Send In The Clowns

 

Watch: MSM Interview Covers Up Ukrainian Fighter's Swastika Tattoo

In another embarrassing and revealing moment for Western mainstream media and its many puff pieces on Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Regiment, Canadian national broadcaster CBC has aired a news report this week from "an elite training facility" of its 3rd Assault Brigade in Kiev, featuring a fighter with a swastika tattoo on his arm.

The footage, released Thursday, blurred out the swastika tattoo of one of the main military trainers interviewed, but failed to do so in the video’s YouTube thumbnail. Comments were turned off, with a note attached in the YouTube description which reads: "A tattoo of an offensive symbol has been blurred in this video." Watch (officer with tattoo starts at :16 mark)

It was in June 2024 that the US State Department first announced that it had lifted its longtime ban on giving weapons and training to Ukraine's notorious Azov Brigade (often referenced by its earlier name Azov Battalion).

Since then, efforts to normalize Azov—which mainstream media had long ago grudgingly admitted was full of "neo-Nazi ideology"—have only grown.

The group's members have never been shy about sporting Nazi-inspired tattoos and patches. Ultimately, they haven't changed, only their Western supporters' perceptions of them have. 

The blurred out tattoo in question from the CBC footage:

Ukrainian scholar and historian, Dr. Marta Havryshko has on many occasions slammed Western media attempts to whitewash the extremist militia group. For example she once wrote:

“Azov changed” – the mantra of many liberal and progressive public in the West, who, after 24 Feb. 2022, demonstrate sympathy toward the Azov movement, whitewashing its past, justifying its present, and showing no concerns about its future.

Just this month, Ukraine's President Zelensky promoted Azov's founder, Andriy Biletsky, to the rank of Brigadier General, amid these efforts to downplay or cover up the group's clear neo-Nazi ideology.

via zer0hedge

Boogie Nights

 

ANTIFA's Mask Slips: Trump's Roundtable Sends Shadow NGO Network Behind "Riot Inc." Into Panic

Submitted by Jason Curtis Anderson of One City Rising, 

President Trump's latest roundtable on ANTIFA wasn't just a political statement — it was a long-overdue reckoning against rising far-left political violence. For years, journalists and citizens alike have watched America's streets burn, our cities vandalized, and our law enforcement vilified under banners of "resistance." But as the President's meeting revealed, ANTIFA is only one mask worn by a much larger monster — a transnational network of NGOs, foreign financiers, and ideological operatives quietly fueling what Seamus Bruner of the Government Accountability Institute called "Riot Inc."

Bruner, GAI's Director of Research, broke down the mechanics of this sprawling protest industrial complex. He traced the money, the messaging, and the movements, exposing how left-wing extremism has evolved from decentralized networks of anarchist collectives into a well-funded infrastructure with global ambitions. Among the various nodes and financiers, he named Neville Roy Singham — a tech billionaire currently under multiple congressional investigations for allegedly funneling money to American-based protest groups doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party.

Jonathan Choe, a journalist at the Discovery Institute, added another dimension, one that hits close to home for anyone living on the West Coast. He described how ANTIFA's organizing hubs are increasingly intertwined with what he called the "homeless industrial complex," a web of taxpayer-funded nonprofits that profit off permanent social decay. Cities like Portland, Seattle, and Los Angeles, all suffering the twin crises of homelessness and anarchist violence, have quietly become laboratories for this merger of chaos and cash flow.

If You Love What You Do

 

Trump Vows Military Will Be Paid; IRS Furloughs Half Of Staff As Shutdown Enters Day 9

With day nine of the federal government shutdown upon us and no end in sight after the Senate rejected both Republican and Democratic plans to reopen (their 6th failed vote), President Donald Trump doubled down on threats to block some furloughed federal workers from receiving back pay once the shutdown is over - but insisted that members of the military don't have to worry about missing their next paychecks - signaling support for standalone legislation to ensure they're paid. 

Republican Rep. Ken Calvert - who's in charge of defense funding, has also thrown his weight behind the bill, which was introduced by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA) in mid-September, and has been gaining steam since the shutdown began Oct. 1. 

House Democratic leadership supports the standalone bill to ensure military troop payments. 

