Category: Veterans – Patriotism

Titanic submersible: 5 passengers on missing sub likely dead following ‘catastrophic implosion’

Yahoo! News

Titanic submersible: 5 passengers on missing sub likely dead following ‘catastrophic implosion’

Christopher Wilson – June 22, 2023

The Coast Guard announced Thursday that it believed the five passengers who disappeared while attempting to explore the Titanic shipwreck were likely lost due to a “catastrophic implosion” of their vessel.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger announced at a press conference that on Thursday morning, five major pieces of debris had been found on the seafloor about 1,600 feet from the site of the Titanic, a finding “consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.” Mauger said they then notified the families and offered their condolences.

Shortly before Mauger’s comments, the company running the expedition, OceanGate, announced that the five passengers “have sadly been lost.”

OceanGate's tourist submersible vessel.
OceanGate’s tourist submersible vessel. (OceanGate/Handout via Getty Images)

“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” read the statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”

The grim announcement came four days after a 21-foot tourist submersible named the Titan was reported missing approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, triggering a massive search to find the vessel before its occupants ran out of oxygen.

The Titan had been projected to run out of its 96-hour supply of breathable air on Thursday morning. And because the door was bolted from the outside, those inside would not have been able to open it on their own even if they were able to reach the surface. Asked about the possibility of recovering remains, Mauger called the conditions “unforgiving” and said there weren’t prospects for doing so at this time.

A missing sub and extensive search
The five occupants of the Titan and the Titan.
The five occupants of the Titan: Stockton Rush, Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood, Paul-Henri Nargeolet and Suleman Dawood, and the Titan. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters; Courtesy of Jannicke Mikkelsen via Reuters; Courtesy of Engro Corporation Limited via Reuters; J. Sagat/AFP via Getty Images; Courtesy of Engro Corporation Limited via Reuters; OceanGate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)More

The Titan, operated by OceanGate, a private exploration company based in Everett, Wash., launched early Sunday morning to tour the Titanic wreckage with five passengers on board: OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61; British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman; and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a 77-year-old French explorer.

The Polar Prince, a Canadian research vessel and support ship for the expedition, lost contact with the submersible about an hour and 45 minutes after launch. OceanGate reported the Titan missing on Sunday evening, triggering a massive international search effort led by the U.S. Coast Guard and assisted by the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Air National Guard, Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard.

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A Canadian P-3 aircraft equipped with sonar listening equipment detected underwater “banging noises” on Tuesday and Wednesday, raising hopes that the Titan crew might be found alive. But Coast Guard officials cautioned at the time they were not sure what caused the noises even while remaining adamant that the search remain in the rescue phase.

“This is a search and rescue mission, 100%,” Frederick said Wednesday. “We are smack dab in the middle of search and rescue, and we’ll continue to put every available asset that we have in an effort to find the Titan and the crew members.”

Troubling signs
OceanGate's tourist submersible on the surface of the sea.
OceanGate’s tourist submersible on the surface of the sea. (OceanGate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Founded in 2009, OceanGate charges up to $250,000 per person for a chance to visit the remnants of the Titanic, which sank in 1912 on its inaugural trip from England to New York. While Rush stated last year that the submersible had made it down to the wreckage a dozen times over the last two years, there had been a number of red flags about the operation. In 2018, more than three dozen oceanographers and deep-sea explorers wrote a letter to OceanGate warning that its “experimental” approach could lead to “catastrophic” consequences for its Titanic dives.

A 10-minute segment from CBS News Sunday Morning in November 2022 foreshadowed the tragedy. Journalist David Pogue discussed some of the paperwork he had to sign in an almost humorous tone, reading, “This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death,” before adding, “Where do I sign?”

In the 2022 piece, Pogue noted that while he was on the expedition the submersible never made it to the wreck site because of communications errors. He quoted one passenger as saying, “We were lost for two and a half hours.” Pogue’s own scheduled trip to the Titanic was canceled due to poor weather, and a back-up excursion to the trip to a Continental Shelf was called off due to technical difficulties after 37 feet of descent.

In a tweet Monday, Pogue said the craft was, in fact, lost for five hours and that adding an emergency locator beacon was discussed. Pogue added, “They could still send short texts to the sub, but did not know where it was. It was quiet and very tense, and they shut off the ship’s internet to prevent us from tweeting.” The company cited the need to keep “all channels open” as a reason for cutting off internet access, he said.

Another former passenger on the Titan told the BBC on Tuesday said he had to sign a “death waiver” that “lists one way after another that you could die on the trip,” including “[mentioning] death three times on page one, and so it’s never far from your mind.”

Trump Melts Down as DOJ Turns Over Evidence It Plans to Use Against Him

Rolling Stone

Trump Melts Down as DOJ Turns Over Evidence It Plans to Use Against Him

Ryan Bort – June 22, 2023

Donald Trump fired off a series of desperate pleas on Truth Social, including multiple appeals to Congress to bail him out, hours after news broke that the Justice Department had turned over the first batch of evidence it plans to use against him. The former president was indicted earlier this month on charges related to his handling of classified material after leaving the White House.

“CONGRESS, PLEASE INVESTIGATE THE POLITICAL WITCH HUNTS AGAINST ME CURRENTLY BEING BROUGHT BY THE CORRUPT DOJ AND FBI, WHO ARE TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL,” Trump wrote Thursday morning.

