#his accuser’s cousin went to the police with evidence that the accuser is involved

[jewishbarbies]

I’ve been reading about the Cole Brings Plenty situation and it’s so utterly heartbreaking and enraging at the same time. I’m so tired of white women. just so fucking tired.

[mariana-oconnor]

The Beryl Coronet pt 2

We continue the tale of Mr Holder, who last time made an astonishingly bad sequence of decisions that ended in him accusing his son of theft and handing him over to the police.

And I definitely, in no way decided arbitrarily that other characters were guilty. There was evidence. I presented it.

Mary did fail the vibe check. Although I do sort of support her given that a) she was stealing from the state/the royal family, and it's not like they can't afford it b) apparently her uncle wants her to marry her cousin and c) I want her to break out of the conventional Victorian gentlewoman mould the narrative is painting her into.

Sure, if she's guilty, she's causing a national crisis, but really Bertie, Prince of Wales, did that already, she's just leading everyone else's dumb ideas to their inevitable conclusions. Can we really blame her for that?

Yes, we probably can. And it does seem likely that the (not at all an archfey) Sir George Burnwell may be manipulating her into it, which would detract from her agency in the matter.

I suppose it could still be Lucy the maid, but I still think it's more likely that Arthur is covering for Mary.

“She is of a quiet nature. Besides, she is not so very young. She is four-and-twenty.”

She is a baby.

Also, she doesn't go out and Sir George Burnwell has been around 'several times lately'. Yep.

But yeah, this does twist it more towards a 'Georgie has been manipulating and grooming a young sheltered girl' and less 'Mary is breaking out of her societal prison with a jewel heist.' Pity.

“Terrible! She is even more affected than I.”

Yeah, he took the jewels and ran off and left her.

Well, let's all hope he dies in a shipwreck.

"If his purpose were innocent, why did he not say so?” “Precisely. And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie?"

Guy's too damn honourable for his own good. Refuses to lie, refuses to condemn the woman he loves. It would be romantic if not for the whole... cousins sort of raised as siblings thing. She calls your father 'dad'... that's weird. Maybe not weird for the time. But it feels weird.

“What did the police think of the noise which awoke you from your sleep?” “They considered that it might be caused by Arthur's closing his bedroom door.” “A likely story! As if a man bent on felony would slam his door so as to wake a household."

I love how outraged Holmes is by this theory. The exclamation mark is perfect. Of course, the door might have been slammed by the wind, but then you wouldn't go and steal the gems immediately, you'd wait until you were sure people weren't getting up.

"Consider what is involved by your theory. You suppose that your son came down from his bed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room, opened your bureau, took out your coronet, broke off by main force a small portion of it, went off to some other place, concealed three gems out of the thirty-nine, with such skill that nobody can find them, and then returned with the other thirty-six into the room in which he exposed himself to the greatest danger of being discovered. I ask you now, is such a theory tenable?"

I confess that the guilt of the banker's son appeared to me to be as obvious as it did to his unhappy father, but still I had such faith in Holmes' judgment that I felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long as he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation.

Once you have jumped to a conclusion, any evidence to the contrary, no matter how ridiculous it may make your theory look, must be completely dismissed.

I'm not being fair. Caught holding the remains of the coronet is not a good look. But if they can't find the missing beryls, then clearly someone else must be involved at least.

Disregarding my presence, she went straight to her uncle and passed her hand over his head with a sweet womanly caress.

The phrase 'sweet womanly caress' upsets me on a fundamental level. But also it makes me really want Mary to be the villain of the piece. Like, I'm 90% sure that Burnwell has done a runner, but I want Mary to have set some part of this in motion just so she can scream and go a little feral, y'know, as a treat.

I kind of want her to catch up with Burnwell, maybe make sure the police catch him with one of the gems, then take the other two and go off on her own.

“But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will be sorry for having acted so harshly.”

Woman's instincts or... knowing he's innocent because you're the one who is guilty?

“You have a maid who has a sweetheart? I think that you remarked to your uncle last night that she had been out to see him?” “Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and who may have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet.” “I see. You infer that she may have gone out to tell her sweetheart, and that the two may have planned the robbery.”

But why would Arthur protect the maid? Also, I feel like Mary is a little too eager to push the possibility of Lucy's guilt here. She adds that bit about the drawing-room all by herself. Yes, she seems concerned about Arthur, but still... she's very much been leaving all the breadcrumbs about Lucy.

Lucy makes sense as a suspect apart from why Arthur would be covering for her. Unless offpage they are having a romance, despite him having canonically proposed to Mary multiple times, then I just don't see that happening. But then we have also been told that canonically Mary dislikes Burnwell. There is clearly a secret romantic relationship somewhere in this tale. I'm inclined to think Burnwell (who has been noted as a wrong'un) rather than Lucy.

“Which key was used to open it?” he asked. “That which my son himself indicated—that of the cupboard of the lumber-room.”

If Mary locks up at night, she also has access to all the keys. Just saying.

“Then I will.” Holmes suddenly bent his strength upon it, but without result. “I feel it give a little,” said he; “but, though I am exceptionally strong in the fingers, it would take me all my time to break it."

Even Holmes, who once bent an iron poker back to straight again, cannot break off a part of the coronet on his own. So... struggle.

"I understand that you give me carte blanche to act for you, provided only that I get back the gems, and that you place no limit on the sum I may draw.”

Considering the sums of money involved in this story, I fear that Mr Holder is going to be left bankrupt even if he does recover the jewels. Buying them back might be the only way to recover them. But maybe he won't have to actually buy them, just pretend to be willing to buy them in order to lure Burnwell in. (I'm pretty sure Francis Prosper, the one-legged greengrocer is not involved, but I hope he and Lucy are happy).

He hurried to his chamber and was down again in a few minutes dressed as a common loafer. With his collar turned up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he was a perfect sample of the class.

And Holmes is in disguise again! Always fun to play dress up. I assume he is fact gathering in order to work out where Burnwell is and how to reach him to try to 'buy' the gems, but I have no idea why this particular disguise is the way to go.

I'm not sure how happily this can end, as the coronet itself has already been broken, so there is clear evidence of it having been tampered with. I fear that Bertie is going to have to have a little chat with his mother about this. Clearly it's going badly so far.

[agentcable]

Chicago Fire Season 4 Ep. 4 "Your Day Is Coming"

Dawson has an emergency operation after collapsing. Severide and Boden try to close Dawson's arson case. Molly's is closed due to a code violation. Borrelli asks his cousin, who works in construction, to help him get Molly's back open. Severide and Patterson investigate how the OFI files were deleted. Ambo 61 responds to a call at the morgue.

If you want to watch the series for yourself, stop reading! This post contains spoilers to the storyline.