In a Thursday morning C-SPAN interview, meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) took several calls from unhappy Americans - one of whom was a military wife from Virginia, who pleaded with him to reopen the government or pass funding so her family doesn't miss a paycheck on Oct 15. 

"As a Republican, I'm very disappointed in my party, and I'm very disappointed in you, because you have the power to call the House back," she said. "You refuse to do that, just for a show."

Johnson replied that situations like hers keep him up at night (lol sure), and that the House already tried to vote to pay the troops when it passed a short-term government funding extension that the Senate refuses to pass.

"The Democrats are the ones that are preventing you from getting a check," Johnson said. 

Republican C-SPAN caller to Mike Johnson: "As a Republican, I'm very disappointed in my party,and I'm very disappointed in you, because you have the power to call the House back. You refuse to do that just for a show." pic.twitter.com/3gxdXxtsDj

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 9, 2025

Meanwhile, the IRS on Wednesday announced that it would furlough some 34,000 employees - nearly half the agency's staff, adding to the approximately 750,000 furloughed workers government-wide. 

Payday Looms

On Friday, federal employees should expect smaller paychecks, which covers work between Sept. 21 and Oct. 4, so they'll only be paid for work between Sept. 21 and Oct. 1. 

Under the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, federal workers should receive retroactive pay after the shutdown - however a leaked internal memo revealed that the Trump administration interpreted the Act to place the responsibility on Congress to authorize payments. 

Where Is The Money Biden?

 

Musk Says "Far More Than $100 Million" US Taxpayer Funds Funneled Into NGOs Fueling Chaos; Trump Briefed On Dark-Money Networks

Update (1010ET): Let's recap what unfolded during Wednesday afternoon's Antifa roundtable at the White House, hosted by President Trump.

Several journalists shared firsthand accounts of being attacked by Antifa activists, but the real fireworks came from Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, who briefed the president and his cabinet on a complex network of dark-money NGOs and activist groups fueling unrest nationwide via the permanent protest-industrial complex. 

"We have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc investors," Bruner told Trump.

Elon Musk chimed in on X, commenting on a video featuring Bruner's public briefing to the president about the dark-money NGOs, saying, "Way more than $100M of US taxpayer money." 

Bruner's briefing to Trump builds on the recent New York Times report, citing a Capital Research Center report, that "Soros' Open Society gave $80 million to pro-terror groups"...

For the first time, millions of Americans heard about the dark-money network of NGOs fueling chaos. And this won't be the last - investigations are now ramping up.

Related:

• Trump Calls For RICO Charges Against Soros Over Violent Protest Support; Gates Foundation Abruptly Severs Ties With Rogue Arabella Advisors

Submitted by Peter Schweizer & Seamus Bruner of The Drill Down,

The Government Accountability Institute's Director of Research, Seamus Bruner, has pulled the curtain back on a troubling pattern — how non-governmental funding networks are bankrolling protest and activist movements across the U.S.

According to GAI's findings, the chaos now gripping cities like Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles — especially the recent waves of anti-ICE violence — isn't spontaneous. It's organized, coordinated, and funded.

Bruner's new research maps how progressive philanthropic networks intersect with activist groups that have escalated from demonstrations to riots. The report highlights how complex webs of charitable entities, donor-advised funds, and online platforms provide cover for financing activism that sometimes crosses into criminal behavior.

Organizations like Antifa, the Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), and the John Brown Gun Club operate decentralized chapters, making it difficult to track funding trails without subpoena power," Bruner said on X. "GAI has identified multiple online fundraising platforms where accountability gaps can obscure who contributes and how funds are used. The leftist funding platform, Open Collective, still allows for crowdfunding for these groups."

Bruner joined President Trump at the White House Antifa Roundtable to expose the funding web behind America's unrest: Antifa.

"I think we know that this is not just a story about violence and chaos … this is a money story," Bruner told President Trump. "And at the Government Accountability Institute … we follow the money, and we followed it to the top of what we call the protest industrial complex."

