Tuesday, November 30, 2021

CNN suspends Chris Cuomo 'indefinitely' pending evaluation of his involvement in brother's scandals

The suspension comes as calls for Cuomo's firing grow

CNN announced that it is suspending its star anchor Chris Cuomo as the network evaluates his conduct following stunning revelations from the New York Attorney General's investigation into his brother, ousted Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"The New York Attorney General's office released transcripts and exhibits Monday that shed new light on Chris Cuomo's involvement in his brother's defense," CNN began its statement Tuesday evening. "The documents, which we were not privy to before their public release, raise serious questions. When Chris admitted to us he had offered advice to his brother's staff, he broke our rules and we acknowledged that publicly. But we also appreciated the unique position he was in and understood his need to put family first and job second."

CNN'S CHRIS CUOMO TURNED TO MEDIA SOURCES FOR INFO ON BROTHER'S ACCUSERS: ‘I HAVE A LEAD ON THE WEDDING GIRL’

"However," CNN continued, "these documents point to a greater level of involvement in his brother's efforts than we previously knew. As a result, we have suspended Chris indefinitely, pending further evaluation."

UltraViolet, a leading national gender-justice organization, called for CNN to immediately fire Chris Cuomo. (CNN)

Calls for the "Cuomo Prime Time" host to be fired intensified on Monday after newly-released documents showed he was far more involved in aiding his embattled brother than he previously disclosed to viewers.

Transcripts from his interview with investigators show the CNN star admitting he would reach out to media sources to find out about new accusers who have yet to come forward publicly.

"When asked, I would reach out to sources, other journalists, to see if they had heard of anybody else coming out," Cuomo told investigators.

CHRIS CUOMO SILENT AMID GROWING SCANDAL, AVOIDS ADDRESSING ROLE IN HELPING EMBATTLED BROTHER ON CNN SHOW

Cuomo's admission contradicts what he told CNN viewers in August when he claimed, "I never made calls to the press about my brother's situation."

Three days after the New York Times broke the story about Anna Ruch, who alleged the governor sexually harassed her at a 2019 wedding reception, the CNN anchor texted top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa, "I have a lead on the wedding girl."

CNN’s Chris Cuomo performed prop comedy with his brother New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo during a widely panned segment in 2020. (CNN)

In another exchange, DeRosa texted to Cuomo, "Rumor going around from politico 1-2 more ppl coming out tomorrow," then asking him "Can u check your sources?"

Cuomo replied "on it," later writing back "No one has heard that yet."

The CNN anchor snooped into the progress of Ronan Farrow’s reporting about his brother and relayed it to the governor's inner circle.

He admitted to contacting colleagues of Farrow for updates but claimed it was simply "business-as-usual" to employ such methods. Text messages released by state investigators showed DeRosa asking about "intel the CNN anchor had about Farrow's report on March 15, to which he replied it wasn't ready for publication. Farrow's story was eventually published on March 18.

Additionally, the transcript from investigators' interview with Democratic strategist and Andrew Cuomo ally Lis Smith showed Chris Cuomo had forwarded her documents regarding the governor's second accuser Charlotte Bennett and her "time in college."

CNN suspends Chris Cuomo 'indefinitely' pending evaluation of his involvement in brother's scandals | Fox News

Mark Meadows: ‘Will Be Very Disappointing’ for January 6 Commission When They Find Trump, No One in the West Wing Had Advance Knowledge of Capitol Security Breach

Various media outlets are reporting that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is cooperating with the House Select Committee on January 6, and they are touting the threat of jail time as one of the reasons for that willingness to cooperate.

However, Meadows said that cooperation had been long in the works, even despite threatening comments from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) touting a forthcoming January 6 committee decision on possible contempt charges for Meadows.

