Kunstler: And Suddenly Things Change...

 by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“The global economy is becoming unburdened by what has been.”

- Jordan Schachtel on “X”

That two-by-four upside our country’s head you’ve been waiting to get whomped with? Looks like it’s landing now. We got a banger in 2008, but it didn’t make a much of an impression. Maybe you don’t even remember these people, but then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke came in like a code blue squad and hooked up the banks to an IV-drip speedball of cocaine and heroin, i.e., “money” that didn’t actually exist (a.k.a. “liquidity,” hallucinated capital), and that crew kept it coming for years.

And then Janet Yellen and her posse kept it coming with never-ending zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) until the national debt canceled America’s future. And that left Jerome Powell pretending there was a way out of this doom-loop. Then came the repo market spasm in September 2019 that freaked out the blob so badly they shut down the whole world with Covid and locked-down economies. And everything since then has been a waiting game.

The financial world was in hospice.

The wait is over. Everything that can break is breaking: stock markets, bond markets, the galaxy of derivatives — bets on this and that, which will never be honored. Banks are next. Gold and silver are hanging in there for dear life just now, because they’re actually worth something.

(And because they are worth something, they‘ll eventually sell off some too, to cover margin calls on other stuff hemorrhaging value. But they will not go to zero  like a lot of other stuff, and they’ll come back stronger.)

You understand this can’t play out like it did in 2008-9. The authorities are out of tricks and out of fake money. They can try the emergency interest rate cut, but it won’t change what is actually happening: the epic revaluation of everything humans make and own — with much of it losing value and quite a bit losing all value because it never really had any. The spooky catch is that there will be an attempt in this wild and terrifying process, for certain devious, unprincipled  parties to take possession of many things shaking loose — what remains of collateral. . . real things. . . commodities. . . facilities. . . properties. . . chattels. . . artworks. . . and, of course, whatever securities still have a relationship to realities of production.

This brings a sharp end to the current political sitcom, especially the situation of the Democratic Party. They will get blamed for the economic carnage left behind by the shattered money system.

They lied about everything for years, every number, every index, every supposed “policy”.

Kamala Harris won’t be cackling her way out of this.

It’s hard to see how she might remain the party’s nominee. She can’t even speak to the massive catalog of prior failures to govern our country coherently and effectively. And it’s equally hard to figure how “Joe Biden,” still presiding emptily over this fiasco, can get Twenty-fifthed out of the way for his feckless veep. More likely, the coming convention will be a desperate, bloody mass cage fight and somebody else will stagger out of it to go through the motions of campaigning in a hopeless cause. Hillary might even decline the roll in this horror show.

Now, I began writing this post well before dawn, eastern time. The action in Asia, across the international date line, was a slaughter. Europe got smacked hard, but not catastrophically. Maybe the Wall Street wonderboys can stop the bleeding here, but the futures numbers sure look grim. I’ll come back later when the US markets have spoken and add a few observations on the situation.

Oh, and you’ve probably noticed that World War Three is shaping up to kick off today. Interesting times. . . And I’m supposed to be on vacation this week.

*  *  *

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/and-suddenly-things-change

UN Fires Nine Gaza Staff Members Likely Involved In Oct.7 Attacks

 This looks like an admission of guilt after months of denial: "The UN said on Monday that nine staff working for its Palestine refugee agency UNRWA will be sacked because they may have been involved in the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks against Israel," a statement posted Monday to the UN's online press release section stated.

UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq confirmed that all nine will be terminated following an investigation of official allegations initially lodged by Israel that UNWRA staff had been involved in the terror attacks which killed about 1,200 people near the border with Gaza, and which resulted in 251 Israelis and foreigners taken hostage.

Illustrative: UNRWQ-run school in Gaza, AFP.

Already most countries have withdrawn funding from the UN agency - known according to its full name as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East - due to the Israeli allegations, which said that at least a dozen local Palestinian staff members took part in the attack. In total the UN said it investigated 19.

This major development is a significant reversal from the agency's stance in March, when it claimed some its employees had been pressure by Israeli security services in to making false confessions while in detention. Controversy exploded in America as well, given the outsized funding of the UN agency from Washington (and US taxpayers).