The former president also dusted off the idea that the DOJ framed him by planting the classified material at Mar-a-Lago — despite the fact that he’s claimed repeatedly that he somehow declassified the material before bringing it to Florida himself. “Congress will hopefully now look at the ever continuing Witch Hunts and ELECTION INTERFERENCE against me on perfectly legal Boxes, where I have no doubt that information is being secretly ‘planted’ by the scoundrels in charge,” he wrote in another post before griping about his other legal woes.

Trump’s indictment is damning, with the DOJ alleging that the former president knowingly took classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, stored them in unsecure locations, and then conspired to lie to authorities about what he was hoarding while suggesting the material should be destroyed. The indictment also outlines a recording it obtained featuring Trump bragging about having a “secret” plan against Iran.

The evidence the DOJ turned over on Wednesday includes more recordings of the former president, described as “interviews” recorded with his consent. It’s unclear what is on the additional tapes. The evidence also includes grand-jury witness testimony — which means Trump now knows who testified against him and what they said — as well as material obtained through subpoenas.

Trump, understandably, seems pretty nervous. “THIS CONTINUING SAGA IS RETRIBUTION AGAINST ME FOR WINNING AND, EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY TO THEM, ELECTION INTERFERENCE REGARDING THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION,” he added on Thursday morning. “IT WILL BE THERE UPDATED FORM OF RIGGING OUR MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION. LOOK AT THE POLLS – THEY CAN’T BEAT ME (MAGA!) AT THE BALLOT BOX, THE ONLY WAY THEY CAN WIN IS TO CHEAT. STOP THEM NOW!”

Trump pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. The DOJ has asked for a speedy trial, and Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this week told both sides to file all pretrial motions by July 24 while slating the trial to begin on Aug. 14. Trump’s team will almost certainly move to delay the start date as long as possible — maybe even until he can retake the White House and appoint an attorney general who will drop the case.

Working Longer Won’t Help Most Americans Actually Max Out Social Security

Smart Asset

Working Longer Won’t Help Most Americans Actually Max Out Social Security

Brian J. O’Connor – June 21, 2023

Working Longer to Max Out Social Security May Fail Most Workers
Working Longer to Max Out Social Security May Fail Most Workers

The idea of working longer before claiming Social Security benefits sounds like a great retirement strategy. Staying on the job means you can maximize your eventual benefit, continue to save for retirement and avoid tapping your investments to cover living expenses.

There’s just one problem: working longer is an unrealistic option for many. That’s the finding of the new book, “Overtime: America’s Aging Workforce and the Future of Working Longer,” a collection edited by Lisa F. Berkman and Beth C. Truesdale, and published by Oxford University Press.

A financial advisor can help you decide when the right time is to retire. Find a fiduciary advisor today.

“Though today’s middle-aged adults are less financially prepared for retirement than today’s retirees, delayed retirement is not an adequate solution,” the editors write. “Precarious working conditions, family caregiving responsibilities, poor health, and age discrimination make it difficult or impossible for many to work longer.”

A Look at the Numbers

Working Longer to Max Out Social Security May Fail Most Workers
Working Longer to Max Out Social Security May Fail Most Workers

That conclusion is borne out by the Social Security Administration’s own statistics. While nearly 13% of workers nearing retirement say they’ll wait to claim the biggest possible payout, only 5% of people wait to claim benefits at age 70. Instead, about one-quarter of all men and one-third of all women opt to collect benefits as soon as become eligible at age 62.

Even worse, the administration notes that “[m]ore than one in eight of today’s 20-year-olds will die before reaching age 67.”

Nonetheless, financial advisers continue to promote the idea of waiting to maximize your benefit. On paper, it’s an idea that makes perfect sense: delaying your benefits from the full retirement age of 67 to 70 adds 8% to your benefit amount each year, a cumulative 32% increase in benefit cash. And, since Social Security benefits adjust with inflation, a bigger initial benefit means a bigger increase from the cost-of-living adjustments.

If you’re ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

The Problem With Working Longer

Working Longer to Max Out Social Security May Fail Most Workers
Working Longer to Max Out Social Security May Fail Most Workers

As a 2022 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research noted, “Americans are notoriously bad savers. Large numbers are reaching old age too poor to finance retirements that could last longer than they worked.” The study concluded that “virtually all American workers age 45 to 62 should wait beyond age 65 to collect. More than 90 percent should wait till age 70.”

The idea makes sense and the “Overtime” editors agree. “Longer life expectancies mean that Americans need income to support more years of life, and working longer is a commonly proposed solution,” they write.

However, they cite five different factors that undermine the concept of working longer to boost retirement income, including “Trends and inequalities in American demographics, health, family dynamics, jobs, and politics,” which are often not factored in.

The editors outline an array of possible solutions. “Robust retirement and disability policies are essential complements to working-longer policies.” They add that, “Working-longer policies must be supported by ‘good jobs’ policies to succeed.”

Bottom Line

Working longer and delaying retirement is a common strategy recommended to people who aren’t financially ready to retire. But a new book from Lisa F. Berkman and Beth C. Truesdale argues this alternative is unrealistic for many. Working conditions, caregiving responsibilities, health problems and age discrimination make it increasingly difficult for older Americans to continue to work.

