Iran's Illicit Oil Revenue Swells to Nearly $200 Billion Since Biden-Harris Took Office, Latest Figures and Estimates Show. 1/2

'The illicit activity detailed in the report underscores the need for firm action to hold these vessels accountable,' says Tehran tanker tracking expert

Iran’s illicit oil revenue has swelled to nearly $200 billion under the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest government figures and expert estimates, a windfall driven by the perennially lax enforcement of U.S. sanctions that has helped Tehran’s hardline regime obtain the cash needed to fund a brutal year-long war on Israel.

The full financial toll of this sanctions relief only became clear in recent days following the publication of a hotly anticipated U.S. government report on Iran's oil trade. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, a government agency that monitors global markets, was mandated under an April 2024 law to publicly tally Iran’s oil revenue,providing one of the first official snapshots after four years of sparse sanctions enforcement by the Biden-Harris administration.

The report, released late last week,found that Iran made $144 billion in revenue during the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration. This includes $37 billion in 2021, significantly up from the $16 billion Tehran made in 2020, the last year of the Trump administration. Oil revenue rose to $54 billion in 2022 and hit $53 billion in 2023, showing that Tehran’s trade in crude remained at historically high levels.

Iran is on pace for another big year in 2024, exporting more than $34 billion in oil through October, according to figures compiled by United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), an advocacy group that monitorsTehran's global oil shipments through a comprehensive tanker tracker.

The figures could explain why the Biden-Harris administration, facing criticism over the increasing chaos in the Middle East under its watch, announced late Friday a new package of sanctions on Iran’s petroleum exports. The measures grant broad authority for the American government to impose "sanctions against any person determined to operate in the petroleum or petrochemical sectors of the Iranian economy," according to the State Department.

Claire Jungman, director of UANI’s Iran Tanker Tracking Program, said the latest figures produced by the U.S. Energy Information Administration,as well as her group's 2024 estimate, should serve as a "catalyst for the administration to enforce sanctions more aggressively on vessels transporting Iranian oil."

"The illicit activity detailed in the report underscores the need for firm action to hold these vessels accountable and ensure that sanctions are effectively implemented to curtail Iran’s ability to export oil in violation of U.S. sanctions," Jungman said.

The cash windfall from Iran’s oil sales has helped the hardline regime arm its chief terror proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, as they foment terrorism against Israel in the wake of Oct. 7. Though Republicans have long sounded the alarm about Tehran’s lucrative oil trade, Democratic lawmakers are now backing a Senate measure that would bolster sanctions on Iran’s oil trade, signaling growing dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration’s policies.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) began pushing legislation to sanction Iran’s oil business in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, aiming to choke off the financial channels fueling Tehran’s terror proxies. That bill has now gained the support of seven Democratic lawmakers, including two in recent weeks.

"We are witnessing increased attacks on our servicemembers, historic missile assaults on our greatest partner in the Middle East, and disruptions to international commerce in the Red Sea," Ernst told the Washington Free Beacon, referring to a flurry of Iran-backed attacks on international shipping lanes in recent months. "No wonder my bill to remove money from Iran’s bloody hands is gaining support now."

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/irans-illicit-oil-revenue-swells-to-nearly-200-billion-since-biden-harris-took-office-latest-figures-and-estimates-show/

>>21769624

treason

2/2

Under the legislation, the Iranian Sanctions Enforcement Act, theDepartment of Homeland Security's investigations unit would receive $150 million to expand operations targeting Tehran’s large fleet of illegal crude oil tankers. By seizing these ships as they transport oil to hostile regimes like China and Venezuela, Iran would be robbed of billions of dollars, money that keeps the regime afloat and its terror proxies in business. The bill, Ernst says, is vital to ensuring Homeland Security can detect illicit Iranian shipping operations and have the resources needed to bust them at sea. (Why give DHS more money? These people are stupid)

Ernst’s bill currently has 27 Senate backers, including Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Jacky Rosen, (Nev.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Bob Casey (Pa.), and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz), an independent who typically caucuses with Democrats. Two other Democrats, Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), signed onto the bill in recent weeks, joining 20 GOP colleagues, 10 of whom also joined the bill within the last month.

The recent support for the bill signals growing dismay on both sides of the aisle with the Biden-Harris administration’s refusal to enforce a bevy of sanctions on Iran’s oil trade.Tehran maintains a large "ghost armada" composed of nearly 500 oil tankers that ferry crude to China, Syria, Venezuela, and other nations, often at a heavy discount.

