For around 1.4 billion Chinese, the new year begins on January 22 – unlike in the Gregorian calendar, China calculates its traditional new year’s date according to the lunar cycle. While various Asian nations also celebrate their own Lunar New Year festivals, the Chinese New Year is in fact a public holiday in several nations around the world, not just in the People’s Republic.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the chart below, Southeast Asia is the region in which most countries give their citizens time off for the beginning of the Chinese New Year. These include Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. In recent years, the Chinese New Year has also been introduced as a special holiday in the Philippines, but according to local media reports as of January 14, there will be no separate days off this year. South Korea and Vietnam also organize celebrations at the beginning of the lunar year, but these differ in part from the customs of the Chinese New Year and are more likely to be shaped by national culture.
While the majority of the countries and territories that explicitly celebrate the Chinese New Year are in Asia, there are two exceptions.
In Suriname in South America, the turn of the year in both the Gregorian and the lunar calendar are public holidays. According to the official census, around seven percent of the approximately 618,000 inhabitants are of Chinese descent.
The island state of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean also celebrates the Chinese New Year, although only about three percent of the approximately 1.3 million inhabitants have Chinese roots. In the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, the island was a popular emigration destination for Chinese from the province of Guangdong, also referred to as Canton at the time.
Chinese New Year celebrations are spread over the course two weeks and usually triggers an increased volume of travel, one of the largest waves of migration in the world. The festivities also mark the official start of spring, which is why the Lunar New Year is also known as Chūnjié or Spring Festival. According to the official lunar calendar, 2023 is the year of the rabbit, which last happened in 2011.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued an alert to taxpayers, encouraging them to adjust their 2023 withholding so as to either avoid effectively giving the government an interest-free loan of their money or face the prospect of penalties and interest if too little tax is withheld.
In a news release on Jan. 19, the IRS announced that it has made available an online tool that wage-earning taxpayers can use to determine if they have too much or too little tax withheld from their paychecks.
Called the Tax Withholding Estimator, it lets taxpayers figure out if they will receive a refund or need to make a payment to the IRS in order to avoid owing taxes and potentially incurring penalties the following year.
Having too much tax withheld and waiting for a refund at tax time is akin to giving the government an interest-free loan.
But if a taxpayer does not have enough taxes withheld from their paychecks throughout the year, they may owe a balance when they file their taxes. This means they will have to pay the remaining balance of taxes owed to the IRS when they file their tax return.
Owing a balance at tax time can be a significant financial burden, especially if the balance is large or if the taxpayer is struggling to make ends meet.
There are also penalties and interest that may apply when the taxpayer owes a balance when filing their taxes. The IRS charges interest on any unpaid taxes starting from the original due date of the return. Penalties may also be assessed if the taxpayer fails to file their return on time or if they owe taxes and fail to pay them by the deadline.
Owing a balance can also have negative effects on credit score as it is considered a debt that is unpaid. This can also lead to wage garnishments, liens on property, and even imprisonment if the taxpayer fails to pay their taxes.
Avoid Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments
The way taxes are paid in the United States is on a pay-as-you-go basis, which means that taxes are paid as income is earned throughout the year. This is typically done through withholding from paychecks, pension payments, Social Security benefits, and certain other government payments.
However, for people who have multiple sources of income, such as a second job or income from self-employment, unemployment, annuities, the gig economy, or digital assets, they may be required to make quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS. This is to ensure that they are paying enough taxes throughout the year and to avoid owing a balance when they file their taxes.
By using the Tax Withholding Estimator tool, the IRS says that taxpayers can tailor the amount of income tax they should have withheld from their paychecks, which can also help avoid the need for quarterly estimated tax payments.
After determining how much tax should be withheld, taxpayers can make the change by submitting a new Form W-4 to employers.
Other Updates
The IRS said on Jan. 19 that individuals and businesses affected by the storm in certain counties in Georgia and Alabama now have until May 15, 2023, to file and pay their federal tax returns.