Retirement Planning Tips

  • How much money will you need to save to be able to retire? Should you delay Social Security? These are just a couple questions that pre-retirees face. A financial advisor can help you answer them. Finding a financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.
  • Fidelity recommends that you have 10 times your annual income saved for retirement by age 67. To find out if you’re on track, try SmartAsset’s retirement calculator. This free tool will estimate how much you’ll have when the time comes to retire.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/PixelsEffect, ©iStock.com/FG Trade, ©iStock.com/ferrantraite

Expert Says Too Many Americans Are Cashing Out Their 401(k) Plans

Smart Asset

Expert Says Too Many Americans Are Cashing Out Their 401(k) Plans

Ben Geier – Jun 22, 2023

SmartAsset: Too Many People Are Cashing Out Their 401(k) Plans
SmartAsset: Too Many People Are Cashing Out Their 401(k) Plans

When leaving a job, there are a lot of things you have to remember to do when you leave – clean out your desk, say goodbye to your coworkers and pack up your secret stash of candy, for instance. Another thing you have to do, of course, is take care of your retirement plan. There are several options, and according to a new study from Harvard Business Review, too many people are choosing to completely drain their account and take it in cash. There are a number of reasons why this is not the best option for dealing with retirement funds from a company you are leaving.

For help managing your own retirement savings, consider working with a financial advisor.

401(k) Options When Leaving a Job

When you leave a job, you have four basic options for handling your 401(k):

  1. Keep it with your old employer. You do have the option of simply leaving your money in the plan at your old company. If you have less than $5,000, it’s worth noting your company can force you to take it or transfer it. Leaving your money with your old company also means when you want to access your funds in the future, you’ll have to deal with a company you may have long since left, which could cause some issues.
  2. Rollover to an IRA. One of the most popular options in this situation is to take your money out of your 401(k) and put it into an individual retirement account. You can then reinvest in a buffet of options – and you can continue to put money into the account periodically.
  3. Rollover to a new employer’s plan. There is another rollover option available – taking the money from your old account and putting it into the plan at your new employer. You can then continue to put money into the new plan and have all your retirement savings in one place.
  4. Cash it out. Your final option – which will be explored more below – is to take the money out in cash.

If you’re ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

Harvard’s Findings

SmartAsset: Too Many People Are Cashing Out Their 401(k) Plans
SmartAsset: Too Many People Are Cashing Out Their 401(k) Plans

Harvard Business Review cites data that in a survey of 160,000 employees in the United States between 2014 and 2016, 41.4% cashed out at least some of their 401(k) balance when leaving a job. Furthermore, 85% of those people took out the entire balance.

Generally speaking, this isn’t a great choice when it comes to planning for retirement. If you take money out of your retirement plan, it’s no longer growing in the market, and may not last until you retire.

Why, then, do so many people liquidate their 401(k) accounts when they leave a job? HBR thinks that it’s due to poor communication with people leaving their jobs. Most simply get a letter from their plan’s recordkeeper, and many take the simplest option of taking the money and running.

Picking one of the rollover options is often considered the best option for retirement savers – it keeps your money someplace you have easy access to and lets it keep growing, allowing your nest egg to expand. This puts you in the best position when you retire.

Bottom Line

According to Harvard Business Review, too many people are choosing to cash out their retirement savings when they leave a job. In fact, over 40% of people who left their job cashed out a portion of their savings between 2014 and 2016. They’d be better off picking a rollover option, which lets them keep their money in a retirement-focused account.

Retirement Planning Tips

  • A financial advisor can help you make the best choices when planning your retirement. Finding a financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.
  • If you use a 401(k), make sure you’re taking advantage of any employer match available to you. Your employer’s contributions are free money, which can ultimately help you reach your retirement goals.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/FangXiaNuo, ©iStock.com/designer491

Russia Sought to Kill Defector in Florida

The New York Times

Russia Sought to Kill Defector in Florida

Ronen Bergman, Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes – June 19, 2023

Photographs of Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia’s military intelligence service who was convicted in 2006 for selling secrets to British intelligence, in Moscow, Aug. 28, 2018. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)
Photographs of Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia’s military intelligence service who was convicted in 2006 for selling secrets to British intelligence, in Moscow, Aug. 28, 2018. (Sergey Ponomarev/The New York Times)

As President Vladimir Putin of Russia has pursued enemies abroad, his intelligence operatives now appear prepared to cross a line that they previously avoided: trying to kill a valuable informant for the U.S. government on American soil.

The clandestine operation, seeking to eliminate a CIA informant in Miami who had been a high-ranking Russian intelligence official more than a decade earlier, represented a brazen expansion of Putin’s campaign of targeted assassinations. It also signaled a dangerous low point even between intelligence services that have long had a strained history.

“The red lines are long gone for Putin,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who oversaw operations in Europe and Russia. “He wants all these guys dead.”

The assassination failed, but the aftermath in part spiraled into tit-for-tat retaliation by the United States and Russia, according to three former senior U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss aspects of a plot meant to be secret and its consequences. Sanctions and expulsions, including of top intelligence officials in Moscow and Washington, followed.

The target was Aleksandr Poteyev, a former Russian intelligence officer who disclosed information that led to a yearslong FBI investigation that in 2010 ensnared 11 spies living under deep cover in suburbs and cities along the East Coast. They had assumed false names and worked ordinary jobs as part of an ambitious attempt by the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, to gather information and recruit more agents.

In keeping with an Obama administration effort to reset relations, a deal was reached that sought to ease tensions: Ten of the 11 spies were arrested and expelled to Russia. In exchange, Moscow released four Russian prisoners, including Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in the military intelligence service who was convicted in 2006 for selling secrets to Britain.

The bid to assassinate Poteyev is revealed in the British edition of the book “Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West,” to be published by an imprint of Little, Brown on June 29. The book is by Calder Walton, a scholar of national security and intelligence at Harvard. The New York Times independently confirmed his work and is reporting for the first time on the bitter fallout from the operation, including the retaliatory measures that ensued once it came to light.