Dawson felt pain in her abdomen last week due to an incident with her new boss in the Arson Unit. Casey didn't care about her work. He was focused on her health. It had been compromised. Dawson's cramp was caused by internal bleeding. The doctors at Chicago Med couldn't wait for her pregnancy to stabilize. They had to go in right away. Dr. Will Halstead warned Casey beforehand.

He said he'd focused on Dawson first, not the baby. Casey knew the baby had little chance of survival. But it was still a shock when the doctor told him Dawson had miscarried. He tried to comfort the other man by saying the pregnancy wasn't viable. It might not have been the shock from earlier that caused her miscarriage. It was just meant to be. Dawson could have miscarried even if everything had gone right.

But that's not what she or the Firehouse believe. They believe Maddox set fires to drive down the price of buildings in up-and-coming areas. Severide confronted his ex, who is now Maddox's lawyer.

Severide went to her office and accused Jamie of telling Maddox about the evidence. At the time, she was the only one Maddox's team knew about Dawson's investigation because she was there when Dawson took paperwork home. Jamie saw the files, but said she didn't steal them. So Severide kept looking and got a friend from the police to check out the chief of the arson unit's computer. The chief was a friend, so Severide didn't think he could erase evidence. However, a third person was involved, and Mouse found out that the computer had been hacked.

Susie Wilder helps. Susie was the chief's second-in-command and knew about the files Dawson had gathered. Susie called in sick as soon as she found out the system had been erased. Mouse decided to bring in the rest of the Chicago Police Department. If Susie is guilty, she could go to prison for a long time. The police checked her alibi. Thankfully, Susie had witnesses when someone hacked in.

Susie was cleared, so only Severide's close friend and Dawson's boss were left. Severide had to ask, even though he didn't want to. He asked Duff if he'd tampered with evidence. Duff said he hadn't. Who else could have done it? That was the question that was on Severide's mind as he heard about Dawson's health.

The doctors missed a piece of the placenta, which caused Dawson to bleed out again. She had to go back into the OR. The whole house was worried about Dawson.

The new cadet tried to find a way to reopen Molly's. The Portland transplants closed the bar. They just had to say it was 13 feet from the sidewalk, not 15. Jimmy asked his cousin Anthony to look into Molly's. Anthony figured something out. He found out that Molly's had historical value. Jimmy had a plan. They had Molly's declared a landmark. That means the building can't be changed. Plus, Herrmann can keep his bar open despite it being only 13 feet from the sidewalk.

Jimmy did well and impressed Chili too. That was his main motivation.

Severide found out Duff had betrayed him. Duf deleted the files. He hadn't gotten rid of the paperwork, so he had it dropped off outside Severide's old office. After dropping off the files, Duff tried to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. Severide saved him by jumping in the river. He saved the man's life, but their friendship was over.

That night, Molly's reopened. Herrmann knew just what to say to Dawson.

[phaedrecameron]

The Accused, James Fraser, Chapter 10 - Sandbag

“Are you sure this is a good idea…he’s the prosecutor!?” Phaedre whisper screamed in Claire’s ear as they entered the Boston criminal courts building.

“We’ve got to find Jamie. His defense lawyer won’t risk us screwing up the case,” Claire replied, directing them to first floor café. “Grey released Jamie without prior authorization. I’m sure of it. I’ve been around long enough to know that protocol wasn’t followed. He’s hoping Jamie will lead him to accomplices. He’ll have people watching him.”

Phaedre nodded in acquiescence. She’d just have to trust this Beauchamp woman. Claire was taking a hell of a risk helping Jamie and she seemed to care for him a great deal.

Once Phaedre had explained her connection to Jamie, Claire had offered her a place to stay, which happened to be Geillis’ home. Geillis had an entire shelf on her guest room bookcase dedicated to Jamaican and Haitian voodoo. Phaedre would definitely need to ask her about that later.

Phaedre looked at Claire as they sat in the café. She was definitely pretty, but in a sort of untamed, ethereal way. No wonder her best friend was a witch. But she couldn’t say whether Claire was Jamie’s type. Phaedre had been around Jamie often enough to know he attracted the eye of many women. He was always polite, but he was looking for something or someone else. And there was the issue of Beauchamp being married to Frank Randall. Ugh, thinking of that man was like smelling rotten milk. Yet, Jamie must feel something for Claire. While Phaedre had been unpacking her things at Geillis’, Claire shyly entered the room.

“So..do you speak any Gaelic…I mean for your research?” Claire had asked.

“Speak, no. But I’ve gotten to understand a few things.”

“I see.” Claire had tugged at the hem of her shirt. “Well, Geillis doesn’t know any Gaelic and google translate is useless because of the phonetics of that bloody language.”

“What is it you want to know?” Phaedre had been tired and the way Beauchamp had been hemming and hawing was akin to waiting for water to boil.

“Well… do you know what ‘mo cree’ or ‘mo rye’ means?”

“Mo chridhe. Mo ghraidh. My heart. My love.”

“Oh.” Whatever Beauchamp had been expecting it wasn’t that. She’d started to glow and the stupidest smile had formed on her face. She’d left the room as though Phaedre had given her the Holy Grail.

Clearly, Jamie had spoken those words to her, not something he would have done lightly.

Yes, Phaedre would follow Claire’s lead.

****************************** “What the fuck were you thinking! Releasing Fraser from custody!?” Harry Quarry screamed at Grey.

“I didn’t release him, he posted bail,” Grey replied.

Harry was red faced, with a vein protruding from his forehead. John worried his boss would have a coronary right on the spot. Harry walked around his desk to glower over Grey.

“Don’t! You know damn well capital defendants can’t get bail. You dismissed the death penalty allegation!”

“Harry, this is the best way to catch..”

“We have the killer! You know Grey, I stood up for you when everybody thought you were a spoiled blue blood who bought his way through life. I recommended you for homicide when everyone thought you needed more experience. It’s nice that you can blow up your career, go yachting for six months and get another job, but this job is my life’s work and my family needs my pension!” Harry sat back behind his desk, turning his attention to a stack a files. “I’ve already spoken to Brown. You’ll stay on the Fraser case. The optics of removing you now would make the office look even worse, but once this case is over you’ll be lucky to even prosecute a speeding ticket. Leave.” Harry didn’t look up.

Grey went to the downstairs café, wishing he had some MacKenzie Whisky to add to his coffee. If he was wrong about Fraser, he’d hunt the man down and flip the switch himself.

“Hullo.” Suddenly Dr. Claire Beauchamp was sitting across from him. She looked more poised than the last time he saw her, but she was clearly up to something. “I need the location of James Fraser…for the eval.”