This relief applies to any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and currently includes Butts, Henry, Jasper, Meriwether, Newton, Spalding, and Troup counties in Georgia and Autauga and Dallas counties in Alabama.
Other areas that FEMA adds later to the disaster area will also qualify for the same relief, with the list of eligible localities available on the IRS’s website: Tax Relief in Disaster Situations.
Six More Classified Documents Discovered At Biden House
The Department of Justice found “six items consisting of documents with classification markings” during a Friday search of President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, according to a Saturday statement by the president’s personal lawyers.
Also found were notes from Biden’s time as a Senator, as well as his tenure as Vice President, according to a statement from Biden attorney Bob Bauer, which strategically leads with ‘we’ve fully cooperated!’
The search lasted from 9:45 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Friday, during which members of Biden’s personal legal tam were present along with members from the Office of the White House counsel, according to the statement.
The DOJ also took materials “for further review.”
The new documents mark the latest development in the scandal involving classified documents found at non-authorized locations used by Biden. The first batch of papers was discovered in early November, the day before midterm elections, at the Penn Biden Center.
More documents marked classified were found at his Wilmington, Delaware home in December – and then earlier this month, an additional batch of papers was found at the home.
🚨🚨🚨🚨
– In a 12+ hours search of Biden’s home, the Feds found classified docs including FROM HIS TIME IN SENATE.
– Docs were found despite the WH saying that they turned over all docs a week ago.
– No video/photo of Feds/local PD standing around as done to Trump.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Department officials earlier considered having FBI agents monitor a search by Mr. Biden’s lawyers for classified documents at his homes but decided against it, both to avoid complicating later stages of the investigation and because Mr. Biden’s attorneys had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating, the Journal reported this week.
Some law enforcement officials had discussed the possibility of asking Mr. Biden’s team for consent to have the FBI search the property themselves. Officials didn’t immediately take that step in part to preserve their freedom to take a tougher line later, including by executing a search warrant, the Journal reported.
Instead, the two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them. –Wall Street Journal
So, Biden’s personal attorneys searched the house themselves, said they turned everything over to the DOJ, and yet more were found? When Trump’s lawyers did that he was raided by the FBI.
It’s time to start focusing on where Biden did NOT drop confidential documents. https://t.co/vmiVWZjPpF
Judge Grants Restraining Order Against Illinois “Assault Weapon” Ban
Just 10 days after Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines, a state judge has issued a temporary restraining order against it —and said legislators and the governor “egregiously violated” procedural requirements under the Illinois Constitution in their rush to enact the measure.
For now, the restraining order only provides relief to the 866 individual plaintiffs who joined a particular one of multiple lawsuits challenging the ban, but it signals that those plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their suit.
It’s also yet another powerful shot across the bow of gun-grabbing politicians, who everywhere find themselves reeling in the face of last year’s pivotal Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle Association, Inc. v Bruen.
“Plaintiffs are being immediately and irreparably harmed each day in which their fundamental right to bear arms is being denied,” wrote Judge Joshua Morrison in his 11-page ruling. He rejected the government’s assertion that the law did not impact a fundamental right.
What’s more, Morrison said “the plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success” in their suit against the law, known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act. That likelihood springs largely from the plaintiffs’ assertion that the rushed legislative process was unlawful:
“This Court finds that the Defendants [Pritzker et al] unequivocally and egregiously violated the Three Readings Rule of the Illinois Constitution in order to circumvent the Constitutional requirements and avoid public discourse.”
Morrison also said the law isn’t likely to survive scrutiny under principles established by last year’s Supreme Court Bruen decision.
The law has already been severely undercut by Illinois’ county sheriffs — as nearly every one of them has promised not to enforce it, saying it’s a violation of the Second Amendment. Pritzker called it “political grandstanding at its worst.”
The Illinois government passed a law banning “assault weapons”.
In red are the counties whose Sheriffs have publicly stated they’re refusing to enforce it.