According to Walton’s book, a Kremlin official asserted that a hit man, or a Mercader, would almost certainly hunt down Poteyev. Ramón Mercader, an agent of Josef Stalin’s, slipped into Leon Trotsky’s study in Mexico City in 1940 and sank an ice ax into his head. Based on interviews with two U.S. intelligence officials, Walton concluded the operation was the beginning of “a modern-day Mercader” sent to assassinate Poteyev.

The Russians have long used assassins to silence perceived enemies. One of the most celebrated at SVR headquarters in Moscow is Col. Grigory Mairanovsky, a biochemist who experimented with lethal poisons, according to a former intelligence official.

Putin, a former KGB officer, has made no secret of his deep disdain for defectors among the intelligence ranks, particularly those who aid the West. The poisoning of Skripal at the hands of Russian operatives in Salisbury, Britain, in 2018 signaled an escalation in Moscow’s tactics and intensified fears that it would not hesitate to do the same on American shores.

The attack, which used a nerve agent to sicken Skripal and his daughter, prompted a wave of diplomatic expulsions across the world as Britain marshaled the support of its allies in a bid to issue a robust response.

The incident set off alarm bells inside the CIA, where officials worried that former spies who had relocated to the United States, like Poteyev, would soon be targets.

Putin had long vowed to punish Poteyev. But before he could be arrested, Poteyev fled to the United States, where the CIA resettled him under a highly secretive program meant to protect former spies. In 2011, a Moscow court sentenced him in absentia to decades in prison.

Poteyev had seemed to vanish, but at one point, Russian intelligence sent operatives to the United States to find him, though its intentions remained unclear. In 2016, the Russian news media reported that he was dead, which some intelligence experts believed might be a ploy to flush him out. Indeed, Poteyev was very much alive, living in the Miami area.

That year, he obtained a fishing license and registered as a Republican so he could vote, all under his real name, according to state records. In 2018, a news outlet reported Poteyev’s whereabouts.

The CIA’s concerns were not unwarranted. In 2019, the Russians undertook an elaborate operation to find Poteyev, forcing a scientist from Oaxaca, Mexico, to help.

The scientist, Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, was an unlikely spy. He studied microbiology in Kazan, Russia, and later earned a doctorate in the subject from the University of Giessen in Germany. He was a source of pride for his family, with a history of charitable work and no criminal past.

But the Russians used Fuentes’ partner as leverage. He had two wives: a Russian living in Germany and another in Mexico. In 2019, the Russian wife and her two daughters were not allowed to leave Russia as they tried to return to Germany, court documents say.

That May, when Fuentes traveled to visit them, a Russian official contacted him and asked to see him in Moscow. At one meeting, the official reminded Fuentes that his family was stuck in Russia and that maybe, according to court documents, “we can help each other.”

A few months later, the Russian official asked Fuentes to secure a condo just north of Miami Beach, where Poteyev lived. Instructed not to rent the apartment in his name, Fuentes gave an associate $20,000 to do so.

In February 2020, Fuentes traveled to Moscow, where he again met with the Russian official, who provided a description of Poteyev’s vehicle. Fuentes, the Russian said, should find the car, obtain its license plate number and take note of its physical location. He advised Fuentes to refrain from taking pictures, presumably to eliminate any incriminating evidence.

But Fuentes botched the operation. Driving into the complex, he tried to bypass its entry gate by tailgating another vehicle, attracting the attention of security. When he was questioned, his wife walked away to photograph Poteyev’s license plate.

Fuentes and his wife were told to leave, but security cameras captured the incident. Two days later, he tried to fly to Mexico, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped him and searched his phone, discovering the picture of Poteyev’s vehicle.

After he was arrested, Fuentes provided details of the plan to American investigators. He believed the Russian official he had been meeting worked for the FSB, Russia’s internal security service. But covert operations overseas are usually run by the SVR, which succeeded the KGB, or the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

One of the former officials said Fuentes, unaware of the target’s significance, was merely gathering information for the Russians to use later.

Fuentes’ lawyer, Ronald Gainor, declined to comment.

The plot, along with other Russian activities, elicited a harsh response from the U.S. government. In April 2021, the United States imposed sanctions and expelled 10 Russian diplomats, including the chief of station for the SVR, who was based in Washington and had two years left on his tour, two former U.S. officials said. Throwing out the chief of station can be incredibly disruptive to intelligence operations, and agency officials suspected that Russia was likely to seek reprisal on its American counterpart in Moscow, who had only weeks left in that role, the officials said.

“We cannot allow a foreign power to interfere in our democratic process with impunity,” President Joe Biden said at the White House in announcing the penalties. He made no mention of the plot involving Fuentes.

Sure enough, Russia banished 10 American diplomats, including the CIA’s chief of station in Moscow.

Repub’s just can’t keep their hands off Social Security: Major Cuts to Social Security Are Back on the Table — What’s Being Proposed Now?

Go BankingRates

Major Cuts to Social Security Are Back on the Table — What’s Being Proposed Now?

Vance Cariaga – June 16, 2023

Shutterstock / Shutterstock
Shutterstock / Shutterstock

A group of Republican lawmakers aims to balance the federal budget and slash government spending by targeting programs like Social Security — and some seniors could see a major reduction in lifetime benefits if the plan makes it into law.

The proposal was unveiled June 14 by U.S. House conservatives, Bloomberg reported. One of its main features is to raise the full retirement age (FRA) at which seniors are entitled to the full benefits they are due.

