycheck to paycheck in July 2023 than last year,” Alia Dudum, a money expert at LendingClub told FOX Business.

Things are particularly dire for low income workers.  That same survey discovered that a whopping 78 percent of those that earn less than $50,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck at this point…

Lower-income workers have been the hardest hit by higher prices, particularly for food and other necessities, since those expenses account for a bigger share of the budget, studies show.

Now, 78% of consumers earning less than $50,000 a year and 65% of those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 were living paycheck to paycheck in July, both up from a year ago, LendingClub found. Of those earning $100,000 or more, only 44% reported living paycheck to paycheck.

As I discussed last week, U.S. households that are feeling financial strain are increasingly turning to debt to make ends meet, and this has pushed debt levels to unprecedented heights…

Total household debt climbed to a new high in the second quarter of 2023, reaching $17.06 trillion, with credit card debt exceeding $1 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As interest rates stay high, costs continue to rise for expenses like housing and cars, and student loan payments resume, the amount of debt may rise, according to economists who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The amount of debt outstanding, and in particular the surpassing of the $1 trillion mark, is significant and worrisome,” Peter Earle, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the DCNF. “It owes to a combination of several factors. The initial response to the pandemic, which prominently included the Fed setting policy (interest) rates at essentially zero for several years, made the amount of credit and the price of taking on debt extraordinarily cheap.”

As economic conditions get worse, people are becoming more desperate.

This is helping to fuel a crime wave all over the nation, and retailers are being forced to implement extreme measures.

According to the Wahington Post, a Giant Food store in Washington D.C. is actually going to be taking all Tide, Colgate and Advil products off the shelves completely because theft has become such a problem…

In the coming weeks, a Giant Food market in D.C. will clear its beauty and health aisles of all national labels. No more Tide, Colgate or Advil, only store brands. Shoppers also will have to present their receipts to an employee before exiting the store.

It’s the regional supermarket chain’s most overt gambit against the rampant theft that’s plaguing retailers of all sizes. It’s also a potential last-ditch effort to avoid shutting down the unprofitable store on Alabama Avenue — the only major grocer east of the Anacostia River in Ward 8.

An executive for the chain told the Washington Post that the company has “no other choice” and she noted that other stores in the area have done similar things…

“We have no other choice,” Diane Hicks, senior vice president of operations said Thursday during a walk-through with officials from the D.C. mayor’s office, the Metropolitan police and fire departments, and Chamber of Commerce. She added that other nearby stores have locked up all their product on those aisles or removed them altogether.

“I’ve been leaving it out for our customers and unfortunately it just forces all the crime to come to us.”

This is where our entire society is heading.

It is just a matter of time before we see armed guards stationed in grocery stores and on food trucks all over America.

Desperate people do desperate things, and right now we are seeing things happen that are absolutely nuts.

Just a few days ago, an extremely shocking incident that happened in broad daylight at a Home Depot store in California made headlines all over the nation…

Brazen thieves were caught on camera casually walking out with $9,000 worth of goods from separate California stores as lawlessness in the state governed by Gavin Newsom continues.

A group of masked thieves stormed into a Home Depot store in Signal Hill on August 27 and stole $5,000 worth of power tools in full view of shocked staff and customers.

The seven men loaded two shopping carts with expensive goods and carried as much as possible in their arms before walking out.

These sorts of robberies have become so common that I couldn’t possibly cover them all.

We really are starting to become a “Mad Max” society.

Of course the truth is that the entire world is moving in that direction.  Global supplies of food are getting tighter and tighter, and the recent spike in rice prices has created a tremendous amount of concern…

Countries worldwide are scrambling to secure rice after a partial ban on exports by India cut global supplies by roughly a fifth. Global food security is already under threat since Russia halted an agreement allowing Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomenon hampers rice production.

Now, rice prices are soaring, and it’s putting the most vulnerable people in some of the poorest nations at risk. Vietnam’s rice export prices, for instance, have reached a 15-year high. Even before India’s restrictions, countries already were frantically buying rice in anticipation of scarcity later when the El Nino hit, creating a supply crunch and spiking prices.

Civil unrest has already started to erupt in various parts of Africa, but if current trends continue things will get a whole lot worse around the globe in 2024.

Are you prepared for what is ahead?

Right now, a lot of people are apparently asking that question.  In fact, according to Zero Hedge the number of Americans searching for the term “live off grid” on the Internet has hit the highest level in years…

What’s piqued our interest is the sudden panic by some Americans searching ‘live off grid’ on the internet, hitting the highest level in five years. The driving force behind finding a rural piece of land for dirt cheap, buying or building a tiny home, installing solar panels, and sourcing your own food and water might have to do with the worst inflation storm in a generation while Democrat cities implode under the weight of soaring violent crime.

I have been relentlessly warning my readers that “Mad Max” conditions are coming for years.

Anyone that took an honest look at the long-term trends should have been able to see that.

Global leaders have been making absolutely disastrous decisions for a very long time, and now we are all going to reap the consequences.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

After the spectacular collapse of his sweetheart deal with the Justice Department in court, Hunter Biden’s lawyer angrily told the prosecutors in open court to “just rip it up.”

It appears, however, that the defense team does not want to shred one part of the deal: the diversion agreement to avoid any charge over his false statement to obtain a gun permit.

The defense is now arguing that, since the two sides signed the agreement before the implosion in court, it is final and complete.