Hopefully, they’ll start refusing to enforce every other unconstitutional gun control law too. pic.twitter.com/BF6uby3gNK
The Illinois law made it illegal to sell a list of some 170 specific semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and pistols, with the latter category largely comprising AR-style pistols. Targeted firearms that were owned prior to the ban are grandfathered, but must eventually be registered with the Illinois State Police.
The new law also outlaws long gun magazines with a capacity greater than 10, and handgun magazines with a capacity greater than 15. Grandfathered magazines needn’t be registered, but if you dare to have possess one outside of private property in Illinois, you’ll face a $1,000 fine.
The judge also said the law’s exemption of certain classes of people wasn’t rational. For example…
“The Court cannot find it logical that a warden of a prison (included in the exempted persons category) is necessarily better trained or more experienced in the handling of weapons than retired military personnel (no included in the exempted persons category).”
This was a state court decision. The law faces another challenge in federal court, where plaintiffs accuse Illinois of outlawing firearms and magazines that are “commonly possessed and used for lawful purposes,” and therefore protected by the Second Amendment.
Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United v. FEC decision made in 2010.
The court ruled 5–4 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations and overruled an earlier decision that banned corporations from making “electioneering communications.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif). said in a press release he and Democrat colleagues introduced the “Democracy For All Amendment” to “overturn legal precedents that have allowed unrestrained campaign spending and dark money to corrupt American democracy.” He has introduced the constitutional amendment every year since 2013, according to the release.
“The flow of unrestricted corporate and dark money into our elections has dangerously eroded the American people’s faith in our democracy, and in our government’s ability to deliver for them and their families,” Schiff said in a press release. “Citizens United was one of the most egregious enablers of special interest money, but it was only the latest in a long line of Supreme Court cases that opened the floodgates. To truly rein in dark money, we must amend our Constitution.”
Schiff said the amendment would close “legal loopholes” that he said allows “wealthy megadonors, corporations, and special interest groups” to exploit the political system.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Schiff said the move comes before the 13th anniversary of the decision on Jan. 21, which the Associated Press said came from a “bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court.”
The AP said the decision “vastly increased the power of big business and labor unions to influence government decisions by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress.”
The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibited corporations and labor unions from using general funds to make election communications or speech that expressly advocated for a candidate in a federal election, including broadcasts, cable or satellite communication that is publicly distributed within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election, according to the FEC.
In January 2008, Citizens United, a non-profit organization, released a film about then-Senator Hillary Clinton, prior to the Democratic Party’s 2008 primary elections.
The group wanted to pay cable companies to make the film available for free through video-on-demand services. It planned to make the film available within 30 days of the primaries, but feared it would be covered by the Act’s ban, according to the FEC, which could have subjected them to civil and criminal penalties.
The group sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the FEC arguing the Act was unconstitutional. The District Court denied the preliminary injunction and granted the Commission’s motion for summary judgment.
The Supreme Court noted jurisdiction and found that they were “required to consider the facial validity” of the Act’s ban in regard to freedom of speech.
The Court held the Act was a ban on speech and “political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence.”
It held disclaimer and disclosure requirements are “constitutional as applied to both the broadcast of the film and the ads promoting the film itself, since the ads qualify as electioneering communications.”
By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities, up from 54 percent in 2020, according to a new report by the Institute for Economics & Peace. This increase is being driven by both population growth and a continued shift towards urbanization, particularly to so called ‘megacities’ – metropolises that have a population of 10 million or more.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, urbanization takes place because of both push and pull factors. The IEA describes how in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital of Kinshasa, factors pushing people away from rural areas include issues of violence and a general lack of security, the presence of criminal groups, lack of policing, ecological degradation, and the fact there are too many people for the available agricultural land. Meanwhile, a pull factor could be the attraction of an increase in the standard of living.