During an interview with Mobile, AL radio’s FM Talk 106.5, Meadows said Schiff’s remarks did not change anything and that he believed the Democrat-led January 6 Committee would be disappointed when they find former President Donald Trump and the West Wing did not have “advance knowledge” on the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

“It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “We’ve been working on an accommodation, Jeff, for a long time. What I told them is if I can share with the committee non-privileged information that doesn’t waive the executive privilege that Donald Trump has put forth — it is not my privilege to waive, and I’m not going to be the first chief of staff to do that. At the same time, if I can come in and share non-privileged information that I have, I’ll be glad to do that. [I’m] not going to be compelled to do it. I will be glad to do that voluntarily but if we’re going to do that, if I’m going to do that — what I think they will find is Donald Trump or no one else in the West Wing had any advance knowledge of the security breach that was going to happen at the Capitol on January 6.”

“It will be very disappointing to them, and that is really what I will be focusing on,” Meadows added. “So, we will see. These are complex legal matters, and our attorneys have been dealing with their attorneys for several weeks now. Hopefully, something will come of it.”

Mark Meadows: 'Will Be Very Disappointing' for January 6 Commission When They Find Trump, No One in the West Wing Had Advance Knowledge of Capitol Security Breach (breitbart.com)

'Bus ride to nowhere' offers Hong Kongers a place to snooze for five hours

The hustle and bustle of life has sparked innovative solutions for the sleepy residents of Hong Kong. A tour bus company says it has the remedy for those having trouble dozing off at night.

The novel new business in Hong Kong is putting on lengthy 85-kilometre bus journeys as a possible cure for insomnia.

The “bus ride to nowhere” allows passengers to relax during a five-hour drive aboard the double-decker sightsighting motor coach.

“Every Hong Konger has stress from work, from affording a flat, from life, and now we can’t go traveling,” passenger Ho Wai told AFP during the trip. “With all this stress adding up, I think a lot of Hong Kongers aren’t sleeping well.”

The 85-kilometre journey was meticulously routed. Frankie Chow, president of Ulu Travel and the person behind the concept, said he created a circuit with the least amount of traffic lights possible so passengers wouldn’t awake when the bus started and stopped so often.

“I think everyone has experienced not being able to sleep at home but they can sleep very soundly on a bus as the bus swings and vibrates,” Wai said.

Tickets cost US$12 for seats on the lower deck and US$51 for the upper deck for a ride beginning in a busy urban district and continuing on coastal highways to the city’s airport.

Throughout the pandemic, Hong Kong has maintained some of the world’s harshest quarantine measures and travel restrictions in an effort to curb infection rates.

“In the past, I would go to the airport [for travelling] each month,” another male passenger told AFP. “Aside from sleeping, this tour also gives us a sense of travelling.”

'Bus ride to nowhere' offers Hong Kongers a place to snooze for five hours | National Post

Why Joe Biden's life will quickly get miserable if Republicans take over the House

Anticipating a majority after the 2022 midterms,
House Republicans are eager to grill Biden's Cabinet secretaries, investigate Hunter and
(maybe) impeach the president

Congressional Republicans have big plans to thwart the Biden administration's agenda.

Republicans can't wait to make Joe Biden's life miserable if they take back control of the US House in the upcoming midterm elections.

Odds are high that the GOP will wrest control of the House from Democrats in 2022. They've got a decent shot of winning back the Senate, too. And House Republicans are feeling so confident that they're already drafting their playbook for taking on the Biden administration once they've got more power on Capitol Hill.

Insider asked some of the very Republicans poised to take charge what they'd do if American voters decide to put them back in the majority in Congress. Their plans: theatrical oversight hearings, investigations into Hunter Biden's art sales, and maybe even one or more Biden impeachments.

"No government agency will want to receive a letter from us," said Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who is now the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and is in position to become its next chairman if the GOP takes the majority.

Republicans are making the case that handing them majorities in the House and Senate would allow them to provide a check against the Biden administration. They argue that Democratic leadership in both chambers of Congress has failed to hold the administration accountable so far.

Democrats made the same pitch in the midterm elections during President Donald Trump's administration, and their House takeover in 2019 dramatically shifted the power dynamic in Washington and paved the way for Trump's two impeachments.

