The only people who deny financial corruption in Ukraine are those who benefit from it.  That group includes U.S. politicians who gleefully send billions of taxpayer funds into the country of Ukraine while capturing returns in the process.

U.S. advisors and consultants, along with private sector contractors and multinational corporations like Blackrock, are all beneficiaries of the vast sums of money being dumped into Ukraine. We all know this.  So, on one hand it is simple to see why the Ukraine government officials would use the same opportunity to enrich themselves

After all, U.S. taxpayers are not only buying bombs, missiles and bullets with the money sent to Ukraine, we are also paying the salaries and pensions of the same government officials who are skimming the proceeds.  The corruption is everywhere, and every entity is participating in the graft, in one form or another.

Zelenskyy’s wife goes shopping in Paris during the war.  Where exactly do politicians think she is getting the money to spend on glitzy holiday vacations?  Everybody knows exactly what is going on.  The glaringly obvious theft is a large part of the contention the American people have with this insufferable effort to fund Ukraine.

During a lengthy Time Magazine article, one of the close and key advisors to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admitted that the corrupt stealing of US funds is widespread.   In addition to the theft, the overall tone of the Time Magazine article paints the war effort in Ukraine, what we have always called ‘World War Reddit’ for its mostly theatrical value, as a lost cause.  This is not surprising; however, for Time Mag to make such an admission, that does indicate a narrative shift in the overall effort.

TIME – […] Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine has refused to release official counts of dead and wounded. But according to U.S. and European estimates, the toll has long surpassed 100,000 on each side of the war. It has eroded the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces so badly that draft offices have been forced to call up ever older personnel, raising the average age of a soldier in Ukraine to around 43 years. “They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with,” says the close aide to Zelensky. “This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”

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As noted yesterday {Go Deep}, nothing about the story of the Red Wings flight from Tel-Aviv to the Dagestan region Makhachkala airport seemingly made sense.  Yes, the visual aspects of the story were accurate in that Muslims and Hamas sympathizers rushed the airport looking for Israeli Jews on the flight.  However, something just didn’t seem right both in the story and the way it was promoted by western media.

As more people began looking skeptical at the background [Research LINK], it now appears the crowd was organized on Telegram by the TG channel Morning_Dagestan, owned by the anti-Putin politician Ilya Ponomarev, who lives in Kiev.  That channel has now been removed.

Exiled from Russia, Ilya Ponomarev is reportedly working for western intelligence and lives in Kiev, Ukraine.  Ponomarev spent time in the USA in 2014 [San Jose California], before going to Ukraine in 2016. There is an interesting background bio story available on Ponomarev HERE.  …” since invading Ukraine last year, some now call for direct action. Ilya Ponomarev, former Russian Duma member and activist, is leading this charge” in opposition to Vladimir Putin.

If Ponomarev, a self-declared communist, is working for the interests of Ukraine against Russia and Vladimir Putin, he is intersecting with the CIA and U.S. State Dept who are organizing the resistance effort in Ukraine.  It makes sense he would be running psychological operations against Russia and exploiting the opportunities to incite unrest in the Dagestan region.  Pure opportunism.

In essence, if you put all the pretending away, this looks like a collaborative psy-op effort by western intel, with the intent to undermine Putin (Russia) on the international stage.  That would explain how the story and events went viral as intended jumping from social media to mainstream corporate media as promoted by people like Fox News Jennifer Griffin.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton previously filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration who were removing border security measures put in place by the state of Texas. {Background Here} October 27, Texas AG Ken Paxton asked the court for a restraining order against Joe Biden’s administration who are taking down border barriers and cutting through barbed wire in order to increase the flow of illegal aliens. [Court Filing Here] AG Paxton wants the court to stop Biden from opening the border.

Today, District Judge Alia Moses issued a temporary restraining order [pdf Here] stopping the Biden administration from removing the barriers.

The press release from Attorney General Paxton:

TEXAS – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured an emergency restraining order after federal agents were documented destroying barrier fencing to facilitate aliens’ entry near the Texas-Mexico border. Texas filed the initial lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), DHS Secretary Mayorkas, and other agencies on Tuesday, October 24, after numerous documented incidents of barrier destruction during a severe immigration surge in recent months.

These instances often included using wire cutters to create gaps in fencing then waving aliens through and assisting their entry in other ways. At times, agents were observed attaching ropes to pickup trucks to enable aliens to scale the riverbank and enter the United States. 

