Author: J.P. Knowles

President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have agreed “in principle” to hold a virtual summit before the end of the year, Axios reported Wednesday.

Biden and Xi had a discussion by phone in September, where both leaders agreed to uphold the “Taiwan agreement” in which China maintains non-diplomatic relations with Taiwan and the U.S. agrees that there is only one sovereign Chinese government.

Tensions between the United States, Taiwan, and China have been mounting following Biden’s mismanaged withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan. China cited the withdrawal to taunt Taiwan in early September saying Taiwan could not count on U.S. support if China were to invade.

President Joe Biden takes off his face mask he meets with NATO Secretary-General during a NATO summit at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels on June 14, 2021. – The 30-nation alliance hopes to reaffirm its unity and discuss increasingly tense relations with China and Russia, as the organization pulls its troops out after 18 years in Afghanistan.

Dates for the virtual summit have not yet been announced, however, national security adviser Jake Sullivan is set to meet with top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi this week. It will be the second in-person meeting between Sullivan and Jiechi.

The Chinese military deployed 52 warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, an unprecedented number since Taiwan began reporting such information in 2020.

The aircraft included 34 J-16 fighter jets, two Su-30 fighter jets, 12 nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, two Y-8 anti-submarine warplanes, and two KJ-500 airborne control planes belonging to China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force, according to a statement from Taiwan’s defense ministry

White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed U.S. support for Taiwan during Monday’s press briefing.

“Our commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region,” Psaki said. “We have been clear privately and publicly about our concern about [China’s] pressure and coercion toward Taiwan, and we will continue to watch the situation very closely.”

“We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan. And we have an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. That’s why we’ll continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability,” she added.

On Saturday, Hilarity ensued after an NBC reporter scrambled during an interview with NASCAR driver Brandon Brown at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama after a huge win for the new talent. She stated that the crowd was chanting “Let’s go, Brandon!” when in reality they were chanting “F*** Joe Biden.”

What do you think they were chanting?

I’m pretty sure they’re not chanting “Let’s go Brandon” as the NBC reporter is telling us. What do you hear? #fjb https://t.co/Ai6QU9uEZf

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 3, 2021

NBC Sports wrote in its coverage of Brown’s win:

Brandon Brown earned his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win when Saturday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway was called for darkness six laps from the scheduled distance.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Brown said on his team’s radio. “Wow! Just wow! Oh my God! This is a dream come true! This is a dream come true!”

Brown’s victory came in his 114th career series start.

Brown told NBCSN, “Oh my God, Dad, we did it!! Everything we hoped and dreamed for. Everything I wanted to do is take the trophy home to Mom and Dad.”

yeah that’s not what they’re yelling https://t.co/gd5zTu1yAU

— Jessica O’Donnell 🏈 (@heckyessica) October 3, 2021

During late August, while covering President Biden’s news conference for an NBC News “Special Report,” NBC News abruptly pulled away from the news conference as soon as Biden began taking questions from the press.

Biden concluded his prepared statement by saying, “And I’ll keep you informed every day as we move forward. May God protect our troops and our diplomats who are serving in harm’s way. I’ll take a few questions. Darlene, from the Associated Press.”

Darlene Superville, White House reporter for The Associated Press, asked, “Mr. President: we’re nine days away from the August 31 deadline. Will you extend that deadline, or what is your thought process on extending the evacuation operation?”

NBC News’ Kate Snow nodded, possibly obeying an instruction given in her earphone, then cut in, “All right. We’ve been listening to President Biden with dual challenges on a Sunday talking about Tropical Storm Henri, all the preparations being made, also talking about Afghanistan. Let’s get right to Monica Alba, who’s at the White House.”

A second Biden administration official has resigned as controversy swirls over the treatment of Haitian migrants overwhelming the southern border.

Harold Koh, the only political appointee on the State Department’s legal team and a former longtime advisor to President Barack Obama’s State Department, announced he was resigning and slammed the Biden administration in an Oct 2 memo in which he condemns the Biden team’s use of Title 42 to expel Haitian migrants from the United States as “illegal” and “inhumane.”

Title 42 is a public health provision allowing the government to prevent the addition of new individuals in the U.S. during a public health crisis. The law was first used under the Trump administration to expel tens of thousands of migrants at the southern border; the order has been extended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the Biden administration.

Koh said the use of Title 42 is “not worthy of this Administration that I so strongly support,” adding “I believe this Administration’s current implementation of the Title 42 authority continues to violate our legal obligation not to expel or return individuals who fear persecution, death, or torture, especially migrants fleeing from Haiti.”

