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defenderoftruth · 1 year ago

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President Donald J. Trump is the heart and soul of the MAGA movement, he will need to be surrounded by a group of warriors in Congress who share his devotion to strict America First principles.

The next Congress is poised to have some of the strongest and most patriotic America First candidates to date. This will be a freshman class like no other, equipping President Trump with the firepower – and much-needed backup – that he mostly lacked in his first term in office to advocate for some of his bolder agenda items in Congress – including mass deportations, and returning law and order to towns and cities across the land.

Each one of the following candidates are MAGA firebrands – steadfastly devoted to President Trump and his agenda of securing our borders, ending the weaponization of our justice system, and eliminating election fraud.

None of these patriots would have certified the illegitimate results of the 2020 presidential election if it were up to them. They all will go beyond what any current member of Congress has done to fight for the release of the January 6th hostages currently being imprisoned by the Biden regime.

They all love President Trump, and readily understand that his cause represents America’s hope. For that reason, they heard the call and feel dutybound to enter the storm – and do whatever it takes to help President Trump come next January in his second administration to give him all the support he needs to Make America First Again:

Combat Veteran JR Majewski (OH-09)

The people of Ohio deserve much better than their current leadership, both Democrat and Republican, and Majewski’s election to Congress will benefit MAGA patriots nationwide, giving them a trusted voice and proven fighter who will prioritize America First values, over Mitch McConnell and the DC Swamp now bringing this country to ruin.

Make America Dominant Again!

J6 Patriot Derrick Evans (WV-01)

Derrick Evans arguably paid the greatest price for standing up for this country. Evans was one of thousands of Americans who peacefully demonstrated at the Capitol on January 6th – as a result, he had his liberties stripped away and was forced to serve three months in prison, including over a week of agonizing solitary confinement.

Derrick Evans has never wavered in his support for President Trump and America First principles. In fact, last August, when President Trump’s mugshot was released, Evans posted it alongside his own mugshot in a display of solidarity with the 45th President, which the President later ReTruthed.

Trump Soldier Anthony Sabatini (FL-11)

Anthony Sabatini was the most outspoken Trump supporter while serving in the Florida House of Representatives, and was the only legislator to really hold then-Governor Ron DeSantis’ feet to the fire, pushing him to the right on policies ranging from gun rights to immigration.

Among his many accolades, Sabatini was the first Republican County chairman in the state of Florida to endorse President Trump.

He has been an unwavering backer of the 45th President’s, stating repeatedly on record that he would not have certified the results of the illegitimate 2020 election, while also calling on Governor DeSantis’ office to permanently cut ties with Biden’s DOJ in the aftermath of the unlawful raid on Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022.

Sabatini has represented J6 defendants as part of his legal practice and continues to be a stalwart advocate for the most vulnerable members of our society – the J6 victims and their families.

He is the most loyal and patriotic Florida legislator, bar none, and is a terrific addition to the next Congress.

America needs more great Patriots like Anthony Sabatini!

America First Patriot Blake Masters (AZ-08)

America First is here to stay, thanks to leaders like Blake Masters. He will support President Trump to solve the border crises and restore law and order in America.

Together with President Trump, Masters will bring illegal immigration to an end. He will protect our right to own and use firearms, so our streets safe again.

Vote for Blake Masters AZ

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beardedmrbean · 11 months ago

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Shipping tycoon Angela Chao was drunk when she inadvertently reversed her Tesla into a pond and drowned last month at a Texas ranch, police say.

Blanco County Sheriff's Office found her blood alcohol level was nearly three times the state's legal limit.

The 50-year-old died after dinner on 10 February with a group of friends at the estate near Johnson City.

Her brother-in-law, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, cited the tragedy in his resignation speech.

On Wednesday, Blanco County Sheriff's Office released the findings of its investigation concluding Ms Chao's death was an "unfortunate accident".

She had invited seven girlfriends from her days at Harvard Business School to spend the weekend at the 900-acre ranch.

They had attended a concert by rapper Pitbull in Austin the night beforehand, according to the police report.

After dinner at the guest lodge on the night of her death she headed back to the main house.

But during a three-point turn she accidentally reversed the Model X SUV into a pond.

A friend, Amber Keinan, told detectives Ms Chao had called her at 23:42 and said the car was in the water and she was trapped inside.

"Chao told Keinan the water was rising and she was going to die and said 'I love you,'" the report says. "Chao then said her good byes to Keinan."

The conversation lasted eight minutes.

The police report describes how friends and police tried to save her. Some of the friends were "screaming frantically" at the deputies from the pondside.

Officers eventually smashed the driver's side window of the submerged car, pulling Ms Chao from the vehicle.

She was pronounced dead at 01:40 on 11 February.

A toxicology test found she had a blood alcohol concentration level of 0.233g per 100ml. The legal limit in Texas is 0.08g per 100ml.

Ms Chao was chairwoman and chief executive of her family's shipping business, the Foremost Group, which operates a global fleet of bulk carrier ships. The Chaos have a net worth of $14.2bn (£11bn), according to Forbes.

She was married to Jim Breyer, a billionaire venture capitalist.

Her older sister, Elaine Chao, is married to Mr McConnell and was transportation secretary under President Donald Trump and labour secretary under President George W Bush.

When he announced last month that he was stepping down as Senate minority leader, Mr McConnell suggested the tragedy's impact on his family was a factor in his decision.

"When you lose a loved one, particularly at a young age, there's a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process," the Kentucky senator said on the floor of the chamber.

Ms Chao's father, Dr James Chao, said in a statement provided to the Austin American-Statesman newspaper: "Angela's passing was a terrible tragedy, and words cannot describe the family's profound grief."

#nunyas news #drunk is putting it lightly #much more and the booze would have killed her on its own

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 1, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 2, 2023

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote to House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) today to warn him that the Treasury will be unable to pay the government’s bills by early June, possibly as early as June 1. She wrote: “I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting as soon as possible.”

President Biden promptly called McCarthy and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), along with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for a meeting on May 9 to discuss the crisis. The delay is caused by the fact that the House is not in session and McCarthy is in Israel with a House delegation. They will have only a week to confer before Biden is off to Japan for the 2023 summit of the International Group of Seven, or G7, a political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, along with the European Union, which is a "non-enumerated member."

Biden has said his position remains the same: he will not negotiate over paying the nation’s bills, although he is happy to negotiate over the national budget as part of the normal process.

Last week, the House passed a bill that would raise the debt ceiling for about a year and cap government spending at 2022 levels, which amounts to cuts of about $130 billion in non-defense spending.

Republicans are angry at a warning from the Department of Veterans Affairs— the VA— that the House bill will force a 22% cut to the department’s budget, costing 81,000 jobs in health services, reducing outpatient visits for veterans by 30 million, increasing food insecurity for about 1.3 million veterans, and adding 134,000 claims to disability backlogs. Republicans insist this is a lie, but they have declined to say where their cuts would come from.

