News of the World

[kyonides]

Gov. Josh Green: Maui Wildfires
‘Likely the Largest Natural Disaster’ in Hawaii’s History

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) on Thursday said the destructive wildfires impacting Maui Island are “likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii’s state history.”

The wildfires, which began Tuesday and continue to blaze, have destroyed acres of property and taken dozens of lives.

“What we saw was the utter devastation of Lahaina,” Green said at a press conference. “What we saw was likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii’s state history.”

Green announced that Lahaina, the former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom and rich with cultural history, is about 80 percent “gone.”

Lahaina’s famous banyan tree, imported from India 150 years ago, is scorched and locals fear it may not survive the fire.
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Green expects the full extent of the damage to be “in the billions of dollars.”

As of Wednesday, the fire had destroyed 2,000 acres of private and state land.

Biden Gives Iran $6 Billion in Unfrozen Assets
Plus Prisoners for Five Jailed Americans

The Biden administration on Thursday reportedly struck a deal with Iran to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian financial assets and release a “handful” of Iranian nationals jailed for violating U.S. sanctions in exchange for five Americans taken prisoner by Iran on highly dubious charges of espionage.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations on Thursday said, “Iran’s frozen funds in South Korea will be unblocked and transferred to Qatar,” apparently referring to the $6 billion sum. U.S. sources who spoke to the far-left New York Times publication and Reuters confirmed the financial aspects of the deal.

The Times‘ sources identified the five American prisoners as Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, and Morad Tahbaz, plus two others the Biden administration did not immediately name. The two other prisoners are reportedly a “scientist” and a “businessman.” One of those two individuals was arrested by Iran in March, stalling the deal to release the others until Iran agreed to include the new detainee as well.

The best-known of the named three is Siamak Namazi, 51, arrested in October 2015 while he was visiting family in Tehran. Namazi was a supporter of the Iranian regime and advocate of closer U.S.-Iran relations who might have fallen victim to a power struggle between secular and theocratic factions within the government.

Joe Biden’s Deputies Create Border Loophole
for Millions of ‘Stateless’ Migrants

“All over the world, people who are stateless live with fear and uncertainty … With this historic step, stateless individuals will be given the opportunity to apply for [U.S.] immigration protections and benefits,” said Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Mayorkas’s statement said that there are “approximately 218,000 people residing in the United States who are potentially at risk of statelessness”

But the Department of State reported, “At the end of 2021, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees … counted 4.3 million stateless persons worldwide but estimated that the actual number may be over 10 million due to underreporting.”

“Every one of these actions that they do with what they believe are the ‘best of intentions’ inevitably end up having the worst of results,” countered Andrew Arthur, a former immigration justice who is now with the Center for Immigration Studies. “The devil is gonna be in the details about how they … define people as stateless,” Arthur told Breitbart News.

Rand Paul on Fauci: No ‘Clearer Case of Perjury
in the History of Government Testimony’

Thursday, during an appearance on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) explained his referral of Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.

According to the Kentucky Republican, the former chief medical advisor lied under oath to Congress.

“I don’t think there has ever been a clearer case of perjury in the history of government testimony,” Paul declared. “And I don’t say that lightly. He said adamantly that the government never funded this gain of function research. We now have the government accountability office, the GAO has admitted that the funding cage from the NIH. We have the acting director of the NIH, [Lawrence] Tabak, admitting it in writing that it came from the NIH. But now we have really the smoking gun. That is Fauci in private saying the opposite of what he was saying in public.”

“When he was publicly telling me that, ‘Absolutely, we do not fund gain-of-function research in China,’ he says privately, ‘We are suspicious that the virus has been manipulated, and we are suspicious because we know they are doing gain-of-function research,'” he continued. “He then goes on to describe the research and it’s exactly the research that the NIH funded. So, he is caught dead to rights here, but we have an incredibly partisan Attorney General Garland who is refusing to act. So, I have taken the extraordinary step of actually going to the local U.S. Attorney in D.C. to see if he will act.”

Anti-Capitalist Bernie Sanders Moved
$200K of Campaign Money to Family Nonprofit

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) moved $200,000 from his campaign funds to his family’s nonprofit group, which claimed its mission is to “revitalize democracy.”

Fox News reported Wednesday the money was put into his wife’s nonprofit and alleged the organization does not do much, yet it pays her son six figures.

In 2017, Breitbart News described Sanders as “the Senator who hates rich people,” noting he made more than $1 million in 2016.
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The independent senator’s committee cut two $100,000 checks to the Sanders Institute for reported charitable contributions in January and March, its Federal Election Commission records show. The expenditures are the largest from the Sanders campaign to any entity this election cycle.

The Sanders Institute home page says its mission is to “revitalize democracy by actively engaging individuals, organizations and the media in the pursuit of progressive solutions to economic, environmental, racial and social justice issues.”
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In 2019, the group said it would suspend operations as Sanders vied for the Democrat nomination for president, but it has since restarted operations.

Its latest publicly available tax forms from 2021 show the nonprofit burnt nearly 40% of its donations on salaries while appearing to conduct minimal work and having very few identifiable accomplishments.

The tax documents indicate that the progressive lawmaker’s stepson is the big winner of the operation. In 2021, the institute raised $716,618 and drove $257,000 into wages, including $152,653 in salary and other compensation to Driscoll, who acts as its executive director.

Breitbart News reported in January that admission to Sanders’ anti-capitalists event may have cost nearly $100 on Ticketmaster, a site the Justice Department previously investigated for possible anti-trust violations.

There's nothing better to show how anti-capitalist you are than transferring  money from any account to another year after year.  So ditching money altogether was never part of his plan.

Jordan: Document Indicates Multiple FBI Offices Worked
on Memo Targeting ‘Radical-Traditionalist’ Catholics
Contradicting Wray’s Testimony

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) says it appears multiple FBI field offices were involved in crafting the memo that detailed plans to target “radical traditionalist” Catholics, despite FBI Director Christoper Wray’s testimony that it was a “product from a single field office.”

On Wednesday, House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government chairman Mike Johnson (R-LA) penned a letter to Wray contending that new information indicates the FBI Portland and Los Angeles field offices influenced the memo, which Wray said last month he was “aghast” to learn about.

Remember the FBI Richmond Field Office memo targeting Catholics as terrorists?

Director Wray testified that it was only “a single field office,” doing so.

Well, a newly subpoenaed document shows otherwise.

It looks like FBI Portland & FBI Los Angeles were also involved.

— Rep. Jim Jordan

From information recently produced to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on information from around the country—including a liaison contact in the FBI’s Portland Field Office and reporting from the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office—to develop its assessment.

It notes that the information comes from a less-redacted version of the memo the committee recently obtained. When Jordan questioned Wray last month based upon a more redacted copy, the director contended it “was a single product by a single field office.”

“This revelation raises the question of why you redacted this information in previous versions of the document you produced to the Committee,’ the letter states. It also charges that the new information “raises concerns about the accuracy, completeness, and truthfulness” of the director’s testimony and invites him to “amend” it “to fully explain the nature and scope of the FBI’s assessment of traditional Catholics as potential domestic terrorists.”