“Lawful, more humane alternatives plainly exist,” Koh continued. “[O]ur actions and approaches regarding Afghan refugees stand in stark contrast to the continuing use of Title 42 to rebuff the pleas of thousands of Haitians and myriad others arriving at the Southern Border who are fleeing violence, persecution, or torture.”

According to an administration official, Koh, who was previously a State Department legal advisor during the Obama administration from 2009-2013, is leaving the Biden team to accept a job at Oxford University. Koh is the second official to leave the Biden team and condemn its handling of the Border Crisis. Ambassador Daniel Foote, the Biden administration’s former special envoy for Haiti, resigned in September over what he described as the “inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki spoke about the Title 42 policy during Monday’s press briefing, saying that the administration sees the policy as one of public health and not immigration: “We’re still in the middle of a pandemic, and it is determined by the CDC. It is also true that there are several exceptions for Title 42, including those who are fleeing persecution, who express a concern of fear … those who have health issues.”

“Those are individuals who go through our immigration proceedings and process,” she continued. “So it remains in place because we are in the middle of a pandemic.”

Vice President Kamala Harris under scrutiny this week after failing to confront anti-Israeli comments made by a student at George Mason University on Wednesday, driving CNN to dedicate an entire segment on her office’s effort to do damage control.

While visiting GMU’s campus in Virginia, a student told Harris that Israel was committing “ethnic genocide” as part of a larger complaint by the student about U.S. foreign and domestic policies. The vice president seemed to give the student confirmation, saying “This is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed. And it must be heard, right?”

Republican lawmakers immediately turned to social media to shine a light on Harris’ lack of awareness on the issue. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley tweeted of the exchange, “Kamala Harris doesn’t have time to go the border, but she apparently has plenty of time to encourage anti-Israel, anti-Semitic falsehoods.” Republican Pennsylvania State Rep. Dan Meuser agreed, adding “Kamala Harris owes all who support Israel an apology and explanation. Her foolish woke view is wrong, per usual. Go to Israel and learn something, Madame VP.”

David Friedman, the former US ambassador to Israel, also rebuked Harris’ statements tweeting, “Shameful. There is truth and there are lies. No one is entitled to their personal truth. This attack on Israel is simply a lie and VPOTUS should have called that out.”

Harris’ failure to correct the student who falsely accused Israel of genocide, prompted groups such as the Anti-Defamation League to voice their concerns, saying that “allowing smears of this kind to stand is dangerous and can incite violence against Jewish people all over the world,” CNN reported in a segment devoted to the issue on Friday.

“Frantic damage control by Vice President Kamala Harris’ office that points to possibly deeper and more troubling problems for the Democratic Party,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said, adding that Harris’ comments might only be a portion of the problem.

Tapper went on to say that the incident at GMU could illustrate a lack of “political acumen” that could lead to more problems.

The Vice President’s office has been working behind the scenes with pro-Israel Democrats in response to the negative reaction. On Thursday, Harris’ office reached out to the Democratic Majority for Israel as well as Democratic Florida Rep. Ted Deutch, the co-chair of the Bipartisan Anti‐Semitism Task Force in an effort to repair relationships negatively impacted by the Vice President’s statements.

A group of House Republicans will introduce legislation Thursday that would inhibit President Joe Biden’s administration from imposing a vaccine mandate on Americans.

The Health Freedom For All Act legislation was initiated by Republicans New York Rep. Claudia Tenney and co-sponsered by Reps. Jim Banks, Jeff Duncan, Jody Hice, Brian Mast, Jake LaTurner, Lauren Boebert, Doug Lamborn, John Rose, Madison Cawthorn, Tom Tiffany, Brian Babin, Ronny Jackson, Jerry Carl, Jason Smith, and August Pfluger.

The Health Freedom For All Act would prevent the Secretary of Labor from enacting an emergency provision requiring employers to mandate vaccines, medication, or medical procedures, such as COVID-19 testing for employees. The bill also states that under existing law the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) does not have the authority to force Americans to undergo medical procedures, taking vaccines, or undergo testing.

“President Biden’s vaccine and testing mandate far exceeds the authority granted to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) by Congress. I received my vaccine and support voluntary vaccination efforts. However, I strongly oppose others being forced to receive the vaccine or it being made a condition of employment. My common sense bill makes clear that OSHA does not have the authority to force Americans to receive vaccines or undergo testing,” Tenney said in a statement.