Grey sipped his coffee. She would make a terrible spy, no finesse.

Claire continued, “I need a follow up exam. I don’t want to miss the court deadline.” She smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure he provided an address as a condition of pre trial release…maybe even agreed to an electronic gps device?”

“Yes, and he surrendered his passport, but surely you know how…irregular it would be to release the defendant’s address to the court appointed psychiatrist. Contact Ned. He can arrange a meeting or my office can coordinate the interview at police headquarters.”

“I understand it’s unusual, but there are extenuating circumstances,” Claire pressed.

“Which would be……?”

Beauchamp looked as though she intended to grab his coffee and throw it in his face. Grey moved his coffee out of her reach. He was more than willing to wait her out.

“The circumstance of his innocence,” Claire hissed.

“If you had any such evidence, you’d have told Ned or the police. This is clearly personal for you.”

“And if you thought he were guilty, he wouldn’t be out on bail.”

Touché

“Do you know that woman?” Grey pointed his chin at a woman a few tables over. She was eavesdropping while pretending to read a kindle.

Claire groaned and waived the woman over. “This is Dr. Phaedre Cameron, Jamie’s cousin. She’s…helping me.”

Grey ignored her use of a nickname for Fraser and watched as this woman joined their table. “Hello, pleased to meet you,” Phaedre extended her hand. Grey shook it as he looked from Beauchamp back to this Dr. Cameron.

The woman was clearly an American and not from Boston.

Sensing Grey’s confusion, Phaedre explained, “distant cousin, on his paternal side. We have an 18th century ancestor in common, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, The Old Fox.”

Grey blinked. He definitely needed something stronger than coffee.

“Lovat was executed by the English,” Phaedre added triumphant. “Did you know Scottish people came en mass to colonial America; some were indentured servants and some were involved in the trans Atlantic slave trade and….”

Claire lightly put her hand on Phaedre’s arm. She knew all to well the signs of a historian about go on a very long and very convoluted explanation of historical events.

“Oh, sorry,” Phaedre looked sheepish.

Grey cleared his throat, “Well it’s good Fraser has…. maintained contact with his American relations…..are you a doctor of psychiatry also?”

“Goodness, no. History. I’m a professor at UNC, Chapel Hill.

Grey sat forward. “North Carolina! That’s what Fraser was doing down there. Visiting you.”

Cameron’s face went blank. She had a far better poker face than Beauchamp. She looked to Beauchamp, “this will help Jamie, yes?”

Claire looked to Grey, “I don’t know. Can we trust you? To help find the true killer?” Her face was earnest and open.

Grey looked at the two women. Both highly educated, both convinced of Fraser’s innocence and willing to help him at great cost. Grey, himself was in a similar situation. He’d be ruined if releasing Fraser turned up nothing. Grey sighed. What was it about damned James Fraser.

“Yes, yes, you can trust me, but I want to know everything! What was Fraser doing in North Carolina and how do you really know him?”

Beauchamp nodded to Cameron. Cameron began, “what I said was true; Jamie and I are distantly related. My historical focus is the culture of enslaved Africans living in islands along the southern Atlantic seaboard in Colonial to antebellum America. These people developed a distinct culture and language; a language that is dying. I knew of programs to revive and protect languages— like with the Maori language in New Zealand and Gaelic in Scotland. I discovered MacKenzie Whisky was a huge sponsor of the program in Scotland. I reached out a few years back and Jamie responded. We became friends. He educated me on Scottish history and it was really interesting. I found great overlap and contact between Scots and putative African Americans. I researched some of my own history and found the common ancestor.”

I see, so he came for a visit?” Grey asked.

“He called me about two months before the murder. He wanted to know if I could put him contact with experts who could keep quiet.”

“Experts?”

“Historical experts; archeologists, anthropologists, antiquities specialists, renaissance art dealers, indigenous peoples researchers. I didn’t think much of it.” Phaedre shrugged. “I figured it was for his Foundation. “Said he would fly to North Carolina to discuss it.”

Phaedre stopped abruptly and looked at Claire, “He really is special, tries to help those he can.” Claire’s blush was not unnoticed.

“Anyway,” Phaedre continued, “he brought this.” She handed Grey a stack of photos of artifacts and copies of documents. “Those are historical items of note; spanning centuries, across multiple cultures and all stolen. Jamie asked me to authenticate some pertaining to Colonial America and get the right experts for the rest.”

“Jesus,” Grey flipped through the pages. There was also references to purchases of conflict diamonds from Africa, emeralds from Colombia, rhino horns, items looted from the unrest in the Middle East.

“These items are all in possession of Mackenzie Whisky. Amassed over the last two years, and easily traceable to Janet Murray & William Fraser, Jamie’s siblings,” Claire added.

John sat back in his chair. “A set up.”

Both women nodded. Grey knew if this information got out Fraser’s siblings would be jailed and the company would be ruined. This was a PR disaster in every market where Mackenzie Whisky was sold. This is what Minnie would call a scorched Earth attack.

“Jamie said he knew the liaison who was procuring the items on behalf of the company. He was flying to Boston to meet her. It must have been Laoghaire.” Phaedre stated.

“Once he was arrested, I didn’t know what to do.” She looked between Claire and John, “He wouldn’t return my calls. I didn’t want to go to the police or his lawyer for fear of everything going pubic….I thought maybe with doctor – client privilege…I… I…” Claire grabbed Phaedre’s hand.

“We’ll fix it, we’ll find him and figure it out,” Claire continued to squeeze Phaedre’s hand and looked at Grey.

Grey, while sympathetic, was extremely skeptical of Beauchamp being able to help Fraser.

“He’ll already have a plan,” Phaedre stated, wiping at the corner of her eyes. “We’ve just got to convince him we can help. He’s got a reason to live now.” She smiled at Claire. ***************

Claire fiddled with her hair and wiped her hands on her jeans for the third time as she rode the elevator to the 7th floor of the luxury apartment building where Jamie was staying. What if he refuses to see her? What if he sent her away? Before she could lose her nerve, Claire exited the elevator, walked to his door and knocked.

Nothing.

She knocked again.

When she thought she could no longer bear it, she heard Jamie’s voice through the door, “Ach, took ye long enough! Where’d ye go, Memphis?!”

The door swung open and she instinctively stepped back. Her mouth fell open. Jamie stood before her. He was wet and naked, save a gps ankle monitor and an entirely too small hand towel he was grasping around his waist.

He stared, but said nothing.

Claire moved forward.

“Sorry, it’s me, Claire.”