 

Something Fishy

 

Chinese-Mexican Syndicate's Supply Chain Exposed, Vancouver Emerges As Global Meth Hub

Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper,

 The case of Fatima Qurban-Ali, a 30-year-old Canadian sentenced recently in New Zealand for attempting to import nearly 10 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine on a flight from Vancouver — coerced at gunpoint by a transnational drug syndicate, the court heard — has illuminated a troubling global pattern.

Across a series of recent prosecutions, New Zealand Customs records and sentencing reports show that Canada — particularly Vancouver's port and airport — has become a major node in the production and shipment of synthetic narcotics by networks supplied through China-based syndicates and Mexican cartels.

Qurban-Ali, an immigrant from Afghanistan whose brother worked as a translator for U.S. and New Zealand forces, arrived in Auckland from Vancouver on December 8, 2024, carrying a red duffel bag filled with packages wrapped in festive paper. Inside, Customs officers found 9.9 kilograms of methamphetamine with an 80 percent purity — a haul valued at roughly NZ$2.9 million.

At her sentencing in Manukau District Court, the judge accepted that Qurban-Ali had acted under threat of violence. Evidence showed she had been lured under false pretences — told she would provide "bottle service" for wealthy clients at a private event similar to ones she'd worked in Vancouver — only to be threatened at gunpoint when she tried to back out.

Her lawyer said Qurban-Ali, an honours graduate who had worked with Indigenous communities in Canada, was "extremely susceptible and vulnerable" to manipulation. Her brother, an interpreter for the U.S. military who once assisted New Zealand forces in Afghanistan, has been missing since 2021.

The judge agreed her case was consistent with coercive recruitment — "how international syndicates tend to obtain their couriers and custodians" — and imposed a three-year, two-month sentence. But as New Zealand's Stuff reported, her story was part of a larger trend. Just thirty minutes earlier, another Canadian, David Blanchard, was convicted for smuggling a similar quantity of methamphetamine — his crime driven by addiction and the promise of quick money.

Also in August 2025, Customs records show, authorities intercepted a 124-kilogram shipment of methamphetamine concealed in machinery parts shipped by air freight from Canada and allegedly linked to the Auckland-based Killer Beez gang. The drugs' street value exceeded NZ$37 million.

Police said the operation — dubbed Vault — followed a series of "dry runs" in June consisting of machine-part shipments from Canada designed to test border vulnerabilities.

In September 2025, a 23-year-old Canadian woman received six years' imprisonment after Customs officers found 15 kilograms of methamphetamine in her luggage on a flight from Vancouver.

And from The Bureau's earlier reporting, three men were convicted last week in the largest methamphetamine seizure ever recorded at New Zealand's border — 713.8 kilograms of the drug disguised as maple-syrup bottles, shipped from Vancouver's port in January 2023. That single load carried an estimated social-harm value of NZ$800 million.

2. The maple-syrup consignment was not an isolated operation, according to New Zealand Police. In parallel, Australian authorities launched Operation Parkes after the Canada Border Services Agency identified another suspicious Canadian export — 18 pallets of canola oil shipped…

— Sam Cooper (@scoopercooper) October 3, 2025

Together, these prosecutions reveal a striking pattern: repeated meth consignments originating in Canada, exploiting both air-cargo and passenger routes to penetrate New Zealand's lucrative market.

Former U.S. DEA Operations Chief Derek Maltz, who led international cartel investigations under Project Sentry, told The Bureau the trend emerging in New Zealand and Australia mirrors what he has tracked globally. Chinese and Mexican criminal networks — with Chinese actors supplying chemical precursors and laundering proceeds from fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine, and Mexican cartels managing large-scale production and distribution — have been shifting parts of their operations beyond Mexico, into countries including Canada.

Did They Raid Bidens House?

 

"Did We Raid Biden's Home?" - Eric Trump Unloads On Chris Cuomo In On-Air Clash

Chris Cuomo has an uncomfortable moment on-air as he sets Eric Trump OFF into a rage over his comments about Trump going after his political opponents.

As VigilantFox posted on X, this did not sit well with Eric, who blew up on Cuomo for nearly 3 minutes straight.

CUOMO: “Do you think that it is fair to say it looks like the administration is going after its political opponents now and doing exactly what you say you oppose?”

