Patrick's Notebook

By Maggie Haberman

National Archives officials spent much of 2021 trying to recover material from former President Donald J. Trump that he should have turned over when he left office

The initial batch of documents retrieved by the National Archives from former President Donald J. Trump in January included more than 150 marked as classified, a number that ignited intense concern at the Justice Department and helped trigger the criminal investigation that led F.B.I. agents to swoop into Mar-a-Lago this month seeking to recover more, multiple people briefed on the matter said.

In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I. in the search this month. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Oscar Silva-Valladares

Beyond the damage in Ukraine, the war also has significant casualties in the rest of Europe as the continent is losing its most competitive energy supplies, compromising the region’s manufacturing edge and accelerating an inflation wave that through higher energy costs will severely affect the wellbeing of its population this coming winter.

Europe has been trying for years to diversify its energy sources but it did not have a comprehensive contingency plan to counteract the impact of abruptly severing access to Russia’s oil and gas since the beginning of the Ukraine war. European politicians have grossly exaggerated the substitution potential of other energy sources (like LNG) and are facing the need to accept alternatives that not too long ago were considered politically unpalatable, like the reopening of coal production in Germany. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Zachary Stieber

One of the former U.S. officials who led the COVID-19 response during the Trump administration said July 22 that COVID-19 vaccines were not expected to protect against infection.

“I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection. And I think we overplayed the vaccines. And it made people then worry that it’s not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization,” Deborah Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, said during an appearance on Fox News.

The Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines were granted emergency use authorization in late 2020 to prevent symptomatic COVID-19, and were promoted by many health officials, including Birx. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Jerry Dunleavy

Agents investigating President Joe Biden’s son “opened an assessment which was used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease,” according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Grassley revealed the claim after his office received “a significant number of protected communications from highly credible whistleblowers” about the investigation. The Republican claimed one of the communications shows “verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.”

FBI supervisory intelligence agent Brian Auten opened in August 2020 the assessment that was later used by the agency, according to the disclosures. One of the whistleblowers claimed the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington field office, Timothy Thibault, shut down a line of inquiry into Hunter Biden in October 2020 despite some of the details being known to be true at the time. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Michael Maharrey

When I was about seven or eight years old, I remember my mom taking me to the bank to open a savings account. She explained that if I put some of my allowance in savings, that money would grow over time.

Well, that doesn’t work anymore.

In fact, if you put your money in a savings account, you’ll end up with less than you started with – at least in terms of real purchasing power.

The last time a cash savings account yielded enough interest income to beat inflation was in 2007.

This provides yet another example of how Federal Reserve monetary policy creates misallocations and distortions in the economy. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Strategic-Culture.org

For anyone who has been seriously following the conflict in Ukraine it is obvious that Western governments and media have been a total travesty in what they are claiming about that country

The Western news media were made to look like laughing stocks this week with the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, the Black Sea port city in southern Ukraine.

Not just laughing stocks, but actually proponents of deceitful war propaganda. This should be a matter of excruciatingly deep shame for the Western media and indeed the basis for future prosecution over war crimes complicity.

Up to 100 civilians were released from the sprawling industrial factory and taken into care by Russian forces in conjunction with United Nations rescue officials and the International Red Cross. Their testimonies flatly contradict the claims that were being blared by Western news media for several weeks. » Read the rest of this entry «

by Quoth the Raven

It turns out that the party who spent four years accusing President Trump of Russian collusion performed a massive cover-up for Joe and Hunter Biden heading into the 2020 election that they have yet to be held accountable for. Go figure.

I remember speaking to my father around the time of the election about the Hunter Biden laptop story, where presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son’s laptop was found to contain proof that the former Biden sold his influence to China while his father, the latter Biden, was Vice President of the United States.

And in the midst of an ongoing media cover up of that story, I also remember talking to my father about former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski coming forward and blowing the whistle on the Bidens in an effort to get the public to take notice. » Read the rest of this entry «