[orbemnews]

US Capitol rioters charged in Sicknick case were armed with bear spray but only used pepper spray, prosecutors say Prosecutors addressed the seemingly small but significant difference at a detention hearing for the two men charged in connection with the chemical attack. All sides now acknowledge that the defendants, Julian Khater and George Tanios, brought bear repellant to the Capitol and that Khater asked for it just moments before the attack but ended up using pepper spray instead. The clarification came a week after Washington’s chief medical examiner ruled that Sicknick had suffered strokes and died of natural causes a day after the attack. The finding undercut theories that an allergic reaction to the chemical spray may have led to his death. Taken together, these developments clarify key facts about the day before Sicknick’s death, which has emerged as one of the most well-known incidents from the insurrection. The narrative was already muddled by prosecutors repeatedly citing the bear spray, unsanctioned speculation from the former US attorney who led the probe, exaggerated statements from law enforcement and inaccurate early press reports about a fire extinguisher hitting Sicknick. Khater and Tanios have pleaded not guilty and maintain that they’re not a danger to the public. They’re seeking to be released from jail and will be before a federal judge again next week. Chemical breakdown Past testimony from Khater and the manager of a gun shop had already established that Tanios bought canisters of bear spray and pepper spray shortly before January 6. Prosecutor Gilead Light said Tuesday that it was the pepper spray that Khater allegedly used on Capitol grounds. A “smaller can of a different chemical spray” was used, but “the bear spray is relevant because it goes to the planning,” Light said, arguing that the defendants had geared up for violence and were ready to use the repellant. “It’s an uncontested fact that there are no bears in downtown DC.” CNN and other outlets had reported in February that a leading theory for investigators was that a chemical irritant, possibly bear spray, may have triggered a fatal reaction and killed Sicknick. Prosecutors also emphasized the bear spray angle. The Justice Department news release announcing the charges in March said the officers had been hit with an “unknown chemical substance,” but also quoted a video of Khater asking Tanios to “give me that bear s–t” shortly before the assault. At Tanios’ detention hearing in West Virginia, the phrase “bear spray” was brought up 20 times, according to a transcript. An FBI agent who testified at that hearing danced around the question of whether it had been deployed, saying the investigation was “ongoing” and that the canisters hadn’t been submitted for forensic analysis. But prosecutors did say the cans “appeared to be intact.” Khater’s attorney Joseph Tacopina needled prosecutors at Tuesday’s hearing by saying the bear spray “turned out not to be bear spray,” and argued that it was a “defensive” pepper spray. Will they be released? The muddled narrative has played out while Khater and Tanios fight for their release from jail. Most of the nearly 400 alleged rioters facing charges have been released before trial — even some who are accused of assaulting police officers. The Justice Department has struggled at times to convince federal judges that some of the defendants should stay behind bars, and several high-profile Capitol riot defendants have successfully overturned their detention orders. Federal judges previously ruled that they’re too dangerous to let out, but they’re challenging those decisions. Holding a defendant in jail before trial is not meant to be a punishment, and defendants are presumed innocent of the charges. But pretrial detention is used when someone is deemed to be a potential danger to the public or might not show up for future court hearings. Attorneys for Khater propose that he be released under a $15 million bond and put under house arrest because he has no history of violence, no engagement with extremist groups and didn’t go inside the Capitol. (He was still charged with entering restricted grounds because he was in an area that had been blocked off ahead of time and wasn’t open to the public on January 6.) Tanios’ lawyer brought in two witnesses who testified Tuesday in favor of his release. A 20-year veteran of the West Virginia National Guard called Tanios “a big teddy bear,” and one of Tanios’ cousins said he would “never see (Tanios) as a threat to leave his country” and flee before trial. “He’s looking forward to going to court and proving his innocence,” the cousin said. Prosecutors say the man planned for violence, helped the Capitol fall to the mob and still poses a threat. Judge Thomas Hogan will hear more arguments next week and issue a ruling. Murder probe fizzles Khater and Tanios’ case may be the only charges ever brought involving the Sicknick incident. Despite the Justice Department opening a murder investigation into Sicknick’s death, there have been several hints that prosecutors may never bring a murder case. The probe appeared to stall not long after it started due to a lack of evidence of any fatal injury. And the medical examiner initially kept the case “pending” even after releasing findings on others who died that day. The medical examiner’s recent ruling about the manner of death makes it a virtual certainty that prosecutors won’t able to go much farther than the existing assault case, legal experts said. “This, in fact, all but assures prosecutors won’t charge anyone with homicide related to Officer Sicknick’s death,” former US Attorney Preet Bharara told CNN. “The report appears conclusive that he died of natural causes, and it could look like overcharging if prosecutors went that route.” Medical examiner Dr. Francisco Diaz didn’t note any evidence that Sicknick had an allergic reaction to the chemical spray, and didn’t list any internal or external injuries. Yet in an interview with The Washington Post about his findings, Diaz left some uncertainty about how the Capitol attack had influenced Sicknick’s health, saying, “All that transpired played a role in his condition.” The US Capitol Police initially said on January 7 that Sicknick died “due to injuries sustained while on-duty” and “succumbed to his injuries” from the Capitol riot, a sentiment that was echoed by congressional leaders, White House officials and then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. When the autopsy results were released last week, indicating that Sicknick had died of natural causes, the Capitol Police said it “accepts” the findings but that he “died in the Line of Duty.” In court filings and arguments, prosecutors have never connected the chemical spray assault to Sicknick’s death. Khater and Tanios are charged in a 10-count indictment with conspiring to injure an officer, assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon, civil disorder and other crimes. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst, said there are still options for prosecutors to hold people responsible for Sicknick’s death, though it’s unlikely to happen. “Under federal law, there is a felony murder law,” Honig said. “It means you’re liable for any death that occurs in the course of certain felonies, though it’s tough to find one that matches this set of circumstances. The only one that comes close — but is still a stretch — is burglary.” CNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #armed #bear #Capitol #Case #charged #Pepper #Politics #Prosecutors #prosecutorssay-CNNPolitics #rioters #Sicknick #spray #USCapitolrioterschargedinSicknickcasehadbearspraybutonlyusedpepperspray

[dipulb3]

US Capitol rioters charged in Sicknick case were armed with bear spray but only used pepper spray, prosecutors say

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/us-capitol-rioters-charged-in-sicknick-case-were-armed-with-bear-spray-but-only-used-pepper-spray-prosecutors-say/

US Capitol rioters charged in Sicknick case were armed with bear spray but only used pepper spray, prosecutors say

Prosecutors addressed the seemingly small but significant difference at a detention hearing for the two men charged in connection with the chemical attack. All sides now acknowledge that the defendants, Julian Khater and George Tanios, brought bear repellant to the Capitol and that Khater asked for it just moments before the attack but ended up using pepper spray instead.