Iranian "petroleum products are generally shipped on smaller vessels, which can avoid detection more easily than crude oil cargoes," according to the U.S. Energy Information report. "Iran uses several obfuscation techniques such as turning off its ship identification signals, applying ship-to-ship transfers, or relabeling cargoes as originating from other countries for both crude oil and oil products, which increases the challenge of providing precise export data."

Iran’s oil boom has been bolstered by sanctions relief from the Biden-Harris administration, including a White House waiver that allowed Tehran to access upwards of $10 billion in backed electricity payments from Iran. The administration also struck a $6 billion hostage deal with Iran in September 2023, freeing up even more cash.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/irans-illicit-oil-revenue-swells-to-nearly-200-billion-since-biden-harris-took-office-latest-figures-and-estimates-show/

Kamala Courts Indigenous Voters By Telling Crowd She Grew Up In A Middle-Class Teepee

POLITICS

·

Oct 14, 2024 · BabylonBee.

ERIE, PA — With political analysts emphasizing how important every single vote will be on election day, Vice President Kamala Harris courted indigenous voters by telling the crowd at her campaign rally that she grew up in a middle-class teepee.

The Democratic candidate for president took the stage in front of a crowd of Pennsylvanians, proudly wearing a traditional Native American headdress while recounting her childhood spent living in a modest, middle-class wigwam among other decent, hardworking indigenous black-Jamaican-Indian Americans.

"It is always important to remember how important the importance is," Harris told the crowd. "First of all, I grew up in a middle-class teepee. I understand the struggles of my fellow indigenous peoples. As time passes, we must take the time to look back in time at the atrocities perpetrated in former times and continue to be perpetrated in our current time, time and time again. It is only by identifying with the indigenous peoples within ourselves that we can honor the indigenous peoples who have already existed outside of us. And that is how I will fix our economy."

Journalists marveled at the vice president's reverence and solemnity in commemorating such an important day. "That's the most presidential feathered headdress I've ever seen," said one reporter who was reduced to tears. "You should have seen her dancing and shouting her war cry when she met with a group of indigenous people backstage. It was truly inspiring."

At publishing time, Kamala Harris had issued a statementdecrying Donald Trump as an "evil paleface who stole real estate from tribe many moons ago."

https://babylonbee.com/news/kamala-courts-indigenous-voters-by-telling-crowd-she-grew-up-in-a-middle-class-teepee

Early voting starts Tuesday across Georgia

Atlanta News First

3:00

(They better not cheat, Dekalb is the most corrupt county, next to south Fulton County in the city)

https://youtu.be/YKA_SKEf2kE

Frontier Airlines passenger rants she’s ‘president’ after pilot wouldn’t turn back for her forgotten phone

By Published Oct. 14, 2024

Wild video shows a Frontier Airlines passenger bizarrely claiming to be a “sovereign ruler” and “president of this whole goddamn country” in a meltdown over the pilot refusing to turn back to let her get her phone from the airport.

The unidentified female passenger erupted into the expletive-laden tirade as the flight was getting ready to take off from San Diego en route to Las Vegas, according to a viral clip posted on TikTok on Sunday.

The fellow passenger who filmed the saga claimed the woman went “crazy” at the crew after realizing she had left her phone at the gate area.

“If I was white and in a suit, you would stop the f–king plane,” the irate woman could be heard shouting at a flight attendant. “Laugh now, I am the president of this whole goddamn country. Watch see the f–king TV news.”

“Yes, I need to get off this plane and I’m gonna tell you straight up don’t you ever come against nobody because of their skin color again,” she continued, with no explanation as to why her race was involved.

The woman, who said in the clip she’d been a Frontier customer for eight years, suggested the pilot had enough warning to turn back.

“You had enough time,” she said at one point.

“Don’t tell me you had enough to stop, tell the pilot to not go. You just released him from the bay. I saw it out the window. I know it was in my heart.”

After demanding the flight attendant’s name, the woman appeared to turn her ire toward her fellow passengers, raging: “Keep laughing, watch what happens. You’ll be expired just like your battery on your watch.”

Elsewhere in the 90-second clip, the woman was filmed spewing a slew of other bizarre remarks — including that she was “an affirmed sovereign ruler here in the government.”

