George W. Bush: “Sick to My Stomach Seeing -Capitol Stormed by Hostile Forces” but “Populist Movements Begin to Fritter Over Time”

Former President George W. Bush spoke with the Texas Tribune in partnership with this year’s SXSW Online Festival to push his new book on immigration, “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.”

In the interview, Bush said the January 6th protests left him “disgusted” and “sick to my stomach.”

He then goes on to slam the pro-American populist movement behind the rise of President Donald Trump, saying, “History and the United States has shown these populist movements begin to fritter over time.”

And Bush also praised the impossibly high voter turnout that put Joe Biden the White House.

It’s easy to understand how this guy left us with Barack Obama and Democrat super-majorities in Congress.

The Texas Tribune reported:

The former president said that while he is concerned about the scale of anger toward the government, he took heart in the high voter turnout rates in the 2018 and 2020 elections.

“It shows the vibrancy of democracy,” he said. “That’s a telltale sign that people want to get engaged in the system and that they were willing to go vote.”

“Look, politics has always been rough … And right now we’re at a period of time, though, when there’s a lot of anger in the system, which then causes people to worry about the future of our democracy,” he said. “I think it’s going to eventually work its way out of the system.

“History and the United States has shown these populist movements begin to fritter over time, and so I’m optimistic about democracy.”

Asked if the Trump-led federal government put democracy at risk in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bush had another one-word answer: “No.”

“What’s putting democracy at risk is the capacity to get on the internet to spread … all kinds of stuff,” he said. “But checks and balances work. It’s a, you know, a balanced system. The courts work. The legislative process needs a little work, particularly on immigration reform … No, I thought the system worked fine.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/george-w-bush-sick-stomach-seeing-capitol-stormed-hostile-forces-populist-movements-begin-fritter-time/

Former State Department Employee Sentenced to Prison for Trafficking in Counterfeit Goods from U.S. Embassy

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-state-department-employee-sentenced-prison-trafficking-counterfeit-goods-us-embassy

GOP Memo

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/03/18/exclusive-gop-memo-democrats-introduce-amnesty-policies-to-make-biden-border-crisis-worse/

Substantial Prison Term Imposed for Fentanyl Distributors

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edwa/pr/substantial-prison-term-imposed-fentanyl-distributors

Appeals Court Reinstates Guilty Verdict For Michael Flynn’s Business Partner In Turkish Lobbying Case

A former business partner of Michael Flynn was dealt a major legal blow on Thursday after a federal appeals court reinstated his conviction on charges that he lobbied illegally for the Turkish government.

The three-judge panel said that Bijan Rafiekian operated as an agent of Turkey in 2016, when he was an executive at Flynn’s intelligence firm.

A federal judge had tossed out a conviction against Rafiekian in September 2019, claiming that the government’s evidence was “insufficient.”

The appeals court reversed that decision, saying that jurors “heard sufficient evidence” that Rafiekian worked for Turkey.

A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a guilty verdict against Bijan Rafiekian, a former business partner of Michael Flynn’s who was convicted in 2019 on charges that he lobbied secretly for the Turkish government.

A three-judge panel unanimously voted to override a decision by District Court Judge Anthony Trenga to toss out charges against Rafiekian following his July 23, 2019 conviction on charges that he worked as an unregistered foreign agent of Turkey while he served as an executive for Flynn Intel Group, an intelligence consulting firm founded by Flynn.

Rafiekian, who was chairman of the Export-Import Bank during the George W. Bush administration, was indicted in 2018 alongside Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin.

Trenga tossed out charges against Rafiekian on Sept. 24, 2019, saying that the government’s evidence was “insufficient as a matter of law.”

The appellate court judges said Thursday that the jury was provided with enough evidence to find that Rafiekian acted as an agent of Turkey.

“We are convinced that the jury heard sufficient evidence that Rafiekian acted as ‘an agent of a foreign government,'” James Wynn, a judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote in the opinion.

