An indicted Chinese businessman pumped millions of ill-gotten dollars into the bank accounts of some of the most influential figures in MAGA World—including former Trump aides Steve Bannon and Jason Miller—according to a raft of documents filed in federal court in February.
Chinese Mogul Funneled Millions to Bannon, Fox, Gettr, Docs Show (archived)
Related:
In the absence of official scrutiny of Washington’s spending spree on Ukraine, The Grayzone conducted an independent audit of US funding for the country. We discovered a series of wasteful, highly unusual expenditures the Biden administration has yet to explain.
All aboard the gravy train: an independent audit of US funding for Ukraine
Video via Jason Hunt (Threats to international peace and security – Security Council, 9364th meeting)
Joziah Thayer joins to show to discuss some of the work he’s done digging into the many factions and groups within Yemen and the foreign powers working to pull their strings. Scott and Thayer drill in on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, and explore how the group’s standing in Yemen has changed and how the country is likely to evolve going forward.
Discussed on the show:
The CIA, AQAP, and the Never-Ending Excuse to Bomb Yemen
How the IMF & World Bank Destroyed Yemen
5/11/23 Joziah Thayer on AQAP’s Standing in Yemen
Amid rampant corruption in Kiev and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict?
Trading With The Enemy (archived)
Related:
Before the media decided to turn Zelensky into the world’s great leader and anoint him The Person of the Year, Zelensky was exposed by the Pandora Papers leak for having hid tens of millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts given to him from the billions of dollars corrupt Jewish-Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky had looted from Ukraine.
On November 17, Sheila Bair, the former Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) during the financial crisis of 2008, went on CNBC to lament the lack of controls leading to the collapse of the crypto currency exchange, FTX. During the interview, Bair used the phrase “nobody looking behind the curtain.”
Sheila Bair, Former Chair of the FDIC, Is Now an “Organizer/Director” of a Cayman Islands Crypto Company that Got a U.S. National Bank Charter Last Year
Related (why no one was prosecuted for the financial crisis of 2007–2008 + another comment):
Read More »Exclusive: The Fugitive Who Tried to Spark a US-China War
Guo’s intelligence handlers, Ma and Zhou, were allies of Ling Jihua, who was former President Hu Jintao’s chief of staff. The crucial link between Ma and Ling was provided by Sun Zhengcai, the former party secretary of Chongqing, also a Politburo member.
As we’ve seen, Zhou, Ling, and Sun all ended up in jail – targets of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. But, remarkably, not Guo – who according to former Chinese government officials was Ma’s MSS agent in charge of special ops overseas.
Guo’s job in 2012 was to sabotage the ascension of Xi by spreading an array of fake news in China and among the Chinese diaspora. That failed.
Nonetheless, Guo remained at work as an MSS agent until at least October 2021, according to well-placed Chinese sources. Considering his recent activities and the fact he was lavishly embraced by prominent US China hawks, it appears that his assignment was to cause maximum damage to US-China relations, arguably derailing them to a point of no return.
Links behind paywalls (all but a few that I weren’t archived):
Read More »By Nick Corbishley – naked capitalism – March 1, 2022
As the world is transfixed by the escalating war in Ukraine and its economic fallout, big moves concerning vaccine passports are taking place behind closed doors.
Are Vaccine Passports About to Go Totally Global?
Progressive Red-Baiting is Still Red-Baiting
Interesting stats:
It’s also worth noting that Kunce’s recurring implication that China is driving the buying up of small farms is entirely untrue. Missouri, like a dozen other states, banned foreign-owned corporations from buying farmland in 1978 but lifted the cap from 0% to 1% in 2013, which is what allowed Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods to buy up the pork land in question. China-based corporations are not even a top four foreign owner of Missouri farmland, with Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, and Italy taking the top spots, according to a 2019 federal report. Estimates vary, but the most highly cited number of Chinese farmland ownership in Missouri is 40,000 acres out of 350,000 foreign owned acres, or about 11 percent of all foreign owned land and 0.01% of total Missouri farmland.
China is a very small player in “foreign ownership” of U.S. farmland in general, yet mysteriously, almost exclusively who Kunce talks about when discussing the issue. According to the conservative think tank CSIS, “Canadian investors hold the largest share of [U.S. farmland], at 29 percent, with the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom collectively owning another 33 percent. The remaining 38 percent is held by entities from almost a hundred other countries. Although Congress has become increasingly concerned about Chinese land purchases, investors from China currently own only a small fraction of this land, at 191,652 acres (0.05 percent of the total).” Another 2019 federal report puts the number at less than 0.02 percent, less than Cayman Islands.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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