By Friday, October 27, federal agents were observed escalating their efforts to destroy Texas’s border barriers, using heavy machinery such as forklifts to uproot large sections of fencing to facilitate mass entry. In response, Attorney General Paxton immediately filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order.

Within half an hour of the filing, the Biden Administration further escalated the barrier destruction, as agents were filmed using a forklift to smash the fencing against the ground repeatedly.

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For the sake of this argument, if you wanted to align with Judge Chutkan on the need for a gag order, you would first need to clarify if Mark Meadows was a witness for the Jack Smith prosecution.  Absent an actual witness list, the remarks by President Trump have to be stretched to encompass potential witnesses or foreseeable witnesses.  That’s what Judge Chutkan decided.  Anyone who might be a witness is protected by the gag order forbidding President Trump from talking about them.

Jack Smith baited President Trump by leaking a story to ABC News saying Mark Meadows warned President Trump that Biden’s 2020 election win was legitimate.  It never happened, but the leak and story were bait to get President Trump to respond – thereby creating the dynamic that would lead to the gag order.   The Lawfare worked.

[Page 7, pdf link]

I do not fault President Trump for responding to the ABC News article, he should have every right to speak about false assertions against him.  In reality, Jack Smith knew Judge Chutkan wanted to reaffirm the gag order, so he just provided her the legal tool to do it.  When dealing with corruption, that’s how Lawfare operates.

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No candidate has spent more time in Iowa and visited more locations than Ron DeSantis. Simultaneously, as the people of Iowa get to know him, his support drops. You might remember me pointing out this predictable dynamic last year.

The more people spend time with DeSantis, the less they like him.   That leaves an opening for Nikki Haley, and she has capitalized.

Now, Nikki is just as unlikeable as Ron, perhaps even more so; however, the people around Nikki know she is horrible, and they manage her to hide it. If they keep Nikki Haley out of the public eye, she will quickly pass Ron DeSantis everywhere.  Watch, this is what they will do.

[ SOURCE ]

Nikki Haley has now passed up Ron DeSantis in the first-loser race within Iowa.   Donald Trump is crushing the field, but for the non-Trump lane, Haley has just surpassed DeSantis.   Haley is also beating DeSantis in New Hampshire and South Carolina in the race to be the first-loser.

IOWA – […] In addition to leading overall, Trump performs better than his opponents across nearly every demographic the poll tested, including among first-time caucusgoers.   Trump has maintained his lead there, with 49% of first-time caucusgoers saying he is their first choice. DeSantis is at 15%, and Haley is at 14%.  (read more)

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Within the budget process there are two different facets. Congress is charged by the Constitution with making decisions about how to spend public money. Those spending decisions are split into two parts: authorization and appropriations.  In the recent political era the “authorization” process has essentially been nulled; no one ever asks if the program (Ukraine, Israel, FBI, etc.) should be funded. 

“Authorization” is done by Congress via legislation that “can establish, continue, or modify an agency, program, or activity for a fixed or indefinite period of time,” per the Congressional Research Service. In other words, authorization is Congress saying that money can be spent on a given item — not that it necessarily will be spent on that item.

“Appropriations” are done by Congress via legislation that authorizes agencies to make payments from the federal Treasury (i.e. it allows them to spend the money that had previously been authorized). Appropriations bills are ordinarily passed each year, but in recent years it has been common for Congress to fund the government “on autopilot” via continuing resolutions that simply allow agencies to continue spending the same amount of money they were spending under the previous funding bill.

Matt Gaetz has been trying to change this dynamic because the external recipients of the appropriation spending, the lobbyists, are the ones driving the continuation of the CR approach. The lobbyists pay congress via campaign donations. Those donations come from congressional appropriation. The CR process maintains the largesse.

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Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose stated mission has been to keep Trump from ascending to the White House again, is confident the field narrowing will bode well for his objectives.

In my estimation, Senator Tim Scott will be the next first-loser candidate to exit the race.

To qualify for the Miami debate, first-loser candidates need to reach at least four per cent in two national polls, or four per cent in one national poll and four per cent in two early primary states. Tim Scott has not reached the 4% national threshold.

The sketchy controlled operatives also need 70,000 individual donors, including 200 donors in 20 states, according to the requirements set by the Republican National Committee (RNC), because we all know money drives the RNC.

