House Republicans Call For Answers From Texas Elections Administrator Over Private Funding For Elections

A group of House Republicans sent a Tuesday letter to an elections administrator in Harris County, Texas, asking for answers about private funding for the 2020 election. It also mentioned million-dollar grants from the left-leaning group Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).

The letter was sent by the Ranking Member on the Committee on House Administration Rodney Davis, Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk, and Wisconsin Rep. Bryan Steil to Isabel Longoria. The group said Longoria participated in a June 11 hearing on voting in the U.S., and questioned the exact amount of funding Harris County received in CARES Act funding for its elections, to which she did not have an answer at the time.

The Republican lawmakers asked for that information and also mentioned the $9.6 million grant from the CTCL before and after the 2020 presidential election. The letter comes after a group of House Republicans sent a letter Monday to the CTCL, calling on them to explain where the hundreds of millions of dollars they were given during the COVID-19 pandemic went, saying the group spent less than one percent on personal protective equipment (PPE).

“In your exchange with Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, with respect to the 2020 general election, you stated that Harris County received funding from Federal, state, and local partners. When asked how much Harris County received in CARES Act funding for its elections, you replied that you would provide Representative Steil the exact amount of funding since you did not have that information available at the time of the hearing,” the letter states.

“We write today to request that you share such information with this Committee. Further, during the course of this exchange, you reiterated multiple times that Harris County receives grants from national and local nonprofit organizations to supplement costs associated with administering elections and acknowledged that Harris County received a $9.6 million grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a nonprofit affiliated with Mark Zuckerberg,” the letter continues.

“We request that you provide to this Committee in complete, unredacted form all documents, communications, and information in custody of the Harris County Election Administrator’s office referring to the grant funding Harris County received from CTCL before, during, and after the 2020 general election, including any applications for such funding. We also request a list of the other nonprofit and/or tax-exempt organizations that provided grant funding to Harris County for the 2020 general election,” the group added in the letter.

The Daily Caller contacted Longoria about the letter to which she did not immediately respond.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/06/23/gop-letter-texas-elections-private-funding-harris-county/

AUDIO: Fauci-Funded Researcher Describes Gain-of-Function ‘Collaboration’ With Wuhan Lab, Reveals NIH Was ‘Very Supportive.’

Audio from a podcast unearthed by The National Pulse appears to reveal Dr. Ralph Baric – who conducted bat coronavirus manipulation alongside Chinese researchers – contradicting Anthony Fauci’s claim that such research was never funded by his National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

The November 22nd, 2015 episode of the show This Week In Virology – “It’s not SARS 2.0” – features Baric as a guest to discuss a paper he recently co-authored: “A SARS-like Cluster of Circulating Bat Coronaviruses Shows Potential for Human Emergence.”

Two researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including “bat woman” Shi Zhengli, are co-authors of the paper which notes it was “supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease.”

The collaborative work between Shi and Baric was recently referenced by Senator Rand Paul when he pressed Dr. Fauci on whether or not his National Institutes of Health (NIH) agency had funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Fauci asserted that the claims were “entirely and completely incorrect.”

The paper discussed on the podcast, however, reveals otherwise. It repeatedly prefaces its findings with acknowledgments that the relevant research was completed before an October 2014 ban on gain-of-function research:

“These studies were initiated before the US Government Deliberative Process Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS and SARS Viruses (http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/gain-of-function.pdf). This paper has been reviewed by the funding agency, the NIH. Continuation of these studies was requested, and this has been approved by the NIH”

“Experiments with the full-length and chimeric SHC014 recombinant viruses were initiated and performed before the gain-of-function research funding pause and have since been reviewed and approved for continued study by the NIH,” the paper reiterates before cautioning that “this approach must be considered in the context of the US government–mandated pause on gain-of-function studies.”

https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/audio-fauci-funded-researcher-describes-gain-of-function-collaboration-with-wuhan-lab-reveals-nih-was-very-supportive/

CEO of Limited Liability Company Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Wire Fraud

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/ceo-limited-liability-company-sentenced-30-months-prison-wire-fraud

CEO of South Florida Armored Transport Company Charged in Multimillion Dollar Dirty Gold Money Laundering Conspiracy

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/ceo-south-florida-armored-transport-company-charged-multimillion-dollar-dirty-gold

Owner of Payday Loan Company Sentenced for Bankruptcy Fraud

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/owner-payday-loan-company-sentenced-bankruptcy-fraud

PANTS ON FIRE: Biden Repeats Lie That Americans Could Never Own Cannons As He Muses About Nuking ‘Patriots’

"While the tree of liberty is not watered by the blood of patriots, what's happens is [sic], that their never been, if you wanted to think you need to have weapons to take on the government . . ."