The 176-member House Republican Study Committee (RSC) approved a fiscal blueprint that would gradually increase the FRA to 69-years-old for seniors who turn 62 in 2033. The current full retirement age is 66 or 67, depending on your birth year. For all Americans born in 1960 or later, the FRA is 67.

As Bloomberg noted, workers expecting an earlier retirement benefit will see lifetime payouts reduced if the full retirement age is raised. Those payouts could be drastically reduced for seniors who claim benefits at age 62, when you are first eligible.

Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have been working to come up with a fix for Social Security before the program’s Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund runs out of money. That could happen within the next decade or so. When it does, Social Security will be solely reliant on payroll taxes for funding — and those taxes only cover about 77% of current benefits.

While most Democrats want to boost Social Security through higher payroll taxes or reductions to benefits for wealthy Americans, the GOP has largely focused on paring down or privatizing the program.

As previously reported by GOBankingRates, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently told Fox News that this month’s debt limit bill was only “the first step” in a broader Republican agenda that includes further cuts.

“This isn’t the end,” McCarthy said. “This doesn’t solve all the problems. We only got to look at 11% of the budget to find these cuts. We have to look at the entire budget. … The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It’s Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt.”

As Bloomberg noted, Republicans argue that failing to change Social Security could lead to a 23% benefit cut once the trust fund is depleted. Raising the retirement age is a way to soften the immediate impact. The RSC said its proposal would balance the federal budget in seven years by cutting some $16 trillion in spending and $5 trillion in taxes.

“The RSC budget would implement common-sense policies to prevent the impending debt disaster, tame inflation, grow the economy, protect our national security, and defund [President Joe] Biden’s woke priorities,” U.S. Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), chairman of the group’s Budget and Spending Task Force, told Roll Call.

Democrats were quick to push back against the proposal.

“Budget Committee Democrats will make sure every American family knows that House Republicans want to force Americans to work longer for less, raise families’ costs, weaken our nation, and shrink our economy — all while wasting billions of dollars on more favors to special interests and handouts to the ultra-wealthy,” U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, (D-Pa.), the Budget Committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement saying the RSC budget “amounts to a devastating attack on Medicare, Social Security, and Americans’ access to health coverage and prescription drugs.”

Although the proposal might make it through the GOP-led House, it’s unlikely to become law – at least while Biden is still president. Even if a bill somehow got approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate, Biden would almost certainly veto it.

Three things to watch as US intelligence prepares for Covid ‘lab leak’ reveal

The Telegraph

Three things to watch as US intelligence prepares for Covid ‘lab leak’ reveal

Samuel Lovett – June 16, 2023

A security man moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology - Ng Han Guan/AP
A security man moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – Ng Han Guan/AP

It’s showtime – and both lab leak enthusiasts and those who believe in natural origins (the ‘zoonati’) are nervous.

No later than Sunday, and perhaps sooner, America’s director of National Intelligence must, by law, “declassify” and make public all “information relating to the origins of Covid-19”.

It could be a huge moment, or a terrible anticlimax.

By the time the deadline is reached, it will have been 1,265 days since news of a “mystery pneumonia” first emerged from Wuhan – and for much of that time a small group of US intelligence officials have anonymously been briefing that the virus came from a lab.

It would not be the first time a pandemic had been caused by a laboratory-related accident: the 1977-1979 Russian Flu pandemic is widely thought to have been sparked by the accidental release of a virus used in a US flu vaccine that had not been fully deactivated.

Yet the off-the-record intelligence briefings have been characterised as unprofessional and unscientific by many, and in March this year, the US Congress unanimously passed a law demanding that all secret material the US holds on Covid’s origin be made public.

The P4 laboratory on the WIV campus. Opened in 2018, the P4 lab conducts research on the world's most dangerous diseases - HECTOR RETAMAL/AP
The P4 laboratory on the WIV campus. Opened in 2018, the P4 lab conducts research on the world’s most dangerous diseases – HECTOR RETAMAL/AP

Public Law Number 118-2, which was passed on March 20, is short at just 418 words but is to the point and gives the intelligence officials little, if any, wriggle room to hold things back.

It is one of the few things that those on either side of the Covid origins debate have come together to agree on, albeit for very different reasons.

Those who think the virus emerged naturally have dubbed it a “put up or shut up” law. Lab leakers, on the other hand, see it as a means to lift the lid on an episode they believe the US government itself is partly responsible for as it part-funded the high security lab in Wuhan.

As the deadline for the release of the US intelligence looms, we list the three key areas on which Law Number 118-2 demands full disclosure.

“Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence shall declassify any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19), including:

1. “…activities performed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army.”

Issue: The background briefings have alleged that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army was involved with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in creating a virus that leaked. As the Sunday Times reported, US intelligence sources believe the lab has engaged in “secret projects … on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017”.

Lab leakers rightly say this would be explosive if proven. In addition to the anonymous briefings, they point to already leaked – but heavily redacted – US cables, seemingly compiled by US analysts in Taiwan.

These make mention of “cyber evidence” of Chinese military involvement and “shadow labs” at the WIV. They also suggest China’s central government in Beijing knew of the outbreak of Covid-19 “earlier than they admit”.

The trouble with the cables is that they are so heavily redacted that only a few words and phrases are visible. Lab leakers will be hoping the full text bangs this virtual nail home.

The Zoonati say military links should not come as a surprise given there is hardly a high security lab anywhere in the world, including Porton Down in England, where the military do not have some involvement. They suspect the anonymous briefers have been “happily blurring shades of grey” in this respect and hope the unredacted evidence will bear this out.

