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LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced 13 charges against former House Speaker Lee Chatfield, including embezzlement from a nonprofit. Lee Chatfield, who briefly served as Southwest Michigan First CEO, has been under investigation for alleged involvement in a criminal enterprise, as well as claims of embezzlement, bribery and campaign finance violations. Lee Chatfield and his wife, Stephanie Chatfield, are facing charges in connection to the alleged misuse of a 501c4 fund titled the "Peninsula Fund," which is a social welfare organization, Nessel said. Nessel referred to these 501c4 nonprofit accounts as "commonly political dark money dumping sites"...

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) threatened possible contempt proceedings against Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) over a subpoena requesting information about her use of federal funds. Willis’s office has already sent information in response to the February subpoena, but the GOP leader complains she failed to turn over documents related to allegations from a now-terminated employee who flagged another former employee’s desire to misuse federal grant money. “We appreciate that you have produced a narrow set of documents in response to the subpoena, but your compliance with the subpoena to date is deficient,” Jordan wrote...

Big-ticket weapons systems sent to Ukraine could be rendered useless on the battlefield because the Pentagon lacks a plan for Ukrainian troops to maintain them, according to a Defense Department watchdog agency report, which also warned that sustaining Kyiv’s armored vehicles could harm the U.S. Army’s own combat readiness. “The lack of foresight in this matter is concerning, and should be rectified promptly,” Inspector General Robert Storch said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the department is developing a plan now. But the oversight on keeping functional equipment such as Patriot interceptors, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Strykers and Abrams tanks puts...

Carte blanche checks to cross-dressing globalists running one of the most corrupt government cartels in the world? What could possibly go wrong? ***snip*** The jihadists who planned attacks on cathedrals in Austria and Germany this past Christmas were offered a rocket launcher by an unnamed army official in Ukraine, according to the Austrian news outlet, Exxpress.The site reported on Wednesday that the German Federal Criminal Police Office had obtained testimony from one of the suspects affiliated with the Islamic State terror cell in the Afghan province of Khorasan (ISPK) that revealed the group had been approached by “a contact who...

The Ukrainian air assault forces finally have deployed their most powerful unit. The 2,000-person 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which is stacked with Marder and Stryker fighting vehicles and Challenger 2 tanks, rolled into action around Robotyne, in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast, apparently in the last few days. The deployment is good and bad news for Kyiv’s long-anticipated counteroffensive, which kicked off with a series of coordinated assaults across southern and eastern Ukraine starting on June 4.

PHOENIX — Gov. Katie Hobbs said Tuesday that Arizona should press charges against former president Donald Trump over potential election interference in the 2020 election. Hobbs told reporters at an event in Phoenix that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes should follow suit with Georgia, which indicted Trump on Monday. “Absolutely. I have been an advocate for holding folks involved in trying to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 election accountable and this is part of that process,” Hobbs, a Democrat, said.

An increasing number of countries are repatriating gold reserves as protection against the sort of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia, according to an Invesco survey of central bank and sovereign wealth funds published on Monday.The financial market rout last year caused widespread losses for sovereign money managers who are "fundamentally" rethinking their strategies on the belief that higher inflation and geopolitical tensions are here to stay. Over 85% of the 85 sovereign wealth funds and 57 central banks that took part in the annual Invesco Global Sovereign Asset Management Study believe that inflation will now be higher in...

It's a Spew York Times article. I didn't bother to read it, just ascertained which piece of RINO cowplop wrote it. J. Michael Luttig has a certain "history" here on Free Republic:https://freerepublic.com/tag/jmichaelluttig/index

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joined this week's episode of CNN's 'Who's Talking to Chris Wallace,' and defended his previous comparison of the January 6th Capitol riots to Kristallnacht violent attack on the Jewish people. Schwarzenegger, 73, made his original comments comparing the two events in a January 2021 video, when he issued a dramatic speech slamming Trump and comparing the MAGA January 6th riot to the Nazi takeover of his native Austria. CNN anchor Chris Wallace played a portion of his speech in the interview with Schwarzenegger on Friday before asking him whether he still stands by his original...