Meanwhile, Schumer wrote to his colleagues today to condemn what he called the Republicans’ “Default on America Act,” or “DOA,” which “offers two choices: either default on the debt or default on America, forcing steep cuts to law enforcement, veterans, families, teachers, and kids.” He said that the bill would “gut Medicaid for over 20 million Americans, rip away SNAP benefits for over a million recipients and eliminate Pell grants for tens of thousands of American students every year.”

Schumer has prepared for the Senate to take up two bills: a clean debt ceiling bill and McCarthy’s bill, which if it passes would become part of normal budget negotiations.

In another story with major implications, tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Supreme Court ethics. Supreme Court justices are the only federal judges that are not explicitly bound by a code of conduct and, aside from the decisions that have made the justices seem to be advancing a political agenda, the court appears to be plagued with ethics scandals. Confidence in the court is draining away.

After Justice Samuel Alito’s early draft of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision of last June leaked, an angry chief justice vowed to find the leaker, only to have an antiabortion activist claim in December that he and his colleagues had courted the goodwill of justices with donations to the Supreme Court Historical Society. He claimed that he had received advance notice of the court’s decision in the Burwell v.Hobby Lobby case, important to antiabortion activists, from someone connected to Justice Alito.

Alito claimed the Dobbs leak had made the justices “targets for assassination” and the final report on the Dobbs leak called the leak “a grave assault on the judicial process,” but the report said investigators could not determine who had leaked. Court employees had been grilled, but it was not clear that the justices themselves had been questioned.

Then, last month, ProPublica reported that Justice Clarence Thomas did not disclose gifts and trips worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, or that Crow had bought and improved a home in which Thomas’s mother still lives.

Then, Politico reported that Justice Neil Gorsuch did not disclose the purchaser of his jointly-owned log home in Colorado. After two years on the market, the house sold nine days after Gorsuch was confirmed to the court; Gorsuch reported making between a quarter- and a half-million dollars on the sale. The buyer was the head of Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that has been involved in at least 22 cases before the court since Gorsuch joined it.

In late April, Insider reported another appearance of conflict: a whistleblower filed an official complaint against Chief Justice Roberts himself in December, alleging that he had listed his wife’s income as “salary” when the $10.3 million she received from 2007 to 2014 came from commissions paid by corporations and law firms for her work as a legal recruiter.

On April 20 the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin (D-IL) invited Chief Justice John Roberts or anyone he designated to testify about how Supreme Court justices address ethical issues. “The status quo is no longer tenable,” wrote Durbin. “The time has come for a new public conversation on ways to restore confidence in the Court’s ethical standards.

On April 25, Roberts declined Durbin’s invitation, writing that he was concerned about the separation of powers and about “preserving judicial independence.” He promised that the justices subscribe to a statement of ethics principles and practices, which he attached.

On April 27 the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee responded with a letter saying: “It is noteworthy that no Justice will speak to the American people after numerous revelations have called the Court’s ethical standards into question, even though sitting Justices have testified before Senate or House Committees on at least 92 occasions since 1960.” They asked when the justices had agreed to the statement of ethics.

Today, Roberts responded that they had agreed to the ethics statement on April 25, and said that justices policed their own ethics as they “consult a wide variety of guidance on ethics issues, including statutes, judicial opinions, advice [from legal experts], scholarly commentary, and historical practice, among other sources.”

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee responded that “[t]hese answers further highlight the need for meaningful Supreme Court ethics reform.” Pressure for that reform is growing.

On April 26, Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced the Supreme Court Code of Conduct Act, a bill to reform Supreme Court ethics that gets around the separation of powers issue by requiring the court to write its own code of conduct and appoint an official to review potential conflicts and public complaints. It is a remarkably simple bill, designed, King and Murkowski say, to shore up the public’s confidence in the Supreme Court. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post suggested that at the very least, the measure should force lawmakers who oppose it to explain why.

The crisis in the Supreme Court is headed for another major test. The court today agreed to hear a case that could gut the government’s ability to regulate business. The court will reconsider the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council decision, which affirmed that judges should defer to government agencies in their reasonable interpretation of a law if the wording of the law is vague. This court seems likely to reject this idea and to allow judges to rein in regulation according to their own interpretation of the law.

Only eight justices will decide the case, since Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was on the circuit court that first heard the case at the heart of the challenge to Chevron, has recused herself.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #debt ceiling #Kevin McCarthy #Corrupt SCOTUS #SCOTUS #code of ethics

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theatreofthelivingmind · 2 months ago

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Anyone up for story time with Emma?

(Emma it me I'm Emma)

I was born with a disability. In living in America I existed for 33 years without a diagnosis. I was misdiagnosed at birth.

But Emma, how could you live so long without a diagnosis?

In America for the longest time, health care was (most cases still is) tied to employment. Because of this, I had spotty employment, usually no health care, would have to work 2 or 3 free Lance jobs just to get by. I'd work in restaurants, no Healthcare, sub minimum wage, depending on tips to get by.

This all changed once Obamacare became law. I don't know if you remember the political climate before Obamacare passed as a law but there was a group known as the Tea Party which I always took as thinly veiled racism and not wanting to pay taxes. The debates heading up to passing Obamacare as law were fairly brutal. All the racism, hatred of the poor, ableism was out in full force. In the end Obamacare was a bit whittled down. But still it passed, even though it took a few years to take effect.

I had a little bit of a conversion feeling as once Obamacare I was finally able to get properly diagnosed. After years of semi-employment, things getting more and more difficult as my disabilities were uncared for, through Obamacare, I finally had healthcare, access to mental health care, and eventually a diagnosis. All this going on and pretty much as soon as I received health care I'm crying in my doctors office that I need hrt as I am an untransitioned lesbian.

I more than likely would not be here without Obamacare. It was whittled down from its original form, but felt like it was giving health care to poor people (ie me). All the debates leading up to the passing of Obamacare felt like all the bigotry was coming out from under the hoods.

Obamacare passing and becoming law was a bit of my conversion moment. Are critiques of the Democrats still valid? Most certainly so. But having Healthcare not tied to where you work was a lifesaver for me and for many others.

On the other side of the aisle, I can't stand to listen to many of the Republicans. With Trump whenever I hear him talk of immigrants or disabled people or queer people I need to turn it off as it's so upsetting as he's talking about my friends and family. Having Moscow Mitch McConnell opposing Obamacare and anything The dems had to offer, solely on the basis that basis that it was coming from Obama is difficult for me to read as anything other than racism and classism, hatred of the poor.

I know for me finally getting a diagnosis of healthcare was a lifesaver and I am positive that it helped myself as well as others. I had heard of an NPR report where people were being polled about if they thought obamacare helped. The replies were a lot of "government assistance is bad", "I don't want my tax dollars paying for immigrant trans sex changes," and other such comments.

Then the NPR poll asks: What do you think of the mental health care you received from the social worker. Oh my gosh! Saved my life, saved my marriage.

Next question: would your opinion change if you learned that that Mental Health Care was government provided through obamacare?

Hopefully, some opinions changed.

Rough times ahead, but I still have hope. That hope might come from living in California, having access to antidepressants, medications for my disability, and hormone therapy for my body and gender dysphoria.

