'' Joe Biden’s ‘cognitive decline’ hitting ‘new lows’ ''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv8EfIKPBXM

Haifa is a northern Israeli port city built in tiers extending from the Mediterranean up the north slope of Mount Carmel. The city’s most iconic sites are the immaculately landscaped terraces of the Bahá'í Gardens and, at their heart, the gold-domed Shrine of the Báb. At the foot of the gardens lies the German Colony, with shops, galleries and restaurants in 19th-century buildings. ― Google

Population: 279,247 (2016) United Nations

District: Haifa

Founded: 1st century CE

Grid position: 145/246 PAL

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Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of 290,306 in 2022. The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa …

‎History of Haifa · ‎Port · ‎Haifa Bay · ‎Haifa District

The Bahá'í Gardens in Haifa, Israel are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the holiest sites for the Bahá'í religion. The gardens are located on the northern slope of Mount Carmel and are made up of 19 terraces. The gardens are divided into three sections:

Lower section: Opens up to the German Colony

Middle section: Includes the gardens around the gold-capped Shrine of the Bab

Upper section: Just off The gardens are a popular tourist attraction and are visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year

'' Janet Yellen’s Ukraine mission ''

politico.com/news/2024/04/17/janet-yellens-ukraine-mission-00152739

Finance & Tax

The Treasury secretary is trying to rally fellow finance ministers gathering in Washington to get behind the idea of seizing billions in Russian assets.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen gestures during talks with Huang Yiping, dean of the National School of Development, at Peking University in Beijing, April 7, 2024. | Pool photo by Tatan Syuflana

The Biden administration is making a new push this week to rally reluctant allies behind the idea that billions in immobilized Russian assets should be tapped to support Ukraine.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will spend the coming days laying the groundwork as fellow finance ministers gather in Washington for the IMF-World Bank spring meetings. It’s expected to be an agenda item at Wednesday afternoon’s meeting of G7 finance leaders and in other discussions on the sidelines.

“Our goal is to try to get it done as soon as possible,” said a Treasury official granted anonymity. “And if that is this summer, that’s as soon as possible.”

The challenge for Yellen is two-fold. The idea is bipartisan but political resistance is emerging at home from a key ally of former President Donald Trump. The U.S. is also facing unease in Europe, where most of the assets are located. The U.S. Congress has struggled for months to agree on fresh aid to support Ukraine more than two years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion.

Officials are considering a menu of options. They include seizing Russia’s sovereign assets outright as well as structuring a loan backed by windfall profits from the assets. The goal is to advance discussions so top G7 leaders can make a decision when they gather in June.

U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said in an interview Tuesday that the loan idea is “intriguing” and that he wants to talk with Yellen more about it.

“We’re very supportive of ways to make Russia pay the price for the appalling crimes that they’ve committed in Ukraine,” Hunt said. “Our starting point is to look at these proposals, particularly the recent proposal from Secretary Yellen, and say, what would it take to make it work?”

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In the U.S., Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled that the House may act in the coming days on legislation that would give President Joe Biden explicit authority to seize the assets. It comes as Johnson’s job is potentially on the line, with far-right members opposing a related plan to send aid to Ukraine.

The proposal to grant seizure authority for Russian assets is bipartisan — and not envisioned as a substitute for more direct financial assistance for Ukraine — but it’s also facing some pushback from the right.

Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, a Republican close to former President Donald Trump, is rallying opposition. He said in a memo to GOP lawmakers that it poses “potentially dire consequences for the Western financial system and could hinder a future President’s ability to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”

House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul, whose committee approved the “REPO Act” legislation, said in a statement that “Senator Vance’s memo repeats many of the same arguments that I’ve heard previously from the Biden Administration as reasons to not enact this policy.”

McCaul said “financial markets understand that this is not a signal that the United States will begin to seize assets from other countries at will.” (Vance said McCaul is “explicitly pushing a priority of the Biden administration and I’m opposing it.”)

Rep. French Hill of Arkansas, one of the Republicans who has been most actively involved in driving the REPO Act, is trying to shore up support. In a letter to fellow lawmakers on Friday, he said the plan would not negatively impact the dollar or violate the U.S. Constitution, and he made the case that it’s consistent with international law.

“The speaker is supportive of including the REPO Act in his legislative proposal,” Hill told reporters Tuesday. “I think it strengthens the bill. I think it would encourage more Republican yes votes, because of the opportunity to use Russian sovereign assets as collateral as a source of earnings or directly to benefit Ukraine and have less reliance today or in the future on American or French or German taxpayers.”

What may be a bigger problem is international buy-in. Europe is home to the bulk of the assets — around $200 billion, compared to the $5-8 billion in the U.S. — and it’s also where there is deep concern about the legal ramifications, economic fallout and potential Russian retaliation that could arise from tapping the money. European leaders have instead opted to claw back profits from the Russian assets.

“

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“There is a high degree of unity amongst G7 countries that we need to do everything possible within international law,” Hunt said. “We are also conscious of the fact that the reason that we are so concerned about what Russia did in Ukraine was because it broke international law, and we are trying to uphold the international system. So when it comes to financial sanctions, we want to make sure that we stay on the right side of the line. But we also want to do everything we can to make sure that Russia picks up the tab for the terrible damage that they’ve caused.”

Yellen acknowledged the concerns in a press conference Tuesday.

“Of course, there could be retaliation, and we are looking at the risks that are associated with using these assets and evaluating different strategies that we might present to the G7 leaders,” she said. “Evaluating the risks is part of that. But overall I believe there are ways of managing the risks, particularly if the G7 acts together in unison, and that it’s important for us to do so.”

