Who’s the better boy: Hunter Biden or Mohammed bin Salman?

Resident Joe Biden visited oil-rich Saudi Arabia on Friday to grovel before its authoritarian leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), in a desperate attempt to stem the soaring price of gasoline in the United States. The president fist-bumped MBS upon arriving in Jeddah, which was an embarrassing moment. Not quite as embarrassing, however, as Barack H. Obama’s servile bow before the late King Abdullah during his 2009 apology tour.

The trip revealed that Biden’s campaign pledge to make Saudi Arabia “pay the price” for human rights abuses—including the 2018 murder and bone-saw dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi—and “make them in fact the pariah that they are” was a blatant lie. (Yes, a lie. The Washington Free Beacon is using that word in contravention of longstanding journalistic norms in an effort to highlight the president’s dangerous dishonesty.)

Above all, Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia provides an opportunity to discuss a topic the American mainstream media too often neglect: fatherhood. One of the reasons why the president’s meeting with MBS is so significant is that the crown prince is merely the country’s de facto leader after gently seizing control from his 86-year-old father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud.

Shortly after Biden took office in 2021, the White House insisted that King Salman—not the 36-year-old MBS—was “the president’s counterpart” in Saudi Arabia. Friday’s fist-bump suggests otherwise. Nevertheless, Biden and King Salman have a lot in common. As of Nov. 20, they will both be octogenarians. More importantly, they both understand what it’s like to be the famous father of an infamous son.

Speaking of which, Hunter Biden and MBS have a fair amount in common as well. They are both fans of prostitutes and cocaine. Hunter’s exploits are legendary, of course, but almost certainly pale in comparison with the debauchery of the crown prince. New York Times reporter Ben Hubbard noted in his 2020 book, MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman, that MBS once rented out an entire resort in the Maldives and “hosted a string of blowout parties.” Shakira and Pitbull reportedly performed at the gatherings, which also featured “an abundance of prostitutes and cocaine.”

READ MORE: ‘Bareback Rocket Ride’: The Hunter Biden Story

Both sons would presumably have amounted to nothing if not for their powerful dads, who helped finance their lavish and degenerate lifestyles. Just as MBS tapped the royal bank account to pay for his drug-fueled island orgies, Hunter persuaded Joe to keep wiring him money to help cover his $30,000 escort bill. It is safe to say that Hunter is more likely than MBS to film himself having threesomes with crack-addled hookers, but who’s to judge?

Hunter and MBS both have five children, although King Salman probably recognizes all of them, unlike Joe, who continues to deny the existence of the baby girl Hunter sired with a stripper named “Dallas.” To be fair, it is not publicly known how many children MBS has fathered with strippers and prostitutes who may not enjoy the protections granted by the U.S. justice system.

Unlike his Saudi counterpart, the Biden heir has not yet been credibly accused of murdering and dismembering a journalist. Yet Hunter does enjoy some of the same benefits afforded to Saudi royalty. For example, U.S. mainstream media outlets and tech companies actively suppressed negative stories about Hunter during his father’s 2020 presidential campaign. The revelations once denounced as “fake news” have since been largely corroborated.

It is difficult to say, given the facts, which famous father has raised the better boy. Perhaps the most notable difference between Joe Biden and King Salman is that the elderly and infirm Saudi royal knew when it was time to call it quits and hand power to a younger generation. Biden does not appear to share this outlook. This is not to suggest that he should anoint Hunter as his heir apparent, although there’s no question the whore-loving crackhead scion would get more votes than Kamala Harris.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Even after the Biden administration injected $150 million into the organization, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees continues to incite violence against Jews, and armed militants use its facilities, according to a non-public State Department report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The State Department cited the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—which has a history of promoting violence against Jews and allowing its sites to be used by Hamas terrorists to store weapons and recruit children—with hundreds of infractions over the last year involving “armed incursions,” “the use of weapons in or near facilities,” and the construction of at least two tunnels under its schools that enabled terrorists to move weapons and personnel, according to an unclassified version of a congressional report.

Of the $150 million in taxpayer funding that went to UNRWA, which was meant to help the organization implement reforms and crack down on anti-Israel bias, $9.8 million was meant to bolster its security apparatus, yet the organization “identified 1,142 unique issues at 556 installations during the inspections” throughout 2021, according to the report. Although multiple safeguards are reportedly in place to stop UNRWA facilities from being used by militants, at least “298 security and conflict-related incidents with neutrality implications occurred in 2021 and resulted in multiple injuries and damage to UNRWA property.”