I do believe a better future is possible, but that all depends on forming political coalitions and finding community with others.

#this is my voice my weapon of choice

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anyasportfolio · 9 months ago

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Language and the Law as Evidence - Essay I

Anya Altieri

Communities of Practice and the Internet

Eight people dead in a mall near Dallas, the shooter wearing a patch with the phrase “RWDS” - right wing death squad. Three people gunned-down in a Florida convenience store, swastikas adorning the shooter’s rifle. What do these acts of violence have in common? They were both carried-out by Neo-Nazis. Though many would describe these attackers as “lone wolves,” according to Michael Fürstenberg, these people are often embedded in digital “wolf packs,” otherwise known as communities of practice. Understanding and identifying communities of practice who threaten other communities through analysis of internet language is essential to law enforcement agencies seeking to protect marginalized communities and the public at large. Defining what constitutes a community of practice is essential to understanding this dynamic.

Stanford University defines a community of practice as, “An aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in some common endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations - in short, practices - emerge in the course of their joint activity around that endeavor.” Some examples given by Eckert and McConnell-Ginet include; “people working in a factory, a neighborhood play-group, a family,” (Eckert, McConnell-Ginet, 8) or essentially any group that shares an interest or common goal and learn how to better pursue said interest or goal as they interact with each other regularly. Communities of practice differ from other theoretical groupings such as sex, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity by virtue of them sharing a common goal. Neo-nazi groups can also be considered a community of practice because they share common goals such as elevating the white race. They attack varying marginalized groups due to race, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. For example, the Aryan Brotherhood or groups found on websites like 8chan communicate use specific language to perpetuate their cause.

Communities of practice are the backbone of the internet. Online communities of practice, or virtual communities of practice are defined as groups “where members mainly use information and communication technologies (ICT) to share stories, knowledge, and communications” (Hanisch, 2). Examples of virtual communities of practice include contributors to a website like KiwiFarms, a site dedicated to the stalking, harassment, and publishing of personal information - also known as doxxing, or a section of a website dedicated to a certain topic like /pol/ on 4chan which is a subset of 4chan dedicated to spreading right-wing extremist talking points. Viewers of YouTube channels such as Sargon of Akkad, or groups of YouTube channels like the “anti-SJW” side of YouTube - a collection of channels also dedicated to spreading alt-right talking points - can also be considered online communities of practice. Familiarity with these communities is essential for law enforcement to track and therefore prevent acts of violence like those mentioned earlier.

Stochastic terrorism has become a prominent talking point in recent years following the presidency of Donald Trump. The term “stochastic” is used to describe the random probabilistic nature of its effect; whether or not an attack actually takes place. The stochastic terrorist in this context does not direct the actions of any individual or group, but rather gives voice to a specific ideology via mass media with the aim of optimizing its dissemination. Essentially, the stochastic terrorist randomly incites individuals predisposed to acts of violence; and since law enforcement usually labels these acts of violence “lone wolf” attacks, the inciter goes without facing any scrutiny. Stochastic terrorism can be observed in many places, but is especially prominent on the internet, any bigot with an internet connection can rise to a position of authority in a surrounding community of practice. The obvious example would be former president Donald Trump and his incitement of the January 6 insurrection. His use of mass media agitated a group of already unstable individuals to the point where they stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. A less obvious example would be the likes of Tim Pool - a political commentator on YouTube - and Steven Crowder - host of the “Louder with Crowder” show also found on YouTube. These two individuals are some of the most popular right-wing commentators with over 7.14 million (Socialblade.com) followers combined. They are also considered “entry points” to the alt-right pipeline, a radicalizing network of content creators meant to pull people towards alt-right ideologies. Tim Pool in particular has been documented as a frequent watch of Mauricio Garcia, the man who would don his RWDS patch and ultimately take the lives of eight people in a mall near Dallas, TX on May 6, 2023. This “lone wolf” had a “wolf pack,” a few, actually, and many of the members flaunt their membership all across the internet. One simply must know what to look for, that’s where understanding dog whistles is critical.

According to Merriam-Webster, a dog whistle is defined as “a coded message communicated through words or phrases commonly understood by a particular group of people but not others.” Historically, the purpose of dog whistles is “(1) to signal hate for outgroups without employing visibly incendiary language, and (2) as identity markers, signaling belonging to the white supremacist community” (Bhat, Klein, 9). Some commonly used dog whistles include; “state’s rights,” - a way of arguing for segregation as employed by the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties in 1955 - “banks,” - a way of referring to Jewish people, as it’s a common belief amongst anti-Semites that Jewish people are in control of the world’s banks - and “13%,” or “13/50”- a way of referring to Black Americans as it’s often falsely stated by racist individualsthat Black Americans make up 13% of the population and commit 50% of the crime. This language can be used in stochastic terrorism to signal hatred towards or paint a target on other communities, making them vulnerable to acts of violence. Dog whistles can also signal membership of a certain group or community of practice. It is imperative that law enforcement understand how to recognize these membership signals so as to better identify potential perpetrators, and take steps to monitor them.

To conclude, communities of practice- groups of people that share an interest or common goal- learn how to better pursue said interest or goal when they interact with each other regularly. The internet supplies the means of communication and supports stochastic terrorism among potential attackers.The sites range from viewers of a YouTube channel like Sargon of Akkad, to subsets of various websites like /pol/ on 4chan, to general users of a website as seen with kiwifarms. These communities, no matter the size, often employ the use of highly-specific language known as dog whistles to not only signal membership, but to paint a target on other groups, potentially marking them for acts of violence. It is critical that law enforcement knows what makes a community of practice, what makes one dangerous, and how they employ language to perpetuate their causes.

Bibliography

Andrew. “Stochastic terrorism.” Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, 3 March 2023, https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/03/03/stochastic-terrorism/. Accessed 29 October 2023.

“Aryan Brotherhood.” Southern Poverty Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/aryan-brotherhood. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Associated Press. “White Shooter Kills 3 Black People in Florida Hate Crime as Washington Celebrates King's Dream.” VOA News, 27 August 2023, https://www.voanews.com/a/white-shooter-kills-3-black-people-in-florida-hate-crime-as-washington-celebrates-king-s-dream/7242987.html. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Barr, Luke. “Suspect arrested after FBI uncovers alleged mass shooting plot.” ABC News, 17 June 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspect-arrested-after-fbi-uncovers-alleged-mass-shooting/story?id=100155442. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Bhat, Prashanth, and Ofra Klein. Covert Hate Speech: White Nationalists and Dog Whistle Communication on Twitter. G. Bouvier, J.E. Rosenbaum (eds.), 2020.

