Patriot Pony

Bonus Section Monday, January 17, 2022 Subscribe for free $0.00—online only

EDITOR’S NOTE—This section is reserved as an editorial and may not necessarily reflect the policy of this publication.

Quarantine is when the movement of sick people is restricted. Tyranny is when the movement of healthy people is restricted. Propaganda is when the media deliberately deceive the public about that difference. ***** Starting Saturday in our nation's capital you needed an ID to go get chicken wings, watch a movie, or work out, but not one to vote.

***** Mikki Willis: By now most of us are aware that factions of our own government, in lockstep with foreign adversaries, various tech titans and certain billionaires are working hard to strip away our freedoms. For decades they’ve announced out loud their agenda to create a “one world government.” That one sentence says it all- Their goal is to take control of our world.

Knowing that America is too powerful to overtake by direct force, decades ago they put into action a plan to chip away at the foundation of our nation through covert psychological and ideological warfare.

Through patient incremental steps they’ve infiltrated every aspect of our lives. The enemy has breached the gates and is now planting poisonous seeds in the soil of our minds. This is an easy trap to avoid if you know what to look for.

As a veteran activist I’ve seen this disturbing tactic play out in just about every major movement of resistance I’ve ever been a part of. Just as the people begin to make real progress, paranoia sets in. Trusted allies become suspicious of each other. Rumors spread of “infiltrators” and “controlled opposition.” (Continued on page 16)

Queen Elizabeth II strips son Prince Andrew of all military titles amid sex abuse scandal

By Sophie Mann— JustTheNews.com

The Queen of England has stripped son Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, of all of his military titles days after it was decided that a civil sexual abuse trial brought by Virginia Giuffre against Andrew will move forward.

"With The Queen's approval and agreement, The Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to the Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen," reads a statement Thursday from the Palace.

Additionally, Andrew will no longer be permitted to use the title "HRH" –His Royal Highness –in any capacity.

Andrew served in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot and instructor, as well as the captain of a warship. The duke was formerly colonel of the Grenadier Guards, one of the oldest and most celebrated British Army regiments.

Previously, Buckingham Palace defended Andrew's military appointments, even after he stepped down from royal duties in 2019, following revelations about his relationship with the late Jeffrey Epstein.

The queen's decision follows an open letter addressed to Her Majesty from retired servicemen who described their "upset and anger" at Andrew's retention of his military titles.

A U.S. district judge in New York on Wednesday refused to dismiss a civil case against Andrew by Giuffre, according to the Associated Press.

Silent War and world awakening

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Joe Biden for calling millions of Americans "internal enemies."

Biden delivered a divisive speech from Atlanta, Georgia, where he called on the Senate to strike a "filibuster" (a tactic of obstructing bills by a parliamentary minority) for the "right to vote."

In addition, Biden called millions of Americans who oppose the federal takeover of elections "internal enemies."

It is very convenient to call dissenters inside the country terrorists. They can be treated harshly, without ceremony, put in jail and subjected to public censure. It is possible that this tactic will be used in the post-Soviet space, just look at Kazakhstan. ***** Michigan attorney general refers 2020 alternate electors to feds for possible prosecution. ***** Judge rules absentee ballot drop boxes illegal in Wisconsin, regulators must retract guidance. ***** Texas Secretary of State John Scott calls on Travis County to correct “erroneous” mail ballot application rejections for March 1 primary. ***** A large peer-reviewed study from Brazil found that "the regular use of Ivermectin as a prophylactic resulted in a significant reduction in Covid19 infection, hospitalization and mortality." The information was published in the journal Cureus Journal of Medical Science. ***** What happened before: Pfizer CEO says people spreading misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines are criminals. What is happening now: The CEO of Pfizer said that two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine are not enough for Omicron.

COVID con, part 1: How the pandemic became a gold mine for fraudsters

By Aaron Kliegman and Mary Lou Lang— JustTheNews.com

Both state and federal government agencies have facilitated massive criminal fraud over the past two years by paying out billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funds to fraudsters who gamed the system.

Since COVID-19 hit the U.S. in early 2020, the federal government has created several initiatives to combat the devastating economic fallout of the pandemic. Due to lax oversight by several agencies at both the state and federal level, however, billions meant for alleviating Americans' economic distress instead went to individuals who defrauded the government programs.

Much of the fraudulent activity occurred through the Small Business Administration (SBA), which is charged with overseeing several COVID-19 relief programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program (EIDL).

PPP provides forgivable loans to assist businesses during the pandemic, and EIDL provides accessible and borrowerfriendly capital to nonprofits and small businesses recovering from the pandemic's economic impacts.

While PPP helped many businesses survive during the pandemic, it was also riddled with fraud. About 15% of the $961 billion that the Congress appropriated in total for PPP is projected to have been obtained fraudulently, according to one study. A House panel estimated that some $84 billion in PPP loans was issued fraudulently. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis found last year that less than 1% of the money was forfeited or seized by the Justice Department.