"Everyone's frustrated with the Biden administration," Comer told Insider in a recent interview on Capitol Hill. "What they see in Congress now is absolutely no oversight to the Biden administration. Like who was held accountable for Afghanistan? Who's held accountable for the lack of border security? No one," he added. "Someone needs to hold them accountable and provide oversight, and we're going to do that."
House Republicans want to investigate Hunter Biden's art sales.

Clear your calendars, Cabinet secretaries

Comer expects a GOP-led Oversight Committee to be ground zero for GOP spats with the Biden administration, and that means the president's Cabinet secretaries should expect regular grillings on Capitol Hill. "We've got problems with just about every one of them with respect to oversight," Comer said.

Another top target for GOP investigations: Hunter Biden.

The president's son is a favorite target for Republicans who want to investigate Hunter Biden's international business dealings as well as his recent art sales. Comer has questioned whether would-be art buyers might try to seek improper influence over the White House by purchasing Hunter Biden's work. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in October that the White House wouldn't know who was buying the art.

"Hunter Biden is at the top of the list," Comer told Insider recently. "All I want to know is who bought that original art. And that's not being nosy, that's based upon a pattern of bad behavior for Hunter Biden."

The Biden White House would undoubtedly shift into a defensive posture if it's dealing with an antagonistic GOP majority from either chamber of Congress that suddenly has the power to issue subpoenas. The Trump and Obama administrations both made personnel changes, altered their legislative agendas, and braced for regular oversight hearings when the House switched parties after those administrations' first two years in office.

The White House did not respond to Insider's request for comment for this story.

Biden impeachment prospects

Republicans also have big plans to overhaul the House Judiciary Committee, which counts some of the Biden administration's most vocal critics as its members. That committee is also typically where impeachment investigations and hearings take place.

Rep. Jim Jordan — an Ohio Republican who's a leader of the House's most conservative GOP faction and is one of Trump's staunchest defenders on Capitol Hill — stands to become the chairman of the powerful panel if his party takes the House.

"Lord willing, I think we're going to take back the majority and I want to be the chair of the Judiciary Committee," Jordan told Insider in a November interview.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, could have a tough time mustering enough votes to become the next House speaker if the GOP clinches the chamber. Jordan challenged McCarthy for the minority leader slot in 2018, but the Ohio Republican said there's "zero" chance that he'll be the next House speaker and that he's focused on becoming Judiciary chairman.

Some House Republicans are already trying to impeach Biden, but the effort is entirely symbolic with Democrats in the majority. Several Republicans filed impeachment articles in September, for example, criticizing Biden's withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, his immigration policies, and his administration's eviction moratorium. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia filed articles of impeachment against Biden the day after he was sworn in, calling him "unfit" for the presidency.

FOR YOU

Impeachment talk could gain traction if Republicans are in the majority, but the GOP might risk blowback if they pursue a move that the public perceives as overtly political. And even if Biden were impeached in the House, he's unlikely to be ousted by a Senate where two-thirds of the chamber would need to support his removal — something that's never before happened in US history.

Asked whether Republicans would pursue impeachment against Biden, Jordan said, "I don't know. What I do know is that he's had the worst presidency in history. It's been a complete disaster."

Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Matt Gaetz of Florida will get more powerful if Republicans take back the US House.

Biden won't just be dealing with committee leaders who have power. Some of the far-right GOP gadflies who are often treated as Hill sideshows would be emboldened to make problems for the Democratic administration.

For starters, Jordan wants to elevate Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who is another staunch Trump defender and who is the subject of a federal sex-trafficking investigation. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

In a recent interview on Gaetz's podcast, Jordan said he wants to see Gaetz chairing a Judiciary subcommittee, "whichever one he wants."

McCarthy has also vowed to put flame throwing Republican Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Greene of Georgia back on committees if the GOP takes the majority.