2. Declassify any intelligence which shows “…coronavirus research or other related activities performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the outbreak of Covid-19.”

Issue: The background briefings would suggest there is intelligence to show scientists at the WIV were conducting undeclared “gain-of-function” research in 2019 that sought to combine different coronaviruses and make them more infectious in humans. According to The Sunday Times, US spies also say there is evidence the lab was working on a vaccine before the pandemic started.

Lab leakers will alight on any hard evidence of any undeclared work on coronaviruses in China as a smoking gun. Some hypothesise that WIV scientists, working hand-in-hand with the military, created a mutant virus as part of a covert weapons programme which was highly effective at infecting people. That virus, now known as Sars-CoV-2, was then accidentally leaked and started spreading in Wuhan in the autumn of 2019, they say.

The Zoonati remain sceptical. They say a wrap-up of all the work the WIV conducted on coronaviruses, including a list of viruses, was submitted to Nature in October 2019 and that there was nothing unusual about the research. Further, they say, nothing “obviously nefarious or weird” happened during the submission and review process, which ran to August 2020, to suggest the Chinese were hiding secret projects.

Others say that even if declassification were to prove that WIV scientists were conducting dangerous undeclared research, this would not explain the outbreak itself. “I’d be very surprised if it was all true, but let’s pretend that it is – I think it’s still going to be really complicated trying to understand how that fits into this body of evidence that does point towards zoonotic origin,” argues Dr Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, in Canada.

3. Declassify any intelligence which shows “…researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in autumn 2019, including for any such researcher: the researcher’s name; the researcher’s symptoms; the date of the onset of the researcher’s symptoms.”

Issue: Reports have long persisted that a group of scientists at the Wuhan lab fell with coronavirus-like symptoms and were hospitalised more than a month before the virus started to spread widely throughout Wuhan, the implication being they had become infected through a lab accident.

Lab leakers point to three scientists from the WIV who they say US intelligence believe fell ill and were hospitalised in October or November 2019. They are Yu Ping, Ben Hu and Yan Zhu, all of whom worked at the lab at the time. If US intelligence proves these researchers were struck down by a Covid-like disease and hospitalised in the October-November period it would provide compelling evidence of a lab accident, the leakers say.

The Zoonati don’t dispute that the trio worked at the lab but say they don’t believe they fell ill or were hospitalised. They say they know this because, among other things, they were working with them over the period in question and have talked to them since.

Dr Danielle Anderson, an Australian scientist, was on secondment at the Wuhan lab until November 2019, when Covid is thought to have started spreading in the city. At the time, none of her colleagues displayed any coronavirus-like symptoms, she says.

“We went to dinners together, lunches, we saw each other outside of the lab,” Dr Anderson told Bloomberg in an interview from 2021.

The virologist also confirmed to The Telegraph that she had attended a conference on the Nipah virus in Singapore, in December 2019, alongside Dr Zhengli Shi, the senior scientist at the Wuhan lab and “many other” researchers from the WIV. Colleagues say if there had been a leak and three of her juniors were ill she would not have been there.

“There was no chatter,” Dr Anderson said. “Scientists are gossipy and excited. There was nothing strange from my point of view going on at that point that would make you think something is going on here.”

The Nipah Virus International Conference 2019 - SingHealth
The Nipah Virus International Conference 2019 – SingHealth

As Trump is indicted again, Republican primary foes must answer: Will you pardon him?

USA Today – Opinion

As Trump is indicted again, Republican primary foes must answer: Will you pardon him?

Rex Huppke, USA TODAY – June 14, 2023

As Donald Trump was arraigned in a federal courthouse in Miami, his Republican presidential primary opponents were placed in a metaphorical box. From now until the first votes are cast, the GOP contest revolves around one question: If elected, will you pardon former President Trump?

On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden will have a simple response: “C’mon, man. Heck no!” But for Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence or any of the other Republican presidential candidates, there’s no good answer.

A “yes” may help in the primary, but it will be an anchor in the general election. Voters nationally have demonstrated – in the last presidential election and the most recent midterm elections – they’ve had it with Trump, and by 2024, we will have seen both additional evidence of his alleged crimes and, quite possibly, additional indictments.

Of course Trump may eventually be found not guilty and have no need for a pardon. But until that’s clear, the pardon question will be asked.

To pardon Trump or not to pardon Trump? That will be the question

A “no,” on the other hand, will enrage both Trump and his rabid base of supporters, likely dooming any candidate unwilling to pledge allegiance to the MAGA king.

Trump indictment isn’t witch hunt: Be honest. If you saw the evidence, you would have indicted Trump, too.

And in case you think only reporters will be asking it, here’s what GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Tuesday outside the Miami courthouse: “This is my commitment, on Jan. 20, 2025, if I’m elected the next U.S. president, to pardon Donald J. Trump for these offenses in this federal case. And I have challenged, I have demanded, that every other candidate in this race, either sign this commitment to pardon on Jan. 20, 2025, or else to explain why they are not.”

Good luck with that, everyone!

Promising a pardon when other Trump indictments might be coming seems … unwise?

The first and most obvious peril of signing such a commitment or even answering the pardon question is that Trump will give any candidate who says “no” a devastatingly mean nickname, hammer them with scurrilous accusations that are either hyperbolic or simply fabricated, and sic his MAGA horde on the candidate, the candidate’s family and friends, and anyone the candidate has ever loved or cared about.