PPP also had the highest percentage of cases of criminal activity of all the pandemic relief programs, according to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee's Semiannual Report to Congress from last year.

"A total of 14 [inspector general offices] have indictments/complaints, arrests, and/or convictions from April 1, 2021, through Sept. 30, 2021, related to the federal government's COVID-19 pandemic response," the PRAC reported.

PPP accounted for 49% of those criminal cases.

Rampant fraud and abuse of pandemic relief led the Justice Department to create the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force. The department has charged and sentenced dozens of individuals, most of whom were accused of defrauding the PPP and EIDL.

Just this week, Bridgitte Keim, 52, of Temple Terrace, Fla., pleaded guilty to defrauding a federally insured bank and the SBA by submitting false and fraudulent applications for PPP loans. She sought to obtain at least $588,693.14, according to the Justice Department. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled, but Keim faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison. Last week, an Oregon man was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison and five years' supervised release after stealing millions of dollars in loans from both PPP and EIDL. He was ordered to pay more than $4 million in restitution and forfeit 25 properties and more than 15,000 shares of Tesla, Inc. stock seized by law enforcement.

And last month, to cite another example, a Texas man was arrested for allegedly obtaining over $3.3 million in fraudulent PPP loans. Federal prosecutors say Scott Jackson Davis, 46, submitted three fraudulent PPP loan applications for three businesses which he claimed to represent.

Davis said these businesses had numerous employees and significant payroll; in reality, they had few if any employees and little to no payroll, according to prosecutors. He spent a large portion of the PPP loan funds on private jet travel, real estate, and luxury vehicles, according to the Justice Department.

All types of people have been found guilty and sentenced to jail for defrauding pandemic relief —from doctors, to wedding planners, to former NFL players, to reality TV stars.

Just the News has reported on several other such cases in which fraudsters submitted fraudulent applications and obtained millions of dollars. In some instances, those convicted and sentenced to prison had spent the money on luxury homes, high-priced jewelry, and expensive cars.

"It does seem ridiculous(Continued on page 16)

EDITOR’S NOTE—This section is reserved as an editorial and may not necessarily reflect the policy of this publication.

(Continued from page 15)

Infighting is the beginning of the end of forward momentum.

Like clockwork, just as we the people are making powerful strides to expose and overcome the tyranny that’s rapidly metastasizing around the world, cancerous rumors have begun echoing within the liberty movement.

Paid agitators absolutely exist. It is a real tactic that is commonly deployed against citizen-led movements when they gain too much power. One of the most common objectives of an agitator is to divide the group by turning its members against each other.

The words “united we stand, divided we fall,” were first spoken over two thousand years ago. There’s a reason that sentence has survived the test of time. Unity is our most powerful tool to fix this broken world. It is daylight to the vampires of division. When we’re divided we are susceptible to the hypnotic spells being cast at us daily by the media and those who control it.

If you truly care about your freedom, family and future, the next time you encounter someone spreading bad rumors about good people, unless the accusation presents clear and present evidence of being accurate, SHUT IT DOWN!

Even if the messenger means well, let them know they are literally doing the very thing they’re warning you about. Don’t be a “useful idiot,” as the perpetrators of this takeover call those who unwittingly carry their water . United We Win!

***** “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” -2 Timothy 3:1

(Continued from page 15)

ly easy," Richard Clarke, a police detective in Lauderhill, Fla., told CNBC. "Based on my experience, a lot of people, especially since COVID and the PPP loans, have taken advantage of lapses in the system to benefit personally from applying for loans —either deceptively or using other persons' information."

Since 2020, the SBA inspector general has repeatedly sounded the alarm on the increased risk of fraud as a result of the agency easing its internal controls amid the pandemic to deal with the influx of PPP and EIDL applications.

"To expedite the process, SBA 'lowered the guardrails' or relaxed internal controls, which significantly increasedthe risk of program fraud," the inspector general (IG) wrote in an October 2020 report. "The unprecedented demand for COVID-19 EIDLs and the equally unprecedented challenges SBA had in responding to this pandemic combined with lowered controls resulted in billions of dollars in potentially fraudulent loans and loans to potentially ineligible businesses."

As early as the summer of 2020, the IG found the SBA approved $14.3 billion ($13.4 billion disbursed) in EIDLs to accounts that differed from the original bank accounts listed on the loan applications; $62.7 billion ($58.0 billion disbursed) in multiple EIDLs to applicants using the same IP addresses, email addresses, bank accounts, or businesses listed at the same addresses; and about $1.1 billion in EIDLs and emergency advance grants to potentially ineligible businesses.

In January of last year, the IG identified $3.6 billion in PPP loans to potentially ineligible recipients before concluding: "SBA's efforts to hurry capital to businesses were at the expense of controls that could have reduced the likelihood of ineligible or fraudulent business obtaining a PPP loan. As a result, there is limited assurance that loans went to only eligible recipients."

The IG echoed these claims in a recent report from November after finding that, from March to November 2020, $3.1 billion in EIDL and $550 million in emergency EIDL grants were distributed to potentially ineligible recipients.