The clarification came a week after Washington’s chief medical examiner ruled that Sicknick had suffered strokes and died of natural causes a day after the attack. The finding undercut theories that an allergic reaction to the chemical spray may have led to his death.

Taken together, these developments clarify key facts about the day before Sicknick’s death, which has emerged as one of the most well-known incidents from the insurrection.

The narrative was already muddled by prosecutors repeatedly citing the bear spray, unsanctioned speculation from the former US attorney who led the probe, exaggerated statements from law enforcement and inaccurate early press reports about a fire extinguisher hitting Sicknick.

Khater and Tanios have pleaded not guilty and maintain that they’re not a danger to the public. They’re seeking to be released from jail and will be before a federal judge again next week.

Chemical breakdown

Past testimony from Khater and the manager of a gun shop had already established that Tanios bought canisters of bear spray and pepper spray shortly before January 6. Prosecutor Gilead Light said Tuesday that it was the pepper spray that Khater allegedly used on Capitol grounds.

A “smaller can of a different chemical spray” was used, but “the bear spray is relevant because it goes to the planning,” Light said, arguing that the defendants had geared up for violence and were ready to use the repellant. “It’s an uncontested fact that there are no bears in downtown DC.”

Appradab and other outlets had reported in February that a leading theory for investigators was that a chemical irritant, possibly bear spray, may have triggered a fatal reaction and killed Sicknick.

Prosecutors also emphasized the bear spray angle. The Justice Department news release announcing the charges in March said the officers had been hit with an “unknown chemical substance,” but also quoted a video of Khater asking Tanios to “give me that bear s–t” shortly before the assault.

At Tanios’ detention hearing in West Virginia, the phrase “bear spray” was brought up 20 times, according to a transcript. An FBI agent who testified at that hearing danced around the question of whether it had been deployed, saying the investigation was “ongoing” and that the canisters hadn’t been submitted for forensic analysis. But prosecutors did say the cans “appeared to be intact.”

Khater’s attorney Joseph Tacopina needled prosecutors at Tuesday’s hearing by saying the bear spray “turned out not to be bear spray,” and argued that it was a “defensive” pepper spray.

Will they be released?

The muddled narrative has played out while Khater and Tanios fight for their release from jail.

Most of the nearly 400 alleged rioters facing charges have been released before trial — even some who are accused of assaulting police officers. The Justice Department has struggled at times to convince federal judges that some of the defendants should stay behind bars, and several high-profile Capitol riot defendants have successfully overturned their detention orders.

Federal judges previously ruled that they’re too dangerous to let out, but they’re challenging those decisions. Holding a defendant in jail before trial is not meant to be a punishment, and defendants are presumed innocent of the charges. But pretrial detention is used when someone is deemed to be a potential danger to the public or might not show up for future court hearings.

Attorneys for Khater propose that he be released under a $15 million bond and put under house arrest because he has no history of violence, no engagement with extremist groups and didn’t go inside the Capitol. (He was still charged with entering restricted grounds because he was in an area that had been blocked off ahead of time and wasn’t open to the public on January 6.)

Tanios’ lawyer brought in two witnesses who testified Tuesday in favor of his release. A 20-year veteran of the West Virginia National Guard called Tanios “a big teddy bear,” and one of Tanios’ cousins said he would “never see (Tanios) as a threat to leave his country” and flee before trial.

“He’s looking forward to going to court and proving his innocence,” the cousin said.

Prosecutors say the man planned for violence, helped the Capitol fall to the mob and still poses a threat. Judge Thomas Hogan will hear more arguments next week and issue a ruling.

Murder probe fizzles

Khater and Tanios’ case may be the only charges ever brought involving the Sicknick incident.

Despite the Justice Department opening a murder investigation into Sicknick’s death, there have been several hints that prosecutors may never bring a murder case. The probe appeared to stall not long after it started due to a lack of evidence of any fatal injury. And the medical examiner initially kept the case “pending” even after releasing findings on others who died that day.

The medical examiner’s recent ruling about the manner of death makes it a virtual certainty that prosecutors won’t able to go much farther than the existing assault case, legal experts said.

“This, in fact, all but assures prosecutors won’t charge anyone with homicide related to Officer Sicknick’s death,” former US Attorney Preet Bharara told Appradab. “The report appears conclusive that he died of natural causes, and it could look like overcharging if prosecutors went that route.”

Medical examiner Dr. Francisco Diaz didn’t note any evidence that Sicknick had an allergic reaction to the chemical spray, and didn’t list any internal or external injuries. Yet in an interview with The Washington Post about his findings, Diaz left some uncertainty about how the Capitol attack had influenced Sicknick’s health, saying, “All that transpired played a role in his condition.”

In court filings and arguments, prosecutors have never connected the chemical spray assault to Sicknick’s death. Khater and Tanios are charged in a 10-count indictment with conspiring to injure an officer, assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon, civil disorder and other crimes.

Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, a Appradab legal analyst, said there are still options for prosecutors to hold people responsible for Sicknick’s death, though it’s unlikely to happen.

“Under federal law, there is a felony murder law,” Honig said. “It means you’re liable for any death that occurs in the course of certain felonies, though it’s tough to find one that matches this set of circumstances. The only one that comes close — but is still a stretch — is burglary.”

Appradab’s Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“$2,000 Bail - $3 Case,” Toronto Star. March 17, 1939. Page 33. ---- (No. 1 Police Court, City Hall, Magistrate Browne.) Without hearing any evidence or reading the charges against them, Harry Desenhouse and Samuel Dennis, charged with robbery, were remanded a week on $2,000 bail. ‘Your worship, there was only $3 involved in this and no suggestion of any firearms, and I would ask a reduction of bail,’ Harry Rose, defence counsel pleaded for the two men. His request was refused. Harvey and William Giles, cousins, were charged with stealing $40 from William Giles, father of William, one of the accused lads. William Giles, St., said he delivered vegetables for a wholesaler, and the two lads helped him. His son, William, was collecting the money, March 9, he continued. Before the deliveries were completed the lands had disappeared with the money, he said. William, Jr., broke down and wept. ‘I am responsible for this alone,’ he cried. ‘Harvey had nothing to do with it. I plead guilty. I went to Hamilton and spent the money. I heard Harvey had been arrested for the theft, so I gave myself up to the Hamilton police. It is all my fault.’ Mr. Giles, Sr., took the stand again and pleaded with the court to give his son another chance. ‘He has never been in trouble before,’ he said. ‘Harvey will be discharged,’ said his worship. ‘You, William, will be given a chance. Never do a thing like this again. You see, your dad is not so bad after all. You will be given suspended sentence and one year’s probation.’ Martin Pakelsma and Gordon McQuaig, who last week admitted breaking into tea rooms on Queen St., W., were dealt with by Magistrate Forsyth today. They appeared for sentence. ‘Pakelsma, you only came out of the penitentiary Nov. 30,’ said the magistrate. ‘You will go back there for two years. You, McQuaig, have some idea of reform.’ he continued. ‘You are not bad, but wayward and had been drinking. You will serve three months.’ Jack Whalen, arrested five minutes after a music store on Shuter St. had been broken into and on whom police found a $285 saxophone, today was sentenced to nine months for shopbreaking. ‘I plead guilty,’ said Whalen. ‘I was hungry and wanted something to eat.’ William Volvie and Norman Neal were charged with stealing the car of George Stone. Volvie said Neal had nothing to do with the theft. Neal was discharged and Volvie committed to the Ontario reformatory for one year definite, plus six months indefinite.