At one point in the controversy Israeli officials had claimed that a whopping 450 UNWRA staff had been involved in terrorist organizations. In total the UNRWA is known to employ 13,000 people in Gaza.

UN agencies tend to employ most people at their local country staff offices, but much fewer at their regional offices, and on up to their diplomatically credentialed staff, which is a much smaller circle of highly vetted people.

Haq's statement did not disclose what their exact involvement in the Oct.7 may have been, or whether it was a matter of operational foreknowledge. "For us, any participation in the attacks is a tremendous betrayal of the sort of work that we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people," he said.

The Israel Defense Forces on Monday reacted to the new report of the employees' mass firing, saying it shows the UNRWA has hit a "new low".

Back in January, Israel provided to The Wall Street Journal an intelligence dossier which was said to have identified the 12 local UN staff with connections to Oct.7. Included among the intelligence findings were...

Six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers were part of the wave of Palestinian militants who killed 1,200 people in the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, according to the intelligence dossier.

Two helped kidnap Israelis. Two others were tracked to sites where scores of Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Others coordinated logistics for the assault, including procuring weapons.

Of the 12 Unrwa employees with links to the attacks, seven were primary or secondary school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic language teachers and one primary school teacher.

The report described that in some cases individual UNRWA workers had actually taken part in the cross-border raids of Oct.7 - while another, a female math teacher, was found to possess a photograph of a female Israeli hostage on her phone. In one instance, a Palestinian social worker absconded with the body of a deceased Israeli soldier.

However, Monday's UN press release withheld any and all details of what the group is suspected of, or what information has been confirmed or proven.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/un-belatedly-fires-nine-gaza-staff-members-likely-involved-oct7-attacks

Harris is not a woman of her word salad — hasn’t stuck to any leftie position since 2019

 Kamala Harris gave her first unscripted remarks Thursday since ascending to the role of POTUS-in-waiting.

She and Joe Biden were standing on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews just before midnight waiting to greet four American hostages freed from Russia when a reporter managed to fire a question at the usually inaccessible pair.

For some reason, Harris answered — but with her trademark incomprehensible word salad.

“This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy,” she said.

The sound bite went viral, topping up the vast treasure trove of idiotic public pronouncements she has amassed over the past four years.

No wonder her handlers won’t let her out without a teleprompter.

Biden at least had the excuse of age-related cognitive impairment for his verbal imbecility, but what is hers?

She’s either sub-moronic or she’s hiding something.

Tough talk, but . . .

We know that she is a phony, so my guess is the latter. She’s not called “Shamala Flip Flop” for nothing.
She would rather be thought a fool than allow her true thoughts to leak out, and she has wound herself so tight throughout her vice presidency that all we have on the public record are these verbose, flaky nonstatements with a lot of hand-waving.

She might sound ridiculous, but it takes a lot of discipline not to crack the facade and speak her mind.

Unless she has had a secret traumatic brain injury in the past four years, we know that she is capable of speaking properly. She was perfectly clear about her positions when she was competing in the Democratic primaries in 2019, for instance.

“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” she told CNN. No word salad there.

“I am prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal,” she said.

On illegal migrants, she was unequivocal: “We are not going to treat people who are undocumented and cross the border as criminals, that’s correct. … I’m opposed to any policy that would deny any human being public health, period.”

On defunding police: “It is wrong-headed thinking to think that the only way you are going to get communities to be safe is to put more police officers on the street.”

On restricting gun ownership: “I support a mandatory buyback program.”

But since her 2020 presidential campaign ended in ruins, she’s learned to keep her mouth shut lest she be pinned down.

In the last week, her spokespeople have issued statements disavowing the hard-left positions she took in 2019.

When she absolutely has to speak, it is gobbledygook because her true beliefs are electoral poison in a general election.

For instance, her campaign is trying to portray the presidential contest against Donald Trump as The Prosecutor vs. The Felon, as if Harris is on the side of law and order, tougher even on the border than the former president.

Yet the opposite is the case.

She praised the “Defund the police” movement at the height of the George Floyd riots. She fundraised bail for BLM-Antifa rioters. She favored decriminalizing illegal border crossings and replacing ICE.

