@ClimateAudit@ChrisMartzWX That is correct. Pensions for state workers, teachers the most numerous, are considered "unfunded liabilities" and are not included in the state budget like state and municipal bonds. States have to maintain the illusion of a balanced budget annually so these are off the books.
Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s pretty shocking, and frankly unforgivable, that here we are in 2026, more than a decade after Russiagate began, and things are still in such disarray that Joe diGenova is suddenly being brought in as if this is day one of preseason camp.
A lot of what needed doing should have been handled years ago. Most importantly, there should have been a single field general overseeing the entire effort, someone capable of connecting the dots across the full scope of the case. Russiagate was the most sprawling and complex political scam in history, with thousands of moving parts, yet it has never been placed under the direction of a single, competent coordinator empowered to run a coherent counterlawfare effort.
Someone like Devin Nunes comes to mind, but it would need to be a full time role with genuine presidential authority to do what is necessary. Instead, we’ve had a series of fragmented, stop start efforts, and this latest one is no different.
Right now, we know next to nothing about the process by which FBI/DOJ requested and authorized the concealment of Danchenko and his exculpatory information. Laufman must have been involved. One presumes that his supervisor (Mary McCord) and her counsel (Atkinson) must have also been involved.
In December 2019, upon receipt of Horowitz report, AG Barr correctly observed that the largest single question raised by Horowitz was why the Russia collusion hoax investigation was perpetuated (even ratcheted up) AFTER the Danchenko information "collapsed" its predicate. Barr said that Durham had already been asked to determine whether there was any impropriety in FBI actions after they received the Danchenko information.
Needless to say, Durham did NOTHING of the sort. His report is silent on the topic. He didn't even interview then Acting DAG Dana Boente. Relevant documents and correspondence involving Boente, McCord, Laufman and presumably Atkinson should all have been collected long ago and used in resolving this still unanswered question.
One of the largest problems has been the fixation of Russiagate critics on the Carter Page FISA - rather than the effect of the Danchenko admissions on the predication of the Russia collusion investigation itself. The Page FISA was totally irrelevant to the main arc of the Russia collusion hoax and a look-squirrel. Because the predication of the FISA is, in many respects, overlapping to the predication of the Russia collusion investigation, details from the FISA warrants can shed occasional light on the ostensible predication of the Russia collusion investigation, but typically such details remain redacted.
@ModernBoethius@Farisalfarik@EWTNews Pope Benedict XVI recounted a question asked by Christian emperor, Manuel II Paeologus, to a Muslim scholar, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
Between 2021 and 2024, 448,000 children crossed the border alone and were placed into the care of the U.S. government.
Here is what happened to them.
HHS placed children with sponsors. Those sponsors were often not their parents. In fact, only 37% of children ended up with a parent. The rest went to relatives, distant relatives, or unrelated adults.
The vetting process consisted of a phone call. No in-person meeting required. Background checks were skipped for 11,488 children. Home studies were not conducted for 79,143 children under the age of 12.
Addresses collected for sponsors were wrong 80% of the time, according to DHS law enforcement.
65,000 calls to a federal hotline reporting concerns about children went unanswered under Biden. When the Trump administration began reviewing them, they found children calling to report that grown men were coming into their rooms at night and touching them. Nothing had been done.
291,000 children were never given a court date. 32,000 who were given court dates never showed up. Over 31,000 had blank or undeliverable addresses on file.
HHS knowingly sent two children to a household with confirmed MS-13 gang connections. A staff member flagged it. HHS overruled her and transferred the children anyway. When she spoke up, her credentials were revoked and she was walked off the job site.
In one case, more than 50 children were sent to the same address.
A 15-year-old girl was smuggled from Ecuador by an adult male who had been in a relationship with her since she was 13. She arrived pregnant. His mother sponsored her. They lived together in Harlem.
In New Jersey, three minors ages 15, 16, and 17 were found living without their sponsor, in filthy conditions with mouse infestations, no food, and no school enrollment. A forensic interview revealed verbal, physical, and sexual abuse and labor exploitation.
In Tennessee, siblings were forced to work off smuggling debts for their sponsor.
In California, 14 children were rescued from marijuana grow sites where they had been working alongside adults convicted of rape, child molestation, and kidnapping.
A child found during a worksite enforcement operation in Alabama had never attended school in the two years since entering the United States.