[yoonicidal-blog]

Chronology of the Police Case So Far (Updated According to Chapter 28!) -currently not all proven-

I got some asks wanting me to explain the case as it was confusing. So here is the murder case and what’s sort of been happening in KS chronologically, related to the case Seungbae is currently investigating:

Oh Sangwoo kills his parents and fakes a break in. 

Yang Seungbae gets demoted for catching the wrong person in an investigation case and is transferred from Seoul, then partnered with Officer Park. 

Yang Seungbae comes across Yoon Bum while doing patrol with Officer Park, who is trying to go into Oh Sangwoo’s house. Yoon Bum tells him he is his cousin, but Yang Seungbae is suspicious of him as he notices Yoon Bum gets the code wrong five times and is being very anxious, implying he is lying. The next time Yoon Bum enters the code, it’s correct and he goes in, leaving Yang Seungbae outside.

Yang Seungbae meets Oh Sangwoo for the first time as they come across him in the street and his partner Officer Park tells him Oh Sangwoo is related to a case that was never solved involving the murder of his parents and a no trace break in. Seungbae is suspicious that Oh Sangwoo is the culprit and he states this. He gets scolded by his partner who doesn’t deny Yang Seungbae could be right, but more so that he should leave it alone because he doesn’t want to be demoted along with Seungbae in case he is wrong again.

Yoon Bum meets Oh Sangwoo officially and is imprisoned.

Yoon Bum tries to escape, the blackbox of Oh Sangwoo’s car records Oh Sangwoo picking Yoon Bum up and punching him against his car’s window.

Sangwoo brings in and with the help of Yoon Bum, kills an older man named Kim Seohko he picked up from a gay bar he went to. 

Yang Seungbae finds Oh Sangwoo and another man fighting because of a car crash and demands Oh Sangwoo’s blackbox. He does not recognise Oh Sangwoo at this point. 

Yang Seungbae looks at the information he got from Oh Sangwoo and recognises him. Then he looks at Oh Sangwoo’s blackbox and sees the footage of Yoon Bum trying to escape, and then Oh Sangwoo pushing him against his car roughly before carrying him in. 

Yang Seungbae vists Oh Sangwoo’s house out of suspicion because of the footage. He sees Yoon Bum’s foot when he looks from the hole for mail. He encounters Oh Sangwoo before he sees more, who lets him go inside. Yoon Bum hides in a cabinet. Yang Seungbae finds nothing. 

The same day Yang Seungbae encounters a black piece of hair in his shoe upon returning from the house of Oh Sangwoo. He is suspicious but can’t quite place what it means. He does absolutely nothing with this information even though he realises it’s weird. 

Oh Sangwoo goes out with his friends and Yoon Bum, leaving early, blaming Yoon Bum. 

After dropping Yoon Bum in his house, Oh Sangwoo leaves and uses Kim Seohko’s phone talk to Min Jieun, asking her not to tell anyone where she is going and who with. He can do this because the chatting app he is using doesn’t need a number, it needs a “talk ID” so nobody notices he changed phones. 

Yoon Bum kills Min Jieun. 

Oh Sangwoo and Yoon Bum bury Min Jieun.

Min Jieun is reported missing. 

Yang Seungbae overhears and then learns that Oh Sangwoo was with Min Jieun the night he disappeared.

Sangwoo gets called by his friend to let him know about the situation of Min Jieun. Sangwoo gives him the number of his actual phone. 

While looking for more information, Yang Seungbea learns that Min Jieun’s disappearance is already tied to Kim Seohko’s because the phone used to contact Min Jieun the night she disappeared was Kim Seohko’s.

Yang Seungbae learns that Kim Seohko and his wife are divorced because Kim Seohko was caught with a prostitute and his wife is the one living at their house while Kim Seohko moved out.

Yang Seungbae tells his co-woker that he thinks Kim Seohko and Min Jieun are both Oh Sangwoo’s victims instead and that Oh Sangwoo simply used Kim Seohko’s phone to contact Min Jieun so it wouldn’t get traced back to him and his crime would be blamed on Kim Seohko.

Yang Seungbae��s co-worker accuses him of making up stories. 

Yang Seungbae asks his friend if being caught with a prostitute would give his wife the right to keep the house and his friend says that there should be 10 years or so of cheating for that to happen.  

Yang Seungbae is suspicious, he notices that Kim Seohko gave the house away willingly or there is something that is being hidden and wonders what it is. 

Yang Seungbae talks to Kim Seohko’s ex-wife and tries to tell her Kim Seohko may have been murdered but his ex-wife says she doesn’t want anything to do with Kim Seohko anymore since they are divorced. 

Yang Seungbae is discouraged by this. He thinks his suspicions are becoming out of reach and that people don’t even want to catch the right person, but maybe just blame others to close the case or ignore the whole deal. 

Kim Seohko’s ex-wife tells Yang Seungbae that she wishes her ex-husband was alive when he is about to leave. 

Yang Seungbae returns inside and talks to Kim Seohko’s ex-wife. His ex-wife implies that Kim Seohko was gay. Seungbae realises the reasons why she got the house so easily was to keep her mouth shut about the whole deal (Assumed since the police don’t already know about the decades of cheating Kim Seohko has been doing that was only found out when Kim Seohko’s ex-wife hired someone to follow him). 

Yang Seungbae goes to a district that is filled with gay people and bars. 

Yang Seungbae enters a gay bar and is hit on by a minor. 

Yang Seungbae asks the minor whether or not if he knows Oh Sangwoo by showing him a picture of him. He doesn’t. After, Yang Seungbae shows him a picture of Kim Seohko and he reacts to it like he recognises him. 

Put off by Yang Seungbae’s earlier joke about being a murderer, the minor refuses to go to a private place to chat about it with him. 

Yang Seungbae reveals his identity as a policeman and threatens the minor by calling his parents so he answers his questions. 