As California’s attorney general, Harris supported the infamous 2014 law, Proposition 47, which effectively decriminalized narcotics possession and downgraded felonies, such as theft of goods worth up to $950, as misdemeanors.

Prop 47 is set to be overturned through a ballot initiative in November that is supported by liberals fed up with the rampant crime and disorder that has wracked California in its wake.

Just as Harris, the fake “tough cop,” was weak on crime, she is weak on national security, because the same mentality prevails in which wrongdoers are treated like victims and victims are treated as nuisances.

International relations

With Biden sidelined and Harris acting as proxy president, she can be held at least equally responsible for last week’s inexplicable sweetheart plea deal (since rescinded after public outcry) for 9/11 terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and for the release on bail of the illegal Jordanian migrants who allegedly tried to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico in May.

Harris’ aggressive scolding of Israel as it tries to defend itself against an existential threat is of a piece with her lax attitude toward crime and the appeasement mentality that has prevailed in the administration, punctuated by the odd belligerent declaration.

Who could forget Biden’s call for “regime change” in Russia, quickly cleaned up by his staff. Or Harris’ inept handling of the 2022 Munich Security Conference in which she voiced word-salad admiration for Ukraine’s desire to join NATO — and the following week, Russia invaded.

Now that Harris is in the front seat, it’s clearer than ever that the US no longer commands the respect of foreign leaders.

Days after Harris and Biden lectured Benjamin Netanyahu to exercise restraint, Israel went ahead and took out a top Hezbollah commander who, by the way, had murdered 241 American service members in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut.

But there was no thank you from Biden and Harris, who reportedly berated Netanyahu in a joint “tough” phone call last week for the other strategic assassinations Israel has conducted since a Hezbollah rocket attack killed 12 children in the Golan Heights.

Would that be the same Biden who vowed bloody retribution after 13 US service members were killed by an ISIS-K bomber during his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan? “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said.

Unlike Netanyahu, Biden botched the retaliation, ordering a strike which killed an innocent Afghan aid worker and his children, and then quietly abandoning talk of avenging the 13 dead Americans.

Biden has presided over two international crises in his presidency, in Europe and in the Middle East. If Harris were to become president, she would likely face a third crisis in Asia.

Which Shamala Flip Flop would we see then? It’s a frightening thought, either way.

Hey Janet, stop Yellen about veep

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is behaving more and more like a partisan political hack.

There she was in the battleground state of Pennsylvania last week at an IRS function, shamelessly making the case for Kamala Harris.

“Vice President Harris has indicated her support for avoiding tax increases for middle-income families,” said Yellen, standing alongside Gov. Josh Shapiro, one of Harris’ top veep picks.

A few days earlier, Yellen praised her as someone who appreciates American global leadership, saying Harris “clearly, deeply understands what’s needed to make sure that families in America can thrive and can get ahead.”

The problem is that Yellen is forbidden by a 1939 law called the Hatch Act from engaging in party politics and using federal resources for political purposes.

Yellen’s distinguished predecessor James Baker resigned in 1988 so he could campaign for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush.

That way is open to Yellen. Otherwise she should stick to her day job.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/opinion/kamala-harris-isnt-a-woman-of-her-word-salad/

Walz was the first one to call Republicans ‘weird’. Progressives want him for Harris’s VP

 The midwestern football coach gave away all the money he received from the NRA and is a favorite of the online left

The week after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and a host of Democratic governors gave a press conference firmly stating their support for the president. During the Republican National Convention, Waltz showed up in neighboring Wisconsin for counter-programming.

Then, Biden announced he would not seek re-election and passed the torch to Kamala Harris. All of a sudden, the former high school football coach with a heavy midwestern accent and former congressman who represented a district that voted for Donald Trump found himself in the hunt to be Harris’s running mate.

Walz faces stiff competition from contenders like Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Harris is expected to announce her running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday.

“Someone like him or someone like Governor Beshear [as a veep pick] would be absolutely beneficial to competing for rural votes,” Matt Barron, a political consultant who worked with Walz in the past and specializes in electing Democrats in rural areas, told The Independent.