Wynn said that a “rational juror could conclude” that the Turkish government “was, in fact, behind the project.”

He said that the Turkish government communicated “general and specific instructions” to Flynn Intel Group through Alptekin.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/03/18/bijan-rafiekian-turkey-michael-flynn-appeals-court/

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Invites Russia’s Lavrov to Beijing After Alaska Summit

In the face of mutual pressure from the United States, Russia and China have grown increasingly close in recent years, although both nations continue to strictly adhere to the principles of non-alignment.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit China next week, just days after Chinese diplomats’ first summit with representatives of the administration of US President Joe Biden.

According to the release, Lavrov’s visit will be at the request of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is presently in Anchorage, Alaska, alongside the Communist Party of China’s foreign policy chief, Yang Jiechi, for a 2+2 summit with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

The March 18-19 summit is being held at the invitation of the United States, but so far, Washington diplomats have postured against the idea of the meeting opening a new dialogue. The State Department has said its primary concerns at the conference are pressuring China on Xinjiang, the South China Sea, and the origins of COVID-19. Still, Chinese leaders have maintained they believe continued dialogue between the two world powers can only be a good thing.

Wang’s meeting with Lavrov will be on March 22 and 23. That will be several days after the Alaska summit, which will likely be the focus. It will also be the first time the two chief diplomats have met since Biden took office in January, signaling a potential shift away from the policies of his predecessors, US President Donald Trump, who amplified US hostility to both nations.

Early in Trump’s presidency, the White House and Pentagon laid out a decisive shift in US military strategy away from the War on Terror and toward “inter-state strategic competition” with Russia and China. Biden’s policy thus far seems to deviate from that approach very little, with his administration implementing a slew of new sanctions on both nations, as well as labeling them human rights violators.

China, Russia Bear 'Important Responsibility'

Zhang Hanhui, the Chinese ambassador to Moscow, told Interfax earlier this month that as the world’s two largest countries, China and Russia “have a wide range of common interests in maintaining peace and stability around the world and in promoting global development and prosperity, and they bear a particularly important responsibility,”

“We are ready to maintain interaction with the Russian side in the sphere of relations between our countries and the United States and to defend even better the strategic interests and development interests of the two countries,” Zhang said. He added that Sino-Russian military-technical cooperation “embodies the spirit of strategic mutual trust and strategic interaction” and has helped promote regional stability.

https://sputniknews.com/asia/202103181082386279-chinese-foreign-minister-wang-invites-russias-lavrov-to-beijing-after-alaska-summit/

Here Are The 9 Republicans Who Voted To Pass Total ‘Dreamer’ Amnesty For Illegal Migrants

Bill would grant unconditional amnesty to "dreamer illegal immigrants who acquired a degree or held a job for three years

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the Dream and Promise Act, which grants total amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the country while under the age of 18, by a margin of 228-197 on Thursday. A total of nine Republicans sided with Democrats to pass the bill, which is now headed to the U.S. Senate.

The full list of Republican lawmakers who voted to approve the Dream and Amnesty Act can be read below:

Don Bacon (NE)

David Valadao (CA)

Fred Upton (MI)

Maria Elvira Salazar (FL)

Dan Newhouse (WA)

Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)

Chris Smith (NJ)

Carlos Gimenez (FL)

Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)

The Dream and Amnesty Act would require a total of 10 Republicans to vote ‘aye” in the Senate to be recognized as law.

https://nationalfile.com/breaking-here-are-the-9-republicans-who-voted-to-pass-total-dreamer-amnesty-for-illegal-migrants/

'People died because of what the governor did': Rep. Jeff Van Drew demands probe into New Jersey COVID nursing home deaths

He said New Jersey's scandal was just as bad as New York's controversy.

A New Jersey congressman is calling for an investigation into that state's scandal that mirrors the coronavirus nursing home controversy in New York.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R) said on Newsmax Wednesday that a probe into New Jersey nursing home deaths would be appropriate.