There are currently 33 megacities worldwide. Tokyo (37.3 million), Delhi (32.3 million), Shanghai (28.7 million), Dhaka (22.6 million), São Paulo (22.5 million) and Mexico City (22.1 million) take the lead as the most populous of these. By 2050, 14 more cities are set to join their ranks, with a total increased population of some 213 million people. The new order will then become Delhi (49.6 million), Dhaka (34.6 million), Tokyo (32.6 million), Cairo (32.6 million) and Mumbai (32.4 million).
In addition to a rise in the number of people living in these cities, the countries themselves will also likely see economic growth.
According to AXA, Manila in the Philippines and Bangalore in India are expected to see close to 150 percent GDP growth by the end of the decade.
Africa is the only world region expected to still see strong population growth by the end of the century, according to the Pew Research Center, while all other regions’ growth rates will start to tail off. This is reflected in our chart, as it’s notably the African megacities that will see the biggest population rate increases. Meanwhile, only three megacities will see decreases in their population size: the Russian capital of Moscow (-3 percent), and Japan’s Osaka (-12 percent) and Tokyo (-12 percent). Despite Tokyo’s shrinkage, brought on by an aging population and declining birth rate, the capital will still rank as the world’s fourth most populated megacity in 2050.
The 33 cities that have already hit megacity status are the following: Delhi, Dhaka, Cairo, Tokyo, Mumbai, Shanghai, Kinshasa, Lagos, Karachi, Mexico City, São Paulo, Beijing, Kolkata, New York City, Manila, Lahore, Bangalore, Chongqing, Buenos Aires, Osaka, Hyderabad, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok, Jakarta, Shenzhen, Lima, Paris and Moscow.
It’s important to note here that different sources cite different statistics, and that especially with forecasts, situations can change. For instance, where the United Nations initially predicted that India would overtake China as the biggest country in 2027, it is now expected to take place in April of this year. In terms of megacity status, according to UN data from 2018, several additional cities, including Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Wuhan in China, will make the roundup even by 2035. Read more on the nature of conflicting reports here.
FLOWCHART: How Jennifer Siebel Newsom used taxpayer dollars to trade with herself, her nonprofit organization, and her for-profit business. The organization refused to disclose how much of their screening revenues came from California public schools.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are the dream team. He runs the state and she’s a nonprofit founder, entrepreneur, and filmmaker.
While her husband attends to state business, Siebel Newsom engages in her passion: advancing “gender justice” through her charitable nonprofit The Representation Project. According to tax documents the organization is “committed to building a thriving and inclusive society through films, education, and social activism.”
Then, the Newsom nonprofit scrambled to submit their proper registration. Working with the California Attorney General, a process that normally takes days or weeks was completed in hours.
So, just what does Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s charity do – with the full support of her husband, the governor, and underwritten by the wealthy California establishment?
THE FILMS
Siebel Newsom, through her non-profit The Representation Project, has released four films advocating gender justice. The films are leased for screenings to individuals, corporations, and schools, and come with their own lesson plans. Schools spend between $49-$599 to screen these movies to children.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom is credited as a writer and director on each of these films. Two of the movies feature Gavin Newsom himself, and many of the lesson plan activities are oriented toward engaging children in social and political activism.
Because of Gavin Newsom’s role in these films and because licenses are sold to schools which the governor is responsible for funding with tax dollars, auditors at OpenTheBooks.com felt the organization deserved further scrutiny.
Who’s Watching? 2.6 million students in 5,000 schools
According to The Representation Project’s Impact Report (2011-2021), the organization’s film curricula are being used in over 5,000 schools in all fifty states. The Representation Project claims over 11,200 copies of the curricula have been distributed, reaching more than 2.6 million students.
Tax records show that since 2012 the nonprofit has generated $1,483,001 in film screening revenue, although it is unclear how much money came from schools versus other sources. We asked The Representation Project for the number of California schools that purchased a screening license and received no response.
Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com watched Newsom’s movies and read the lesson plans. What we found was, at times, shocking: sexually explicit images, political boosterism, and something called “The Genderbread Person.”
Miss Representation’s curriculum links to “age-appropriate” video clips in its K-12 lesson plans and says that the full film is rated PG-14. (Certainly, parents may still object to clips from the “age-appropriate” film like the animated, upside down stripper shown above).