“Like President Biden’s extension of the CDC’s [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] eviction moratorium earlier this year, this mandate is yet another attempt by the Administration to skirt the law and do through government coercion what it is failing to do through persuasion. I am honored to partner with Congressman Banks on this important effort to stop President Biden from further abusing our Constitution,” Tenney added.

“Joe Biden promised us before he was president that he wouldn’t use his office to mandate COVID vaccines. Now we know he lied. I am proud to introduce the Health Care Freedom for All Act with Rep. Claudia Tenney that would stop this unconstitutional and un-American federal overreach by President Biden,” Banks said in a statement.

A group of Senate Republicans introduced legislation Wednesday that would protect Americans’ personal health records and prohibit a number of federal agencies from requiring proof of vaccination or the use of a vaccine passport.

After the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer vaccine, President Joe Biden announced a mandate that would require more private-sector employers to stipulate vaccine requirements for employees.

All military personnel is required to be vaccinated.

Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Cook confronted state attorney Kim Foxx at a press conference Monday over her decision not to prosecute gang members involved in a deadly shooting last week.

“She’s got to explain to the public, why? Given that evidence, a pod camera right there that captured the entire thing and police officers on the scene in uniform, and a squad car there, why that isn’t enough?” Lightfoot asked.

“If the bad guys that are out there that are picking up guns and shooting without any regard for the sanctity of life, do not believe that there’s accountability for them, the brazenness will not end. It will escalate, it will continue and our communities will not be safe,” she continued.

Three gang members started shooting at a home in Chicago’s West Side on Friday in an attempt to flush out members of a rival gang, when three people inside the home returned fire, when the shooting stopped there was one dead and two others were injured.

The incident was captured by a city camera, police officers on the scene recovered more than 70 shells and several gun cases, according to Fox News. A SWAT team was called when suspects in the house refused to come out.

Police wanted to file charges of murder and aggravated battery on all five suspects, however, a Chicago police spokeswoman said Sunday morning that the suspects had “been released without charges,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

A spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office explained in a statement later Sunday that prosecutors decided “the evidence was insufficient to meet our burden of proof to approve felony charges.” She added that police officials were in agreement with their decision.

“It’s complicated, for sure,” Lightfoot said during Monday’s press conference “But we really urge the state’s attorney herself to get personally involved, look at the evidence, and I believe that there are charges that can be brought, at a minimum against the individuals who initiated the gunfire.”

Foxx returned fire at Lightfoot during a press conference Tuesday morning, calling her comments “inappropriate,”

“I find myself here today having to respond to a narrative given by the mayor,” the state prosecutor said. “There were statements made by the mayor yesterday regarding the evidence in this case that were simply not true. It was inappropriate. It was wrong.”

Mayor Lightfoot, Prosecutor Go At It Over Not Prosecuting Gang Members In Deadly Shooting

`“As a former federal prosecutor, the mayor knows of the ethical obligation of the prosecutor to only bring forth charges where the facts, evidence, and law support it,” she continued. “She is also fully aware that as a prosecutor we are obligated not to try cases in the media.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy blasted a new Department of Justice policy designed to put an end to “threats of violence” against school officials, saying it was part of the Democrats’ plan to stifle parents.

“President Biden’s latest decision is part of a disturbing trend in the Democrat Party to silence parents,” McCarthy said on Twitter Tuesday. “We should encourage family participation in our schools, not baselessly attack opposing views because leftist groups want control over curriculums.”

The issue at hand is a new DOJ plan to fight an alleged rise in violence and threats aimed at schools boards and other school officials. Across the country, there have been a number of parents attending school board meetings to express their disapproval of COVID-19 restrictions and the use of critical race theory in curricula.

“Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Monday. “Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety.”

Garland instructed federal law enforcement agencies to work with state and local law enforcement to examine the “disturbing trend” of harassment aimed at school officials.

In a statement Tuesday, McCarthy suggested Democrats were guilty of their own “disturbing trend,” alleging that the new DOJ effort was merely an attempt to “silence parents from having a say in their own children’s education.”

“We saw it last week when Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, said parents shouldn’t have a say in what their own children are taught and it continues this week with the Biden administration labeling parents with concerns and dissenting opinions as domestic terrorists,” McCarthy said.

The Congressman added that parents should be encouraged to be involved with the public school systems.

“Parents have a fundamental right to be lawfully involved in their children’s education,” McCarthy said. “We should encourage family participation in our school systems, not baselessly attack opposing views because some liberal education officials and special interest groups see it as a threat to the power they want to have over what children learn in America’s classrooms.”