Shortly after taking office in 2021, the Biden administration resumed $150 million in U.S. funding to UNRWA, which serves as the primary educational and aid organization to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. Millions of dollars in U.S. funding were pushed through over the objection of Republican lawmakers, who cited UNRWA’s promotion of anti-Israel materials in its schools and connections to terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The State Department report illustrates that these concerns are well-founded.

While these infractions breach funding guidelines set by the United States, the State Department determined that UNRWA lives up to its commitments to implement organization-wide reforms. A State Department spokesman declined to explain to the Free Beacon how the administration reached this determination after uncovering hundreds of what they call “violations of UNRWA’s neutrality policies.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has pushed to cut U.S. funding to UNRWA, told the Free Beacon the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to UNRWA’s bad behavior.

“UNRWA is a hopelessly anti-Semitic and terrorist-enabling organization,” Cruz said. “The Biden administration rejoined the organization anyway and promised to reform it. Now the numbers are in, and it is absolutely undeniable that they failed.”

“Of course,” Cruz said, “they’re trying to deny the failure and continue funding UNRWA anyway, because they are committed to undermining Israel and elevating its enemies. It is well past time for the United States to withdraw its support from this broken organization.”

UNRWA officials have said for years that they do not receive enough funding. The United States is its top funder. The Trump administration pulled U.S. funding from the organization due to its use of anti-Israel teaching materials and ties to terrorist organizations.

UNRWA facilities have been used by Hamas to store weapons and recruit children who attend school there. Teaching materials, including textbooks and curricula, are often full of anti-Israel bias and promote the Jewish state’s destruction.

These issues are prevalent even with the new tranche of U.S. funding, according to the State Department report.

“Inspections uncovered violations of UNRWA’s neutrality policies,” the report concluded. “These included inappropriate slogans, graffiti, or other imagery inside or outside of UNRWA facilities.”

Nearly 300 security-related incidents took place, including, “armed incursions,” though the report does not name the offenders.

This “included armed incursions and incidents,” as well as the “unauthorized use of UNRWA installations, such as armed, non-UNRWA personnel attempting to distribute supplies to civilians on UNRWA grounds.” The report also identified “the use of weapons in or near facilities.”

Two UNRWA schools also were found to contain underground tunnels, a tactic used by Hamas and other terrorist groups to transport weapons and soldiers. UNRWA facilities often serve as a base for these groups because they know Israeli forces will not target schools in their military operations.

Officials “found a cavity or tunnel under two of its schools in Gaza following airstrikes during the May 2021 violence” between Israel and Hamas, according to the report. Both sites “were filled with cement after their discovery.”

In at least 16 instances, UNRWA staff or personnel were accused of neutrality violations. In 10 of these cases “UNRWA staff incited violence on social media,” leading the organization to take “disciplinary measures” in early 2022.

“Of the remaining six allegations,” the report notes, “three concern public statements, one concerned a post on social media, one case was related to outside activities, and one case alleged a staff member conducted military service while also employed by UNRWA. These cases remain under investigation.”

A State Department spokesman would not discuss the report’s findings, saying, “as a general matter, we do not comment on communications with Congress.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

TikTok is no longer advertising for employees in Moscow, following a Washington Free Beacon report that the company was seeking hires in Russia a few months after announcing it had suspended operations in the country.

TikTok’s corporate website listed over a dozen job listings for staffers in Moscow—noting a preference for candidates who spoke Mandarin Chinese—but the posts disappeared shortly after the Free Beacon’s report in late June. The postings appeared to conflict with TikTok’s announcement last March that it would scale back its operations in Russia after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The removal of the job postings comes as the social media company has faced criticism for promoting pro-Putin propaganda and reportedly allowing its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to access private U.S. consumer data.

The company had advertised for numerous openings in Russia, including revenue planning managers, industry analysts, and monetization strategists. While TikTok often stresses its independence from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, several of the Russian job ads request Mandarin Chinese speakers, with one stating that “fluency in Mandarin would be [a] distinct advantage” for candidates.

It’s unclear if the posts were removed because the positions were filled. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

Many news outlets depicted Twitter’s suspension of business in Russia as part of a global corporate boycott campaign. But the company’s actions ended up aiding the Putin regime’s efforts to control information on the platform, according to a Washington Post report in June, by allowing state-run outlets to post propaganda while censoring outside information.

