.@RandPaul was once labeled a “conspiracy theorist” for saying a lab leak probably caused Covid.
— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) July 27, 2024
Now the FBI and Energy Department say it's likely.
Here he explains how Anthony Fauci and other officials tried to COVER UP the origin to protect their reputations and funding: pic.twitter.com/DTMKlRYMPA
This is Lionel Melaki Timms.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 26, 2024
Kamala Harris raised money so he could be released from prison.
Days after his release, he violently assaulted a Minneapolis bar manager, leaving him with traumatic brain damage.
h/t @CrimeWatchMpls pic.twitter.com/OzQlmjmvP3
Tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, who once visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, is bundling millions of campaign donations from Silicon Valley giants for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. With those donations comes some demands, requests for Harris to fire the nation’s top trust-buster Lina Khan from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) while also throwing out United States tariffs on foreign imports.
Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a top Democratic Party donor, is reportedly set to bundle some $100 million from elites in Silicon Valley for Harris’s presidential run.
In an interview with CNN, Hoffman suggested he wants Harris to return the U.S. to a free trade consensus that has ruled in Washington, DC, for decades — resulting in the loss of millions of American jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
Hoffman said he and other billionaire donors are unbothered by President Joe Biden and Harris’s push to raise corporate taxes because the impact would be minuscule.
“Trump wants tariffs which is anti-business … makes this a very strange election indeed because I think actually Vice President Harris is much more of the pro-business candidate than Trump and Vance,” Hoffman told CNN:
I think what’s most important for business is stability of the country, unity, rule of law. And a percent difference in corporate tax … is far, far less important. [Emphasis added]
Former President Donald Trump has said he wants to see across-the-board tariffs on particularly Chinese imports to reshore manufacturing back to the U.S.
CNN reporter Matt Egan said Hoffman also mentioned that he wants FTC Chair Lina Khan, the nation’s top trust-buster, fired under a potential Harris administration.
“In particular, he strongly criticized Lina Khan, the FTC chair. He said that Lina Khan is ‘waging war on American business’ and he went so far as to say that he hopes that a President Harris would replace Lina Khan at the FTC,” Egan reported.
Hoffman, for years, has made clear he opposes efforts to break up Big Tech corporations and rigorous antitrust enforcement.
“The notion of ‘Oh, we should be breaking up these companies’ is bad from an innovation standpoint … so that’s part of the reason why I [want to] shape and make it as good outcomes for society but not an antitrust action,” Hoffman told the Washington Post in 2021.
The New York Times reported that Harris may already be caving to big donor requests, such as those from Hoffman, regarding Khan’s role at the FTC:
Business leaders have also bristled at the actions of the Federal Trade Commission’s chair, Lina Khan, who has tried to crack down on corporate mergers. [Emphasis added]
As vice president, Ms. Harris has voiced support for regulating artificial intelligence. But she has expressed skepticism of Ms. Khan’s expansive view of antitrust powers, according to a donor who has spoken privately with the vice president. [Emphasis added]
Khan has won praise from former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), as well as other conservatives such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) for her seeking to break up Big Tech, corporate monopolies, and eliminate noncompete agreements for employees.
In a recent Wall Street Journal profile of Khan, the paper coined such Khan supporters “Khanservative Republicans” — a nod to the party’s populist-nationalist wing that wants to see a crackdown on the monopolistic power that multinational corporations have in the U.S. economy.
“I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job,” Vance said a few months ago of Khan’s record as FTC chair.
Gaetz interviewed Khan in August 2023 for Newsmax where he praised her efforts to crack down on what he said are abuses by Big Tech corporations against American consumers and smaller businesses.
Khan told Gaetz of her views on monopoly power:
When we think about issues relating to concentration of power, and in the same ways that you don’t want a concentration of power in the political sphere, Congress passed the antitrust and anti-monopoly laws to make sure that we had decentralization and competition in our commercial sphere so that any decision that any one person made, it wasn’t affecting whether people could be seen or heard in the marketplace of ideas. And so we think that robust competition is a key way to fight censorship, is a key way to make sure that people have more choice in the marketplace. [Emphasis added]
The Wall Street Journal editorial board has seethed over Hawley’s support for Khan at the FTC, publishing two editorials portraying both officials as anti-business.
Hawley was a leading voice in the Senate among Republicans opposing non-compete agreements from employers. Khan has since turned Hawley’s complaints about non-competes into action, issuing a regulation to ban such agreements by employers on their employees.
This week, a federal judge upheld the FTC’s ban on non-compete agreements in a major judicial win for Khan. [SOURCE]
🚨REVEALED: FAR-LEFT KAMALA'S SYMPATHY FOR TERRORISTS🚨
— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) July 26, 2024
Speaking to the Islamic Center of Southern California, Kamala Harris says the term "radical Islamic terrorism" should be abolished.
Harris is affiliated with NIAC, a pro-Khamenei lobby group for the Islamic Republic. pic.twitter.com/pnIcI2pMKl
"For god's sake, stop complying. Start rebelling. They are out to get you if you do not resist."
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) July 27, 2024
German MEP Christine Anderson: The "so-called pandemic" was a beta test, conducted to determine how easy it would be to seize complete totalitarian control, under the pretext of a… pic.twitter.com/v6hHPbWKt8
Gavin Newsom: Climate Change once again threatens Californians with wild fires
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) July 27, 2024
Reality: Actually, it was a homeless convicted sex offender that lit his mom’s car on fire and pushed it over an embankment pic.twitter.com/DWXdfvBJeZ
The Justice Department has agreed to pay a total of $2 million to settle legal claims brought by former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page over the DOJ’s release of text messages the pair exchanged.
The agreement ends a lawsuit Page brought, but does not fully resolve Strzok’s separate suit, allowing him to continue to press his claims that he was fired in order to please then-President Donald Trump.
