The U.S. government, through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), proposed a draft agreement last summer that would grant it extensive access and control over TikTok‘s operations. This move comes as an attempt to address national security concerns related to the Chinese-owned app. A draft agreement, sourced from Forbes, outlines the following potential powers for the U.S. government:
U.S. Government Seeks Extensive Oversight over TikTok
A PR offensive to inundate the American public with pro-Ukraine war advertisements during the 2024 election is the latest initiative of neocon chickenhawk Bill Kristol. While targeted at GOP voters, the campaign appears to be another Democratic Party front.
Neocon dark money front launches desperate ad blitz as support for Ukraine forever war craters
Related:
Conservative group launches campaign to push for GOP support for Ukraine
In talks with prosecutors, Hunter Biden’s lawyers vowed to put the president on the stand
Then he issued a warning: If the Justice Department charged the president’s son, his lawyers would put the president on the witness stand.
CHIUL, Guatemala − Life in Bartolo Báten’s village has been defined by corruption: A teacher who can’t get a job at the school until she pays a bribe. A water project that runs out of money before the pipes reached town. Sick residents who can’t afford the medicine that’s available elsewhere.
Insurgent candidate tells Guatemalans: Stay, don’t go to the U.S. This time, they’re listening. (archived)
Related:
Seven Decades After Guatemala Coup, Bernardo Arévalo Sees a Dramatic Rise (Will Freeman, CFR)
Arévalo and Semilla are centrists—but in a country where politics habitually skews right, they are often described as center-left. “Semilla has a social democratic element, but its program is centrist, and it also has some center-right followers,” said Lucas Perelló, a political scientist who has spent time studying the party’s formation. Arévalo says he wants to gradually universalize existing social assistance programs to include a greater share of poor Guatemalans, reduce the cost of medicines and healthcare, and link isolated parts of the country through new infrastructure—doable tasks, given Guatemala’s exceptionally low share of debt as GDP, and necessary ones, given the country’s soaring poverty and malnutrition rates.
On security issues, another major concern for Guatemalans, Arévalo promises to increase state presence in crime hotspots, reclaim jails from gangs, and use intelligence-gathering to dismantle mafias. He says Bukele’s anti-gang strategy is not applicable to Guatemala. He is also critical of human rights abuses in Venezuela and Nicaragua and Putin’s war on Ukraine and has no stated plans to recognize China over Taiwan. Asked for a leader he admires, he named the ex-president, José Pepe Mujica, of Uruguay, where he was born during his father’s exile.
The Biden administration has been criticized in recent days over the support offered to survivors of the deadly wildfires in Maui, compared to the billions in U.S. aid sent to Ukraine.
Joe Biden’s Aid to Hawaii vs Ukraine Aid Compared: What We Know
To date, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved nearly $7 million in assistance to nearly 2,200 households, including nearly $3 million in initial rental assistance.
White House Calls for $40 Billion Supplemental
If enacted, the supplemental would provide $24.0 billion of additional aid to Ukraine – on top of the $113 billion the United States provided in 2022 alone. This includes $13.1 billion of military aid and replenishment of Pentagon weapons stocks, $8.7 billion of economic and humanitarian aid, and $2.3 billion to leverage additional aid from other donors through the World Bank.
That’s approximately $137 billion to Ukraine, $10 million, or so, for Hawaii (in soft loans and rental assistance)!
The Rise and Reign of the Welfare Queen
Researcher links government assistance program to much earlier origins of welfare stereotypes
How Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Changed America
But based on several studies of TANF and its beneficiaries, “it barely reaches even the poorest Americans, and has all but ceased doing the work of lifting people out of poverty,” according to the Atlantic. “‘Welfare reform’ didn’t fix welfare so much as destroy it, and if similar changes were applied to Medicaid and food stamps, they would likely do the same.”
Americans believe benefits fraud is common for SNAP
Experts say that deliberate SNAP fraud is uncommon because of the rigorous application process and multi-step eligibility review. In 2016, the Congressional Research Service determined that for every 10,000 households participating in SNAP, about 14 contained a recipient who was investigated and determined to have committed fraud.
Who Is Really Responsible for Welfare Fraud?
In other words, don’t take a single example or casual observation of welfare fraud and claim it represents the tens of millions of poor who receive welfare benefits.
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While welfare fraud committed by the poor appears to be low, the federal government has long recognized businesses being the true criminals.
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While these are some of the better known examples of large scale welfare fraud, they are not the only ones. The above cases alone represent over $25 Billion in welfare fraud recovery. The criminals having the greatest impact committing welfare fraud against the government are not the poor, but the privately owned businesses that take advantage of them.
Brett Favre Is The Welfare Queen Republicans Warned Us About
Updates:
Biggest Perpetrators of Welfare Fraud Are Private Companies, Not ‘Welfare Queens’
Thwarted by minefields, Ukrainian forces won’t reach the southeastern city of Melitopol, a vital Russian transit hub, according to a U.S. assessment
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“Russians are known to be capable of fighting in cold weather,” the official said.
U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal
Related:
‘General Frost’: How the Russian winter terrified the country’s enemies
Read More »The United States spent over a trillion dollars the past two decades to prepare for a surprise nuclear strike on Russia. The United States withdrew from major arms control treaties and built newer and more accurate nuclear missiles. It built missile bases in Poland and Romania and hundreds of new submarines and destroyers to launch cruise missiles or long-range anti-missile missiles.The United States Army and Navy developed, tested, and deployed mobile missile launchers to Europe while Generals insist they have the right to deploy such systems on Russia’s borders, to include inside Ukraine and Finland. This was barely reported in America’s corporate media, which spews constant propaganda about Russian threats to prepare the public for nuclear war.
The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part Nine (Preparing a Nuclear Attack) via Tales of the American Empire
I’ve talked before about the utter stupidity (and danger) of trying to turn the internet into Disneyland: a safe space for little kids, where they’ll never encounter any content that makes them upset, but plenty of states (and many people in Congress) are trying to do it anyway.
Wisconsin Pushing Bill That Requires Websites To Treat All Users As If They’re Children
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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