“Category:Neo-Nazi websites.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Neo-Nazi_websites. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Eckert, Penelope, and Sally McConnell-Ginet. “Communities of practice: Where language, gender, and power all live1.” Stanford University, Stanford University, 1992, https://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/Communitiesof.pdf. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Fazio, Lisa. “Identifying threatening language – Psychonomic Society Featured Content.” Psychonomic Society Featured Content, 10 February 2022, https://featuredcontent.psychonomic.org/identifying-threatening-language/. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Fürstenberg, Michael. “COMMUNITIES OF HATEFUL PRACTICE: THE COLLECTIVE LEARNING OF ACCELERATIONIST RIGHT-WING ExTREMISTS, WITH A CASE STUDY OF THE HALL.” Max Planck Institut für ethnologische Forschung, 7 December 2022, https://www.eth.mpg.de/pubs/wps/pdf/mpi-eth-working-paper-0210. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Gais, Hannah, et al. “Allen, Texas, Killer Posted Neo-Nazi, Incel Content Online.” Southern Poverty Law Center, 8 May 2023, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/05/08/allen-texas-killer-posted-neo-nazi-incel-content-online. Accessed 29 October 2023.

The Grievance Dictionary. OSFHome, https://osf.io/3grd6/wiki/home/. Accessed 29 October 2023.

“Halle synagogue attack: Germany far-right gunman jailed for life.” BBC, 21 December 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55395682. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Hanisch, Jo. “(PDF) Virtual communities of practice: A study of communication, community and organisational learning.” ResearchGate, January 2006, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237294837_Virtual_communities_of_practice_A_study_of_communication_community_and_organisational_learning. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Harrison, Sara, and Michele J. Gelfand. “Threatening Language Can Be Contagious. This New Tool Tracks Its Spread.” Stanford Graduate School of Business, 24 March 2022, https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/threatening-language-can-be-contagious-new-tool-tracks-its-spread. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Kleinberg, Bennett, and Paul Gill. “Linguistic Threat Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities.” CREST Research, 2 March 2022, https://crestresearch.ac.uk/comment/linguistic-threat-assessment-challenges-and-opportunities/. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Munn, Luke. “(PDF) Alt-right pipeline: Individual journeys to extremism online.” ResearchGate, June 2019, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333639104_Alt-right_pipeline_Individual_journeys_to_extremism_online. Accessed 29 October 2023.

“Terrorism and Language - A Text-Based Analysis of the German Case.” Office of Justice Programs, 1987, https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/terrorism-and-language-text-based-analysis-german-case. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Weimann, Gabriel. “www.terror.net: How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet.” United States Institute of Peace, 2004, https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/sr116.pdf. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Wenger-Trayner, E., and B. Wenger-Trayner. “Introduction to communities of practice.” wenger-trayner, 2015, https://www.wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/. Accessed 29 October 2023.

#samplework

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columbianewsupdates · 11 months ago

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Attorney Frank Corazzelli of McConnell Family Law Group Releases Insightful Article on LGBTQ Divorce in Connecticut

http://dlvr.it/T3px6F

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readingsrantsrambles · 2 years ago

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Photo by Drew Angrerer/Getty Images

What Friends Are For | Garry Wills

nybooks.com

Men can be measured by their real or imaginary peeves. The longer one carries them around, they more they shrink one down to the size of the continuing peevishness. Clarence Thomas has long had a deep resentment, on and off the judicial bench, against affirmative action. He was humiliated by what he considered Yale Law School’s program for favoring Black applicants, because of which he decided that his diploma “bore the taint of racial preference.” For years he wanted to get his revenge on Yale, until finally he thought of a way. In his autobiography (a common vehicle for vengeance), he said he took a fifteen-cent sticker from a store item, stuck it on the frame of his degree, and hung it in the basement. At last, after longing to all these years, he had pissed on Yale.

For someone who does not feel gratitude for favors done, Thomas, like Donald Trump, expects loyalty from those he did something for. He wrote that he got Anita Hill her job in the Reagan administration. And what was her response? In effect: “Didn’t need it, dude.” As her high school’s valedictorian, a graduate with honors from college and Yale Law, the first tenured Black faculty member at the University of Oklahoma Law School before the Thomas hearings, and a revered teacher at Brandeis to this day, she would clearly not have chafed if any school was lucky enough to do her favors.

Thomas also thought that civil rights groups were ingrates after he protected them from the insult of a favor from Yale. Their attitude was, “Thanks, but no thanks.” They could conquer prejudice well enough without his condescension.

Some favors, on the other hand, will indeed define Thomas’s legacy. He did Mitch McConnell a favor by showing how to turn the confirmation process into a greasy slide. He did Joe Biden a favor, when the latter was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, by pretending that Biden had not put him on the Court by suppressing key witnesses for Anita Hill. (Biden repaid him dismissively by trying to make up for this as if it were wrong—as it was.) He did Brett Kavanaugh a favor by supplying a precedent for suppressing or distorting testimony at Supreme Court nomination hearings.

He did Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society a favor by helping them reduce the American Bar Association to a bystander of their feigned search for legal scholarship. He did the National Rifle Association a favor by making the Second Amendment a door-opener for gunmen at school after school. He did Amy Coney Barrett a favor by making her look like a more respectable Catholic zealot than his wife, Ginni Thomas. She returned it by defending him against his critics, saying that no Justice is really a partisan hack. And he did Ginni Thomas a favor by claiming she was not a scavenger for Harlan Crow’s money, just an extraordinarily adhesive family friend of Crow.

In Crow—the billionaire real-estate developer and major Republican donor to the Federalist Society, with whom Thomas became close soon after his confirmation to the highest court in the land—he found someone who does not underestimate his talents but makes a valuation of them to match his own. What is that value? Directly and indirectly, as ProPublica’s new investigation has shown, in goods and services, year after year for nearly three decades, by plane and yacht, at feast and retreat, for him and his, for his allies and his causes, with cognate or cooperating other purchasers, it mounts into the millions. (So much for you, Yale, and your petty fifteen cents.) Even millions is a bargain price for a human soul. But this human soul was always purchasable at a low price.

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 3 years ago

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This actually deserves its own post, so I'm going to say it again

A constitutional convention is a TERRIBLE IDEA.

I can't stress this enough. Think of every politician you know. Not just the one or two you like. Not just Donald Trump and the Republicans who backed him (and mostly flip flopped on that backing depending on what they thought would give them the best chance of being reelected), not just DeSantis, but all of them. Would you trust AOC to rewrite the constitution? Because you bet your ass the Democrats will be taking her input, if not actively having her write her version to put up for a vote. Even when it gets rejected, some of what she writes will make it in when the Republicans inevitably cave on important stances in the interest of another mostly one sided "compromise". Don't believe me? Look how many traitors are supporting the gun control lite that's currently going through congress.

Would you trust Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell to stand up for the principals of limited government and personal freedom? Would you trust the people voting on any new constitution to even read it, let alone understand what it is they're voting for? Would you trust the voting machines to properly tally ratification votes? Would you trust groups like BLM and Everytown for Gun Safety to have input? Would you trust politicians with ties to China, Soros, and the WEF to put the interests of the country ahead of global interests? Would you trust the media to accurately report on what's in each draft of the new constitution? Would you trust Google and Facebook to not censor the drafts that get put online? Would you trust any of these people or groups with your rights?

Think of everyone you talk to online. Think of your friends and family. Think of your coworkers. Would you want them rewriting the constitution? Would you trust them with your rights?