TRUMP: “What, Comey?… It certainly seemed like he lied to me. I’m also wondering what an FBI director is doing taking memos from the FBI and leaking them to The New York Times.”

That’s when Trump got personal, accusing Cuomo of playing coy even though his own family had also faced political lawfare.

Cuomo pushed back, insisting he wasn’t being coy… before accusing the Trump administration of going “right after Biden.”

Eric Trump then rattled off a series of examples to prove that his father is the victim, not the aggressor, in what can only be described as a mic-drop moment:

“Did we raid Biden’s home?”

“Did we try and bankrupt Biden?”

“Did we weaponize every AG and DA against Biden?”

“Did we do that against Hunter Biden, who had a laptop from hell, pictures of cocaine, illicit drug use, prostitution?”

“Did we make up a dirty dossier about Biden?”

“Did they try and destroy Biden’s marriage?”

“Did we make up stories that Biden had secret servers in the basement of his home communicating with the Kremlin in Russia?”

“Did we strip Biden off the ballot of multiple states?”

“Did we take Biden off of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and try and silence his voice so he couldn’t communicate?”

“Did we put Biden in a courtroom every single day, 91 felony counts that have all been overturned for my father now for nonsense, to try and keep him off of a campaign trail and to try and destroy his life. "

"DID WE DO ANY OF THAT?”

Watch the full tirade below:

h/t @VigilantFox

via zer0hedge

Going Old Fashioned

 

Victor Hanson Exposes Reactionary, Neo-Confederate Portland

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

In blue cities across America - Portland, Oregon, especially - often violent protesters now seek to surround ICE facilities to stop federal officers from fulfilling their assigned and legal duties of arresting illegal aliens.

Some 10 million or more illegal aliens were allowed to enter the U.S. during the Biden years—illegally and thus without criminal or health checks.

Neither Antifa nor liberal urban America objected to such a flagrant disregard for the law. But both are now as intent on obstructing the legal enforcement of the law as they were earlier in favor of its illegal non-enforcement.

Much less did they care about the consequences of sending millions of foreign nationals into cities and counties where they swamped social services, spiked crime, and flooded emergency rooms and schools.

ICE has repeatedly presented data that show in its first rounds of deportations, it is concentrating on removing either criminal illegal aliens or those who have already been processed with deportation orders, somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of all current apprehensions.

No matter.

Left-wing protesters are swarming ICE headquarters in Portland to violently oppose all deportations, even those of known criminals and those who have already exhausted efforts to remain here illegally.

Why?

The Democratic Party apparat knows that the public wants both secure borders and deportations of illegal aliens. Indeed, in part, it lost an election by its open-borders advocacy.

But Democrat officials feel that if street thugs like Antifa can surround and besiege ICE facilities in Portland, Oregon, then deportations will stop. Then, a de facto amnesty will follow for millions who entered the U.S. illegally—and will soon become Democratic constituents.

As a result, they do not fully enforce the law when thugs attack federal law enforcement. Antifa and its spin-off groups favor the night, when they try to block all entries and exits of ICE vehicles and personnel, and can commit their violence with greater anonymity.

The masked rioters assault anyone in their way. They count on exemption from punishment for committing violence against federal officers through the goodwill or indifference of kindred local and state officials who hate the Trump administration more than they respect the law. An Orwellian scenario follows in which federal officers are attacked by Antifa, which in turn counts on the non-intervention of local police.

Summed up: the city of Portland’s armed officers are in a de facto proxy war with their federal counterparts—in our version of something out of 1860, on the eve of a real civil war.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek feel their constituents want open borders and thus should have the right in their own city and state to do as they please—and federal law be damned.

But by doing so, both the Democrat Party officialdom and the street armies of Antifa are on the proverbial wrong side of history.

America for almost 200 years has already decided, in formal law and court rulings, that no local or state entity can disrupt the enforcement of federal laws or usurp Washington’s powers. To do so with impunity would unravel the American nation in short order.

We know that from our own violent history. Andrew Jackson, in 1832, like Trump, threatened to send troops to stop South Carolina’s nullification of federal tariff laws.