Last week, the leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate concerns that TikTok “may be collecting biometric data such as faceprints and voiceprints” from its U.S. user base, and that this information could be accessed by the Chinese government.

In a letter to the FTC, the senators cited leaked audio recordings from TikTok meetings that revealed engineers at ByteDance were able to obtain U.S. user data, despite assurances from the social media company that these private records were inaccessible to China. The recordings were first reported by BuzzFeed last month.

“In light of this new report, we ask that your agency immediately initiate … [an] investigation on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok, and coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice,” wrote Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chairman Mark Warner (D., Va.) and vice chairman Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) in the letter last week.

“TikTok’s Trust and Safety department was aware of these improper access practices and governance irregularities, which—according to internal recordings of TikTok deliberations—offered PRC-based employees unfettered access to user information, including birthdates, phone numbers, and device identification information.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) calls himself a “relentless advocate for Ohio’s working families,” but his nearly two-decade stretch in Washington, D.C., has resulted in passing just four bills, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of his sponsored legislation.

Of those laws, three of them were to rename federal buildings, including a post office in Tallmadge, Ohio. The fourth bill transferred the ownership of a Ravenna, Ohio, building from the federal government to the Ohio government.

Ryan, who is running for Ohio’s open Senate seat in November, first entered Congress in 2003 after serving a half term in the Ohio Senate. He claims on his campaign website that he has spent his time in Washington, D.C., working on, among other things, bipartisan legislation to solve the opioid crisis, strengthen entitlements, and bring jobs back from overseas. “Tim has spent his career fighting for Ohio workers,” Ryan’s campaign website reads.

But none of that rhetoric has translated into bills signed into law and raises questions about Ryan’s central campaign pitch: That he’s a bipartisan dealmaker looking to overcome partisan divides. Generally, incumbents try to sell voters on their record. In Ryan’s case, he speaks about what is possible if Democrats maintain control of the Senate—rather than what he has accomplished.

“So we have to invest into our people. Into child care. Into our families. Into our kids. Into shop class,” Ryan said at a recent campaign stop. “Into building resiliency for our kids, so that they have the grit and the determination to go out in this world that’s crazy as can be.”

Ryan’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The last bill that Ryan sponsored that was signed into law was in January 2021. That law renamed a Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic. Before then, Ryan had not seen any of his bills signed into law since 2014.

“Career politician Tim Ryan has cheated Mahoning Valley working families,” said Ohio Republican Party chairman Bob Paduchik. “Ryan’s record of failure is obvious, but if you want a post office named then he is your man.”

Despite his odes to bipartisanship, Ryan has a voting record in Congress indistinguishable from the most partisan Democrats. According to a “Biden Score” tracker from FiveThirtyEight, Ryan votes with resident Joe Biden 100 percent of the time—more than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).

Ryan’s attempt to overcome the perception that he is another vote for Biden—who has the lowest job approval rating of any president in the history of modern polling—in a state former president Donald Trump won by 8 points in 2020 has resulted in some awkwardness. 

Earlier this month, he was one of the only major Ohio Democrats who did not attend Biden’s speech in Cleveland. Ryan’s campaign said his absence was due to a scheduling conflict. 

On the campaign trail, Ryan steers away from the Democratic Party label as much as possible. In one instance, Ryan seemingly lifted his anti-opioid proposal from a bill by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.).

Ryan will face off against Republican J.D. Vance for the Senate seat held by retiring Republican senator Rob Portman. Vance is a heavy favorite in the race. A June poll conducted by USA Today/Suffolk University found Ryan trailing Vance by 3 points.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Montgomery County to teach Southern Poverty Law Center-inspired ‘social justice’ curriculum

This is treason, pure and simple. The oligarchs funding this assault and other assaults like it are the only ones practicing white supremacy [US Patriot]

Maryland’s largest school district next school year will teach elementary schoolers how to combat “privilege” and “systemic racism,” even as about half of its students lack proficiency in math and language arts.

The Montgomery County Board of Education amended its fourth and fifth grade social studies curriculum to include “Social Justice Standards” for “antiracist” education, according to a July 5 announcement. The revised standards, which were developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, lay out scenarios for students to exercise “antibias,” such as responding to a classmate with two mothers or a boy playing with dolls. Students also learn about their “identity” in the context of the “dominant culture” and “recognize unfairness on the individual level (e.g., biased speech) and injustice at the institutional or systemic level (e.g., discrimination).”