If the answer to a single one of these questions isn't an emphatic "hell yes!" then you can't support a constitutional convention. Rewriting the constitution now would be a disaster. We would lose more than we gain, if we even gain anything. The country is way too big for a consensus. Any document will be a mess of conflicting interests all trying to get their agendas passed. Our rights will be, at best, a distant 10th or 11th place in the drafting of a new constitution. At worst, they won't even be considered. Our politicians don't study the classic Greek and Roman philosophers. They don't have their morals informed by religion or family or study of history. The only philosophy they read are Marks and Engels, Osteen and Coulter, Vice and TMZ. The only morals they have are informed in most cases by decades in Washington. There is no one alive right now who I would trust in rewriting the constitution. Not even myself. As a society, we aren't equipped for it, morally or emotionally. Whatever fantasy you have of rewriting the constitution to be everything you want it to be will never come true. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Anyone who tries is either incredibly stupid, or lying to you. Don't be a fool. Don't let the enemies of this country and our constitution rewrite the very foundation of our laws.

#constitutional convention #constitutional reform #2a #1a #bill of rights #american government #trump 2024 #desantis 2024 #republican party #democrat party

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rjzimmerman · 3 years ago

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The more I read about some of the obscure and arcane judicial decisions handed down by our federal, state and local judges, the more I realize that the judicial system is badly fucked up. (And, by the way, I am a lawyer, retired, but nevertheless, a lawyer.) Our system of “vetting” lawyers who want to be judges, whether by appointment or election, is just a closed-circuit system wherein the judges are judged by those would be judges or by lawyers who want to make sure that each reviewed judge knows that the reviewing lawyer has kissed the royal robe and should be thus remembered. Sure, there are honest, credible, reputable, good reviewing lawyers and judges out there, but the bad ones seem to be grabbing all the attention these days. And it starts at the tip top. The percentage of Americans who “approve” the US Supreme Court is really low and getting lower, and that isn’t good. (My view: US Supreme Court isn’t broken, but the three recent appointees, engineered by McConnell, are horrid.) What to do? Invigorate the impeachment process and start calling out the bad ones, top to bottom, and get them off the bench. Also, reform the judicial system. One example: in all family law situations, whether divorce is involved or not, take away the jurisdiction of the existing courts, and create family tribunals overseen by healthcare professionals, educators, social workers and the like. Our kids deserve better than a system in which lawyers in a closed-circuit system do nothing constructive except protect each other.

This case is just an example. Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

Environmental justice advocates and other progressives on Friday condemned a federal judge's decision Friday to sentence human rights lawyer Steven Donziger to six months in prison — following more than two years of house arrest related to a lawsuit he filed decades ago against oil giant Chevron.

The sentence, delivered by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York City, represents "an international outrage," tweeted journalist Emma Vigeland following its announcement.

Donziger's sentence came a day after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was "appalled" by the U.S. legal system's treatment of the former environmental lawyer and demanded the U.S. government "remedy the situation of Mr. Steven Donziger without delay and bring it in conformity with the relevant international norms" by immediately releasing him.

Donziger represented a group of farmers and Indigenous people in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador in the 1990s in a lawsuit against Texaco—since acquired by Chevron—in which the company was accused of contaminating soil and water with its "deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste into the Amazon."

An Ecuadorian court awarded the plaintiffs a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011—a decision upheld by multiple courts in Ecuador—only to have a U.S. judge reject the ruling, accusing Donziger of bribery and evidence tampering. Chevron also countersued Donziger in 2011.

In 2019, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York—a former corporate lawyer with investments in Chevron—held Donziger in contempt of court after he refused to disclose privileged information about his clients to the fossil fuel industry. Kaplan placed Donziger under house arrest, where he has remained under strict court monitoring for 787 days.

In addition to Kaplan's own connections to Chevron, the judge appointed private attorneys to prosecute the case, including one who had worked for a firm that represented the oil giant.

Preska, who found Donziger guilty of the contempt charges in July, is a leader of the right-wing Federalist Society, which counts Chevron among its financial backers.

#Steven Donziger #environmental activism #Chevron #Ecuador #oil industry #US judicial system

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beardedmrbean · 3 years ago

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May 10 (UPI) -- Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate have passed bipartisan legislation to expand security protection to the families of Supreme Court justices in the wake of protests erupting outside some of their homes in response to a leaked draft decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The Supreme Court Police Parity Act -- which was introduced by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Chris Coons, D-Del. -- passed the Senate on Monday by unanimous consent and now heads to the House for consideration.

"Threats to the physical safety of Supreme Court justices and their families are disgraceful and attempts to intimated and influence the independence of our judiciary cannot be tolerated," Cornyn said in a statement. "I'm glad the Senate quickly approved this measure to extend Supreme Court police protection to family members, and the House must take up and pass it immediately."

The measure was passed as abortion rights advocates have staged protests outside the homes of conservative justices who penned the draft decision overturning the landmark Roe vs Wade ruling to protect abortion rights that was leaked to the public last week.

RELATED White House calls for peaceful protests as Senate plans abortion vote this week

On Monday night, ShutdownDC organized a candlelight vigil outside the home of Justice Samuel Alito, the man who authored the controversial draft decision.

Over the weekend, similar protests were held outside the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki earlier Monday issued a statement saying President Joe Biden believes in the constitutional right to protest but condemns violence, threats and vandalism.

RELATED Schumer calls leaked decision 'abomination' ahead of Wednesday's vote on abortion rights bill

"Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety," she said.

During her press briefing later in the day, she said they have not seen violence or vandalism against any Supreme Court Justice.

RELATED Authorities investigating fire at Wisconsin anti-abortion group as arson

"We are a country that promotes democracy, and we certainly allow for peaceful protest in a range of places in the country. None of it should violate the law; no one is suggesting that," she clarified. "And it should never resort to violence, to threats, to intimidation in any way, shape or form."

Officials have also installed higher fencing around the Supreme Court to shore up security as protests have been staged there as well.

From the Senate floor on Monday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accused the protesters of harassing and attempting to intimidate justices by holding protests at their homes.

"Trying to scare federal judges into ruling a certain way is far outside the bounds of normal First Amendment speech or protest," he said, adding the demonstrations "may possibly be flat-out illegal."

Cornyn on Thursday when he introduced the bill argued it should be passed to ensure the families of Supreme Court justices are protected.

"The events of the past week have intensified the focus on Supreme Court justices' families who are unfortunately facing threats to their safety in today's increasingly polarized political climate," he said in a statement.

#nunyas news

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feelingbluepolitics · 4 years ago

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We Must Handle the Truth

There's no question that the management of Donald trump will be an issue of on-going global importance. Knocking him from his (alleged) official perch is only the first step.

The more crucial steps must follow, because trump will retain his influence and his supporters, and they will do whatever he hints that he wants, even up to treasonous attacks, assassination attempts, and mass murders.

We must be clear. There is no cozy "look to the future and heal" pretence of an option in our present situation. This is aside from the fact that taking that Pollyanna path repeatedly --from Watergate to Reagan to Bush-- helped to criminalize and radicalize the Republicon Party into the danger they are today.