"Really, many of us never understood at the time why we would take people that are already debilitated, who are already somewhat sick, who already have problems, mix them with other people who are very weak and aren't doing well," said Van Drew.

"You know that you're gonna have issues if you do that, that's, even then we knew that much about COVID, and we know that much about diseases in general, and we know about the aging process," he added.

"So it always seemed like a bad idea, and it's strange how it happened, and people were very uncomfortable with it. And we saw that in the beginning, the huge number of deaths that we had in New Jersey, the majority of them were from that very situation," Van Drew continued.

"A lot of people died because of what the governor did," he said.

Van Drew said that many in New Jersey were wondering why New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) was being investigated but New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) was not, despite giving the same order to house coronavirus patients in nursing homes.

On Tuesday New Jersey Advance Media obtained a recording of a health official saying that "patients will die" as the result of the order given by Murphy in March 2020.

Van Drew has also made headlines when he released an audio recording of a columnist making threats against him over his decision to change from a Democrat to a Republican to support former President Donald Trump.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/new-jersey-covid-nursing-home

Horowitz: Vaccine deliveries for COVID-19 being used to legitimize segregation

State and local governments are even prioritizing vaccination by race

Segregation is back.

I'm not sure what to make of the systemic racism with states openly creating segregationist policies for vaccine deliveries. Are they singling out blacks as more worthy of protection than whites or are they using blacks as their live experiments, as occurred in the 1930s? Either way, equal protection under the law is being shredded in the administration and delivery of vaccines.

Last month, the ABC affiliate in Toledo, Ohio reported the following shocking policy from the Lucas County, Ohio government: "Moving forward, 20% of all the vaccine allotment in Lucas County will be earmarked for people of color. Those vaccines will be made available at locations more easily accessible to underserved populations at pop-up sites within communities and even mobile units."

I remember in the 1990s learning in school for the first time about segregation and seeing the pictures of water fountains earmarked for "colored people." I thought we were long done with that policy (and nomenclature), but alas, here we are in 2021 and state and local governments across the government are segregating and even prioritizing vaccination by race.

Dayton, Ohio is now earmarking 25% of vaccines for "people of color" (whatever that means) and are hosting vaccination drives for "qualified" colored people only.

Last month, Ohio hosted town halls across the state about the vaccine literally segregating people by race. Reminiscent of the Deep South in the 1930s, here was the schedule posted by the state's health department:

https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/ready-horowitz-vaccine-deliveries-for-covid-19-being-used-to-legitimize-segregation

US National Intelligence Officer Argues China Meddled in 2020 Election to Damage Trump

A report from the U.S. intelligence community suggests that a minority of intelligence officials believed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did, in fact, attempt to hinder former President Donald Trump’s chances in the 2020 election, while reporting that the CCP did not “deploy interference efforts.”

A report from the National Intelligence Council (pdf) released March 10 stated that Russia sought to denigrate President Joe Biden and boost Trump during the 2020 election, and that China “did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election,” adding: “We have high confidence in this judgment.”

The report further asserted that the CCP “sought stability in its relationship with the United States and did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk blowback if caught,” while intelligence officials suspected that “Beijing probably believed that its traditional influence tools, primarily targeted economic measures and lobbying key individuals and interest groups, would be sufficient to achieve its goal of shaping U.S. policy regardless of who won the election. We did not identify China attempting to interfere with election infrastructure or providing funding to any candidates or parties.”

But the report also indicated that some U.S. intelligence officials believe the CCP tried to undermine Trump.