The minor tells him he knows Kim Seohko because he had been hitting on him for a long time and then he had sex with him for money.

Yang Seungbae is directed to another gay bar for more information. It is the one the minor and Kim Seohko met. [It is also the one Oh Sangwoo met Kim Seohko].

Yang Seungbae asks the bartender in the new bar about Kim Seohko by showing him his picture. 

The bartender says Kim Seohko frequented there and the last he saw him he was with a young man who seemed to not be picky about who was with [Oh Sangwoo], doing card tricks for him. This, to Yang Seungbae, seals the deal even more since the bartender says people are usually picky there and it makes sense that Oh Sangwoo wasn’t picky because he was just looking for someone to kill and blame.  

Seungbae implies he is convinced Oh Sangwoo is the man he is looking for even though he acknowledges that his evidence is not strong enough yet. He is, however, hopeful because he has a lead. 

The police find Min Jieun’s body in the mountain regions of Honam and mistake the body for the body of the daughter of the pharmaceutical company. 

Yang Seungbae, upon hearing this, talks to someone from his old police team who is doing the autopsy for the body and can only confirm that the legs of the victim were harmed much like he realised how Yoon Bum’s was (since he was crawling on the floor when he saw him). His friend says that the daughter’s funeral was held right away because of decomposition and asks Seungbae to stay out of the case.

Yang Seungbae visits the place he sees Oh Sangwoo go in and out a lot, assuming it’s the place he works at. He takes his glasses off and puts his hair up as a disguise. 

Yang Seungbae corners Yoon Bum in the staff bathroom and confronts him. He looks at his legs to confirm the injury and thus confirming he has the right person. 

Yang Seungbae reveals that he also thinks the body in the mountain is of the CEO of the pharmaceutical company and points out the similarity of her injury to his.

Oh Sangwoo walks in and takes Yoon Bum out of the bathroom, he doesn’t see Yang Seungbae because of the fact that he hid between the stall and the door. 

Yang Seungbea reveals he has done similar things before. Assuming he means disguising for detective work and following a suspect.

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/united-states-of-america/secret-venezuela-files-warn-about-maduro-confidant/

Secret Venezuela Files Warn About Maduro Confidant

He is one of the most powerful leaders of the Venezuelan government, a hard-liner who has put down protests, confronted rebels and been a constant presence at the side of Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian president.

But for years, Tareck El Aissami, one of Mr. Maduro’s closest confidants, has also been the target of wide-ranging investigations by his own country’s intelligence agency into his ties to the criminal underworld.

According to a secret dossier compiled by Venezuelan agents, Mr. El Aissami and his family have helped sneak Hezbollah militants into the country, gone into business with a drug lord and shielded 140 tons of chemicals believed to be used for cocaine production — helping make him a rich man as his country has spiraled into disarray.

With its economy in tatters and its people hungry, Venezuela is in the throes of a desperate fight for control of the country. Opposition leaders are calling for an uprising, while the country’s military and civilian authorities are refusing to surrender power, presenting a largely united show of force against the protests in the streets.

But the intelligence documents offer an unusual window into how fractured and nervous the nation’s security services have become, particularly over corruption at the highest levels of government.

Mr. El Aissami, a former vice president who is now Mr. Maduro’s industry minister, has long been in the cross hairs of American investigators. He was indicted in March in a Manhattan federal court and sanctioned two years ago by the Treasury Department, accused of working with drug lords.

He and Mr. Maduro have brushed away the charges as part of a propaganda war engineered by the Trump administration to topple Venezuela’s leftist government.

But Venezuela’s own intelligence agency — which Mr. El Aissami once controlled — raised even more alarms about him and his family for more than a decade, putting its concerns in a dossier of documents, investigative findings and transcripts of interviews with drug traffickers.

The dossier, provided to The New York Times by a former top Venezuelan intelligence official and confirmed independently by a second one, recounts testimony from informants accusing Mr. El Aissami and his father of recruiting Hezbollah members to help expand spying and drug trafficking networks in the region.

Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, and American officials say the group has long had a presence in South America, where it has helped launder drug money. In 2008, the Treasury Department sanctioned a different Venezuelan diplomat, accusing him of raising money for Hezbollah and helping its members travel to the country.

But Mr. El Aissami and his father, Carlos Zaidan El Aissami, a Syrian immigrant who had worked with Hezbollah on return visits to his country, also pushed to bring Hezbollah into Venezuela, according to the dossier.

Informants told intelligence agents that Mr. El Aissami’s father was involved in a plan to train Hezbollah members in Venezuela, “with the aim of expanding intelligence networks throughout Latin America and at the same time working in drug trafficking,” the documents say.

Mr. El Aissami helped the plan along, the dossier adds, by using his authority over residency permits to issue official documents to Hezbollah militants, enabling them to stay in the country.

Whether Hezbollah ever set up its intelligence network or drug routes in Venezuela is not addressed in the dossier. But it does assert that Hezbollah militants established themselves in the country with Mr. El Aissami’s help.

Mr. El Aissami acted as a facilitator to the underworld in other ways as well. The documents say that his brother, Feraz, went into business with Venezuela’s most notorious drug lord, Walid Makled, and held nearly $45 million in Swiss bank accounts.

Mr. El Aissami had links to the drug lord, too, the documents say, noting that he issued large government contracts to a company tied to Mr. Makled.

And as the country headed toward economic collapse, forcing millions to flee Venezuela and its dangerous shortages of food and medicine, Mr. El Aissami became a wealthy man, the dossier says.

Using a frontman currently under sanctions by the United States, Mr. El Aissami bought an American bank, parts of a construction company, a stake in a Panamanian mall, land for a high-end resort and numerous Venezuelan real estate projects, including a “millionaire’s mansion” for his parents, according to the documents.

Mr. El Aissami did not respond to a written request for an interview, and no charges have been filed in Venezuela against him for drug trafficking or corruption.

But on March 8, the United States unsealed its indictment against Mr. El Aissami, making him the second member of Mr. Maduro’s cabinet known to be indicted on drug trafficking charges.

Néstor Reverol, the nation’s current interior minister, has also been indicted. And in 2017, two nephews of Mr. Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, were sentenced to 18 years in an American prison after trying to traffic 800 kilograms of cocaine.

The American government said Mr. El Aissami was deeply involved in the narcotics trade when it sanctioned him in 2017, freezing his assets along with those of Samark López, who was accused of being his frontman. It said Mr. El Aissami oversaw or partly owned narcotics shipments weighing more than a ton, managed an international network of businesses to help launder profits and forged an alliance with Mr. Makled, the drug trafficker.

But American prosecutors never revealed the evidence in their case.