Shame, honor, and true patriotism have become vestigial on the Right. Their criminal administrations and elected representatives keep getting away with what they do because we embolden them each time with a blind eye.

That is not how justice works. The blind eye of justice means that no one, no matter how powerful, is exempt. The time to work on that is January 20, 2021, and we are far overdue. Politicians, corporations, tax cheats, polluters: we still have laws, for all of trump's and his administration's destructive efforts.

We sully our government offices and endanger our nation by not requiring accountability to the office and to the people, over and above any present occupant. Where we are blocked by pardons we must still have thorough public investigation. That is not a waste of time for lack of a prosecutorial path. It is existential. It's the accountability we cannot do without. It's the foundation of the future laws we need to draft and pass to safeguard this country.

Pardons become entirely corrupt when we acquiesce to them blocking investigation. Democracies survive on information and truth, combined. We are where we are now in part because we still have corrupt actors left-over from Watergate active in our politics.

What are we to do about trump? That isn't initially, or perhaps ever, all about pardons, or state versus federal charges, or orange jumpsuits. In this instance, ironically, the potential solution is all about trump. This is where an examination of how trump interacts with the rest of the human world can guide us.

He forms specific categories of relationships which are actually invariable, because he is permanently shallow and unperceptive. Because trump the consumate narcissist is always the center of every relationship, and because he is, without introspection, forever fixed in all his defects, all of his various relationships fall into the same patterns within their categories. Here they are:

1) The Strongmen. Shades of daddy Fred trump, these are aspirational relationships teaching the type of utter control the core pathetic trump would like to wield. But because of daddy, trump is conditioned to the "love me, admire me, and be useful and loyal or I will harm or destroy you" format, but on the weaker side.

This is why we have seen trump pushing the United States of America into eagerly obsequious deference with respect to Russia, North Korea, and Turkey, and also pandering to Saudi Arabia's power which is additionally derived through vast transactional wealth.

But we cannot and do not want to transform America or Biden into this Strongman mold, because then it will have been pointless to remove trump.

2) The Assets. This category comprises trump's immediate family members and all Republicons in office, from Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy, and from Michigan’s Republicon Senate members to, potentially, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. This category also extends to trump's supporters, mostly as a collective.

These are the flipside of the Strongman category, where trump gets to play the opposite role. These people are tools, who work constantly to remain in good standing with trump, rendering obsequious deference and servitude as a matter of advantage but also, essentially, as a matter of status survival.

trump is a horrible antagonist or enemy.

This, by the way, is exactly the relationship this country cannot continue to allow with trump, as a matter of national security.

3) The Targets. We know who they are. They caught trump's wrathful attention. Some of the targets are personal to trump to varying degrees, while some are a matter of expediency, or are demonstrated examples, or are, so far, peripheral.

But everybody knows trump will never stop -- that is the personna he cultivated-- unless a Target person has something of value to make them an Asset again. (This is why trump is called purely transactional, in combination with having no beliefs, no morality, and no honesty.)

Fauci, and Birx, (who for a while pulled off a mommy-style interaction with trump as he tried to impress her with nifty genius like injecting bleach), are in a no-man's land, transitional between Asset and Target, in part because trump doesn't like attention on covid if he can help it.

We don't know exactly what trump will try to inflict on Mary trump for writing her book, but we've already seen a variety of attacks against Bolton, Kelly, and Michael Cohen, along with innumerable others. (It isn't just books. It's that these people did not keep flattering, and obey.)

He ousted from political power Jeff Sessions, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker (White House as "an adult day care center"), and Mark Sanford, of "the Appalachian Trail." He can do the same to any other individual Republicon, because as a group, they are all too backstabbing, dishonorable, greedy, and cowardly to unite against him.

Certainty we have seen trump's behavior with respect to Fox Gnus, the Clintons, and Obama.

This is the relationship this country cannot allow itself to fall into with trump. But how possibly to prevent it?

For that, we look to another category of trump's relationships.

4) The Survivors. Of those not in the Strongman category, there are few people who have survived relationships with Donald trump and who can get trump to do favors for them -- to do what they want.

It is dangerous idiocy to call them trump's "friends," by way of explaining their leverage and longevity. The key is leverage.

Rudy Giuliani :

- A "very, very good relationship" with trump.

- "I've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus. When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance."

- "I do have very, very good insurance."

Giuliani's insurance is knowledge; some knowledge about trump gives him leverage. The leverage has to represent knowledge that trump fears exposure of or consequences for. Giuliani doesn't fear being otherwise loose-lipped, or even crazy, and his relationship with trump is currently letting him pull in $20,000 a day for "legal work."

Roger Stone :

"[trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn't."

This leverage allowed Stone to openly demand clemency from trump regardless of any amount of political capital it could potentially cost.

The succession of wives, too, possess whatever personal knowledge, likely far more powerful than negotiated pre-nups and settlements, which ensure the notorious litigious deadbeat abides willingly by contractual terms.

As a nation, we need to survive trump. We have observed what works. But as a nation, we must address the issue of trump just a bit differently. Unlike Giuliani, Stone, or even Putin’s special holds over trump, we must:

1) Investigate trump extensively. Entirely. Turn him inside-out. And then,

2) Make the findings public. This is where a nation, a government of, by, and for the people in a country ruled by law and not kingdoms or cults, differs from defensive black-mailers or manipulative foreign spies.

This part, making public everything that doesn't actually threaten our national security to reveal, is necessary to harden both our resolve and our democracy, and to peel off whatever of trump's support that we can, and to deter the next trumpian assaults, whether by trump or the people who will try to follow the path trump has scorched into the fabric of our nation.

Public reveals are also a safety measure. There is vast potential for corruption otherwise. But then,

3) Keep every single trump-related criminal prosecution -- legitimate, of course, because we are not trump -- on the table. That is the leverage.

That's how to survive trump. There must be no more talk of how investigating a former *resident will turn us into a "banana republic." In a so-called banana republic, powerful government officials pressure others, either to carry out vendettas, or favors of protection by "looking the other way". Government is bent toward personal exploitations. Been there. Done that these past four years under trump and Republicons.

They have actually installed what can be termed "a deep state," notably for the first time, and sane Americans must know its extant. Fcuk their cries of victimization and oppression of the Right. The only difference is, when we investigate, there are actual violations, crimes, and scandals, with evidentiary proofs; when conservatives investigate, it's fundamentally bullsh*t-and-paranoia based.

A "banana republic" is exactly what we are attempting to rescue our nation from. With all the recognition that the Right has systematically unmoored from truth, and the terrible dangers that threaten as a result, from a stupid civil war born of propaganda, to climate devastation, as much truth as we can discover is what we need.

Knowledge is power. With trump out of the White House, we can get it. We must have it.

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disillusioned41 · 4 years ago

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Right-wing political advocacy organizations bankrolled by wealthy Americans and large corporations are reportedly mobilizing against a bipartisan agreement to boost IRS funding by $40 billion, money that would go toward cracking down on rich tax cheats who have benefited from the Republican Party's gutting of the agency in recent years.