The curriculum, which will take effect in 2023-2024 school year, comes as Montgomery County’s most recent report card reveals elementary school students did not meet district-mandated academic achievement goals. Report cards also have not been published since the pandemic.

A mother of a rising fifth grader at Montgomery County Public Schools told the Washington Free Beacon the standards are reminiscent of her upbringing in Poland before the fall of the Soviet Union. She said she doesn’t want her children to carry the heavy burden of indoctrination that she had to bear growing up in a communist nation.

“It’s robbing children of their childhood,” she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing her job. “I am not against social justice at all. I am not against equality, but I feel like this has to be an organic conversation between a parent and a child. … Adults are pushing their agenda on children. I just don’t think this is the right thing to do. It’s so disheartening and upsetting.”

Democrats and left-wing school officials across the country have advocated for education initiatives to forthrightly teach children about systemic racism. Last week, Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes called the founding of the United States “awful” and said the country must take steps to “repair the harm” through education, the Free Beacon reported. Public school officials in Virginia in 2021 forced teachers to update curricula with lessons on identity and privilege to dismantle “white supremacy” and “systemic racism.” One third grade teacher in California asked students last year to identify themselves as “privileged” or “oppressed.”

Harold Maldonado, the father of a rising fourth grader at MCPS, told the Free Beacon he is “concerned and appalled” at what his child will be taught and is considering homeschooling.

“We as parents need to wake up and see the writing on the wall because our kids are being taught inappropriate things,” Maldonado said. “I want my kid to learn about math and history, and for her to improve her reading, and this is not what education is about.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a wealthy liberal advocacy group, began its effort to remake America’s classrooms in 1991, encouraging “tolerance” education while promoting the work of domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, who founded the Weather Underground, a left-wing, militant group responsible for multiple bombings in the 1970s. In 2018, the SPLC published a report titled “Teaching Hard History: American Slavery,” which suggested educators had not given sufficient attention in curricula to the issue of slavery in the nation’s history. As part of a network of other left-wing groups, the SPLC has developed the standards now known to push critical race theory in schools.

MCPS is in the process of developing similar curricula for kindergarten through third grade to institute by 2026. Its curriculum office did not respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Neveen Ayesh wants to ‘set Israel on fire’

Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.) spent years cultivating a relationship with a pro-Palestinian activist who once tweeted that she wants to “set Israel on fire with my own hands & watch it burn to ashes along with every Israeli in it.”

Bush, a member of the far-left “Squad” of lawmakers known for their anti-Israel attitudes, has been working alongside anti-Israel activist Neveen Ayesh since at least 2017, according to information published by Canary Mission, a watchdog group that tracks anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists online. While Bush has publicly condemned attacks on the Jewish community, her relationship with Ayesh and other anti-Israel activists is drawing accusations that these statements are empty rhetoric.

Ayesh, who has been active in several leading anti-Israel groups, including American Muslims for Palestine, organized a 2020 fundraiser for Bush that featured Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), one of Congress’s most vocal opponents of the Jewish state, and Linda Sarsour, an activist who has repeatedly used anti-Semitic rhetoric. An invitation for the fundraiser, titled “Muslims for Cori,” is accessible on the ActBlue website, an online donation portal used by Democrats.

The relationship between Ayesh and Bush is raising fresh questions about the congresswoman’s support for anti-Israel causes and willingness to partner with individuals who have expressed hatred toward Jewish people.

“Neveen Ayesh has shown support for terror organizations, wants to kill every Israeli, and called being Jewish a crime worthy of the rope,” a Canary Mission spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. “Her anti-Semitism is publicly known information. It was even discussed on the floor of the Missouri House of Representatives. However, Cori Bush had no problem benefiting from a fundraiser organized by Ayesh and enjoys a long-standing relationship with her.”

Bush, the watchdog group said, must provide her constituents with “an explanation.” A Bush spokesman did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment on the 2020 fundraiser and the congresswoman’s relationship with Ayesh. Bush and Ayesh were pictured together as recently as 2020 and as early as 2017 during a trip to the Middle East.