The filmfeatures strong language and women dressed provocatively:
Caroline Heldman, who is now executive director of Newsom’s non-profit, described women’s role in action movies as “the fighting fuck toy.”
Actress Daphne Zuniga, famous for Melrose Place and film parody Spaceballs, suggested women should “tell those fuckers to get penis implants,” in response to being told to get plastic surgery.
Middle school children are served images of upside-down strippers with little left to the imagination (see above).
Then, it gets worse.
Newsom’s film The Mask You Live In features the website addresses of porn sites including Porn Hub, MassiveCams, BDSM.XXX, and Brazzers.com. The pornographic images displayed in the film are tagged with descriptions such as “domination,” “face fuck,” “kinky couples,” and “…dirty brunettes.”
Newsom included images of naked or mostly naked women being slapped, handcuffed, and brutalized in pornographic videos. The pictures are graphic even when blurred. Screenshots of those scenes can be found HERE (VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED).
These jarring pictures are displayed with their corresponding porn website addresses – providing a roadmap for future exploration. The film seems to justify their harmful content by saying that “34% of youth online receive UNWANTED PORNOGRAPHIC EXPOSURE.”
In 2019, one parent filed a complaint about a screening of The Mask You LiveIn for his 12-year-old daughter’s class at Creekside Middle School in California. In an interview with The Sacramento Bee the father said,
“Some of the images when slowed down were not blurred, and even when they are blurred, it is obvious what is going on. It is absolutely profane and disgusting.”
An investigation found a substitute teacher accidentally screened the full version of the film rather than an “age-appropriate” version. However, The Representation Project recommends the full version for ages 15+.
Siebel Newsom’s idea is to protect children from highly exploitative and disturbing sexual media content seems to involve showing it to them personally.
BOOSTING GAVIN NEWSOM – THE COMPASSIONATE POLITICIAN
Gavin Newsom himself provides interview commentary for Miss Representation and The Great American Lie.
Newsom speaks three times in Miss Representation and is portrayed as a champion of women’s rights—see this example from the middle school curriculum video (18:37):
“One of the first things I did when I came to San Francisco (as mayor) is I appointed a female police chief and appointed a female fire chief.”
Getting paid by schools to portray your politician husband as a standup guy to captive children in the classroom was such a winning idea, Siebel Newsom deployed it again in The Great American Lie.
Here, Newsom makes five appearances to deliver political talking points, including:
At the end of the day a budget is a set of values, budget reflects your values.”
“This notion of interdependence—that we’re all in this together, that we all rise and fall together—is absolutely true.”
“We’re not bystanders in this world, we have the ability to step up and solve big problems, we have done that in the past, it’s just a question of prioritization, of political will.”
Siebel Newsom’s provided companion curriculum require student discussion of Gavin Newsom’s points and are told to vote, and help others vote, for politicians “who show empathy through their support care [sic] policies.”
Activity from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students. Students are asked to watch and discuss a clip of Gavin Newsom.
Call to action from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students. Students are told to vote and help others vote for candidates “who show empathy through their support care [sic] policies”
Overview: Jennifer Siebel Newsom makes a movie portraying Gavin Newsom as a politician that supports certain policies, and then in the movie’s curriculum advises students to vote and campaign for politicians that support those policies.
Schools, which receive funding from the state, pay The Representation Project to show this movie, and use taxpayer-funded class time to facilitate these lessons.
In July 2022 Gavin Newsom signed a budget of $128 billion for state schools and community colleges.
Multiple lesson plans from The Representation Project promote radical notions of gender and sexuality.
One such lesson for middle and high schoolers includes the “genderbread person,” who aims to show children how biological sex, “gender expression,” “sexual attraction,” and “gender identity” exist on a spectrum, which can be mixed and matched.
While kindergarteners are spared the genderbread person in their curriculum, they are offered similar lessons on “gender identity,” introducing genders other than “boy” and “girl.”