The proposed increase in the IRS budget—which was cut by an estimated 20% between 2010 and 2018—is part of an infrastructure package negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators and President Joe Biden, who had originally pushed for $80 billion in additional IRS funding over the next decade.

The $40 billion boost proposed by the bipartisan group is presented as a way to "reduce the IRS tax gap," the difference between taxes owed and taxes actually collected by the federal government. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggested in May that the gap could be as large as $7 trillion.

As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, the IRS provision of the bipartisan infrastructure plan "is drawing opposition from well-funded conservative groups, which are strongly opposed to expanding the reach of a tax-collection agency that they long have alleged is politically motivated."

"Among the conservative groups spearheading the opposition are the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, FreedomWorks, the Conservative Action Project, and the Leadership Institute," the Post noted. "They are preparing a letter that warns Republicans should not negotiate with the White House unless they agree to 'no additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service.'"

The groups are expected to send their letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has yet to endorse the bipartisan framework and has threatened to give his Democratic counterparts a "hell of a fight" over their infrastructure priorities—an indication that he could be open to the conservative groups' appeal.

Last month, McConnell blamed "somebody at the IRS" for leaking the tax returns of some of the wealthiest people in the U.S. to the investigative outlet ProPublica, which used the documents to publish a series of stories detailing pervasive tax dodging by the rich.

"Our tax returns are, by law, confidential because of just this kind of shenanigans," McConnell said in an interview. "These people ought to, whoever did this, ought to be hunted down and thrown into jail."

Deep cuts to the IRS budget over the past decade have resulted in a sharp decline in enforcement, a trend that has principally rewarded the wealthy and large businesses. Between 2010 and 2018, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, IRS audit rates for the biggest U.S. corporations and American millionaires fell by 51% and 61%, respectively.

In 2019, ProPublica reported that due to inadequate funding and resulting staff shortages, the IRS "now audits poor Americans at about the same rate as the top 1%."

Well-heeled conservative organizations have long opposed any effort to remedy the harms caused by Republican-led budget cuts at the IRS. In May, Politico reported that right-wing groups "launched a campaign of TV ads, social media messages, and emails to supporters criticizing [Biden's earlier] proposal to hire nearly 87,000 new IRS workers over the next decade to collect money from tax cheats."

"So you're telling me they're against catching tax cheaters?" Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) mockingly asked in response to the right-wing campaign. "Pretty bold move, GOP."

According to the Post, the organizations leading the latest effort to prevent an IRS finding hike "include those that have received funds from major conservative donors, including the Mercer Family Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation and Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund that gives to conservative and libertarian causes."

"One signatory of the letter, Phil Kerpen of American Commitment, worked for five years at Americans for Prosperity, the main political arm of the influential Koch network," the Post reported.

#Common Dreams #us politics #taxes #IRS #mitch mcconnell #Biden #infrastructure bill #taxation #income tax

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ignorantsanonymous · 4 years ago

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Leaked notes obtained by the Telegraph say that when Theresa May asked for Trump to take a strong stand after Russia poisoned Sergei Skripal, Trump replied “I’d rather follow than lead.”

Everybody works for somebody; we all know who Donald works for now. There is no benefit for him in this behavior because it doesn’t help his base or his donors, so he must owe Putin big time for something else. He’s been funded by Russian money since 1984:

Trump was over a billion in debt and the Russians bailed him out.

► Trump was first compromised by the Russians in the 80s. In 1984, the Russian Mafia began to use Trump real estate to launder money. In 1987, the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuri Dubinin, arranged for Trump and his then-wife, Ivana, to enjoy an all-expense-paid trip to Moscow to consider possible business prospects. Only seven weeks after his trip, Trump ran full-page ads in the Boston Globe, the NYT and WaPO calling for, in effect, the dismantling of the postwar Western foreign policy alliance. The whole Trump/Russian connection started out as laundering money for the Russian mob through Trump's real estate, but evolved into something far bigger.

► In 1984, David Bogatin — a convicted Russian mobster and close ally of Semion Mogilevich, a major Russian mob boss — met with Trump in Trump Tower right after it opened. Bogatin bought five condos from Trump at that meeting. Those condos were later seized by the government, which claimed they were used to launder money for the Russian mob. (NY Times, Apr 30, 1992)

► Felix Sater is a Russian-born former mobster, and former managing director of NY real estate conglomerate Bayrock Group LLC located on the 24th floor of Trump Tower. He is a convict who became a govt cooperator for the FBI and other agencies. He grew up with Michael Cohen--Trump's former "fixer" attorney. Cohen's family owned El Caribe, which was a mob hangout for the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn. Cohen had ties to Ukrainian oligarchs through his in-laws and his brother's in-laws. Felix Sater's father had ties to the Russian mob. This goes back more than 30 years.

► Trump was $4 billion in debt after his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. No U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in through Bayrock (mentioned above). Bayrock was run by two investors: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia. Bayrock partnered with Trump in 2005 and poured money into the Trump organization under the legal guise of licensing his name and property management.

► In July 2008, the height of the housing bust, Trump sold a mansion in Palm Beach for $95 million to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch. Trump had purchased it four years earlier for $41.35 million. The sale price was nearly $54 million more than Trump had paid for the property. Again, this was the height of the recession when all other property had plummeted in value.

► Semion Mogilevich was the brains behind the Russian Mafia. Mogilevich operatives have been using Trump real estate for decades to launder money. That means Russian Mafia operatives have been part of his fortune for years. Many of them owned condos in Trump Towers and other properties. They were running operations out of Trump's crown jewel.

► From Craig Unger's AMA: "Early on, a source told me that all this was tied to Semion Mogilevich, the powerful Russian mobster. I had never even heard of him, but I immediately went to a database that listed the owners of all properties in NY state and looked up all the Trump properties. Every time I found a Russian sounding name, I would Google, and add Mogilevich. When you do investigative reporting, you anticipate drilling a number of dry holes, but almost everyone I googled turned out to be a Russian mobster. Again and again. If you know New York you don't expect Trump Tower to be a high crime neighborhood, but there were far too many Russian mobsters in Trump properties for it to be a coincidence."

► So many Russians bought Trump apartments at his developments in Florida that the area became known as Little Moscow. The developers of two of his hotels were Russians with significant links to the Russian mob. The late leader of that mob in the United States, Vyacheslav Kirillovich Ivankov, was living at Trump Tower

► According to a Bloomberg investigation (3/16/2017) into Trump World Tower, “a third of units sold on floors 76 through 83 by 2004 involved people or limited liability companies connected to Russia and neighboring states.”

► In 2013, Federal agents busted an “ultraexclusive, high-stakes, illegal poker ring” run by Russian gangsters out of Trump Tower. They operated card games, illegal gambling websites, and a global sports book and laundered more than $100 million. A condo directly below one owned by Trump reportedly served as HQ for a “sophisticated money-laundering scheme” connected to Semion Mogilevich.

► The Russia Mafia is part and parcel of Russian intelligence. Russia is a mafia state. that is not a metaphor. Putin is head of the Mafia. So the fact that they have been operating out of the home of the president of the United States is deeply disturbing.