McCarthy added that congressional Republicans will be “demanding answers” from the administration concerning the policy.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with a top Chinese diplomat and member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Yang Jiechi as tensions are rising over China’s aggression toward Taiwan. Sullivan will meet with Jiechi, a former Chinese ambassador to the U.S., in Zurich, Switzerland, this week. He will also meet with NATO and EU leaders to examine his conversation with Jiechi, according to National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne.

The White House said the purpose of the meeting is to “responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.” The meeting will be the second in-person meeting between the Biden administration and Chinese officials. It comes at a time when there is a spike in Chinese aggression toward Taiwan, a longtime U.S. ally.

China taunted Taiwan in early September, saying that it cannot depend on U.S. support if China were to invade, referring to Biden’s then-ongoing chaotic withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan. The Chinese military deployed 52 warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) Monday, the highest number recorded since Taiwan began reporting such information in 2020.

The aircrafts included 34 J-16, two Su-30 fighter jets, 12 nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, two Y-8 anti-submarine warplanes, and two KJ-500 airborne control planes belonging to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force, according to a statement from Taiwan’s defense ministry.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated U.S. support for Taiwan on China.

“Our commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region,” she told reporters during Monday’s press briefing. “We have been clear privately and publicly about our concern about [China’s] pressure and coercion toward Taiwan, and we will continue to watch the situation very closely.”

“We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan. And we have an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. That’s why we’ll continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability,” she added.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to one year Thursday for violating campaign funding laws, he will serve his time at home.

Sarkozy along with 12 other co-defendants in the case was found guilty of spending more than $54 million for the former president’s 2012 re-election bid, flagrantly surpassing the limit of $24 million. The group used fake invoices in an effort to conceal excessive spending, according to CNN.

“Nicolas Sarkozy knew the spending limit. He knew he shouldn’t exceed it,” the judge said.

Sarkozy denied the charges and vowed that he would go “right to the end” in appealing the ruling. The 66-year-old former president will be allowed to serve his one-year sentence at home with the stipulation that he would be required to wear an electronic monitor.

Sarkozy is the first French leader to have received two convictions, according to CNN.

The former French president received a one-year sentence in March 2021 when he was convicted of corruption and influence-peddling although has been free pending an appeal of the decision. The March ruling came as the result of Sarkozy’s 2014 attempt to bribe a magistrate into divulging information about a former president’s involvement in a legal proceeding.

When Tom Brady walks out of the visitors’ locker room on Sunday night in Foxborough, the memories of the previous two decades will pour back into our brains like a deluge of water.

It’s a homecoming for the best quarterback of his generation, and perhaps the greatest of all time, as he returns to the spot where it all started.

After traveling to New England to face the Patriots on Sunday night, we’ll all be feeling the emotions that accompanied the team’s departure.

Brady returns to the field after his departure from the New England Patriots and his relationship with Bill Belichick made headlines.

Before the publication of “It’s Better to be Feared,” a book by Seth Wickersham that delves into the Patriots’ dynasty and Tom Brady’s subsequent departure to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency after 20 years in a Patriots uniform, excerpts from the book have been making the rounds on social media.

Throughout the book, Wickersham claims that Belichick refused to meet with Brady in person to do Brady’s exit interview, instead preferring to conduct it over the phone.

“No, that’s not true,” Belichick said Wednesday when asked if he declined to meet with Brady prior to his departure. “There are a few things about this book; it sounds like it’s a lot of second-, third- and fourth-hand comments. I’m not going to get into that. I’m going to focus on this game and try to prepare for the Bucs.”

Brady — not one to publicly criticize the Patriots organization — took the high road on Thursday, saying that his departure was “handled perfectly.”

“All those things are super personal,” Brady said in his weekly press conference on Thursday.

“We had a great relationship. Everything was handled the right way. We handled everything as gracefully as we could. It was an amazing time, it was handled perfectly. I think everyone understood where we were at — the people involved in the situation. Things worked out the best for all of us.”

But don’t think for a second that Brady will be thinking about his time in New England when he takes the field Sunday.

“I’m just going to try to do what I always do: Go be a great quarterback,” Brady said. “Obviously, I understand the opponent. I know all those guys. They’re some of my great friends, [and] they will be for the rest of my life. I know a lot of coaches, players, the owners, the staff. It will be great to see everyone after the game, but up until the game I’m focused on trying to go win a football game.”