LEFT-WING POLITICAL ACTIVISM – THE “PRIVILEGE WALK”
Kids forced to watch The Representation Project films in schools aren’t just subjected to gender ideology, sexually explicit images, and Gavin Newsom’s one-liners. They’re being given a left-wing framework through which to see the world, and then prompted to conduct social and political activism.
In The Great American Lie curriculum, students are asked to do a “privilege walk,” divulging personal information in order to compare themselves to peers inside and outside the classroom. “Privileges” include being “a cisgendered man,” “white,” “born in the United States,” “straight,” and speaking English as a first language.
Activity from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students.
Speakers in The Great American Lie are clear about what “privilege” means—something you hurt other people with, something you should feel bad about, and something you should work to change.
Journalist Charles Blow, who is now a New York Times opinion columnist, said during the film:
“We need to stop being blind to history, stop being blind to systems, understand that there are privileges and there are oppressions in society, and in fact they act like a see-saw. Your privilege is actually built on my oppression.”
Lawyer Bryan Stevenson followed up, encouraging viewers to feel “shame and sorrow:”
“We actually have to engage in truth telling, we’re going to have to express some shame and sorrow about who we are and what we’ve done, we’re going to have to find the will to reconcile ourselves to a different future.”
The way to relieve this shame, according to the film, is through social and political activism, as Professor Niobe Way said:
“If you don’t address the racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred―the hatred―we have in our culture, then you can’t start having a conversation about love, peace and understanding.”
Newsome and her non-profit recommends The Great American Lie for ages 11+.
STUDY: The Student-to-Activist Assembly Line
Curricula from the three available films advise diverse ways for students to become activists within their families and communities. Suggested activities include promoting The Representation Project social media campaigns, voting for candidates that “support the care economy,” and asking students to “market and host a screening” of The Representation Project films (while paying a screening fee to the organization).
(A)
(B)
(C)
Calls to action in the curricula from (A) Miss Representation for middle and high schoolers, (B) The Mask You Live In for middle and high schoolers, (C) The Great American Lie for high school and college students
Jennifer Siebel Newsom produced, wrote, and directed all these films, but if her enthusiasm for cultivating young activists was not obvious enough, we need only listen to her conclusions.
In 2021 high school participants in The Representation Project’s film course joined a moderated panel with Siebel Newsom to discuss The Great American Lie.
One student stated: “There’s no age limit for activism… the younger you are the easier it is for you to see these changes that need to be made.”
Siebel Newsom replied: “That’s great, thank you.”
SUMMARY – FOLLOW THE MONEY
The Representation Project not only solicits donors from big-money political supporters of Gavin Newsom, but also receives public tax dollars through schools to create a new generation of supporters and activists in the state’s—and country’s—schoolchildren.
The Representation Project transforms public school expenditures into activist training expenses, and in the process exposes children to objectionable sexual content.
Various funding sources translate directly to financial gain for Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
Since The Representation Project’s founding she has collected $1,501,727 in salary. Her current title is Chief Creative Officer, and she also sits on the nonprofit’s board of directors. She is the top paid executive at her non-profit with a $150,000 annual salary between 2013 and 2021.
Siebel Newsom also founded a for-profit company, Girls Club Entertainment Inc., which contracts (with Newsom’s nonprofit) for the production costs associated with the movies and owns the license for Miss Representation.
According to tax records, the nonprofit (The Representation Project) has paid Girls Club Entertainment (Newsom’s for-profit company) $1,647,376 since 2012.
NOTE: We requested comments from Jennifer Siebel Newsom and her nonprofit, The Representation Project multiple times over the last couple of months. We also requested comment from Gov. Newsom. We never received any response.
Ron Klain White House Departure Reported One Day After Scapegoat Found For Slow-Walking Classified Documents
After working for Joe Biden on and off for more than three decades, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain is expected to step down in coming weeks because he’s ‘ready to move on,’ the NY Times reports.