Just days before President Joe Biden dropped out, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (right) stood behind him. Now he’s a favorite to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. (Getty Images)

Walz has also earned plaudits from progressives for passing a series of priorities like free school meals for children regardless of income status, paid family leave, paid sick leave and gun legislation.

“It's one of those things where Minnesotans are having this [moment] like: Oh my gosh, do we have to share him with the rest of the country?” Senator Erin Maye Quade, who serves in Minnesota’s legislature as a senator, told The Independent. “This was a really lovely secret that we kept from the rest of the rest of the country. Like, they still think we're flyover world.”

Walz, who calls himself the “anti-Tommy Tuberville,” delivered a pep talk during the White Dudes for Harris Zoom call.

“How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world?” he said. “And how often in the world do you make that b*****d wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his ass and sent him on the road?”

But since his rise to prominence, Walz has set the main tone for Democrats by hitting them with one word: weird.

“These are weird people on the other side,” he said on MSNBC last month. “They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room.”

Since then, Harris’s campaign, and Democrats as a whole, have glommed onto the idea that their opponents are weird. The term has irritated numerous Republicans from Vance to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. And it might just be Walz’s ticket to become Harris’s teammate.

“I think the governor will also be an outstanding contender for the job and he is really demonstrating over these last few weeks... what those of us in Minnesota have known for a long time. He's a straight shooter who knows how to talk to people like he's a human being,” Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota told The Independent.

Some progressives also appreciate that Walz has taken a more empathetic tone toward activists worried about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. When a large number of Minnesotans voted “uncommitted” in the state’s primary, he said on CNN: “Their message is clear that they think this is an intolerable situation and that we can do more, and I think the president’s hearing that.”

“I think that [Walz] brings something special to the table, in the sense of, while there is no bad option, he's able to speak to this group that feels so disenfranchised in a way that no one else can,” Sunjay Muralitharan, the national vice president for the College Democrats of America, told The Independent.

Being on a ticket as a progressive champion is a peculiar bookend for Walz, who won his first election to Congress as a Blue Dog Democrat representing a rural district in 2006. That year, Democrats recruited numerous pro-gun rural candidates and veterans like Walz, who was a command sergeant major in the National Guard.

But in 2016, as Donald Trump began to dominate in rural areas, Walz won re-election by a little more than 2,549 votes after Trump won his district.

In the next election, he chose to run for governor. And in 2018, after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, he gave away money he had received from the National Rifle Association, which has earned the praise of activists focused on ending gun violence like March for Our Lives co-founder David Hogg.

Since then, he’s passed a red flag law as governor and has received “F” ratings from the NRA.

Trump has also criticized Walz for allowing rioting in Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd.

“I sent in the National Guard to save Minneapolis,” Trump said in a rally last month — though actually it was Walz, not Trump, who deployed the National Guard, albeit later than some in Minneapolis wanted.

Walz has stayed firmly on the offensive as the election cycle continues. When Trump held a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina recently and spoke about the fictional Silence of the Lambs character Hannibal Lecter as if he were a real person, Walz went to his usual response on X/Twitter.

“Say it with me: Weird,” he said.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/tim-walz-minnesota-running-mate-b2589855.html

Tillis: Taxpayers without student loans should not pay for those of others

 North Carolinians without student loans “should not have to pay for someone else’s degree,” US Sen. Thom Tillis says.

For the 87% in the state’s population without student loan debt, the state’s senior senator says worsening inequality and adding $1.4 trillion to national debt through President Joe Biden’s student loan payment plan is not right. Tillis joined two colleagues cosponsoring reintroduction of the Student Loan Accountability Act put forth by Utah’s Mitt Romney.

In a chamber led by Democrats, the bill has been read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Nineteen Democrats and four independents caucusing with the party are in the 33 U.S. Senate seats up for election to six-year terms through 2031, with another one of two in special elections to fill unexpired terms.

“President Biden’s illegal student loan cancellation plan is grossly unfair for the millions of people who have worked hard and sacrificed to pay off their student loans,” Tillis said in a statement. “Additionally, hardworking North Carolinians, many of whom do not have student loans themselves, should not have to pay for someone else’s degree. Instead, we must address the root causes of the rising cost of higher education, and I am proud to introduce this legislation with my colleagues to hold President Biden accountable and prevent him from causing more irreparable damage.”