Wyatt from Defense Politics - ASIA joins the boys at The Duran [Alex Christoforou in Nicosia and Alexander Mercouris in London] to discuss the summer-fall-winter-spring offensive in the Ukraine. 1:44:13 long video [1 hour and 44 minutes]

Decades of consolidation have left the Pentagon vulnerable to mishaps—including when the sole maker of a crucial type of gunpowder went offlineMINDEN, La.—Nearly two years ago, an errant spark inside a mill caused an explosion so big it destroyed all the building’s equipment and blew a corrugated fiberglass wall 100 feet. It also shut down the sole domestic source of an explosive the Department of Defense relies on to produce bullets, mortar shells, artillery rounds and Tomahawk missiles. The ramshackle facility makes the original form of gunpowder, known today as black powder, a highly combustible material with hundreds of military...

Germany began shutting down its three remaining nuclear power reactors on Saturday as part of a long-planned shift to renewable energy. The international community was keeping a tight eye on the shutdown of the reactors Emsland, Neckarwestheim II, and Isar II, which was agreed to more than a decade ago... ***snip*** The country was caught in a bind as it tries to enact the 2011 resolution by former Chancellor Angela Merkel to make a nuclear exit by the end of 2022, but was starting to reconsider in the face of threats to the stability of the energy supply.Europe’s largest electricity...

t was not one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most prominent roles, but is proving to be disproportionately controversial. The Hollywood star and former California governor filmed himself filling in a troublesome pothole near his Los Angeles home, proffering it as an act of civic responsibility by an exasperated resident. But he was then told by the authorities it wasn’t officially a pothole at all. According to city officials, the “giant pothole” Schwarzenegger and a friend packed with quick-drying cement and topped with sand was actually an essential service trench for work being performed by a utility company in the Brentwood neighborhood....

Russian President Vladimir Putin was waiting on a "wink" from former U.S. President Donald Trump to seize parts of Ukraine—years before Russia launched a full-scale invasion—according to a new interview. Written correspondence between former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and Kremlin aide Konstantin Kilimnik discussed Putin claiming part of Ukraine, saying that a "wink" from the Republican former president was needed to "make this work," former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann has said. Speaking with PBS' Firing Line and host Margaret Hoover, Weissmann said this was "such a clear indication of what Vladimir Putin was trying to do."

China's central bank said on Tuesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on setting up yuan clearing arrangements in Brazil with the Central Bank of Brazil. The establishment of yuan clearing arrangements in Brazil will help Chinese and Brazilian firms and financial institutions with cross-border transactions using the yuan, further facilitating bilateral trade and investment, the People's Bank of China (PBC), the country's central bank, said in a concise statement on its website. The latest yuan clearing plan followed a slew of similar arrangements as the Chinese currency takes on a bigger role in the global foreign...

RIFLE, Colo. (AP) — Debbie Hartman voted for Lauren Boebert for Congress in 2020 and again in 2022, delighted by Boebert’s unequivocal defense of cultural issues that animate the Republican Party’s far right flank. But as Hartman shopped recently at a supermarket in this Rocky Mountain ranching outpost, she had one piece of advice for the Colorado lawmaker. “Tone down the nasty rhetoric on occasion and just stick with the point at hand,” said Hartman, 65, a veterinary tech assistant. That sentiment reflects Boebert’s challenge as she begins her second term in the House. In her relatively short time in...

When it comes to the war in Ukraine, about the only thing that’s certain right now is that the fighting and destruction will continue.Vladimir Putin remains fully committed to bringing all of Ukraine back under Russian control or — failing that — destroying it as a viable country. He believes it is his historical destiny — his messianic mission — to reestablish the Russian Empire and, as Zbigniew Brzezinski observed years ago, there can be no Russian Empire without Ukraine. Both of us have dealt with Putin on a number of occasions, and we are convinced he believes time is...

Rep. Mondaire Jones criticized GOP-appointed judges' abilities to issue nationwide injunctions. He referred to a Trump-appointed judge blocking student-debt relief for millions of Americans. His new bill would channel that authority to D.C. courts and the Supreme Court only. A Democratic lawmaker doesn't think conservative judges should have the power to halt Democratic policies for millions of Americans. Last week, New York Rep. Mondaire Jones penned an opinion piece criticizing Republican-appointed judges' "unrestrained use of nationwide injunctions" to block Democratic policies. For example, federal Texas Judge Mark Pittman — appointed by former President Donald Trump — ruled President Joe Biden's...