The Justice Department thinks otherwise. It is arguing that neither the probation officer nor the Court agreed to the plea agreement to finalize it. Indeed, it was the sweeping immunity language buried in the gun charge section that led the Court to throw a flag on the play.  Accordingly, the Justice Department is now pledging to indict Hunter by the end of the month.

Hunter, however, is insisting that the Justice Department will have to pry the agreement from his cold, dead fingers. Indeed, the President’s son may be channeling more from the National Rifle Association (NRA) than its catchline. If the court rejects the diversion agreement as executed, Hunter could be making an argument that will leave the Biden White House in something of a pickle.

One obvious attack against a charge is to argue that the underlying law itself is unconstitutional.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), anyone who is an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance,” including marijuana, is barred from possessing a gun and can face up to 10 years in prison.

However, recently the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled the law violated the Second Amendment in United States v. Daniels. The case involved a man who was arrested in possession of marijuana and two loaded firearms. The Fifth Circuit relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen v. New York Rifle & Pistol Association, which established that firearms laws must conform with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

President Biden denounced Bruen as a virtual abomination and has been a vocal supporter of the underlying law. Hunter, however, may now find himself in strange company in seeking to avoid any federal charge.

In the appellate opinion, Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote that “Our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage.”

That sounds tantalizingly familiar, but is it enough for Hunter to go full Wayne LaPierre?

If so, this would not be the first time that Hunter followed a path that his father has previously condemned in others. For example, for decades, Joe Biden has railed against “deadbeat dads” despite his son’s long effort to avoid paying child support to Lunden Alexis Roberts. Hunter spent years fighting support for his daughter Navy, even after a court confirmed that he was her father. Joe Biden himself only recently acknowledged the existence of Navy after routinely excluding her from the list of his grandchildren.

Yet, the President may not be quite ready for his son to join actual hunters in advocating for sweeping gun rights protections, including for drug users.

In making the argument, Hunter will have to claim that references to gun ownership by “law-abiding citizens” in past cases like District of Columbia v. Heller and Bruen should not be read to exclude everyone who breaks the law. Judge Smith cites a prior ruling in United States v. Rahimi, rejecting the federal ban on gun possession by people subject to domestic violence restraining orders. In that decision, the court held that the phrase should be read as “shorthand” alluding to “people who were historically ‘stripped of their Second Amendment rights.’”

The government has argued (and would likely argue in the Biden case) that there were laws from the 17th and 18th centuries barring people from publicly carrying or firing guns while intoxicated.

However, the Fifth Circuit rejected the historical claim and noted that “under the government’s reasoning, Congress could ban gun possession by anyone who has multiple alcoholic drinks a week…based on the postbellum intoxicated carry laws. The analogical reasoning Bruen prescribed cannot stretch that far.”

The government has tried to use other laws barring guns to the mentally ill and dangerous individuals as historical analogs, but the court would have none of it.

Indeed, Hunter could find himself arguing that people are too often denied rights by the government under claims that they are “insurrectionists.” Sound familiar?

The government has pointed to how “Founding-era governments took guns away from persons perceived to be dangerous.”

However, the Fifth Circuit noted that those laws targeted unpopular people, including Catholics, as akin to traitors to the Revolution. Judge Smith wrote that drug users “are not a class of political traitors, as British Loyalists were perceived to be. Nor are they like Catholics and other religious dissenters who were seen as potential insurrectionists.”

So, a rejection of the gun diversion agreement could prove an even greater diversion for the Biden family as Hunter embraces the very decisions and rights long opposed by his father.

In the meantime, the Justice Department would be citing historical precedent used against Catholics (like the Bidens) as potential insurrectionists who cannot be trusted with weapons.

Of course, White House Press Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre could defend all of this by paraphrasing the NRA that the “only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun [case] is a good guy with a gun [case].”

A new Form 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that one of the ‘wokest’ billionaires has put his stamp of approval on one of the wokest beers in America. 

The filing showed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust bought 1.7 million shares of Anheuser-Busch, valued at around $95 million, signaling Gates has confidence in the beer company that imploded its Bud Light brand after a disastrous advertising campaign in April with transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney. 

Gates’ Seattle-based $69 billion trust bought the shares around the latest earnings report around $59.89 per share. Shares are currently trading at a 6% discount around $56.24. 

Last month, Anheuser-Busch said US revenues slid 10% in the second quarter due to the consumer backlash of Bud Light. This allowed Modelo Especial, the nation’s new king of beers, to become the best-selling beer among US consumers. 

Gate’s bet on Anheuser-Busch ranks him as the ninth largest shareholder. 

Gates, who has previously said he’s “not a big beer drinker,” has bought other brewers, including a 3.76% stake in Heineken Holding NV earlier this year. 

A former Anheuser-Busch executive told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Gates’ investment into the brewer is a “mistake.” 

“Bill Gates is definitely making a mistake.

“Earlier this year, he already made a $900 million mistake when he invested into one of Anheuser-Busch’s largest rivals, Heineken. He did that earlier this year. And since that investment, Heineken’s down about 10%, whereas the broader markets are up 10%.”

“So if I was looking for advice on investing to software companies, tech companies, I might go to Bill Gates. But if you’re looking at the beer industry, he doesn’t have a great track record of investing in winners at this point,” former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks said. 

Bill has put his stamp of approval on Bud Light. 

Some on social media have called for a doubling down on the Bud Light boycott following the news Gates is now a majority shareholder of the brewer.