Biden, on the day of his inauguration more than three years ago, paused student loan repayments. As he campaigned in April 2020, Biden vowed to “forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities and private HBCUs and MSIs for debt-holders earning up to $125,000.”

HBCU is an acronym for historically black colleges and universities; MSI means a minority serving institution.

Defeats in court for the Biden administration trying to shift the choice of student debt by borrowers to all taxpayers has been repeatedly followed by new programs. For example, last month a ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocking implementation of the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan – known colloquially as SAVE – not already blocked happened the same day of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program’s rollout to 35,000 borrowers with $1.2 billion in debt.

Romney and colleagues, citing the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a study by the Brookings Institution and a state-by-state look by the Education Data Initiative, say inflation rises for millions with no student debt because of the Biden plans. The congressmen say nearly one-third of student debt is held by the wealthiest 20% of Americans, compared to 8% of the bottom 20%; adds $1.4 trillion to the skyrocketing $35 trillion in national debt; and gives no remedy to higher education costs.

Should the proposal, first introduced two years ago, clear committee and have chance at a floor vote and movement to the Republican-majority House of Representatives, the bill would stop the respective departments of Education, Justice and Treasury from canceling or forgiving outstanding balances, portions of balances or loans. It includes “exemptions for existing targeted federal student loan forgiveness, cancellation, or repayment programs currently in effect under the Higher Education Act, such as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Teacher Loan Forgiveness programs,” a release from Tillis says.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/05/us-news/tillis-taxpayers-without-student-loans-should-not-pay-for-those-of-others/

Former Secret Service Chief Wanted To Destroy Cocaine Evidence

 by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and others in top agency leadership positions wanted to destroy the cocaine discovered in the White House last summer, but the Secret Service Forensics Services Division and the Uniformed Division stood firm and rejected the push to dispose of the evidence, according to three sources in the Secret Service community.

Multiple heated confrontations and disagreements over how best to handle the cocaine ensued after a Secret Services Uniformed Division officer found the bag on July 2, 2023, a quiet Sunday while President Biden and his family were at Camp David in Maryland, the sources said.

At least one Uniformed Division officer was initially assigned to investigate the cocaine incident. But after he told his supervisors, including Cheatle and Acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe, who was deputy director at the time, that he wanted to follow a certain crime-scene investigative protocol, he was taken off the case, according to a source within the Secret Service community familiar with the circumstances of his removal.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi did not immediately return RCP’s request for comment.

The discovery of the bag of cocaine posed an unusual problem for Cheatle, who resigned in the face of bipartisan pressure after the July 13 assassination attempt against Donald Trump.

Hunter Biden had a well-documented addiction to cocaine, crack cocaine, and other substances for many years but repeatedly claimed to be sober since 2021, an assertion that has prompted President Biden to often proclaim how “proud” he is of his son. While neither Joe nor Hunter Biden were at the executive mansion when the cocaine was found, it was discovered after a period when Hunter had been staying there.

Cheatle became close to the Biden family while serving on Vice President Joe Biden’s protective detail – so close that Biden tapped Cheatle for the director job in 2022, in part because of her close relationship to first lady Jill Biden.

When the cocaine was first discovered, Cheatle apparently knew it would spark a media firestorm. The incident prompted viral memes about Hunter Biden’s addictions and accusations from Republican political figures, including Nikki Haley, that the Secret Service knew whose cocaine it was and was trying to cover it up.

Normally, the discovery of cocaine or another illegal narcotic in the White House complex or in and around the first family and their staff wouldn’t come to light at all.

That’s because the president’s and first lady’s, as well as family members’ protective Secret Service details, the inner-most ring of protective agents assigned to the first family, would simply dispose of illegal drugs or other “contraband” found in the White House, personal residences, or other private areas of the president, his family, and White House staff, according to three sources in the Secret Service community.

But it wasn’t a member of President Biden’s regular detail who found the bag of cocaine just two days before the July 4 holiday last year. Instead, a member of the agency’s Uniformed Division, which is charged with protecting the facilities and venues for presidents and other agency protectees, discovered the substance in the White House complex while conducting routine rounds of the building.