The news of Klain’s departure comes one day after the White House threw senior adviser Anita Dunn under the bus for the decision to ‘keep the public information flow to a trickle’ regarding President Biden’s classified document scandal.
Is Klain’s departure related to the decision to slow-walk news that classified documents from Biden’s VP days were found in unauthorized locations? We don’t know at this stage, but we assume Klain was apprised of Dunn’s strategy, and perhaps even signed off on it. Now that we’re in the ‘who said what, and when’ phase of a Special Counsel investigation into the matter, nothing is off the table. Maybe he was just tired of performing elder care?
The departure would also come at a time when the White House faces a widening array of political and legal threats from a newly appointed special counsel investigating the improper handling of classified documents and a flurry of other inquiries by the newly installed Republican majority in the House. The next chief of staff will be charged with managing the defense of Mr. Biden’s White House and any counterattack as the 2024 election approaches. -NY Times
The Times suggests Klain’s departure could be related to Biden’s anticipated 2024 reelection campaign, and says “advisers predict more moves as some aides shift from the White House to the campaign.”
So – not rats bailing from a sinking ship.
The Times notes that Klain has been so influential that Republicans ‘derisively call him a virtual prime minister,’ and Democrats ‘blame him when they are disappointed in a decision.’
Klain has also presided over ‘a rash of troubles’ that have tanked public support for Biden – including the highest inflation in 40 years, and the creation of a border crisis after shredding much of former President Trump’s border policy.
On that note, the Times also reports that Biden’s national economic adviser, Brian Dees, is expected to leave later this year.
As for those classified documents
The Times reported on Friday that White House senior adviser, Anita Dunn – along with her husband, Biden’s personal lawyer Bob Bauer, and White House counsel Stuart F. Delery and Richard Sauber, were part of at “tight circle” involved in discussions on how to deal with the matter.
NBC News’ Peter Alexander repeatedly presses Karine Jean-Pierre about the White House claiming that Republicans are “faking outrage” over Biden’s classified document scandal.
“Why shouldn’t Americans be upset about documents found in a garage?” he asks.
Details about the documents — where they were found, what they are about, where they came from — remain elusive more than 10 days after their existence was first made public by CBS News.
The White House has refused to explain why it took nearly six weeks after the initial discovery of documents to search the president’s home in Wilmington, Del., where a second batch was found on Dec. 20. And it has not said why personal lawyers for the president who do not have security clearances were the ones conducting the searches, but people close to the case said that was done with the approval of the Justice Department.
…
Once the discovery of the original batch of documents was revealed, Ms. Dunn was adamant that the White House should keep the public information flow to a trickle and focus instead on how different Mr. Biden’s case was from the broader investigation into his predecessor, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Ms. Dunn also stressed the need to underscore the differences between Mr. Biden’s cooperation with the archives and Justice Department and Mr. Trump’s defiance.
The government has been less than transparent with Americans regarding the classified documents scandal of President Joe Biden, and particularly on the background of the classified documents scandal of former President Donald Trump.
While in Trump’s case, the public was treated to frequent updates through leaks to media and official statements, the Biden case had been kept under wraps for more than two months and then disclosed in stages.
When staff of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) picked up 15 boxes of presidential records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida residence in mid-January 2022, The Washington Post reported it three weeks later and the NARA confirmed the story that same day, Feb. 7, 2022, adding a 150-word quote from then-Archivist David Ferriero explaining that “the Presidential Records Act is critical to our democracy.”
About a week later, NARA revealed in response to a congressional inquiry that classified material was found in the boxes and the matter had been communicated to the Department of Justice (DOJ). In April, The Washington Post reported the DOJ was investigating the matter and later that month C-SPAN released an interview with Ferriero during which he confirmed the existence of the investigation.
In the Biden case, when NARA was alerted on Nov. 2 that classified documents were found in Biden’s office at the Penn Biden Center, where he sparsely lectured and gave speeches from 2017 to 2019, there were no leaks forthcoming. In fact, NARA has yet to issue a single press release on the Biden case.
