90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

New State memos disclose relentless pressure by Hunter Biden-connected Ukrainian firm

Key Senate chairman vows subpoena after documents provided to Just the News under FOIA, but not Senate investigators.

The Ukrainian natural gas firm that appointed Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter to a lucrative board seat relentlessly pressured the State Department throughout the 2016 election in an effort to get corruption allegations against it dropped and its badly damaged reputation rehabilitated, newly released government memos show.

"They keep trying through every channel they can," a State Department official lamented in summer 2016, describing a nonstop lobbying campaign by Burisma Holdings and its American representatives.

The memos, released to Just the News under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit assisted by the Southeastern Foundation, add new significance to a long-running Senate investigation into the Bidens' activities and perceived conflicts of interest in Ukraine.

For instance, they show far more contact between Burisma and the U.S. embassy in Kiev than was acknowledged by witnesses during President Trump's impeachment proceedings earlier this year. One issue in that trial was the more than $3 million Hunter Biden's firm collected from Burisma while his father supervised Ukraine policy for President Obama.

The memos obtained by Just the News also were withheld from Senate investigators, who learned of their existence from...

Gundlach, Who Correctly Called The 2016 Presidential Election, Predicts Trump Will Win Again

Back in early, DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach made a prediction that was viewed as anathema in "serious" circles: he said that Donald Trump would win the 2016 presidential election. And much to the chagrin of all his "serious" colleagues, he was proven correct which is why earlier today we said that the one thing we were most curious about from Gundlach's latest webcast was who he thinks would win this time around.

Well, we got the answer, and once again if Gundlach is correct a whole lot of "experts" (not to mention pollsters) will again be humiliated on Nov 4, because according to the bond king Trump will once again emerge victorious.

One would not know it based on such online betting sites as PredictIt (which incidentally are remarkably illiquid, and extremely easy to manipulate by anyone with modestly deep pockets), which show Biden as a clear favorite with a roughly 15 point lead...

... but then again the "experts" and odds in 2016 also said Trump had no chance of victory.

So it makes sense to ignore the pollsters, the online bookies and the exports who were dead wrong in 2016, and focus on those who called it right.

With that in mind, during a Q&A on his Tuesday afternoon webcast, Gundlach said that "my base case is actually that Donald Trump will win re-election," adding that he'd "bet against" former Vice President Joe Biden defeating Trump in November.

"I think polls are very, very squishy right now because of the highly toxic political environment in which we live," the 60-year-old billionaire said. Gundlach said he’s come across data suggesting that about "two-thirds of conservatives or moderate conservatives say that they have lied about their support for Donald Trump either directly or by omission."

"I just think there's a lot, a lot of time here. There's going to be twists and turns," Gundlach added.

Gundlach also voiced another contrarian view when he said that he expects "significant" volatility for markets, something which markets generally don't as it is now conventional wisdom that whoever wins will be good for risk assets.

"This go-around, I expect much greater volatility around the election as the progressive policies, so-called, of tremendous increased deficit spending for basically wealth manipulation, that could get...

"I saw him just run right up to him and [he] put the gun right up to his head and shot him."

Five-year-old Cannon Hinnant was allegedly executed at point-blank range with a gunshot to the head by 25-year-old felon Darius Nathaniel Sessoms while riding his bike and playing outside his house on Sunday evening in Wilson, North Carolina.

Hinnant's brutal murder was reportedly witnessed by his two young sisters and a neighbor who couldn't believe what she saw.

"I saw him just run right up to him and [he] put the gun right up to his head and shot him," neighbor Doris Labrant told WRAL.

Sessoms, who is the Hinnant's next-door neighbor, is being charged with first-degree murder.

Hinnant's murder is being ignored by the national media and has only been covered by local news outlets.

WATCH:

From WRAL, "Wilson man wanted in fatal shooting on 5-year-old apprehended":

Family members said Cannon Hinnant was playing outside his father's house when he was shot in the head. The boy's two sisters, ages 8 and 7, saw their brother get shot, according to Cannon's mother.

Cannon was taken to Wilson Medical Center, where he died.

No details about a possible motive for the shooting have been released, but police said the shooting wasn't random.

Sessoms lives next door to Cannon's father, and a neighbor said that the two men had dinner together Saturday night and that Sessoms was at his neighbor's home earlier Sunday.

Doris Labrant, who witnessed the shooting, said Sessoms ran up to Cannon, put the gun near his head and fired before running...