The exact location where the officer found the bag changed several times during the first weeks of media reports on the incident. Initial reports said the cocaine was found in a reference library. Later reports indicated it was in a “work area” of the West Wing, which is attached to the mansion that houses the president and his family, the Oval Office, the cabinet room, the press briefing room, and offices for staff. CBS News, citing law enforcement sources, then reported it was found in a facility used by White House staff and guests to store phones.

An official Secret Service statement, issued at the conclusion of the agency’s internal investigation into the cocaine discovery, said a Uniformed Division officer found the bag in a “vestibule leading to the lobby area of the West Executive Avenue entrance to the White House,” a well-trafficked area used on the weekend for White House tours. That statement was released on July 13, eleven days after the cocaine’s discovery.

The officer who first found the bag with a white substance immediately flagged it as a potentially hazardous substance, worried that the bag of white power could contain deadly anthrax or ricin.

A Technical Security Division, or TSD, investigator would normally be deployed to the scene. These investigators, sometimes wearing hazmat suits, can identify different types of hazardous substances and explosives and work to quickly remove or defuse them. However, the TSD investigator was not called in on a Sunday evening of a holiday weekend. Instead, a Secret Service officer or agent called in the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Service Department, who evacuated the White House complex while they tested the white substance on site, determining it was cocaine.

Because the press was part of the evacuation, there was no way to hide the information about the discovery, and the Secret Service leaders quickly shifted to crisis communications mode. Meanwhile, the substance and packaging were treated as evidence and sent to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, which again analyzed it for biothreats. Those tests also came back negative for hazardous material.

Then, the Secret Service sent the plastic bag and its contents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime laboratory for fingerprint and DNA analysis. While there were no latent fingerprints detected, the FBI lab found some DNA material, according to three sources in the Secret Service community. Several sources, citing private statements by a special agent in the Forensics Services Division who supervised the vault containing the cocaine evidence, said the agency ran the DNA material against national criminal databases and “got a partial hit.” The term “partial hit” is vague in this context, but in forensics lingo usually means law enforcement found DNA matching a blood relative of a finite pool of people.

“The Congressional oversight committees need to put White under oath and confirm the ‘partial hit,’” a source told RCP. “Then the FBI needs to explain who the partial hit was against, then determine what blood family member has ties to the White House or what person matching the partial hit was present at the White House that weekend.”

Other sources familiar with the investigation and Cheatle’s alleged push to destroy the cocaine didn’t know if anyone at the Secret Service ran the DNA material found on the cocaine against a national criminal database.  In January, federal prosecutors urged a judge to reject Hunter Biden’s efforts to dismiss gun charges against him, revealing that investigators last year discovered cocaine residue on the pouch the president’s son used to hold his gun. In June, a 12-member jury found Hunter Biden guilty on charges related to his purchase and possession of the firearm while he was addicted to crack cocaine. 

But Secret Service leaders, under pressure from Cheatle and other top agency officials, chose not to run additional searches for DNA matches or conduct interviews with the hundreds of people who work in the White House complex.

“That’s because they didn’t want to know, or even narrow down the field of who it could be,” a source stated. “It could have been Hunter Biden, it could have been a staffer, it could have been someone doing a tour – we’ll never know.”

During the feverish speculation in the days and weeks after the cocaine’s discovery, the White House refused to answer whether the cocaine came from a Biden family member and labeled as “irresponsible” reporters who asked about a possible link to Hunter or another Biden family member.

In announcing the conclusion of its investigation into the cocaine incident, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the agency determined that interviewing all 500 people could be a strain on resources, might infringe upon civil liberties, and would likely be fruitless without corresponding physical evidence tying any person to the drugs.

“On July 12, the Secret Service received the FBI’s laboratory results, which did not develop latent fingerprints, and insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons,” Guglielmi said. “Therefore, the Secret Service is not able to compare evidence against the known pool of individuals.”

“There was no surveillance video footage found that provided investigative leads or any other means for investigators to identify who may have deposited the found substance in this area,” Guglielmi continued. “Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered.”