America fought a Civil War over Confederate states’ efforts to ignore federal law and confiscate or occupy federal property within their state jurisdictions.

Surprise Surprise

 

Homeland Security: Arrests At Southern Border Hit 55-Year Low

Authored by T.J.Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

The 2025 fiscal year had the lowest number of arrests of illegal immigrants made on the U.S. southern border in 55 years, according to the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“We have had the most secure border in American history, and our end-of-year numbers prove it,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an Oct. 7 statement.

“We have shattered multiple records this year, and once again we have broken a new record.”

The United States’ 2025 fiscal year ran from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025. During that time, authorities made 237,565 arrests along the southern border with Mexico. That total represented an 84 percent drop from the previous year—which had more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants apprehensions—and the lowest number recorded since 1970, which had 201,780 arrests.

“The latest number includes nearly four months of the Biden administration,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in the statement.

”Arrests fell sharply after the Biden administration imposed severe asylum restrictions in June 2024.

“They plummeted more after the Trump administration virtually eliminated asylum access and dispatched thousands of military troops to the border.”

According to the department, 72 percent of the total arrests occurred during the first 111 days of the fiscal year, which took place in the final months of the Biden administration, totaling 172,026 of the 237,565 arrests.

The year ended with authorities averaging 279 arrests a day in the month of September. While that number was up from the 204 arrests per day recorded in August, it was still down considerably from the nearly 1,800 border arrests per day recorded in September 2024.

That number is also 95 percent lower than the daily average maintained by the Biden administration, which was 5,110 from February 2021 through December 2024.

The previous four fiscal years averaged 1.86 million arrests.

During the Biden administration, thousands of those arrested ended up being released into the United States, including 9,144 releases in September 2024.

DHS touted in its statement that September 2025 was the fifth consecutive month with zero releases by Border Patrol.

These low arrest numbers are being accompanied by increased deportation figures. Just before the fiscal year came to a close, DHS announced that more than 2 million illegal immigrants had been deported, or had self-deported, since President Donald Trump began his second term. As of Sept. 23, an estimated 1.6 million voluntarily self-deported using the CBP Home App, and more than 400,000 were removed.

Turning The Kitchen Light On

 

DHS Highlights Slew Of September Immigration Arrests In Portland

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested several “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” in Portland, Oregon, last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in an Oct. 7 statement.

The announcement comes amid a tussle between the Trump administration and officials in Portland and Oregon over the deployment of National Guard troops to protect federal agents carrying out immigration operations.

“We are not allowing domestic terrorists to slow us down from removing the worst of the worst,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.

“President Trump has deployed a SURGE of federal resources to Portland. Enhanced CBP, ICE, FBI, DOJ and DEA resources are arresting rioters and Antifa domestic terrorists.”

Among those arrested was a Honduran national convicted of distributing fentanyl; a Canadian national convicted of two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree; a Mexican national who was previously arrested for possessing dangerous weapons; a Peruvian national convicted of luring a minor; and another Mexican national convicted of possessing heroin with the intent to distribute it, the statement said.

On Sept. 28, War Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo at the request of President Donald Trump, informing the leader of the Oregon National Guard that 200 members would be called up for federal service. The same day, Oregon filed a lawsuit seeking to block the move, arguing that Trump exceeded his executive authority.

On Oct. 4, Judge Karin J. Immergut, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, ruled that Trump violated the 10th Amendment and that Oregon would “suffer an injury to its sovereignty” once the federalized National Guards are deployed in Portland. She issued a temporary restraining order against such deployment, valid until Oct. 18.

On Saturday, ICE’s offices in Portland saw demonstrations, with some protestors using megaphones to chant “ICE out of Portland!”

During protests the previous day, some protesters also threatened federal agents.

National Guard Deployment

On Tuesday, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s office said she directed the Northern Command to take swift action to send the National Guard members back home.

“Judge Karin J. Immergut’s orders are a clear and forceful rebuttal to President Trump’s misuse of states’ National Guard. Thus, I am directing Northern Command to send Oregon’s citizen-soldiers home from Camp Rilea immediately,” Kotek said.

“Let’s remember that these Oregonians are our neighbors and friends, who have been unlawfully uprooted from their family and careers—they deserve better than this.”