“The National Intelligence Officer for Cyber assesses that China took at least some steps to undermine former President Trump’s reelection chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media,” says the report in its minority view section. “The NIO agrees with the IC’s view that Beijing was primarily focused on countering anti-China policies, but assesses that some of Beijing’s influence efforts were intended to at least indirectly affect U.S. candidates, political processes, and voter preferences, meeting the definition for election influence used in this report. The NIO agrees that we have no information suggesting China tried to interfere with election processes. The NIO has moderate confidence in these judgments.”

https://www.ntd.com/us-national-intelligence-officer-argues-china-meddled-in-2020-election-to-damage-trump_583712.html

Tufts University to Close Confucius Institute

Tufts University in Boston announced on March 17 that it will close its China-funded Confucius Institute. This is the last remaining Confucius Institute in Massachusetts.

https://www.ntd.com/tufts-university-to-close-confucius-institute_583770.html

Flynn then shared a video of President Clinton claiming that the shady mullah is a friend of the US –

Russian National Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Introduce Malware into a U.S. Company’s Computer Network

Defendant’s attempt to recruit employee to transmit malware to exfiltrate data and extort company thwarted by FBI

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/russian-national-pleads-guilty-conspiracy-introduce-malware-us-company-s-computer-network

Mexico Plans Massive ‘Crackdown’ On Illegal Immigration After Crisis Erupts Under Biden

Mexico is reportedly ramping up its efforts to stop the unprecedented tide of illegal immigrants entering its southern border en route to the US after the policies of US Democratic President Joe Biden has caused the crisis to spiral in numbers expected to be the highest in the history of the Department of Homeland Security.

Multiple reports said Andrés Manuel López Obrador is preparing to “significantly reinforce” its actions on its own border with Guatemala in response to the crisis that has erupted at the US-Mexico border in recent weeks.

“Mexico is preparing to significantly reinforce efforts to detain US-bound migrants who illegally cross its border with Guatemala, in response to a jump in people trying to enter the United States, according to four people familiar with the matter,” Reuters said.

It added that “Mexico would deploy security forces to cut the flow of migrants, the bulk of whom come from Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, whose economies were battered by the coronavirus pandemic and hurricanes last year.”

Mexico to deploy team that helped address migrant caravans

The report went on to say that Mexico’s National Guard militarized police — which led efforts to bring down the number of illegal immigrants entering Mexico from Central America during an increase in 2019, “would be at the fore of the containment drive.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/mexico-plans-massive-crackdown-illegal-immigration-crisis-erupts-biden/

On The Verge Of A Global Crisis: One Bank Warns Of A "Biblical" Surge In Food Prices

Biblical, Lean, and Mean: 'Dreams' of an agri-commodity super-cycle

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph: “Behold, in my dream I stood on the bank of the river. Suddenly seven cows came up out of the river, fine looking and fat; and they fed in the meadow. Then behold, seven other cows came up after them, poor and very ugly and gaunt, such ugliness as I have never seen in all the land of Egypt. And the gaunt and ugly cows ate up the first seven, the fat cows. When they had eaten them up, no one would have known that they had eaten them, for they were just as ugly as at the beginning. So I awoke.”

- Genesis 41:17-21

Summary

Key feed and food prices have been pulled to 9-month and 7-year highs

We explore the ‘dream’ of Biblical scarcity; its origins and impacts; and draw comparisons with Joseph, the trader and central planner who avoided starvation for ancient Egypt

One point is clear: global food insecurity falls heaviest on lower income, importing nations, who spend a far greater share of their income on food than the richer ones

The Fed would play an ironic role in this process even as it embraces fighting poverty and inequality alongside inflation

This could exacerbate (geo)political risk – potentially even regarding institutional architecture

Our Base Commodity Call

At time of writing, our forecasts for three of the world’s key agri commodities, soybeans, corn, and wheat are as follows:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/verge-global-food-crisis-one-bank-warns-biblical-rally-food-prices

Convicted Sex Offenders, Including Pedophiles, Arrested at Biden’s Open U.S. Border.

A recent string of arrests of convicted sex offenders – including pedophiles – has occurred at the U.S. southern border.

According to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release, “Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents arrested three criminal aliens with prior convictions for sexual offenses.”