During a rambling speech expressing his distaste for Americans’ Second Amendment right, Democrat President Joe Biden falsely repeated a favorite lie of his that was debunked by Politifact in 2020, claiming that “you couldn’t buy cannon” at the time when the Second Amendment was passed. Biden went on to muse about using F-15 military aircraft and nuclear weapons in a hypothetical war against “patriots.”

“The Second Amendment from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun, and what type of weapon you could own,” Biden falsely claimed on Wednesday. “You couldn’t buy cannon.” The claim that Americans could not cannon at the time the Second Amendment was drafted is a lie that Biden has repeated multiple times the past, so much so that mainstream fact-checking outlet Politifact rated the claim “false” in June 2020.

NEW – Biden: "If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons."pic.twitter.com/PvQtbxbOjY

— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) June 23, 2021

“It seems highly unlikely that there were restrictions on the private ownership” of cannons” a historian told Politifact, which went on to conclude, “The campaign was unable to come up with an example of a law banning private ownership of cannons, and historians of the period doubt that any existed. To the contrary, there are documented instances of privateers, or privately owned vessels, setting sail with cannons during the period.”

READ MORE: Biden Lies About ‘No Background Check’ At Gun Shows, Psaki Says That’s Actually ‘Not His Belief’

In Wednesday’s speech, Biden went on to repeatedly bungle a quote a quote by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Biden said, “Those who say the blood of liberty – the blood of patriots, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government.”

“While the tree of liberty is not watered by the blood of patriots, what’s happens is [sic], that their never been, if you wanted to think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons,” Biden said, going on to repeat his lie that the Second Amendment limited the type of firearms that could be purchased by the American people.

https://nationalfile.com/pants-on-fire-biden-repeats-lie-that-americans-could-never-own-cannons-as-he-muses-about-nuking-patriots/

‘Worst Cover Up in Human History’: House Republicans Launch Campaign to Hold CCP Accountable Over Pandemic

House Republicans have vowed to take a series of actions to hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for its coverup of the COVID-19 outbreak that spurred the global pandemic, and get to the bottom of how the disease started spreading among humans.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on June 23 laid out an eight-pronged plan targeting the communist regime and other bodies to “ensure Americans get the accountability and transparency they deserve.”

“We cannot allow the wrongdoing of China to go unnoticed—And more importantly, to not allow the accountability to happen,” McCarthy said at a press conference in Washington.

The first item on the agenda, McCarthy said, was to introduce legislation compelling the government to declassify intelligence relating to the origins of the CCP virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19 disease.

President Joe Biden on May 26 ordered the intelligence community to produce a report in 90 days on the origins of the virus, which was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan. He said intelligence agencies are looking at rival theories, including the possibility of a laboratory accident in China.

McCarthy said the House Republican caucus was launching this effort due to reluctance by Democrat members of Congress and the White House to take action to hold the regime to account over its actions relating to the pandemic

The Biden administration won’t take immediate action on China to pressure the communist regime to allow an independent probe into whether COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.

While the theory that the virus was the result of a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was labeled a “conspiracy theory” last year, it has recently gained traction as a growing number of scientists and officials have lent credence to the hypothesis.

https://www.ntd.com/worst-cover-up-in-human-history-house-republicans-launch-campaign-to-hold-ccp-accountable-over-pandemic_632152.html

Video of Russian Jet Flying Over UK Destroyer HMS Defender in Black Sea Released by MoD

Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry said that a Russian warship had fired warning shots after the HMS Defender, a British Royal Navy destroyer, violated Russia's maritime borders in the Black Sea.

The Russian Defence Ministry has released a video showing a Russian SU-24M jet flying over the HMS Defender in the Black Sea.