Ayesh in February defended Hamas, comparing the group’s armed resistance against Israel to Ukraine’s war against “their oppressors” in Russia. People “somehow have an issue with Palestinians doing the same,” she tweeted.

Ayesh has lambasted Israel on social media and wished death upon its citizens, posts that were made before she formed an alliance with Bush. Many of the most controversial tweets have since been deleted but remain archived online, with original screenshots, by Canary Mission.

“I want to set Israel on fire with my own hands & watch it burn to ashes along with every Israeli in it,” Ayesh tweeted in February 2014.

“Once again I want to personally set Israel & all the Israelis in it on fire & watch them burn to ashes. Burn you bastards #IHateYou,” she wrote one month later.

“I hope I will be alive to witness the death of Israel,” another March 2014 tweet says.

“I tried befriending a Jew once. Worst idea ever,” she stated in September 2013.

In August 2011, Ayesh tweeted that “being a Jew” is a crime “worthy of the rope” and several days later wrote, “Jews #WorstThingInTheWorld.”

Ayesh also has expressed a willingness to join Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group that has killed Americans and Israelis.

“I should join al-Qassam,” Ayesh tweeted in August 2014 alongside a photo of armed Hamas militants. “Be the first female to join their group lololol #IdLoveToThough.”

Ayesh also has compared Israel to the Nazis, writing in February 2017 that it looks like Israeli Jews “miss nazism considering they nostalgically replicate&apply its values&model unless theres something I dont get w/ Zionism.”

The 2020 fundraiser with Bush was held just months after members of the Missouri State House of Representatives publicly chastised Ayesh following her testimony in favor of a bill to economically boycott Israel. Ayesh supported the bill and said the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which she supports, is peaceful. Lawmakers and experts have condemned the BDS movement and other anti-Israel campaigns as fueling anti-Jewish hatred, which has reached record levels in America, particularly on college campuses, where BDS is popular.

Ayesh said during the hearing that she studied in the United States “with Jewish people, befriend[ed] them, and some of them are the closest people to me today”—though her tweets paint a different picture.

Following her testimony in favor of the anti-Israel legislation, lawmakers read Ayesh’s anti-Semitic tweets publicly and condemned her rhetoric.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

The Army suspended a decorated general for criticizing a tweet by first lady Jill Biden, USA Today reported.

The branch released retired three-star lieutenant general Gary Volesky, a veteran of the wars in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan, from advising senior officers because of his June 25 response to a Jill Biden tweet about the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade.

“For nearly 50 years, women have had the right to make our own decisions about our bodies,” the first lady tweeted. “Today, that right was stolen from us.”

“Glad to see you finally know what a woman is,” Volesky replied.

Volesky’s tweet has since been taken down.

Volesky was likely talking about Biden’s support for transgender rights, a cause the military has also embraced. As Russia this year began its bloodthirsty invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. Army was training officers on “gender pronouns” and “when to offer soldiers gender transition surgery,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. Top-ranking General Mark Milley, who secretly promised to warn the Chinese People’s Liberation Army about U.S. military actions, has in recent years embraced left-wing causes, saying he wants to “understand white rage” and apologizing for appearing with former president Donald Trump.

This is the second time this month that the Army has punished service members for disagreeing with someone in the Biden White House. The Army announced July 1 that it will deprive soldiers of pay and benefits if they do not comply with the administration’s vaccine mandate.

Volesky, who retired in 2020, received the Silver Star, the military’s third-highest decoration for valor, the New York Post reported. He served as the Army’s chief of public affairs from 2012 to 2014 and commanded the 101st Airborne Division.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried has promised to legalize marijuana

The Florida Democrat who promised to “legalize weed” if elected governor owns a stake in a marijuana dispensary worth thousands of dollars.

Florida commissioner of agriculture Nikki Fried holds more than $130,000 of stock in cannabis dispensary Harvest Health and Recreation Inc., according to her most recent financial disclosure. The dispensary was acquired in October 2021 by Trulieve, the nation’s most profitable medical marijuana company, which sells cannabis in 117 locations in Florida. Fried confirmed her stake in the cannabis dispensary during a June 2021 interview, shortly after launching her gubernatorial campaign. At the time, Fried denied that her dispensary holdings posed a conflict of interest, since her office did not “regulate [the] marijuana space.”