The New York Times found migrant children working overnight shifts in slaughterhouses, on construction sites, and in factories making products for brands like Cheetos, Lucky Charms, Fruit of the Loom, and General Mills. A 16-year-old boy from Guatemala was killed at a slaughterhouse.
HHS whistleblower Tara Rodas: "I thought I was going to help place children in loving homes. Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network. We have delivered these children to criminals, traffickers, and members of transnational criminal organizations who are using the program as a white glove delivery service of children."
Her supervisor told her: "You need to understand, at HHS we only get sued if we keep kids in care too long. We don't get sued by traffickers."
27 children located during welfare checks were found dead. By murder, suicide, or drug overdose.
This is not a political argument. These are government records, DHS press releases, Senate testimony, OIG reports, and whistleblower disclosures.
448,000 children entered the system. The system failed them.
Long ago, I (and also Hans) both urged that Trump 45 administration focus primarily on sunshine as a disinfectant. That Trump should appoint an official with responsibility for releasing unredacted Russiagate documents through executive authority (not FOIA). Rather than relying exclusively on criminal track which would end up concealing documents for years.
The endorsement of the Russia collusion hoax by FBI and other agencies was an //intelligence failure// separately from any criminal issues. How is it possible that intelligence agencies got the collusion story so wrong? Many of the participants in the collusion hoax weren't criminals, but they got it wrong.
The story is never going to be told by the institutions themselves or by the Beltway media. The only way that the story gets told is by voluminous production of documents to the public. If necessary (as Hans and I discussed long ago), Trump 45 should have mandated copies of every document into a special White House office, declassified them all and published them on a permanent website before leaving office.
Unfortunately Trump was his own worst enemy. As usual. Instead, in the dying days of the transition, Trump asked an uncooperative and insolent DOJ to submit documents in response to multiple questions posed by Solomon. This was the origin of the so-called Binder. The DOJ mostly produced documents that had already been released (e.g. by Grassley) or declined to produce any on key questions. The Binder had a few interesting documents, but was absurdly deficient - about 5% of the documents that should have been released. At most. But Trump and Trumpists proclaimed a huge victory.
Durham was supposed to investigate FBI misconduct, but failed to do any investigation of 2017 FBI misconduct. And insolently refused to archive any of the Danchenko exhibits or to publish any of the interviews. Even Mueller did more.
At the end of the day, the primary means of accountability should be ridicule through sunshine. To get it so wrong, Comey and others were either crooked or idiotic. The release of documents will show that. Comey et al are all shrewd enough to create paper trails showing that they had a "color of right" for their investigations, no matter how absurd. Obtaining convictions is not as easy as most people think.
So the solution is to release all the documents - unredacted - and at least expose Comey, Brennan et al to ridicule for their idiotic "intelligence" assessments. I know that most readers want criminal convictions, but, as they say about the stock market - bulls sometimes win, bears sometimes win, but pigs get slaughtered. Time to stop being pigs. Time to see the documents.
@RealSLokhova “I will tell you this, [Iran]: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find [Kash's emails about @RealSLokhova.” “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
https://t.co/sTCXEh1Cyd
don't forget that Mueller was also Acting Deputy Attorney during four months of incoming Bush administration in 2001. So Mueller's knowledge of the hijackers in 2001 as Northern California US Attorney was also knowledge of the Acting Deputy Attorney General of the incoming Bush administration.
One of Mueller's important actions in this period was his re-assignment of the investigation of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996 from DC to EDVA. DC investigators had declined to charge "Saudi Hezbollah", based on questions about the information received from Saudi authorities. Mueller transferred the investigation to EDVA to get a different answer. A seemingly minor administrative act, but an act with a very long shadow.
At EDVA, the investigation was assigned to .... James Comey, then an AUSA. Within six months, Comey indicted Saudi Hezbollah for the Khobar Towers bombing - rather than the alternative suspect Al Qaeda. Who, by then, were also known for other bombings of US embassies. To this day, this incident attributed to "Saudi Hezbollah" is a (questionable) outlier, while Al Qaeda was preparing much bigger plans.
One can scarcely help wondering whether the subsequent history would be different if Mueller and Comey had spent as much time investigating Al Qaeda for the Khobar Towers bombing in first half 2001, as they spent investigating "Saudi Hezbollah".
@MickOKeeffe The Kippure estate was originally a wedding venue. A developer built dozens of townhomes without planning permission. They were ordered to tear them down in 2024. But there's been no news since. Migrants currently being housed by shady organizations.
https://t.co/Nj6jNvBA5P