“At this time, the Secret Service's investigation is closed due to a lack of physical evidence,” the spokesman added. “The U.S. Secret Service takes its mission to protect U.S. leaders, facilities, and events seriously, and we are constantly adapting to meet the needs of the current and future security environment.”

Over the last month as the agency has come under fire for a series of mistakes leading to an assassination attempt against Trump, Guglielmi has been forced to correct a previous press statement that the agency did not deny repeated requests for additional security assets from the former president’s staff in the months leading up to the assassination attempt.

It’s unclear exactly when Cheatle and other top officials tried to persuade the Forensics Services Division to destroy the evidence. At some point during the investigation, Matt White, the vault supervisor, received a call from Cheatle or someone speaking on her behalf asking him to destroy the bag of cocaine because agency leaders wanted to close the case, according to two sources in the Secret Service community.

“Protocol is, whether you act on the [DNA] hit or not, we still have to maintain evidence for a period of up to seven years,” a source told RCP. “It became a big to-do.”

White’s boss, Glenn Dennis, the head of the Forensics Services Division, then conferred with the Uniformed Division, which first discovered the cocaine.

“A decision was made not to get rid of the evidence, and it really pissed off Cheatle,” a source in the Secret Service community said in an interview.

At the time of the cocaine’s discovery, Richard Macauley was serving as the acting chief of the Uniformed Division after the recent retirement of Alfonso Dyson Sr., a 29-year veteran of the agency. When Dyson left his position, Macauley, who is black, became the acting director. Despite Cheatle’s push to hire and promote minority men and women, Macauley was passed over for the job of Uniformed Division chief in what many in the agency view as an act of retaliation for supporting those who refused to dispose of the cocaine, according to several sources in the Secret Service community.

In 2018, Macauley was named the Secret Services Uniformed Division Officer of the Year. In an interview with Federal News Network, a news talk show focused on issues of interest to federal government workers, a host lauded Macauley for receiving the award and credited him with tightening operations, increasing diversity, boosting officer training, and improving working conditions, “all while taking care of his own shift operations.” Macauley would go on to serve one year, from February 2022 to January 2023, as deputy assistant sergeant at arms at the U.S. House of Representatives.

Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' national political correspondent.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-secret-service-chief-wanted-destroy-cocaine-evidence

Biocryst ups revenue guidance

 —Q2 2024 ORLADEYO net revenue grows 34 percent y-o-y to $108.3 million—

—Full-year 2024 ORLADEYO revenue guidance increased to $420-$435 million (previously $390-$400 million)—

—Company generates GAAP operating profit of $8.8 million in second quarter ($21.9 million non-GAAP operating profit)—

—Pipeline continues to advance—

Financial Outlook for 2024

Based on the operational improvements and strong patient and physician demand for ORLADEYO seen in the first half of 2024, the company is raising its outlook for full year 2024 global net ORLADEYO revenue to be between $420 million and $435 million (previously $390 million to $400 million).

The company maintains its prior operating expense outlook, and expects full year 2024 operating expenses to be between $365 million and $375 million, flat to full year 2023 operating expenses.

This operating expense outlook does not reflect non-cash stock compensation expense, or one-time expenses related to the previously announced workforce reduction implemented in the first quarter of 2024.

Based on the company’s disciplined approach to capital allocation, and the increased revenue guidance for ORLADEYO, the company is confident that it will achieve a full-year operating profit in 2024 (not including non-cash stock compensation), be approaching quarterly positive earnings per share (EPS) and positive cash flow in the second half of 2025 (not including non-cash stock compensation) and be profitable on an EPS basis, with positive cash flow, for full year 2026. The company expects it can achieve these financial milestones without raising additional funds and does not intend to draw the additional $150 million of debt available to it from Pharmakon.

Conference Call and Webcast
BioCryst management will host a conference call and webcast at 8:30 a.m. ET today to discuss the financial results and provide a corporate update. The live call may be accessed by dialing 1-844-481-2942 for domestic callers and 1-412-317-1866 for international callers. A live webcast and replay of the call will be available online in the investors section of the company website at www.biocryst.com.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biocryst-reports-second-quarter-2024-110000401.html