Fried, a former medical marijuana lobbyist, has fought to advance marijuana interests throughout her career. Fried’s pro-pot platform helped her win the agriculture commissioner’s seat in 2018. The following year, her office lobbied for a bill legalizing hemp, a cannabis plant stripped of the majority of its psychoactive component. Fried handed out nearly 800 hemp cultivation licenses, including at least one to a firm that counted her former fiancée as an investor.

Florida legalized medical marijuana in 2015. Fried, who holds a medical marijuana card herself, championed the cause. She continues to advocate for legal recreational marijuana for all adults. Florida lawmakers have attempted a variety of recreational marijuana legalization efforts, including a bill proposed by state house Democrats to legalize recreational marijuana, which died in March. The state Supreme Court in 2021 rejected two proposed ballot amendments to the state constitution aimed at expanding marijuana access.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R., Fla.) campaign spokeswoman Lindsey Curnutte said Fried is “pushing her own interests ahead of what’s best for the people of Florida.”

“This is a classic example of Democrat disingenuousness,” Curnutte told the Washington Free Beacon. “It has nothing to do with freedom or democracy, but rather it’s all personal and political.”

Fried is vying for the Democratic nomination against former Florida governor Charlie Crist (D.), who shares her stance on marijuana legalization. Fried is trailing Crist by a large margin, according to St. Pete Polls’s latest survey. Whichever candidate emerges from the Aug. 23 primary will face DeSantis in November. A Real Clear Politics average of polls suggests DeSantis would prevail over either Democratic challenger.

This is not the first time Fried’s business interests have gotten her in hot water. In 2021, the Florida Commission on Ethics reprimanded Fried for failing to disclose $400,000 in lobbying income.

Fried is set to release her Fiscal Year 2021 financial disclosures by Sept. 1. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

As Biden depletes US oil reserve, China amasses huge stockpile

Resident Joe Biden’s decision to deplete America’s oil reserves is helping a top adversary—China, which has built up its own stockpile while taking advantage of Biden’s firesale.

Biden’s Department of Energy in April sold roughly one million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation, which is wholly owned by the Chinese government. That decision came just two months after Unipec launched an “unusual buying spree” aimed at boosting China’s own oil reserves.

The communist nation’s strategy was clearly successful—from mid-March to mid-May, China increased its oil reserves from 869 million barrels to 926 million barrels, according to Bloomberg. America’s oil reserves, meanwhile, are in freefall under Biden. The Democrat inherited 638 million barrels of reserve oil; that number is set to drop to 384.6 million barrels, the lowest level since 1984.

China’s newfound oil reserve advantage poses a serious national security threat, Republican lawmakers told the Washington Free Beacon. As war rages on in Ukraine, China has strengthened its energy relationship with Russia—in May, for example, Beijing entered discussions with Moscow to buy discounted Russian oil to further fill its reserves. For Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), that development stresses the need to ramp up U.S. energy production “rather than begging foreign governments for more supply.”

“At a time when millions of Americans are suffering financially at the gas pump, Joe Biden is helping replenish our biggest adversary’s energy reserves with our own damn oil,” Waltz said. “It’s astonishing how clueless this administration is when it comes to trusting bad actors like China to help alleviate our economy. If we want to compete with China, we need to begin expanding production here at home by expanding federal drilling leases and building more pipelines.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska) echoed Waltz’s remarks, calling the fall of American energy independence under Biden “national security suicide.”

“Make no mistake: The biggest fans of Biden’s radical energy policies are Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin,” Sullivan told the Free Beacon. “We are in a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Russia and China. The Biden administration needs to wake up to the fact that this new era—and our need for oil and gas—will be with us for decades to come.”

Neither the White House nor the Department of Energy returned requests for comment. 

It’s unclear if the reserve oil Biden sold to Unipec went directly to China’s own reserves, but the sale helped China grow its stockpile regardless, Power the Future founder and executive director Daniel Turner argued. Even if Unipec released the oil it purchased from the Biden administration into the global market, Turner said, the sale gave the state-controlled company additional supply that would allow China to place oil from other sources into its reserves.

“The energy market’s uncertainty is a good reason for any country to stockpile oil in their strategic reserves, yet America is seemingly depleting its oil reserves to help China fill theirs,” Turner told the Free Beacon. “China couldn’t create a more favorable economic and national security approach to strategic oil reserves if they had created it themselves.”