In an Oct. 7 statement, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson raised concerns about federal agents in the city.

“I continue to maintain that the tactics used by federal agents at the ICE facility are troubling and likely unconstitutional,” he said.

“I intend to explore options to protect our community and our right to free expression.”

Speaking to reporters at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump suggested he may consider invoking the Insurrection Act if required.

The Insurrection Act is an emergency power allowing the president to authorize the deployment of military forces within the country to suppress acts of domestic violence or rebellion.

“So far, it hasn’t been necessary. But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” Trump said.

“If I had to enact it, I‘d do that. If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors and mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that. I mean, I want to make sure that people aren’t killed. We have to make sure that our cities are safe.”

The DHS said on Tuesday that fiscal year 2025 closed out with the lowest Border Patrol apprehensions at the southwest border since 1970. The department said there were 237,565 apprehensions for fiscal year 2025, 87 percent below the average of the last four fiscal years, which was 1.86 million.

Blowing Israel , Up With Money

 

Washington Burns Through $34BN Backing Israel In Post-Oct.7 Wars: Brown University

A new study has tried to assess the total amount the United States has spent on military aid to Israel since the Oct.7, 2023 Hamas terror attack.

The US has provided Israel with $21.7 billion since the start of the Gaza War, policy analyst and senior Quincy Institute research fellow William D. Hartung wrote in a paper for the Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

Image source: USAF

"This figure does not include the tens of billions of dollars in arms sales agreements that have been committed for weapons and services that will be paid for and delivered in the years to come," the paper, which is part of the "Cost of War" project, reads. 

And adding significantly in US costs was defending the Red Sea against attacks out of Yemen, which were more significant during the first year of conflict, Washington has further spent between $9.65 and $12.07 billion. This figure includes operations in "the wider region sparked by or in support of Israeli military operations" since Oct.7.

The conflict with Iran in June was a big one as well, where hundreds of US anti-air and defensive missiles were rapidly expended as inbound Iranian drones and ballistic missiles pummeled Tel Aviv and other locations in retaliation for the 'surprise' Israeli attack which started it all.

Adding all of these figures, the total stands at between $31.35 and $33.77 billion in "two years of post-10/7 wars" - the fresh analysis concludes.

The bulk of the cost has involved the US providing Israel with tens of thousands of bombs and other weaponry. While this trend is nothing "new" - it does underscore that Israel might quickly find itself in big trouble without its defense being propped up by Washington.

This trend was highlighted in an awkward portion of a Tucker Carlson interview with Matt Walsh:

Among the latest in Trump-approved arms deals, last month $6 billion arms for Israel was announced which will be paid for with US military aid.

It Will Get Worse For Biden Families Ukraine Deals

 

"Matters Of Corruption": Biden Staff Blocked CIA From Distributing Hunter-Ukraine Concern Memo

Newly declassified memoranda show then-Vice President Joe Biden’s staff intervened in February 2016 to block the Central Intelligence Agency from circulating an intelligence report to policymakers that summarized how senior Ukrainian officials perceived his son’s business dealings and his December 2015 trip to Kyiv.

According to the documents, the request came from the vice president’s national-security adviser and was relayed inside the intelligence community by Biden’s Presidential Daily Brief briefer: “I just spoke with VP/NSA and he would strongly prefer the report not/not be disseminated. Thanks for understanding.”

A senior CIA official described the intervention as “extremely rare and unusual,” saying the material otherwise met the threshold for distribution to U.S. officials working on Ukraine policy.

The report compiled reactions from officials in the government of then-President Petro Poroshenko following Mr. Biden’s visit. Those officials “privately mused” about U.S. media scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s business ties in Ukraine and “viewed the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power,” the CIA relayed. The same officials “expressed bewilderment and disappointment” that the vice president did not engage in expected substantive discussions with Mr. Poroshenko or other senior figures, Just the News reports.

At the time, Biden had been designated President Barack Obama’s point person on Ukraine policy after the Maidan Revolution and Russia’s seizure of Crimea. His December 2015 trip has drawn scrutiny because the vice president decided then to press for the dismissal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, warning that a substantial U.S. loan guarantee would be withheld if the move wasn’t made. Mr. Shokin was investigating Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky; Hunter Biden had formally joined Burisma’s board in May 2014.