On Friday, Strzok’s lawyers announced his $1.2 million agreement as attorneys for both sides notified a federal judge in Washington that the privacy-focused portion of that dispute was resolved.
“This outcome is a critical step forward in addressing the government’s unfair and highly politicized treatment of Pete,” Strzok attorney Aitan Goelman said in a statement. “As important as it is for him, it also vindicates the privacy interests of all government employees. We will continue to litigate Pete’s constitutional claims to ensure that, in the future, public servants are protected from adverse employment actions motivated by partisan politics.”
Page, who resigned amid the controversy, settled her own Privacy Act claim with the department Friday. Copies of the settlement agreements for Strzok and Page obtained by POLITICO indicate Page is to receive $800,000. The documents state that the U.S. government is not admitting or conceding legal liability.
“The evidence was overwhelming that the release of text messages to the press in December 2017 was for partisan political purposes and was against the law,” Page’s lawyer, Amy Jeffress, said in a statement.
“While I have been vindicated by this result, my fervent hope remains that our institutions of justice will never again play politics with the lives of their employees,” Page added.
Strzok and Page became the target of Trump’s fury soon after the texts became public, showing the two officials disparaging Trump and his supporters. The pair discussed efforts to “stop” Trump from becoming president and characterized aspects of their work as an “insurance policy.”
Trump also harbored suspicion about the two because of their roles in the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign’s links to Russia. Trump spent years mocking Strzok and Page in crude terms over their relationship and contending their text messages bolstered claims that the Russia investigation was politically motivated.
Strzok and Page have denied those allegations, saying their private political opinions did not influence their work on FBI matters, and many comments quoted by GOP lawmakers and the press were misconstrued.
During a House hearing in 2018, Strzok said the message about stopping Trump “was written late at night, off-the-cuff, and it was in response to a series of events that included then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero, and my presumption, based on that horrible, disgusting behavior that the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States.”
Justice Department officials shared the messages with journalists on the evening of Dec. 12, 2017, as copies of them were being delivered to Congress in response to requests from committees there.
Depositions taken during the litigation indicated the release was approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who said he hoped sharing the messages with reporters would avoid the most inflammatory messages being taken out of context by lawmakers. Top career officials confirmed they approved the release.
Rosenstein declined to comment on the settlements Friday.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on why the agency agreed to the payments.
However, at a House hearing last month, following indications that tentative settlements had been reached, Republicans pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland about why taxpayer money was going to flow to Strzok and Page.
“We reached settlements based on our litigators’ assessment of whether we can win the case and how much it will cost if we lose the case,” Garland said. “The Privacy Act doesn’t distinguish between people we like and people we don’t like, information we like and information we don’t like. If somebody in the government discloses personal information protected by the Privacy Act, that’s the way the law is.”
“So, you can go after a president and you get rewarded for doing so, according to the Justice Department?” House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) replied.
“It’s not a question of reward. It’s a question of the government paying for violating the law,” Garland answered.
The partial settlement in Strzok’s
suit contains a provision that any damages he may be awarded in the
remaining part of his lawsuit will be reduced by $200,000 as a result of
the $1.2 million payment he is to receive. Neither Page nor Strzok can
seek an additional award of legal fees for the claims settled Friday. [SOURCE]
Here it is: Kamala Harris all but announces she is a communist.
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 26, 2024
"Everyone ends up in the same place. And since we didn't start in the same place, some folks might need more. EQUITABLE distribution."
Harris paraphrases Marx: "From each according to his ability to each according… pic.twitter.com/lV5tkFs9x6
Feb 27, 2023
By
An Arizona company that manufactures and operates high-altitude surveillance balloons, and contracts with the federal government, faces renewed attention in the aftermath of the destruction of a spy balloon sent by the Chinese government that entered U.S. airspace earlier this month.
Context: Tucson-based World View, cofounded by now-U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly in 2012, received venture capital from Tencent — among the largest tech companies in China — both in 2013 and 2016.
Of note: When Tencent made its investments, World View was mostly focused on space tourism. Tencent says it stopped investing after the Arizona company pivoted to a defense-oriented business.
State of play: A high-altitude balloon sent by the Chinese government was downed by an American fighter aircraft off the coast of South Carolina in early February. The U.S. government believes it was being used for surveillance purposes.
Why it matters: That event escalated tensions between the U.S. and China and raised concerns over Chinese government surveillance and influence in American businesses.
What they're saying: National security and global economic experts told us Tencent's investment in World View was "odd" but not necessarily cause for concern.
Zoom out: Kelly stopped working with World View in 2019, ahead of his first Senate run.
Flashback: In 2014, former World View CEO Jane Poynter told Chinese news outlet Pengpai that Kelly met with Tencent USA head David Wallerstein and "introduced space tourism technology to him," Poynter said. "David was very interested and willing to invest at this stage" after speaking with Kelly, according to the article translated from Chinese.
The big picture: Chinese investment in the U.S. exploded in 2016, after the Chinese government allowed its businesses to seek more outside investments, Mark Witzke of Rhodium Group tells Axios.
By the numbers: Chinese companies invested more than $85 billion in American businesses between 2016 and 2017, more than the previous 15 years combined, per Rhodium Group data. Fast-forward and investments dropped as low as $5.8 billion in 2021.
Zoom in: Tencent began investing in U.S. companies before 2016, acquiring California-based esports company Riot Games in 2011, and has continued to invest even after regulatory crackdowns.
But, but, but: Scrutiny of Tencent's prolific investing, especially as it pertains to national security infrastructure, is not without merit, Chu said.
What to watch: Last month, World View entered into a reverse merger agreement that'll allow it to go public with an estimated enterprise value of $350 million.