"SBA's lack of adequate front-end controls to determine eligibility contributed to the distribution of COVID-19 EIDLs and emergency EIDL grants to potentially ineligible recipients," the report found.

The SBA says it is working to address the problem of rampant fraud.

"The SBA takes fraud seriously, and, as such, all applicants are required to provide certification of their eligibility upon application," an agency spokesperson told Just the News. "Misrepresentation of eligibility is unlawful, and, when appropriate, these cases are referred to the Office of the Inspector General. The Office of Inspector General and the agency's federal partners are working diligently to resolve fraud incidents. The SBA encourages anyone suspecting fraud or misuse of relief programs to visit: sba.gov/fraud."

The SBA also noted that, as of September, the agency had conducted more than 65,000 manual loan reviews to identify potential fraud, abuse, and other forms of noncompliance. About 5,000 of these reviews have been "dispositioned as Requiring Further Analysis due to potential fraud or ineligibility."

The SBA isn't the only government agency that's paid out large sums of money in improper and fraudulent payments meant for COVID-19 relief.

The Labor Department, for example, did so in the form of billions of dollars in federal unemployment benefits, which went to ineligible recipients including prisoners and people with stolen identities. A report by the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) showed that the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA), established by the CARES Act in 2020, opened unemployment benefits to new categories of workers, such as self-employed and gig workers, who did not have to provide documentation to get payments.

The Department of Labor's interpretation of the CARES Act unemployment insurance provisions led the department's Employment and Training Administration to direct states to accept self -certifications for unemployment benefits instead of requiring claimants to provide documentation.

The resulting "reduction in controls to receive PUA benefits was a direct cause of the widespread fraud seen across states," according to the PRAC.

Unemployment insurance fraud was especially widespread in California, where the state auditor found the state Employment Development Department (EDD) paid out $10.4 billion in fraudulent claims.

EDD "did not take action to bolster its fraud detection efforts until months into the pandemic," according to the audit.

"EDD waited about four months to automate a key anti-fraud measure, took incomplete action against claims filed from suspicious addresses, and removed a key safeguard against improper payments without fully understanding the significance of the safeguard," said State Auditor Elaine Howle.

The removal of the safeguard accounted for $1 billion of the total fraudulent payments.

The EDD response to the auditor begins on page 43 of the audit report.

Arizona, meanwhile, paid out $4.4 billion in fraudulent and improper payments. Of that total, $1.6 billion in federal unemployment insurance benefits went to individuals who used stolen identities. The Arizona Department of Economic Security "did not put all critical identity verification or other anti-fraud measures in place before paying federal CARES Act unemployment insurance benefits," according to a state audit.

Michigan paid out $3.9 billion in PUA benefits to those who were ineligible, Washington paid out $647 million in improper or fraudulent payments, and Ohio paid out $574 million, with an additional $390 million flagged as potentially fraudulent.

Colorado and Louisiana additionally paid out nine -figure amounts.

Beyond the Labor Department, the IRS also improperly disbursed money allocated under COVID-19 relief legislation, with some potentially being fraudulent. Specifically, the agency doled out over $100 million in the form of business tax credits, according to a report by the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration.

The three new employer tax credits —the sick leave credit, the family leave credit, and the employee retention credit — were available to businesses under pandemic relief legislation. The IRS allowed employers to submit their forms electronically since centers were closed, and IRS employees manually reviewed and processed the returns.

Through Oct. 1 of tax year 2020, the IG "identified a total of 317 potentially fraudulent employer tax credits for approximately $94.2 million."

The IG also found the IRS paid out nearly $10 million to government entities that were ineligible under the relief legislation and an additional $2 million for government entities that weren't eligible for the employer tax credits.

Additionally, the IG noted hundreds more government entitles that received at least $7.2 million in erroneous employer tax credits after Oct. 1.

According to the IG, the IRS processed returns more than once and also processed employer tax credits above the allowable amount under pandemic relief laws.

The IRS response to the IG finding begins on page 17 of the latter's report.

Last month, the Secret Service announced that some $100 billion had been stolen from COVID-19 relief funds due to fraudulent activity. That's about 3% of the roughly $3.5 trillion that the government has so far spent in pandemic aid.

The week before the Secret Service announcement, the Labor Department said about $87 billion in COVID-19 unemployment benefits may have been paid improperly, "with a significant portion attributable to fraud."

Eleven Oath Keepers including leader charged with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 riot

By Just the News staff

The founder of the farright militia the Oath Keepers and 10 others in the group have been indicted and arrested for their alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the planning of the 2021 incident.

Founder Stewart Rhodes, 56, is being charged for the first time in connection to events leading up to and on Jan. 6, according to a statement from the Justice Department released Thursday and obtained by NBC News. The other 10, including nine others who already faced charges in connection to the riot, were also indicted.

Rhodes put out a call on the group's website in the days before the attack for "all patriots who can be in DC" to travel to Washington for a "security mission" to "stand tall in support of President Trump's fight," NBC News also reports.