“Seven continents I own,” she said.

The video — captioned “Lady goes crazy on Frontier flight” — had racked up well over 400,000 views by early Monday.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the woman remained on the flight or if it was delayed due to her antics.

The Post reached out to Frontier Airlines but didn’t hear back immediately.

(she must have gotten the vax)

https://nypost.com/2024/10/14/us-news/frontier-airlines-passenger-goes-nuts-after-pilot-wouldnt-turn-back-for-her-forgotten-phone/

ALEX

@ajtourville

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Elon Musk and @xAI

“Never been done before – xAI did in 19 days what everyone else needs one year to accomplish.

That is superhuman – There's only one person in the world who could do that – Elon Musk is singular in his understanding of engineering.”

11:07 AM · Oct 13, 2024

·

1.8M

Views

https://x.com/ajtourville/status/1845481395625304331

4:30

Man Who Accidentally Sent $527M in Bitcoins to Dump Sues Local Council to Retrieve Them: Report

In 2013, Howells accidentally threw out the hard drive his bitcoin stash that he had mined in 2009, worth around $1 million at the time but which now would be worth over $520 million

Updated Oct 14, 2024 at 11:35 a.m.

A British man has filed a legal claim against a local council in an attempt to retrieve a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC he accidentally threw out in 2013.

Howells assembled a team to carry out a $13 million excavation of the landfill, which would take between 18 and 36 months to carry out with a further year of remediation work.

The council has rejected the request out of environmental concerns.

A British man has filed a legal claim against a local council in Wales in an attempt to retrieve a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC that he accidentally threw out in 2013, according to news website WalesOnline.

The story of James Howells, 39, is well known in Bitcoin lore.In 2013, Howells accidentally threw out a hard drive containing his bitcoinstash that he had mined in 2009, worth around $1 million at the time but now worth about $527 million.

Over the last decade, Howells has made requests to Newport Council – proprietors of the landfill where the hard drive ended up – to retrieve it, but he claims he has been "largely ignored." He is now suing the council for damages of 495 million pounds ($646 million), representing the peak valuation that 8,000 BTC reached earlier this year.

The case is due to be heard in December this year, but Howells said that his aim is to "leverage" the council into agreeing to an excavation of the site in order to avoid a legal battle, according to the report.

Howells assembled a team to carry out a $13 million excavation of the site, which includes the council's former head of landfill, who claims to know the particular area where the hard drive is now located.

The excavation would take between 18 and 36 months to carry out with a further year of remediation work, which the council has rejected out of environmental concerns.

"I'm still allocating 10% of the value for the council even though they have been problematic throughout," Howells said, according to the report. "That would be 41 million pounds based on today's rate but in the future it could be hundreds of millions."

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/10/14/man-who-accidentally-sent-527m-in-bitcoins-to-dump-sues-local-council-to-retrieve-them-report/

Supreme Court leaves in place Pennsylvania law barring people under 21 from carrying guns

By John Fritze, CNN

, Tue October 15, 2024

The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a lower court ruling from Pennsylvania that allowed residents under 21 to carry firearms in public,though the justices declined for now to hear arguments in the case themselves.

At issue was a state law that barred 18-to-20 years olds from open carrying firearms during declared states of emergencies. The court’s decision tosses a federal appeals court ruling that found the law violated the Second Amendment.

The Supreme Court did not explain its ruling and no dissents were noted.

Pennsylvania, like 31 other states, sets 21 as the minimum age for certain gun rights. The state barred 18-to-20 years olds from openly carrying firearms during a state of emergency, including the one declared during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Three individual plaintiffs who wanted to carry weapons for self defense and two gun rights groups challenged the law.

Relying on the Supreme Court’s landmark Second Amendment decision from 2022, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a divided three-judge appeals court panel found that the law was unconstitutional because there was not a similar law on the books at the time the Second Amendment was ratified.

The 2022 decision generally requires governments to point to a similar historical law in order to overcome constitutional challenges. But the 6-3 ruling, which split the court’s conservative and liberal justices, has created significant confusion in lower courts about how exact that historical antecedent must be.

Pennsylvania officials argued that the lower federal court overread the Bruen decision.Several conservative justices wrote separate opinions to note that the court’s decision said nothing about who may possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy one.

https://lite.cnn.com/2024/10/15/politics/supreme-court-pennsylvania-under-21-guns/index.html