The story was first leaked to CBS News and reported on Jan. 9 with an on-record confirmation by Richard Sauber, special counsel to Biden.
The CBS report came a day after Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) pledged in a Mark Levin interview that his oversight committee will question NARA on its handling of the Trump documents case and threatened to withhold the agency’s funding to force compliance with information requests.
In a Jan. 10 letter to NARA, Comer said its “inconsistent treatment of recovering classified records held by former President Trump and President Biden raises questions about political bias at the agency.”
NARA responded a week later, saying it “treats all of its communications with the White House, DOJ, and the representatives of the former Presidents (and Vice Presidents) as presumptively confidential” and “for this reason, NARA did not affirmatively discuss or disclose to our oversight committees or to the public our activities concerning the return to our custody of either the Biden Vice Presidential records or the Trump Presidential records, or our referral of both matters to DOJ because we found classified information.”
The agency started to respond to congressional inquiries on the matters “only when those topics were subsequently reported publicly in the press.”
“Our actions and responses with respect to both of these matters have been entirely consistent and without any political bias,” it said (pdf).
The DOJ was alerted by NARA about the Biden documents on Nov. 4, but the FBI didn’t start to look into the matter until Nov. 9, the day after the midterm elections.
The White House confirmed the initial story the day it was released, but didn’t disclose for another three days that another batch of classified documents were found in Biden’s garage, even though the DOJ was informed by Biden’s lawyers on Dec. 20.
The government response indicates that Biden’s pre-election promises of a transparent administration have fallen short, according to investigative journalist John Solomon.
“Was this an act of defiance on his promise of transparency?” he asked, noting that it appears that “the president says he wants to be transparent, but he doesn’t always deliver on the promise when things are unflattering to him or his presidency.”
Solomon argued that the DOJ should have been more forthcoming about the Biden documents issue, especially since Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the Trump documents investigation on Nov. 18, when his department was already probing the Biden documents case.
“They knew when they made that announcement that the current President has similar issues and they chose to keep it from us,” Solomon told The Epoch Times.
Go Woke, Get Broke: Vox Fires 7% Of Staff; Vice’s Valuation Plunges
It’s a terrible time for America’s liberal media – with companies laying off, implementing hiring freezes, and other cost-cutting measures. Some media companies have even collapsed in valuation. Many are blaming increasing macroeconomic uncertainty that has crushed advertising revenues.
A wave of recent layoffs has hit media companies, including CNN, Buzzfeed, Paramount Global (the parent to CBS, MTV, VH1), The Walt Disney Company, Comcast, Roku, Morning Brew, Gannett (parent company to USA Today), and many more in the past year.
Add Vox Media, which owns brands like The Verge, SB Nation, and New York magazine, to the growing list of media layoffs.
Axios obtained an internal memo from CEO Jim Bankoff to staff about reducing headcount by 7%. About 1,900 people work for the company, which equates to about 133 layoffs.
Bankoff noted that the headcount reduction would impact teams across revenue, editorial, operations, and core services.
“While we are not expecting further layoffs at this time, we will continue to assess our outlook, keep a tight control on expenses and consider implementing other cost savings measures as needed,” he said, adding layoffs were a last resort.
The move was to address the coming downturn in the economy.
Besides layoffs and other cost measures, media company valuations have plunged.
For instance, Vice Media is putting itself up for sale (again) at around a billion-dollar valuation, according to CNBC, citing people familiar with the talks.
Today’s number is far from the $5.7 billion valuation in 2017.
CNBC previously reported Vice hired financial advisors to seek a sale.
One of Vice’s lenders, Fortress Investment Group, is pushing for a sale.
Meanwhile, Buzzfeed’s SPAC is only getting worse — with a current market cap of $129 million — down from more than a billion dollars a year ago.
America’s largest digital media companies are in dire straits. Maybe some of them are in these precarious situations because they embraced liberal ideology and suffered massive viewership losses. We all know CNN is learning that the hard way.