The current Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, said he thinks Democrats will hold onto the House in the midterms. But as for a potential Jordan chairmanship, Nadler said, "Jordan frightens me. He's off the wall." Gaetz, Nadler told Insider, "is a little more sensible."

Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat who also serves on the Judiciary Committee, predicted "chaos" if Republicans retake the House. Emboldening conservatives in the House like Jordan, Gaetz, and Greene is a "dreadful" prospect, Cohen told Insider.

"My father was superintendent of a mental institution," he said, "so I think about things like this."

Republicans Can't Wait to Make Joe Biden's Life Miserable (businessinsider.com)

SHOCKING: RFK Jr. Claims Fauci Killed, Tortured, Poor Minority Orphans in 1980s

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the face of the COVID pandemic. He regularly opines about methods for controlling the spread of the virus. Fauci set major national policy for nearly two years for almost two years now on who can work, what businesses can remain open, what religious services are allowed, as well as on-again-off-again mask mandates.

His recent history of torturing beagles brought controversy and condemnation.

Less well known, however, is the torture and medical murder of at least 85 orphan minority children in New York, children who were vulnerable, could not consent, and who would not be missed.

The Gateway Pundit wrote about Fauci’s experiments on AIDS orphans in New York City back in October.

And, Ann Rosen at LifeSiteNews wrote a good recap of Fauci’s crimes against children earlier this month.

These children were buried in mass graves at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, NY in Westchester County and otherwise forgotten.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that Anthony Fauci is America’s Joseph Mengele for what he did to poor orphan minority kids in the 1980’s.

FAUCI COMPARED TO NAZI MONSTER JOSEPH MENGELE FOR BUTCHERING ORPHANS

These extreme claims are the subject of a new book by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., called “The Real Anthony Fauci.” In Chapter 7, the Kennedy heir lays out “NIAID’s Barbaric and Illegal Experiments on Children”

KENNEDY ALLEGES FAUCI USED ORPHAN KIDS AS CHEAP TESTERS FOR CHEMO TREATMENTS AND HARSH AIDS DRUGS LIKE AZT

Kennedy refers to Fauci as America’s ‘homegrown Mengele.’

An excerpt below from Kennedy’s explosive book describing Fauci’s medical experiments on children:

Fauci tested harsh chemotherapy drugs on orphan children in order to determine its use for AIDS treatments in the 1980s
Fauci got control of foster homes in 7 states
Children were tortured to death
Children were denied guardians and any kind of legal protector
Children who refused to take Fauci’s drugs had feeding tubes installed so drug companies could administer the drugs even when the kids fought back
Most of the children did not have HIV/AIDS, they were just used as guinea pigs to see if they could survive the harsh drug regimen
At least 85 kids died as part of these experiments

RFK JR.: FAUCI KILLED 85 KIDS, FORCING THEM TO TEST OUT CHEMO DRUGS AGAINST THEIR WILL, CUTTING THEM TO INSTALL FEEDING TUBES WHEN THEY RESISTED

The graveyard where these children were thrown into a pit, filled with hundreds of coffins sometimes stuffed with multiple children, is buried under an astroturf pit in New York. These are the victims of Fauci’s crimes, says Kennedy.

Another excerpt from Kennedy’s shocking new book that outlines how Dr. Fauci preyed on vulnerable black and Hispanic orphan children in order to use them for medical experimentation, below:

KIDS KILLED BY FAUCI DUMPED INTO A MASS GRAVE IN NEW YORK

The Kennedy book has 2200 footnotes, anticipating the left-wing fact-check regime which will attempt to discredit the book by parsing apart every part of his shocking research.

FORCED MEDICAL TESTING ON UNWILLING KIDS

These claims are so extreme they are hard to believe anyone would defend them.

But in a written history of the Fauci crimes, the rationale for these crimes against children was explained by Jeanne Bergman, a writer and editor for the AIDS journal of Housing Works, as she wrote:

“Should children of three, six, or even 12 years get to decide if they will or will not take their medicine? Of course not, particularly when irregular dosing may result in multiplying drug-resistant HIV. All responsible parents and caregivers understand that children can’t make crucial life and death decisions for themselves, and the law recognizes this fact, too, such that children can neither give nor withhold medical consent. Columbia University ran the clinical trials the only way the kids could get the drugs that kept them alive.”