Earlier on Wednesday, Moscow said the British Royal Navy destroyer violated Russia's maritime borders in the Black Sea. The ministry said the warship was warned that bombing would be carried out if it violated the Russian borders but the vessel ignored the message. After the shots were fired, HMS Defender left the area, the ministry said.

However, the UK denied that the warning salvo was fired, and said the warship was carrying out an "innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters in accordance with international law."

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it viewed the British warship's actions as a "gross provocation" and also summoned the attache on defence matters from the British Embassy in Moscow to voice their concern with the incident.

https://sputniknews.com/military/202106231083224364-video-of-russian-jet-flying-over-uk-destroyer-in-black-sea-released-by-mod/

Biden Admin Tells Struggling Small Businesses To Work More With Amazon

U.S. Commercial Service partners with Big Tech to promote international trade

The federal government is steering small businesses to do more business with Amazon to help them recover from the economic crisis prompted by the pandemic.

The U.S. Commercial Service, a trade promotion agency, is hosting a series of "Go Global" webinars with Amazon in June to teach small businesses to access markets in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates by becoming sellers on the e-commerce behemoth. Some entrepreneurs are crying foul, blaming Amazon as the source of their woes.

Gina Schaefer opened up her first hardware store in Logan Circle, Washington, D.C., in 2003. Alongside her husband, she expanded the business to 13 locally owned hardware stores, employing roughly 300 people in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia metro areas. She said a retailer like Amazon is the last place to which the federal government should turn to help small businesses.

"The larger Amazon has gotten, the fewer number of independent businesses we have," Schaefer told the Washington Free Beacon. "One by one industries have been picked off by predatory pricing and overlooked government regulations to the point where starting a new business, at least in the retail sector, is nearly impossible."

The agency's webinars with Amazon are designed to get clients for the web giant. The lessons on offer at the June 15 event included helping businesses create Amazon Global Accounts. A follow-up webinar in July will teach entrepreneurs how to not only team up with Amazon but also with U.S. trade authorities.

"We will cover … how to sign up for a [Amazon] Global Seller Account … [and] the role the U.S. Commercial Service plays in providing comprehensive export counseling to support your global business strategy," the event page says. "We'll connect you … to explore free resources and government funding to support your e-Commerce and export-related activities."

In response to Amazon's growing market dominance, small businesses are forming coalitions seeking to leverage anti-trust legislation to ensure that they are not crushed. Schaefer, a member of the Small Business Rising coalition, said the Commercial Service partnership with Amazon will further undermine small businesses as they struggle in the post-lockdown economy to stay independently viable. Like many other small business owners in retail, she supports the idea of Amazon being broken up.

"No one ever envisions that street empty or only populated by a soulless Amazon store. Yet businesses are failing at alarming rates now, in large part to concentrated market power," Schaefer said.

Amazon has maintained close ties with American trade officials over the years. It employed 28 lobbyists working on trade issues in 2020 and 2021 as part of its multimillion-dollar influence operation, according to federal lobbying records. Seven of those lobbyists held high-ranking trade-related positions at the federal government, including at the U.S. Commercial Service and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, before joining the Silicon Valley giant. Its leadership has also been closely allied to Democrats, with employees contributing more than $2 million to the Biden campaign and 75 percent of its donations going to benefit Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Representatives from the U.S. Commercial Service and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

Small business advocates say that the mass closures of mom-and-pop stores during the pandemic require bold steps from lawmakers. Sarah Crozier, of Main Street Alliance, faulted the Biden administration for promoting Amazon rather than cracking down on alleged market manipulations.

"The federal government is critical to help level the playing field for small businesses by improving anti-monopoly protections against giants like Amazon and creating opportunity for small businesses," Crozier said.

Some lawmakers have begun speaking out against Amazon's sway within the administration and on Capitol Hill. Rep. Ralph Norman (R., S.C.) said Amazon has not proven to be a faithful business partner to the third party sellers that populate its website.

"From motor oil to children's clothing, we need to know if the oddly random (and growing) list of Amazon's own products were identified and developed by exploiting sales & product data from its third party sellers. And we need to know why there are countless reports of retaliatory and anti-competitive conduct from Amazon," Norman said. "On multiple fronts, Amazon has given us plenty to be concerned with. Congress needs answers about the rampant reports of harmful and monopolistic behavior from that company."

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-admin-tells-struggling-small-businesses-to-work-more-with-amazon/