The Biden administration claimed its sale of 950,000 Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to Unipec would “address the pain Americans are feeling at the pump” and combat “Putin’s price hike.” In the months following the sale, however, the national average for a gallon of gas surpassed $5 for the first time ever. Unipec also ramped up its shipments of Russian oil in May, giving Putin a much-needed income source as Russia’s economy slumps in the face of Western sanctions.

While the Biden administration has blamed sky-high gas prices on Russia’s war, prices at the pump were increasing long before Putin invaded Ukraine. Biden railed against the oil and gas industry on the campaign trail in 2020, pledging to “end fossil fuel.” He went on to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and halt new gas leases on federal land during his first month in office. Those decisions have not been well received—nearly 75 percent of Americans are not satisfied with the federal government’s national energy policy, the highest level in roughly two decades, according to a January Gallup poll.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The Biden Justice Department has yet to take action against abortion extremists menacing pro-life clinics and members of the Supreme Court. Republican lawmakers are resolved to hold leadership accountable after the midterm elections—even if that means impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who is in line to take over the House Judiciary Committee if Republicans prevail in November, didn’t take a Garland impeachment inquiry off the table in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. Jordan cited a range of alleged misconduct, from failure to enforce black-letter law to protect clinics and justices, to secret collusion with leftwing groups opposed to parents protesting woke curricula changes.

“That’ll be a decision that will be made by the entire conference,” Jordan said of an impeachment push.

The oversight planning is a response to conflict roiling the country following the High Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Pro-abortion protesters tried running Justice Brett Kavanaugh out of a downtown Washington, D.C., steakhouse on Wednesday night, weeks after a gunman came to his home planning to assassinate him. And the militant pro-abortion network Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for more than a dozen acts against pro-life clinics and churches, ranging from vandalism to fire-bombing.

It is a federal crime to demonstrate outside of a judge’s home with intent to influence deliberations. Regular pro-abortion demonstrations outside the homes of the conservative justices seem to fit that bill exactly. The Justice Department has taken no action against protesters as of this writing. Local police told inquiring neighbors that federal agencies are declining to enforce the judicial anti-picketing law, according to a Fox News report.

Jordan wonders whether the Justice Department and the White House are following a template.

“The key question we would like to find out, if in fact the American people put us in control, is was this similar to what happened with parents at school board meetings? In other words, was the Biden White House working with some outside left wing influence groups, and also then communicating that information to the DOJ?” Jordan said.

The Ohio Republican added that a dozen whistleblowers have quietly come forward to speak about the Biden Justice Department and FBI matters, though he declined to get into specifics.

The Free Beacon was first to report that White House aides colluded with the National School Boards Association to push the Justice Department into investigating parents protesting critical race theory and gender ideology as domestic terrorists.

It’s also a federal crime to attack or destroy houses of worship and clinics for pregnant women. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who enforces those laws, has derided pro-life clinics in the past. While Biden administration officials have shared intelligence assessments with clerics and local law enforcement, the administration has yet to make even a single arrest or indictment related to dozens of attacks on churches and pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.

There have been almost 50 documented instances of violence, vandalism, or intimidation at houses of worship and pro-life clinics since the Dobbs draft leaked, according to a June report from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

House Republicans will be better positioned than their Senate counterparts to force Biden officials to cooperate if they stonewall investigators. Senate committee rules incentivize, but do not require, bipartisan cooperation when issuing subpoenas. The House has no such constraints. And House committees have historically taken the lead on compelled testimony and sharing of evidence.

Republican senators are putting public pressure on federal law enforcement to take immediate action. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray in June requesting a briefing on the bureau’s efforts to combat pro-abortion extremism.

“Our law enforcement officers are obliged to duly enforce the laws of our country—not just those that are politically suitable to the current administration,” Grassley’s letter reads.

“We’re usually the tip of the spear in terms of shining a light on issues and embarrassing an agency into compliance,” a Republican Senate aide told the Free Beacon. “The more attention they get for ignoring congressional oversight, the worse it looks for them. And that’s a pretty effective tactic for us.”

Outside groups are also pressing GOP lawmakers for accountability. Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, said there is ample reason to remove Garland from office. Davis was nominations chief for Grassley during the Kavanaugh confirmation and led the outside support team for Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation.

“When Republicans reclaim the House in January, they must impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland,” Davis told the Free Beacon. “There must be consequences for his dangerous dereliction of duty that has led to highly dangerous attacks on the Supreme Court of the United States.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon