Tag: Senate

Venezuela: Opposition Parties Oust Guaidó as ‘Interim President’

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Venezuela: Opposition Parties Oust Guaidó as ‘Interim President’

The parallel AN will appoint a five-person “Administration and Asset Protection Council” to manage resources. The “interim government” had recurring budgets assigned by the US Treasury Department, drawing funds from frozen accounts belonging to the Venezuelan state. Last week, the US Senate approved US $50 million for “democracy promotion” programs in Venezuela for 2023.

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At the time of writing, the US has yet to comment on the reconfiguration of the opposition structures. However, the proposal was reportedly run by US officials during meetings with opposition representatives in Washington.

In the run-up to Thursday’s vote, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols stated in an interview that the Biden administration would follow whatever the anti-government majority decided. An anonymous spokesperson from the US National Security Council likewise told Reuters that the White House would continue recognizing the “interim government” “regardless of the form it takes.”

Next up: Leopoldo López or Henrique Capriles?!

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Cryptocurrency News: US Regulators Should ‘Maybe’ Ban Crypto + Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Banking Committee Chair: US Regulators Should ‘Maybe’ Ban Crypto

The senator [Sherrod Brown] also pointed to numerous incidents to back up his claims, not just the recent collapse of FTX but also issues such as “the threat to national security from Korean cyber criminals to drug trafficking and human trafficking and financing of terrorism and all the things that can come out of crypto.”

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Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiled a new bill governing cryptocurrencies earlier this month, dubbed the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act.

Warren’s bill would look to force crypto asset providers to offer audited financial statements and impose bank-like capital requirements more in line with what is expected of traditional financial institutions. The act would also give the SEC increased powers to regulate the asset class.

Get ready for the Digital Dollar!

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Rubio’s Bill To Ban TikTok Is A Dumb Performance That Ignores The Real Problem

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

For several years we’ve noted how most of the calls to ban TikTok are bad faith bullshit made by a rotating crop of characters that not only couldn’t care less about consumer privacy, but are directly responsible for the privacy oversight vacuum TikTok (and everybody else) exploits.

Rubio’s Bill To Ban TikTok Is A Dumb Performance That Ignores The Real Problem

Related:

Senate passes bill banning TikTok from government devices

US columnist believes Wrangel Island belongs to United States + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Thomas E. Dans, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and former Commissioner of the US Arctic Research Commission, believes that the United States should reclaim Wrangel Island from Russia.

US columnist believes Wrangel Island belongs to United States

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Status of Wrangel and Other Arctic Islands

No negotiations regarding the U.S.-Russia maritime boundary have occurred since 1990, when the U.S.-USSR Maritime Boundary Agreement was signed. The negotiations that led to that agreement did not address the status of Wrangel Island, Herald Island, Bennett Island, Jeannette Island, or Henrietta Island, all of which lie off Russia’s Arctic coast, or Mednyy (Copper) Island or rocks off the coast of Mednyy Island in the Bering Sea. None of the islands or rocks above were included in the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and they have never been claimed by the United States, although Americans were involved in the discovery and exploration of some of them.

Ice Curtain: Why Is There a New Russian Military Facility 300 Miles from Alaska?

“. . . whoever holds the Arctic, holds the world. I think it is the most important strategic place in the world.” These solemn words were uttered in 1935 before a House of Representatives Committee by a retired American general and aviator, Billy Mitchell, who presciently foresaw the Arctic as a vital region for early detection against missile and aviation threats to prevent an attack against the United States. But at the end of the Cold War, the Arctic ceased to be a strategically important place for either the United States or the Russian Federation. But by the 2007-2008 timeframe, Russia began to re-prioritize the Arctic both economically and militarily—in keeping with Vladimir Putin’s vision of restoring Russia’s status as a great power and harnessing the Arctic’s economic potential. Now more than a decade later, Russia has returned to the Arctic militarily with important strategic implications for the United States.

A Bottomless Pinocchio for Biden — and other recent gaffes

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)2 Comments

President Biden is a self-described “gaffe machine.” That’s no excuse, of course, for a president making false or misleading statements. Readers have asked for fact checks of a variety of recent Biden statements, but none of them seemed big enough for a stand-alone fact check. So here’s a roundup of some of the president’s recent errors of fact, made as he has barnstormed the country boosting Democrats and raising contributions in advance of the midterm elections. We generally do not award Pinocchios for roundups like this — but for reasons that will become clear, we need to make an exception for the first one.

A Bottomless Pinocchio for Biden — and other recent gaffes (archived)