► Rudy Giuliani famously prosecuted the Italian mob while he was a federal prosecutor, yet the Russian mob was allowed to thrive. Now he's deeply entwined in the business of Trump and Russian oligarchs. Giuiani appointed Semyon Kislin to the NYC Economic Development Council in 1990, and the FBI described Kislin as having ties tot he Russian mob. Of course, it made good political sense for Giuliani to get headlines for smashing the Italian mob.

► A lot of Republicans in Washington are implicated. Boatloads of Russian money went to the GOP--often in legal ways. The NRA got as much as $70M from Russia, then funneled it to the GOP. The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee lead by McConnel got millions from Leonard Blavatnik. In the 90s, the Russians began sending money to top GOP leaders, like Speaker of the House Tom Delay. Unger's book alleges that most of the GOP leadership has been compromised by RU money.

► At the Cityscape USA’s Bridging US and the Emerging Real Estate Markets Conference held in Manhattan, on September 9, 10, and 11, 2008, Trump Jr. was frank about the tide of Russian money supporting the family business, saying "...And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets."

► Eric Trump told golf reporter James Dodson in 2014 that the Trump Organization was able to expand during the financial crisis because “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.”

► Russian oligarchs co-signed Trump’s Deutsche bank loans.

Trump now gleefully takes cues from Putin:

► At the end of 2018, Putin and his allies started making a strong push for a resolution that would justify their country’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and reverse an 1989 vote backed by Mikhail Gorbachev that condemned it. The Putinists’ goal was to pass the resolution by Feb. There is no one on this side of the Atlantic who thinks the USSR was justified in invading Afghanistan. And out of nowhere, on January 2nd, Trump came out strongly supporting Russia's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

► Trump went against American intelligence on North Korean missiles. He told the FBI he didn't believe their intelligence because Putin told him otherwise. "I don't care, I believe Putin"

► Trump met in secret with Putin the G20 summit in November 2018, without note takers. 19 days later, he announced a withdrawal from Syria. As a note, Trump conducted FIVE completely private meetings and conferences with Putin, and has gone to great lengths to prevent literally anyone, even people in his administration, from learning what was discussed.

► Trump refused to enforce sanctions legally codified into law - and in some cases reversed standing sanctions on Russian companies.

► He has denounced his own intelligence agencies in a press conference with Putin on election meddling - and publicly endorsed Putin's version of events.

► Trump pulled out of the INF treaty with no explanation, which allows Putin to create long-range hypersonic missiles that threaten Europe with impunity. The US already has all the weaponry that the INF would ban the development of, so this offers us literally nothing, while allowing Russia to develop powerful new weapons to challenge our allies.

► Demanded Russia get invited back into G7

► Pushed the CIA to give American intelligence to the Kremlin.

► Withdrew from the Open Skies treaty

► Received intelligence in 2019 that Russia was paying bounties for dead American soldiers, and hasn't done anything about it by the time of this writing.

► Announced troop withdrawal from Germany (America's missile defense from Russia and forward operating base against Russian aggression)

► And of course, Trump continues to threaten to pull out of NATO, a move so catastrophically stupid, so inconceivably cosmically myopic, I truly can't express the profundity of the idiocy. Suffice to say, pulling out of NATO would be like the only guy in a prison yard with a shotgun just throwing it over the fence for absolutely no reason, suddenly giving the people with crude homemade shivs complete power.

#potus #Trump #donaldtrump #the donald #donald trump #donald j #trumps america #trump taxes #president trump #trump administration #corrupt #corruption #political corruption #corrupt politics

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yourreddancer · 4 years ago

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Heather Cox Richardson - It feels like the banking under the Republican Party from the Trump years is starting to erode

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, sparked a nationwide fight over police brutality against Black people, with Trump supporters coalescing around the reactionary “Blue Lives Matter” flag. But today’s trial of former law enforcement officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd produced damning evidence from six witnesses, who said they were traumatized by what they saw as Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck until he died.

Today a federal judge ruled that the non-disclosure agreement the former president required employees to sign is so broad and vague it is unenforceable. There has always been a question of whether public employees can be forced to swear to a vow of secrecy, but Trump’s Department of Justice was willing to try to enforce his NDAs. While Trump’s lawyers say they disagree with the new ruling and are considering an appeal, this ruling opens the door to more tell-all books about what happened inside the White House during the previous administration.

Also today, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that a defamation lawsuit against the former president by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos could go forward. The suit had been on hold because Trump’s lawyers argued that a sitting president could not face legal action. While two previous courts ruled against him, today’s decision is from the highest court in New York. It opens up the possibility that Trump will face a deposition in which he could be asked, under oath, about sexual assault accusations.

On Friday, former president Trump told the Fox News channel that his supporters were “hugging and kissing” the law enforcement officers at the Capitol on January 6, but now two U.S. Capitol Police officers have sued the former president for inflaming the insurrectionists on January 6, nearly leading to their deaths. James Blassingame, who has been on the force for 17 years, and Sidney Hemby, who has served for 11 years, blame Trump for the injuries they suffered defending the Capitol. They note his December 19, 2020, tweet in which he told supporters: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there. Will be wild!”

News broke today that Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a major Trump supporter, is being investigated by the Department of Justice for traveling with a 17-year-old girl he paid to accompany him. The probe began during the last administration under Attorney General William Barr, and is linked to a political ally of Gaetz’s, Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Seminole County, Florida, who last summer was indicted on sex trafficking charges. Greenberg was associated with Trump ally Roger Stone. Gaetz has seemed to flounder since this story broke. He gave an interview on personality Tucker Carlson’s show on the Fox News Channel that Carlson himself called “one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.” Gaetz’s denial of the story seemed quite carefully worded. Then he suggested that he and his family were victims of an extortion scheme from someone associated with the Department of Justice. He insists the investigation is happening because he is a “well-known outspoken conservative,” but the probe began under the previous president.

Earlier today, Axios broke the story that Gaetz is considering leaving Congress to take a job at Newsmax, the right-wing news outlet. These stories are enough to spell a bad day indeed for supporters of the former president, but there is an even bigger story, broken yesterday by the incomparable Jane Mayer at the New Yorker.

While Republicans insist that the For the People Act voting rights act, H.R. 1, is a partisan plan, in fact, a leaked conference call from January 8 between a policy advisor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and leaders of a number of conservative groups showed the participants’ concern that H.R. 1 is quite popular even with Republicans. Across the political spectrum, ordinary Americans especially like its provision to limit the dark money that has flowed into our elections since the 2010 Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, permitting billionaires to buy an election’s outcome.

In the 2020 federal election cycle, dark-money groups spent more than a billion dollars. More than 654 million came from just fifteen groups, the top of which is connected to McConnell. In February, a Data for Progress poll showed that 68% of likely voters, including 57% of Republicans, like the bill that would staunch the flow of this money. To kill the measure, a research director for an advocacy group run by the Koch brothers said that Senate Republicans would have to use “under-the-dome-type strategies.” That is, they would have to leverage congressional rules, like the filibuster, to make sure the bill doesn’t pass.

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