Mandatory treatments of children were necessary according to these Fauci defenders. Refusal by the children would not be tolerated. Studies showed that forced feeding tubes were preferable to giving the kids any choice.

KIDS FORCED TO PARTICIPATE IN FAUCI’S MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS THAT KILLED THEM

In 2004 the BBC broadcast a four-part documentary on Fauci’s crimes against children, called “Guinea Pigs.” The broadcast was never shown on American television.

BBC DOCUMENTARY TRIED TO TELL THE STORY OF FAUCI’S CHILD GUINEA PIGS, WAS SUPPRESSED

Authorities later investigated the deaths and cleared Fauci from any wrongdoing. A study done by two researchers that worked within the National Institutes of Health, where Dr. Fauci has enormous clout, gave Fauci a clean bill of health for his research using poor orphan minority children that resulted in their deaths. They concluded that the children needed better guardians and to make sure that their legal rights were properly represented by a neutral third party.

FAUCI WAS CLEARED BY 2008 STUDY DONE BY TWO NIH ETHICISTS WHO WHITEWASHED CRIMES AGAINST KIDS

A Nurse at the time who participated in the testing told the 2004 BBC documentary:

“I did as I was told by the doctors. If they were dying, if they were vomiting, we were told that this was because they had HIV/AIDS and that this was to be expected.”

Ghislaine Maxwell is being tried in New York this week for procuring teens for sex for the late Jeffrey Epstein during roughly the same period as Dr. Anthony Fauci procured New York orphan pre-teens for medical torture for big Pharma.

According to the documentary and researchers including Kennedy, the nurse was witnessing children who were suffering side effects to the drugs given to them by Fauci. Most of them had never been infected with HIV/AIDS in the first place. These children suffered in silence and were silently killed, and then anonymously discarded into a mass grave when they were dead and no longer useful.

SHOCKING: RFK Jr. Claims Fauci Killed, Tortured, Poor Minority Orphans in 1980s (thegatewaypundit.com)

Why the Biden Administration Wants Higher Gasoline Prices

When he announced last week that he would release more oil from the American Strategic Petroleum Reserve, President Joe Biden told the American people he is doing everything possible to bring down gas prices at the pump.

That’s a lie. This administration and the climate change crazies have declared war on American energy.

They want high oil and gas prices. The Biden master plan is for American oil and gas production and consumption to go to zero over the next 15 to 20 years. How do you achieve that goal? By making oil and gas so expensive and so unavailable that Americans are forced to use alternatives.

In other words, the fact that gasoline is roughly $1.25 more expensive per gallon today under Biden than it was a year ago under former President Donald Trump didn’t happen by accident. This was not a result of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, that could knock out our oil facilities. This was by design.

The left believes that they can change the temperature of the planet by forcing American energy companies to produce less oil and to force Americans to use less of it. How do you get people to buy less of something? You raise its price. This is basic high-school introductory economics.

Some on the Biden team have inadvertently admitted this. Cornell University professor Saule Omarova, a high-ranking Biden nominee for one of the country’s leading regulatory agencies, said she wants to “bankrupt” U.S. oil, gas, and coal companies—and apparently has no problem putting roughly five million Americans into unemployment lines. Biden’s appointee to be vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Lael Brainard, was asked at a congressional hearing recently if she thought high gas prices were a problem. She hemmed and hawed and refused to answer with a simple “yes.” Instead, she explained that this is a “complicated” issue. How is this complicated?

U.S. oil production is down roughly two million barrels a day from the peak production under Trump prior to COVID, yet Biden recently blamed high oil prices on the Saudis and the OPEC nations for holding back supply. Hello! That is exactly what cartels do. They use their market power to jack up the prices so they can maximize their profits.