Former President Donald Trump arrives at the federal courthouse in Miami on June 13, 2023.
Former President Donald Trump arrives at the federal courthouse in Miami on June 13, 2023.

But there are other risks. Trump already carries the distinction of MOST INDICTED PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE EVER. He has been indicted twice as many times as he has been elected president. The first involves 34 New York state court counts of falsifying business records.

The second, the one that took center stage Tuesday, involves 37 federal charges ranging from willful retention of national defense information to conspiracy to obstruct justice, all stemming from classified documents he removed from the White House and refused to give back.

But there are two other serious investigations remaining. One involves possible election interference in Georgia, and the other is the federal special counsel investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

GOP presidential hopefuls promising Trump a pardon may well be blindsided by evidence

As Trump was heading to court Tuesday, NBC News reported that “Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald, a close Trump political ally, as well as Jim DeGraffenreid, the state party’s vice chair, were spotted” at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., entering the room where the grand jury for the Jan. 6 investigation meets. So those wheels are turning.

Why Biden should pardon Trump: If Donald Trump is convicted, President Biden should pardon him. Really.

Candidates can follow Ramaswamy’s lead and promise Trump a pardon right now, but they’ll be doing so knowing two more rounds of indictments could be waiting in the wings.

And even if nothing comes from the other investigations, pledging to pardon Trump before seeing what evidence the prosecution has – in other words, waiting for the trial to unfold – is not just putting the wagon in front of the horse. It’s putting the wagon in front of the horse, giving the horse a powerful laxative then standing behind the horse.

Nobody will want to hear answers to the pardon question more than Trump

I imagine Trump himself will lean into the pardon demand, because why not? He’ll want to hear all the possible Trump replacements answer: Will you pardon the man who degrades you?

This is the bed Republicans made for themselves when they wrapped their arms around a con artist whose moral compass always points toward Trump. Supplicate, or be destroyed.

It’s well-deserved sticky wicket.

Trump Demands GOP Rivals Pledge to Pardon Him … or Else

Rolling Stone

Trump Demands GOP Rivals Pledge to Pardon Him … or Else

Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng – June 15, 2023

In the days since Donald Trump was indicted, his allies have had a unified demand of his GOP primary rivals: promise to pardon the Donald — or else.

It’s not an accident: In the days leading up to his arraignment, the former president worked the phones to vent about the case to his allies and discuss the way forward. According to a person familiar with the matter and another source briefed on it, Trump had one repeated request for his supporters: go on TV and social media and trash Ron DeSantis for refusing to commit to pardoning Trump.

Trump’s demand advances two goals: The first is to protect himself from legal consequences if he loses both the GOP primary and his federal court case. But given that Trump is telling allies he’ll trounce DeSantis and all other primary challengers, the demand for a pardon pledge appears to be more a political move. The question itself offers a trap for any Republican who tries to engage with it: either side with Trump and use the occasion to keep him in the campaign spotlight or share some uncomfortable real estate on the side of Joe Biden and the Justice Department.

“If you’re Ron, you find yourself really in a really tough situation, because if you blast the DOJ and you blast Jack Smith and Biden, you’re essentially defending Trump and admitting Trump was right,” one MAGA-aligned Republican strategist tells Rolling Stone. “If you condemn him, there’s no lane for you running on that. And then silence is an equally bad option because folks notice you not saying anything.”

The DeSantis campaign did not respond to Rolling Stone’s questions about the governor’s position on a potential pardon.

Reached for comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung sent a lengthy statement accusing DeSantis of “hiding in a hole” during Trump’s Tuesday indictment and of running a campaign driven by consultants.

So far, DeSantis has tried to mix condemnation of the Justice Department with silence on the subject of a pardon. On the day news of the indictment broke, he blasted the Justice Department and pledged that a DeSantis administration would “bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias, and end weaponization once and for all.”

Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with 37 counts of retaining classified information and obstruction of justice in keeping at least 31 classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and attempting to hide them from federal law enforcement. The indictment includes damning evidence, including the transcript of what appears to be a confession from Trump that he took war plans he could’ve declassified as president but didn’t.

That hasn’t stopped Trump’s allies from demanding he be pardoned. On Fox News, former George W. Bush spokesman turned Trumpist Ari Fleischer pressed the talking point, arguing that “Every wise Republican should make a pledge they would pardon Donald Trump.” Pro-Trump legal scholar Jonathan Turley also suggested Trump could “run on pardoning himself” and that “If any of these Republicans [running for president] were elected, they could pardon Trump.”

So far, however, Trump-friendly GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been the loudest voice in the media pressing both DeSantis and the rest of the Republican field on legal absolution for the former president. On Tuesday, the former biotech and finance executive, who Trump has privately praised and joked about hiring in a second administration, held an impromptu press conference demanding every 2024 presidential candidate commit to pardoning Trump if elected.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ramaswamy says he’s not focused on DeSantis and has broadly “called on candidates in both parties, regardless of our political interests, to either stand against what I see as a politicized prosecution and say so and commit to a pardon or else explain why.”

But he said he found DeSantis’s attempts to hedge on Trump’s legal fate distasteful.

“I don’t think it’s good when politicians try to hide, try to talk out of both sides of their mouth,” Ramaswamy said. “It’s possible he’ll come out adopting my position later. I think that’s a trend we’ve seen throughout this campaign. If the last six months are any indication, my prediction is he’ll come around to my position.”

The pardon issue also put other Republican candidates who have flirted with criticism of Trump in an awkward position as they try to navigate a middle course.