Prior to the trip, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt warned Mr. Biden’s top advisers that Washington considered Burisma corrupt. Mr. Pyatt later told his successor, Marie Yovanovitch, that Hunter Biden’s role “undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine,” echoing what Ukrainian officials were thinking, according to the CIA.

A senior CIA official told Just the News that, in the agency’s assessment, the report merited dissemination at the time it was drafted and would have been useful to U.S. officials dealing with Ukraine because it reflected the views of multiple senior Ukrainian figures. It was also “extremely rare and unusual,” the official said, for someone outside the intelligence community to weigh in on whether to distribute such a product; typically that decision is made within the community. The documents offer no indication of how the vice president’s office learned of the report before intervening.

The memos surfaced after a review of CIA databases that began in late 2024 under the prior administration. CIA Director John Ratcliffe has framed the disclosure within a broader push to curb politicization: “Mr. President, the CIA is being restructured at your direction to focus on our core mission and to eliminate the political – the well-documented politicization that has taken place in the intelligence community from bad actors in the past to focus on our core mission and to Make America Safe Again,” he said at a Cabinet meeting in April. The senior CIA official said Mr. Ratcliffe views the 2016 intervention as part of that politicization and opted to release the document in the interest of transparency.

The episode also intersects with long-running debates over Ukraine policy. Just the News previously reported that Biden’s push to oust Mr. Shokin “broke” with State Department and European Union assessments that the prosecutor’s progress on anti-corruption reforms was sufficient to warrant new loan guarantees. Following that reporting, fact-checkers revised their narrative and concluded that Joe had “called an audible” aboard Air Force Two on the way to Kyiv, deciding to call for Mr. Shokin’s removal.

$3.6 million for pastry cooking classes

 

Sen. Kennedy Just Exposed More Absurd Things Democrats Shut Down The Government For

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

The Schumer Shutdown dragged through the weekend, with neither side budging. Republicans pushed for a straightforward continuing resolution to keep the government funded through November, but Democrats chose to hold the line for their wish list of radical spending priorities—billions and billions of dollars’ worth—and in doing so, shut the government down. The media has focused on their demand for free health care for illegal immigrants, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more buried in this standoff that isn’t getting the attention it deserves.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) took to the Senate floor this week and laid out, in his trademark blunt and hilarious fashion, exactly what Democrats are trying to shut the government down over—and it’s every bit as ridiculous as you’d expect.

“Basically, President Trump just said, ‘We want you to take some stuff out of the budget that we think is wasteful,’” Kennedy began. “And we did — and that upset the congresswoman.”

That “congresswoman,” of course, is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who, according to Kennedy, went ballistic when Trump and congressional Republicans started cutting some of the more absurd Biden-era spending priorities.

Kennedy didn’t hold back as he read aloud what Democrats are fighting to restore.

“We found that under President Biden, they were spending $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia,” he said. “We took that out. The congresswoman says, ‘We’re gonna shut down government until you put that back in.’”

And that was just the beginning.

“We found $500,000 of American taxpayer money for electric buses in Rwanda,” Kennedy continued.

“We found $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. I kid you not. I’m not making this up. It was in the budget under President Biden.”

Kennedy went on to rattle off even more examples of this insanity:

• $6 million for media organizations for the Palestinians.

• $833,000 for transgender people in Nepal.

• $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho.

• $882,000 for social media mentorship in Serbia.

• $4.2 million for LGBTQI people in the Western Balkans and Uganda.

Do you think we should be funding that nonsense?

Republicans, Kennedy noted, stripped out each of these items as they tried to rein in wasteful foreign spending. But Democrats—with AOC and the “socialist wing” of the party leading the way—are threatening to shut the government down until every last one of those absurd expenditures is put back in.

“I could spend the rest of the afternoon here,” Kennedy said. “We took all that out. It upset Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. It upset the socialist wing of her party. And now they’re threatening all other Democrats and saying, ‘You’ve got to shut that government down until we get what we want.’”