On Monday, agents apprehended a male Guatemalan national after he illegally entered the country.

“During processing, record checks revealed the subject, later identified as MARTINEZ, Jose Estuardo, was arrested in 2013 for indecency with a child/sexual contact by the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office in Sulphur Springs, Texas. Martinez was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 8 years probation,” CBP notes.

Hours later Border Patrol agents also apprehended a Mexican national illegally present in the U.S.

“At the station, the subject’s criminal history revealed an arrest in 2015 for rape by the Sandy Springs Police Department in Sandy Springs, Georgia. The individual was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 20 years confinement, of which he served 5 years,” CBP notes.

What’s more, a group of nine illegal aliens was apprehended in Texas, and one member – Tony Canales-Velasquez – had a prior conviction for indecency with a child.

https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/border-arrests-include-pedophile/

European “Narco Submarine” Discovered in Spain

European “Narco Submarine” Discovered in Spain

Print article

Published: Thursday, 18 March 2021 21:34

Written by Sadie Brown

Police in five countriesarrested 52 suspected members of a creative organized criminal group which hid cocaine in terrarium bedding material, hashish and marijuana inside hydromassage bathtubs and even built its own submarine.

During the year-long operation “Ferro,” Spanish National Police said they seized a “narco-submarine,” although the term is somewhat of a misnomer because the vessel, and most others like it, are actually self-propelled semi-submersibles that operate partially under water instead of fully submerged.

The vessel was still under construction when it was discovered. The semi-submersible was handmade with fiberglass panels covering a frame and using two 200 horsepower engines for propulsion, according to the press release.

The narco-submarine measured nine meters by three meters by three meters and could have carried up to two tons of drugs, authorities said.

While Europol and the Spanish Civil Guard both reported the narco-sub to be the first crafted in Europe, experts say there have been at least two prior to the latest seizure.

The first was in 2006 when a fully submersible vessel was found abandoned. Then in August 2020, a boat dubbed the “Ghost Glider” was captured off the coast of Spain, according to Small Wars Journal.

Robert J. Bunker PhD and Director of Research and Analysis at C/O Futures, a consulting firm specializing in non-state actors and military technology, said that in the right circumstances, narco subs are very covert.

“Semi-submersibles sail on the seas and oceans and present a low profile which is hard to detect, especially at night,” Bunker said. “Their heat and acoustic signatures can also be masked. Finding a narco sub in the ocean can, at times be, like finding a needle in a haystack.”

Despite the development of such stealthy transport crafts, one should not expect submarines to entirely replace other trafficking methods. Bunker said that narco traffickers keep their trafficking means diversified.

“From an illicit-economics perspective, a cartel or crime group would want to be able to spread the ‘load risk’ by using multiple smuggling methods rather than just one since if it were countered by the authorities then trafficking routes would be disrupted until a viable work around strategy was developed,” he said.

“The European organized crime groups are increasingly seeing the defensive stealth value of semi-submersible vessels,” he said. “They can be used in tandem with speed boats, limpet containers placed on the bottom of commercial vessels, loads hidden in shipping containers, and other assorted methods.”

The organized criminal group investigated in operation Ferro were not just innovators of transport, they also got creative in hiding narcotics as well.

Authorities discovered in February more than 300 kilos of cocaine hidden in 22 tons of coconut substrate, a material often used for bedding in terrariums. Authorities in Lisbon, Portugal, also seized 100 kilos of hashish and 100 kilos of marijuana hidden inside hydromassage bathtubs as part of the investigation.

The criminal enterprise was found to be using a secret drug lab in Barcelona where authorities found 1200 liters of precursor processing chemicals estimated to produce around 750 kilos of cocaine a month. Authorities presume the group was setting up another laboratory in a warehouse in Murcia for the process of cocaine.

So far, 30 of the 52 people arrested during the investigation have entered prison.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/14075-european-narco-submarine-discovered-in-spain