The Pentagon has revealed that on Tuesday US forces fired on and took down an alleged 'Iranian-made' drone that was threating a base in Syria where US troops are stationed.
The base is located in northeastern Syria, and the drone flew toward Mission Support Site Conoco, named for the huge gas field that US-backed forces have for years occupied in Deir Ezzor province.
US Central Command said the drone was shot down mid-afternoon on Tuesday, following several recent attacks on US positions in the region, and also amid a spate of attacks at the Syria-Iraq border base of al-Tanf.
One of the biggest recent incidents at Conoco gas field involved an August skirmish wherein the US counter-attacked against what were believed to be Iran-backed fighters. The Pentagon at the time said it took out four enemy militants and destroyed rocket launchers.
It's unclear whether the attacks have indeed originated from 'Iranian militias' or else Syrian nationalist militias, or perhaps both, given the close alliance and cooperation among Iranian operatives and Syrian forces.
CENTCOM took the rare step in this latest instance of publishing photographs of what appears a large drone over US positions, and it going up in flames after being engaged by US forces...
This fresh drone shootdown incident comes following a deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake which rocked the whole region, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving entire towns and villages as rubble.
“If the debt limit remains unchanged, the government’s ability to borrow using extraordinary measures will be exhausted between July and September 2023,” the CBO estimated.
More ominously, they warn that lower tax receipts could bring the 'x date' even closer...
The projected exhaustion date is uncertain because the timing and amount of revenue collections and outlays over the intervening months could differ from CBO’s projections.
In particular, income tax receipts in April could be more or less than CBO estimates.
If those receipts fell short of estimated amounts - for example, if capital gains realizations in 2022 were smaller or if U.S. income growth slowed by more in early calendar year 2023 than CBO projected - the extraordinary measures could be exhausted sooner, and the Treasury could run out of funds before July.
CBO concludes that if the debt limit was not raised or suspended, the Treasury would not be authorized to issue additional debt other than to replace maturing securities.
That restriction would ultimately lead to delayed payments for some government activities, a default on the government’s debt obligations, or both.
The credit market continues to worry about the chance of a USA sovereign default (or devaluation)...
Source: Bloomberg
And the Treasury Bill curve is 'kinked' in that July-to-September period...
And while it appears the Bill market sees a return to normal after the game of chicken is complete in late Summer, we note, in a different more broad report, CBO projects something a lot more ominous...
Federal debt held by the public is projected to rise from 98 percent of GDP in 2023 to 118 percent in 2033 - an average increase of 2 percentage points per year. Over that period, the growth of interest costs and mandatory spending outpaces the growth of revenues and the economy, driving up debt.
Those factors persist beyond 2033, pushing federal debt higher still, to 195 percent of GDP in 2053.
So expect a lot more 'debt ceiling debacles' to come... or end of the dollar hegemony at some point.
Affidavits claim Joe's younger brother Jim was at the center of a $140m settlement between a US construction company and Saudi Arabia in 2012
Biden was selected because Saudi Arabia 'would not dare stiff the brother of the Vice-President who would be instrumental to the deal'
Jim allegedly said: 'Of course, the [Biden] name didn't hurt' as wife Sara said that Joe and his brother 'told each other everything'
President Biden's brother was hired to engage in secret negotiations with the Saudi government on behalf of a US construction company because of his relationship with the then vice president, legal documents claim.
Jim Biden was selected because Saudi Arabia 'would not dare stiff the brother of the Vice-President who would be instrumental to the deal,' bombshell affidavits obtained by DailyMail.com allege.
Joe's younger brother Jim, 73, was at the center of a $140million settlement negotiation between Hill International and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2012.
According to the documents, Jim told a former senior US Treasury official working as a private investigator that he was hired to negotiate with the Saudis 'because of his position and relationship' to VP Joe Biden – who led delegations to Saudi Arabia at the time.
Affidavits claim Joe' Biden's younger brother Jim, 73, was at the center of a $140m settlement between a US construction company and Saudi Arabia in 2012
A February 2011 contract obtained by DailyMail.com shows Hill International hired three law firms, R.L. Walker & Co., Lankford & Reed, and Poblete Tamargo, to help rake back $140m from the Saudis
In an affidavit the former Treasury official, Thomas Sullivan, described his sit-down interview with Jim Biden about being hired to negotiate with the Saudis.
Sullivan claimed the President's brother told him: 'Of course, the [Biden] name didn't hurt', and Jim's wife Sara, who was present, allegedly said that Joe and his brother 'told each other everything.'
'[Biden] stated that he was often sent to meetings to represent Hill because 'of course, the name didn't hurt,' and he was the former Vice-President's brother, or words to that effect. He repeated this statement at least twice during the interview.
'I asked specifically if he had attended a meeting with the Saudi Ministry of Trade in mid-February 2012 to receive the final payment for the work Hill had performed. He answered that, to the best of his memory, he had been at such a meeting, and that the reason he had attended was "because of his position and relationship" with his brother.'
In a May 2022 affidavit, Lankford & Reed partner V. Thomas Lankford (pictured) described the deal
Jim Biden's role in the Saudi negotiation emerged after a spat between the US construction firm Hill and their erstwhile lawyers over a payout from the Saudis.