Trump broke the back of OPEC by making the United States the dominant energy-producing nation in the world. Biden has handed back that power to the Arab oil sheikhs and Vladimir Putin in Russia. Now they are gouging us. What a shock!

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said it well in August that Texas “can easily produce that oil” if Biden “will just stay out of the way.”

He won’t.

The Biden administration strategy is to force-feed the American economy expensive, unreliable, and made-in-China wind and solar energy. His $3 trillion Build Back Better bill would dole out more than $500 billion of taxpayer dollars to the wind, solar, and electric vehicle industry to break the back of oil and gas production. If this energy source is so efficient, why does it need a half trillion dollars of your and my money?

Meanwhile, nearly every Biden policy has been deliberately aimed at killing U.S. oil and gas production—from killing the Keystone XL pipeline to trying to shut down other existing natural gas pipelines in the Midwest (Home heating costs are going way up this winter.) to shutting down much of Alaska oil production to new Environmental Protection Agency rules making it very difficult and expensive to drill here in America. He is also preventing the mining of American coal, which is still one of the dominant sources of electric power around the world. He also wants to raise taxes on the oil and gas industry.

Now, let’s be honest. Do any of these policies suggest that Biden and his liberal friends in the green-energy movement want to keep oil and gas prices low? If you answer yes to that, you probably believe that Al Gore invented the internet.

Why the Biden Administration Wants Higher Gasoline Prices (theepochtimes.com)

Ghislaine Maxwell was 'No. 2' in hierarchy of Epstein's operations, pilot testifies

Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr. is the first witness in the sex trafficking trial of Maxwell

A longtime pilot for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein resumed his testimony at Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial Tuesday, saying that the British socialite charged with helping him find teenage girls to sexually abuse them was "No. 2" in the hierarchy of Epstein's operations.

Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr. is the first witness in the sex trafficking trial of Maxwell, 59, a woman who traveled for decades in circles that put her in contact with accomplished and wealthy people before her July 2020 arrest.

Asked where Maxwell stood in the hierarchy of Epstein's world, Visoski said Maxwell "was the No. 2." He added that "Epstein was the big No. 1."

In this courtroom sketch, Lawrence Paul Visoski Jr., who was one of Jeffrey Epstein's pilots, testifies on the witness stand during Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021, in New York.

The testimony supports what Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz told jurors in her opening statement Monday when she said Epstein and Maxwell were "partners in crime."

Pomerantz said Maxwell recruited and groomed girls for Epstein to sexually abuse from 1994 to at least 2004.

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty and her lawyer says she’s being made a scapegoat for Epstein’s bad behavior.

In this courtroom sketch, assistant U.S. Attorney Lara E. Pomerantz gives her opening statement while pointing to Ghislaine Maxwell, seated far left, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021, in New York.

Visoski testified briefly on Monday before beginning Tuesday on the witness stand. Prosecutors have used his testimony to show jurors photographs of Epstein’s homes and properties.

Epstein killed himself in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited a sex trafficking trial.

In this courtroom sketch, Lead Maxwell defense attorney Bobbi Sternheim gives an opening statement while Ghislaine Maxwell, far left, listens, Monday, Nov. 29, 2021, in New York.

Maxwell has been held without bail since her arrest on charges alleging she recruited teenage girls for Epstein to abuse from 1994 to 1997. Earlier this year, the indictment against her was expanded to accuse her of continuing to aid Epstein's sexual abuse of teenagers from 1997 to 2004.

Ghislaine Maxwell was 'No. 2' in hierarchy of Epstein's operations, pilot testifies | Fox News

Pelosi's pledge that this is her last term as speaker looms amid wave of Dem retirements

Pelosi said in 2018 that she would limit herself to two terms

Eighteen House Democrats are taking a hike come January 2023, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spot up top may be available for another Democrat if the party holds onto their razor-thin majority.

Pelosi, D-Calif., has yet to officially announce her decision for 2022 and beyond. Last year, she implicitly reaffirmed a 2018 promise that her current term would be the last one she would serve as speaker of the House.