The donor standard pushed Pence to exit.

WASHINGTON DC – Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he expects more people to drop out of the GOP presidential primary following the third debate, after former Vice President Mike Pence announced Saturday that he’s abandoning his White House bid.

“In the end, it just means this race is narrowing, which everyone said that it would,” Christie said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, after praising the former vice president for running “a tough race.”

“It will narrow more, I suspect, when we get to the debate stage in Miami,” Christie added.

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Every time this guy pops up, I am reminded of his previous fame in constructing the “YouTube video narrative” as an explanation for the 2012 Benghazi attack.  At the time, it was Jake Sullivan working in the State Dept who fabricated that entire story; yes, it was entirely his creation, and the Clinton and Obama team (then NSA Susan Rice) pushed it into the media as the official U.S. explanation.  It’s funny (not really) how no one ever calls Sullivan out on that history, given his current position.

Taking that background context, while also accepting that everything we are told about Ukraine and the official position of the U.S. as it pertains to current Israeli War aspects, Jake Sullivan’s prior manufacturing of extreme defensive narratives, abjectly false presentations, leads more credence to accepting that we are once again being manipulated by fundamentally false information.  Jake Sullivan is now Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor.

Appearing on CBS, Sullivan outlines the current coordination between the Biden administration and Israeli leadership.  While he didn’t specifically say the words in the headline, instead describing exactly that while pretending something else, Hamas is FACTUALLY holding 500+ Americans hostage as human shields. WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Jake, good morning to you.

JAKE SULLIVAN: Good morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does the US know if the roughly five to six hundred Americans in Gaza have survived the past 23 days of bombing and have the hostages?

JAKE SULLIVAN:  We are in regular contact with most of the Americans who are in Gaza. We can’t say every single one, but all of the ones who reach out to us we follow up with on a regular basis, even sometimes a daily basis. And so, we know that many of them are still there, still waiting to get out. And we are working actively to try to make that happen. The challenge right now, Margaret, is that the Egyptians are prepared to let Americans and other foreign nationals out of Gaza. The Israelis have no issue with that. But ¹Hamas is preventing their departure and making a series of demands. We’re trying to work through that to create a circumstance where all of the Americans who are in Gaza are able to get out. It is a priority for the President. He has no higher priority than their safe passage out. And he will continue to work at it until it is accomplished.

[¹What is that, if not hostages and ransom?  /SD]

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This is not an intelligent man of temperate disposition.  This is an empty vessel filled with the thoughts, catchphrases, and opinions of others, including his apparel.

What is this choice of goofy footwear supposed to represent?

DeSantis spoke with DailyMail.com ahead of his remarks at a breakfast with Nevada Republicans at Treasure Island on the Las Vegas Strip. (Source)

Someone once swore to me that a person very close to DeSantis was intentionally undermining his effort because they quietly disliked (immensely) the fraudulent operation surrounding this long-planned 2024 presidential bid.  I laughed it off, but they were very serious.  As time goes on, and these subtle exhibitions of his authentically stupid persona surface, I no longer dismiss that prior statement.

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Mike Pence was unlikely to make the Miami GOPe first-loser debate. Using the opportunity of his appearance before the Nevada Jewish Republican Coalition speech, pious Mike Pence exits the race with affirmations of his self-importance.

“The Bible tells us that there’s a time for every purpose under heaven. Traveling across the country over the past six months, I came here to say it’s become clear to me that it’s not my time. So, after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today,” Pence said.

Inviting his wife Karen onto the stage, “we thank God for his amazing grace. He gave us the courage to step forward so many years ago. And the wisdom to step aside,” Pence said. “My fellow Republicans, thank you for your kindness, your support and your prayers over the many years. As we go home to Indiana, let me assure you we leave here with optimism and faith. We don’t know what the future holds. But we know who holds the future, and with faith in Him and boundless confidence in all of you, we know the best days for America and our most cherished ally for Israel, are yet to come.”  WATCH:

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I’m sorry folks, but I’ve seen this play… this Pence performance is theatrics, and what comes next is entirely predictable.  I will not convey grace to those who shield their sanctimony behind faith.  Yes, grandma’s rules apply, civility bites my tongue, but I know what Pence is going to do in order to try and block President Trump from office.

Good riddance.

Battered conservative no more!  

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