In related news, Bank of America and USAID are set to announce Wednesday that the lender will assign a senior capital markets executive to advise Ukraine’s government on how to finance the country’s rebuilding effort, according to sources briefed on the plan. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan first floated the idea with U.S. officials last year.

The move is expected to be discussed at a Ukraine House event in Washington that will feature U.S. and Ukrainian government officials as well as private sector leaders. The gathering will also highlight Nasdaq’s recent announcement that it will waive listing fees for Ukrainian companies, another initiative that was rolled out with USAID.

Michael Stratford and Jasper Goodman contributed to this report.

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https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1780932376694051263

🚨 Breaking: Biden clarified that he has no problem with Israel attacking Rafah in Gaza, and his only demand is that Israel wouldn't attack Haifa, the 3rd largest city in Israel 🇮🇱

Make a joke and I will sigh

And you will laugh and I will cry

Happiness I cannot feel

And love to me is so unreal

Haifa Wehbe (Arabic: Lebanese Arabic pronunciation: [hæjfa wehbe]; born 10 March 1972) is a Lebanese singer and actress. She is considered one of Lebanon's most famous and successful singers, and one of the best-known artists in the Arab world.

'' Unearthed in broad daylight: Secrets of the Deep State ''

wnd.com/2024/04/unearthed-broad-daylight-secrets-deep-state

WND StaffApril 17, 2024

'

'' “There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense. The Washington establishment, and the media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself.” ''

That was Donald J. Trump speaking the most forbidden truth of all, just days before the historic November 2016 election that, to the dismay of the “Washington establishment,” made the brash billionaire outsider America’s 45th president.

Today, as the nation approaches a truly life-or-death election, it is coming to light that an extraordinary revolution has been secretly taking place in the United States of America under everyone’s noses – a revolution that could largely determine the outcome of November's election.

Consider the undeniable truth that not only Donald Trump, but also the tens of millions of decent, law-abiding, America-loving citizens who intend to vote for him this November, somehow inspire unending fear and loathing throughout the Washington, D.C. ruling class. That would include not only the ever-more-deranged Democratic Party and the entire “mainstream media” (today a virtual clone of the former Soviet Union’s fake news organs Pravda and Izvestia, which published only official government propaganda), but also the “Deep State,” the permanent federal government bureaucracy that remains – and grows ever larger, like “The Blob” in the classic horror film – regardless of which party is currently “in power.”

One key part of this gargantuan permanent bureaucracy, which operates largely in darkness, has recently been dragged into the light, exposing its hidden but central role in the censorship and silencing of all who oppose the Deep State and its increasingly totalitarian agenda. That highly influential entity, about which most people know very little, is the federal defense/foreign-policy establishment widely referred to within the Capital Beltway simply as … “The Blob.”

Recently, former Trump State Department official Mike Benz, who currently serves as executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, turned whistleblower and dramatically went public with exactly how the Western defense and foreign policy establishment has been turned against America, the Bill of Rights and democracy itself.

This massive bureaucracy headed up by the Central Intelligence Agency, explains Benz, literally funded and developed the technology years ago that enabled internet free speech – and then encouraged dissident groups worldwide to use that new free-speech capability to organize and network with other patriots and help them overthrow oppressive regimes.

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Yet incredibly, says Benz, the CIA has in more recent times turned against the concept of free speech – it least, when it comes to what it considers dangerous and subversive groups within America! Some of the most “dangerous” groups include conservatives, Republicans, constitutionalists, “MAGA” Trump supporters and politically active Christians.

One of the chief pretexts for this suppression of domestic speech has been the claim that supposedly subversive domestic groups and individuals were spreading “Russian disinformation,” which of course was a key focal point for the years-long near-destruction of Trump’s presidency. As it turned out, of course, the claim that Trump “colluded with the Russians” was not only definitively proven to be entirely false; it was created (and the damning “Trump dossier” actually paid for) by the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who actually did collude big-time with the Russians.

Nevertheless, the claim that Donald Trump somehow had been ushered into the presidency by Russia – and the corollary accusation that virtually anyone defending Trump was a “Putin ally” – defamed and marginalized good people for years.

Not just ‘Putin allies,’ but ‘domestic terrorists’ too

Normal Americans have long wondered how and why law-abiding citizens – including, for example, parents who would stand up and speak their minds at school board meetings to complain about teachers brainwashing their children with Marxist propaganda – could possibly be maligned by the Biden administration as “violent extremists” and possible “domestic terrorists.” (Yes, that actually happened.)

A previously hidden dimension to this surreal spectacle of branding regular Americans as “terrorists” has now emerged, and it has to do with “The Blob.”

The vast foreign-policy establishment (Pentagon, CIA, State Department, etc.) seemingly was on the right track when promoting internet free speech to democratic resistance movements in other countries – perhaps the most memorable example being the “Arab Spring” in 2010-2012. Dissident groups were aided in throwing off tyrannical regimes by being enabled to communicate, strategize and organize via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Literally, internet free speech was helping freedom-loving peoples around the world throw off oppressive ruling regimes.

Sounds good, but even that didn’t always work out so well. William J. Burns, the current CIA director since 2021, took the time in 2020, when he was out of government, to write an article for The Atlantic, headlined “The Blob Meets the Heartland,” in which he expressed some doubts and misgivings about what the agency had been doing:

For most of my three and a half decades as an American diplomat, the foreign-policy establishment (known unaffectionately in some quarters as “the blob”) took for granted that expansive U.S. leadership abroad would deliver peace and prosperity at home. That assumption was lazy, and often flawed.

Riding the waves of globalization and American geopolitical dominance, we overreached. We deluded ourselves with magical thinking about our capacity to remake other societies, while neglecting the urgent need to remake our own. Unsurprisingly, the disconnect widened between the Washington policy establishment and the citizens it is meant to serve.