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley initially hedged on the issue of Trump’s guilt. In a Fox News appearance, she said both that the Justice Department has “lost all credibility” but also that, if the event its allegations were true, Trump would have been “incredibly reckless with our national security.” In the days since, Haley has shifted further, saying that she would be “inclined in favor” of a pardon.

Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence tried to walk a similarly narrow path during an appearance on the conservative Clay Travis & Buck Sexton show. Pence said Trump faces “serious charges” and that he “can’t defend what’s been alleged” but wouldn’t allow himself to be pinned down on the subject of pardons. “I just think it’s premature to have any conversations about that right now,” Pence said.

But those kinds of answers aren’t sitting well with Republicans, as the response from Travis to Pence’s hedging showed: “If you know that these are political charges, and you do, this is not a difficult decision.”

Which 2024 GOP candidates would pardon Trump if they won the presidency?

CBS News

Which 2024 GOP candidates would pardon Trump if they won the presidency?

Cristina Corujo – June 14, 2023

As former president Donald J. Trump was pleading not guilty to all 37 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents Tuesday in Miami, some of his Republican rivals were asked about whether they would pardon Trump if he were convicted.

Who’s running for president in 2024? Meet the candidates – and likely candidates – vying for your voteVivek Ramaswamy

Hours before Trump’s arraignment, biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy said he’d pardon the former president as soon as he’s sworn in.

“This is my commitment, on Jan. 20th 2025 if I’m elected the next U.S. president — to pardon Donald J. Trump for these offenses in this federal case,” Ramaswamy said.

Ramaswamy even went to the Miami federal courthouse where Trump was arraigned and held a press conference, during which he challenged his Republican opponents to sign an agreement committing to do the same if any of them win.

Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley, who served as ambassador to the U.N. in the Trump administration, said she would be “inclined” to pardon her former boss, although she added that “it’s really premature at this point, when he’s not even been convicted of anything.”

During a radio interview with Clay Travis, Haley, who is also the former governor of South Carolina, said that “if the claims in the indictment are true, Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security, and that’s not okay.”

Chris Christie

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said of Trump on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Wednesday,  “I can’t imagine if he gets a fair trial that I would pardon him,” adding, “to accept a pardon, you have to admit your guilt.”

Christie also dismissed the idea that Trump could use the Presidential Records Act as a defense. “He’s dead wrong,” Christie said, and added, the Presidential Records Act “does not cover national security and national intelligence documents.

Christie, who was the first major Republican politician to endorse Trump in 2016 and a key adviser during Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, now says he was “wrong” about Trump and called the evidence in the indictment “pretty damning” during Monday’s CNN town hall.

Asa Hutchinson

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has also slammed Trump, and called on  him to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, said that a pardon “should have no place in the campaign.”

In an interview Wednesday with Scripps News, Hutchinson said that pardoning the former president would be a “misuse of the pardon power” and should have no place in the office of the president.

After Trump was indicted last week, Hutchinson called on him to drop out of the race, excoriating him for “his willful disregard for the Constitution” and “his disrespect for the rule of law.”

Larry Elder

Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder told Scripp News it’s “very likely” he would support pardoning Trump for the federal charges he is facing. But Elder, who supported Trump’s presidency, said that Trump’s electability is at stake, and he said that if he felt that the former president were “electable,” he “wouldn’t be running.”

Presidential candidates who have not weighed inRon DeSantis

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s main political rival in the primary so far, has not said publicly whether he’d pardon Trump. DeSantis has criticized the Justice Department as “weaponized” in pursuing prosecutions “against factions it doesn’t like” but also said over the weekend, after Trump had been indicted, “As a naval officer, if I would have taken classified [documents] to my apartment, I would have been court-martialed in a New York minute.”

CBS News has reached out to DeSantis’ campaign to ask if he would pardon Trump if he were convicted in the documents case.

DeSantis has also been asked whether he’d pardon those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. He told conservative radio hosts Clay Travis & Buck Sexton if he’d consider pardoning defendants  convicted for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots. DeSantis said  his administration “will be aggressive at issuing pardons… on a case-by-case basis.”

Mike Pence

Former Vice President Mike Pence has not weighed in on a pardon for the former president, but in a conversation with the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board on Tuesday, the day Trump was indicted, Pence said he had read the indictment, and “these are very serious allegations.” He added, “I can’t defend what is alleged. But the President is entitled to his day in court, he’s entitled to bring a defense, and I want to reserve judgment until he has the opportunity to respond.”

But he expressed concern about “the suggestion that there were documents pertaining to the defense capabilities of the United States and our allies, our nuclear program, to potential vulnerabilities of the United States and our allies,” and added, “Even the inadvertent release of that kind of information could compromise our national security and the safety of our armed forces.”

Although he has not made clear if he would pardon Trump, Pence told radio hosts Travis and Baxton Wednesday afternoon that he took “the pardon authority very seriously.”

“It’s an enormously important power of someone in an executive position and I just think it’s premature to have any conversation about that right now,” Pence said.

Tim Scott

Asked whether he’d pardon Trump, the South Carolina Republican said he wouldn’t “get into hypotheticals,” but he added, “We are the city on the hill. We believe that we are innocent until proven guilty.”

Donald Trump

The former president has not publicly mentioned pardoning himself since he was indicted last week. If he were to win the presidency, his ability to pardon himself remains an open question. In 2018, when conditions were different — that is, while he still occupied the White House — Trump claimed he could.

“As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong,” he tweeted in 2018.

Aaron Navarro contributed to this report.