PELOSI SEEMS TO SIGNAL THIS COULD BE HER LAST TERM AS SPEAKER

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Pelosi's office did not respond to Fox News' inquiry on whether the speaker would stand by her promise.

The speaker said back in 2018 that she would limit herself to two terms — or four years — as the top lawmaker in the House.

More recently, Pelosi has dodged questions about whether she will run for reelection.

If Pelosi decides not to run in next year's election, she'll join a long list of Democrats who are bowing out ahead of what is projected to be a tough midterm election for their party.

Rep. Thomas Suozzi, D-N.Y., this week became the 18th House Democrat to say he would not run for reelection in 2022. Suozzi is running for governor of New York instead.

FILE - Rep. Thomas Suozzi, D-N.Y., pauses while speaking with the media, Sept. 13, 2017, in Washington. Suozzi is joining a competitive primary race for New York governor that became wide open when Andrew Cuomo resigned. Suozzi told reporters at a virtual news conference Monday, Nov. 29, 2021 that he's jumping into the 2022 race.

Suozzi's move will likely embolden Republicans hoping to flip his congressional district from blue to red in next year’s midterm elections, where the GOP needs a net gain of just five seats to regain the chamber’s majority.

The congressman was on the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) list of most vulnerable Democrats heading into the midterms.

Pelosi's pledge that this is her last term as speaker looms amid wave of Dem retirements | Fox News

Billionaire Leon Black Is Stepping Down From His Firm Following Connection To Epstein

According to sources, Leon Black, the C.E.O. of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, will be stepping down from his role following his apparent connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

Black allegedly paid out $158 million to Epstein…

This was discovered during an internal investigation by the board of directors at Apollo into Black and Epstein’s relationship.

While the board found ‘no evidence’ that Black took part in Epstein’s criminal enterprise, he did loan him quite a large sum of money, and questions loom over exactly what the large sums of money were for.

Here’s what we currently know:

Why is the other dirty little secret, MONEY LAUNDERING, so taboo for MSM? It’s a $32-$50 TRILLION business, managed by global oligarchs.
Former Apollo CEO Leon Black buys $28M London townhouse
“he paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning”https://t.co/GpeLXZeHjF
— QuestionEverything (@Questio70632004) November 30, 2021

Wexner was busy. Epstein had no credentials but spoke well. I think Epstein already had a deal with Leon Black. Zorro Ranch May have served as a supplier. Different money streams.
— Diane S. Baker (@dianesbaker1) November 30, 2021

Forbes detailed several large transactions from Black to Epstein:

NATIONAL POLL: Should Obama Be Arrested and Tried For Treason?
Apollo said its investigation, conducted by law firm Dechert, found “no evidence that Mr. Black was involved in any way with Mr. Epstein’s criminal activities at any time.” However, the report did show that Black paid Epstein a stunning $158 million in fees for services, loaned him over $30 million in loans and made a $10 million donation to Epstein’s charity, all figures that are multiples of what was previously reported.

Leon Black, co-founder, former CEO and billionaire of Apollo Global Management, a $433 billion firm, loaned Epstein $158 million and made a $10 million donation to the Epstein charity.
— Maxwell Trial Tracker (@TrackerTrial) November 28, 2021

Vanity Fair reported these allegations against Black:

Today, in new court documents, a former model is accusing Black of violently raping her at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2002.
The woman, identified in the documents as “Jane Doe,” says Epstein arranged for her to give a $300 massage to Black when she was a financially struggling single mother living in New Jersey. But instead, she alleges, Black brutally assaulted her shortly after they entered the massage room on the third floor of Epstein’s mansion.
A number of weeks later, she claims, Black paid her $5,000 cash to “help with her credit card debt.” The suit says Doe didn’t report the rape at the time because a friend warned her no one would believe her.

Billionaire Leon Black Is Stepping Down From His Firm Following Connection To Epstein (welovetrump.com)

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