The Saudi government owed Hill $140million for their work building desalination plants in the Middle Eastern kingdom dating back to the 1980s.
A February 2011 contract obtained by DailyMail.com shows Hill hired three law firms, R.L. Walker & Co., Lankford & Reed, and Poblete Tamargo, to help rake back the money.
For years their negotiations were part of the 'Special Claims Process', a US government program to settle the kingdom's unpaid debts to American firms.
But Lankford & Reed claims Hill also hired Jim around 2011 to fix a back-door settlement for $100million, and failed to pay the lawyers their 40% cut after years of working on the case.
In a May 2022 affidavit, Lankford & Reed partner V. Thomas Lankford described the alleged double-cross.
'After many delays, a meeting was finally scheduled for mid-February, 2012, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,' he wrote. 'The Professional Firms were excluded from this meeting. Hill, acting through [its CEO, Irvin] Richter, sent Jim Biden – the then sitting Vice President's brother.
'Richter confided that he selected Biden because KSA [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] would not dare stiff the brother of the Vice-President who would be instrumental to the deal.
Thomas Sullivan, a former director in the enforcement division at the Treasury Department, interviewed Jim at his home in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, on July 16 2017, according to Sullivan's affidavit
Sullivan added that he had a brief exchange with Jim's attorney wife Sara, who told him 'he doesn't like us talking to people'
The Republican-led congress has promised an exhaustive investigation into influence peddling by members of Biden's family, including son Hunter
The lawyer claimed that Jim later 'admitted that KSA and Hill had secretly agreed to settle the claim through the award of future contracts.
'Mr. Biden further confirmed that Richter used Biden as a settlement intermediary in order to capitalize on the influence and orchestration of the settlement by the then Vice-President,' Lankford wrote.
The lawyers hired an investigator to question Jim and his wife about the alleged back-door deal, and they allegedly obtained some shocking admissions from the President's brother.
Sullivan interviewed Jim at his home in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, on July 16, 2017, according to Sullivan's affidavit.
'I asked Mr. Biden to describe his position with Hill International,' the former Treasury official wrote. 'He said that he had been hired to do "business development" work for them and that Saudi Arabia was a country that Hill had him assigned to assist with.
'James stated that he was told that the final payment would be made in both cash and "a very large amount" of new future contract work.'
Sullivan added that he had a brief exchange with Jim’s attorney wife Sara, who told him ‘he doesn’t like us talking to people’.
The affidavit does not specify who 'he' refers to, but a source briefed on the case told DailyMail.com that it was Joe Biden.
'I didn't ask for a further explanation since I was looking at two large men in dark suits, in a big black sedan parked on a side street looking directly into their house down the walkway I had just exited,' Sullivan wrote. 'I thought they were some type of security, probably Secret Service.'
Joe Biden's family were not entitled to Secret Service protection at the time, as he had ended his term as Vice President.
'Sara and I walked to my car. She told me that her husband and his brother were very close, and that they told each other everything. I reached inside to give her a card, and just as I did, a blue sedan, with a single male driving, pulled quickly into their driveway. She said 'See what I mean?'
Sullivan told DailyMail.com that he was not authorized to comment further.
'He stated that he was often sent to meetings to represent Hill because 'of course, the name didn't hurt,' and he was the former Vice-President's brother, or words to that effect
Lankford described the alleged double-cross in the May 2022 affidavit
Lankford and the other attorneys involved did not respond to requests for comment.
Joe Biden has denied knowledge of his family's foreign business dealings, but the revealing comments by Jim and his wife in the 2021 affidavit could cast doubt on those claims.
When reached, Sara Biden declined to comment and Jim Biden did not respond to comment requests.
A source close to the case told DailyMail.com that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has a copy of the affidavits and other case files, and is investigating them as part of his committee’s probe into the Biden family’s business dealings.
The Republican-led congress has promised an exhaustive investigation into influence-peddling by members of Biden's family, including Hunter and Jim.
Jim has previously been scrutinized for his links to Hill International.
The company's housing subsidiary, HillStone International, hired Jim as an executive vice president in late 2010, and Jim took a minority ownership stake in the company.
Six months later it won a $1.5billion deal to build at least 100,000 affordable homes in Iraq, in part thanks to the Obama State Department. Joe Biden was Obama's point man on Iraq at the time.
Richter told the New York Post in 2012 that Jim's familial connection played no part in landing the deal.
However, Richter's son David Richter, who later became President of Hill International, told a private meeting of investors in 2015 that it helped to have 'the brother of the vice president as a partner', according to a Fox News report the following year.
Despite Jim's lack of experience in the construction industry, Hill CEO Irv Richter called him a 'good salesman', while their website trumpeted his '40 years of experience dealing with principals in business, political, legal and financial circles across the nation and internationally.'
The deal later fell apart when the Iraqi government failed to provide financing.
In 2020, David denied having any ties to Jim.
'I have no ties to the Bidens. Jim Biden worked at a Hill subsidiary for a couple of years. That subsidiary did not report to me. I was not in favor of investing in that company,' he told the New Jersey Globe.
'After several years of failure, it was shut down at my insistence, and I've never seen or heard from Jim Biden since.'