The Venezuelan intelligence memos examined by The Times offer some of the most concrete details yet on how one of the country’s most powerful families built its empire, sketching out a family saga that stretched from Syria to Venezuela, from the narcotics trade to the president’s inner circle.

One of the trails led to a lonely road near Venezuela’s border with Brazil.

A national guard officer interviewed about a 2004 raid told prosecutors about a set of “warehouses that were in a state of decay, looking abandoned.”

But the site wasn’t empty. It was being used to store chemicals, including 140 metric tons of urea, a precursor substance used to make cocaine, according to the Venezuelan intelligence documents.

Urea was a controlled substance in Venezuela, and the owners couldn’t initially provide licenses for the suspicious chemicals, the documents said. A police investigator told prosecutors that while the urea supposedly was meant to be sold as fertilizer, the explanation was suspicious because there was no agriculture in the region.

And then there was the owner of the chemicals: Mr. Makled, the drug trafficker.

The bust was the beginning of the end for the Venezuelan drug lord, who is wanted for extradition by the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration began building cases against him for running drugs with the aid of top officials. Mr. Makled was captured six years later and sentenced in 2015 to a 14-year sentence in Venezuela for drug trafficking and money laundering.

But seemingly overlooked was the other man at the center of the case: Haisam Alaisami, another relative of Mr. El Aissami, who told prosecutors he was the legal representative for Makled Investments, Mr. Makled’s company. Two people familiar with the family identified him as Mr. El Aissami’s first cousin.

He could offer no information on who the potential buyers of the urea were, and investigators eventually referred the case to the narcotics division of Venezuela’s criminal and forensics agency on “suspicion of contraband,” according to police documents included in the intelligence dossier.

Neither Mr. Makled nor Mr. Alaisami responded to written requests for comment.

Mr. Alaisami had a powerful family member in Mr. El Aissami, who was raised with him in Venezuela with other members of the clan who had arrived from Syria.

As the investigation worked its way through state agencies, Mr. El Aissami’s star rose in leftist political circles. He went from being a confidant of President Hugo Chavez’s brother, to a legislator for the governing Socialist Party, to interior minister in 2008.

It was that year that a company owned by the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, intervened: It wrote a letter saying it could account for the chemicals.

No charges were filed against Mr. Makled or Mr. Alaisami in the case. Prosecutors’ documents appear to show the shipment of urea was even returned to Mr. Makled, who ramped up his drug trafficking business in Venezuela and Colombia.

Other branches of the El Aissami family were also looking to do business with Mr. Makled.

Sometime before 2010, Mr. Makled was approached by Mr. El Aissami’s brother, Feraz, to provide a large sum of money to a Panama-based import company, according to an intelligence briefing in the dossier. The drug lord’s money was intended for the purchase of an oil tanker to be used in a contract with the state oil company.

Both El Aissami brothers seem to have been deeply involved in the business, according to the document. Feraz and a business partner were the public faces of the company, while Tareck, from his post as the nation’s interior minister, signed lucrative government deals with them, including a no-bid contract to provide supplies to Venezuela’s prison system, according to the intelligence report.

A third figure tied to the business cast additional suspicion on the import company: Mr. López, the man American officials said aided Mr. El Aissami’s drug trafficking network and served as his frontman.

The intelligence report also includes HSBC bank statements of accounts tied to Mr. El Aissami’s brother, Feraz, that totaled nearly $45 million — money it says was linked to Mr. Makled, the drug trafficker.

HSBC closed the Feraz accounts after Mr. Makled was arrested on drug trafficking charges, according to the intelligence documents.

The dossier concludes with informant testimony on the family’s ties to Hezbollah, outlining the effort to recruit militants who could establish a drug and information network across Latin America.

One of the sources of the information was the drug lord, Mr. Makled, who described Mr. El Aissami’s involvement in the scheme, according to the intelligence memo.

It was not the only time Mr. El Aissami had been accused of aiding Hezbollah and Mr. Makled. American — and some Venezuelan — officials have made similar allegations, though Mr. El Aissami has denied involvement with militant groups in the past, even after news media reports.

But Venezuelan intelligence officials believed they had evidence to the contrary. The dossier ends with references to photographs of people who “belong with the aforementioned terrorist group.”

[forsythexposed]

Tamla Horsford Death Forsyth County

Tamla Horsford death investigation, Forsyth county

Tamla took being a mom with great pride, always doting over her boys. Had there been a manual on raising kids, keeping calm, and being organized. She wrote it. There are three things about Tamla. She loved her family; she loved life, and she loved you. To know Tam as people often called her, was to know what pure joy and happiness looked like. How did such a beautiful woman, that had so much life to live, and so much to offer the world end up dead?

My baby loved to have fun, she loved to dance. She loved life. Lee Horsford, Husband of Tamla

National outrage local silence. This is the story of Tamla Horsford.

When Lee met Tamla, he met his best friend. And, when Lee wanted to

Tamla Horsford -Wedding Day

Tamla Horsford -Wedding Day

move his business from Florida to Cumming, Georgia. Tamla was a game. An adventure, new scenery, new memories, and better educational opportunities for her boys.

Tamla first met Michelle, her new neighbor, after moving into her new home in Cumming, Georgia. Well, their kids met, and then the adults met soon after.

Tamla’s boys were all boys. Involved in everything, from sports to after-school activities. Being a “boy mom” was never easy, but she loved every moment. Including football.

Tamla Horsford

Thanks to social media, Tam could keep in touch with all of her friends and family. Continually posting pictures of the family, particularly the boys and her friends.

Tam didn’t spend many nights away from her boys, but whenever she did, she called frequently and was sure to pack snacks after cooking dinner.

That night Saturday, November 3rd, was an exception. She and a few others “Football” moms would celebrate two things, Jeanne Meyers turning 45 and surviving another season of football.

As Tam was fixing dinner for the boys, Michelle dropped by. They chatted about the boys and did what women do, gossip. Tam told Michelle her plans for the night and invited Michelle to tag along, she declined. Those weren’t really her people. Not skipping a beat, they continued to talk and laugh like they have known each other their entire lives, but they have only known each other for 5 years.

Michelle and Tamla

She was late, fashionably late.

The boys came first, and she made sure she knew that they situated before leaving. In true BYOB style, Tam brought an imported tequila. Tam was from the Caribbean; she liked stronger drinks. Not the wine coolers, the desperate housewives were sipping.

The social butterfly. Tam never met a stranger though she wasn’t familiar with everyone present that night; she extended a hug and flash a smile to everyone. She played card games, took two or three shots, and face-timed her family to check on the boys and to show off her beautiful babies. Because before anything, she was a mother.

She wanted to leave.

Something that night made Tam feel uneasy, and she wanted to leave. But they would not allow her. Though they do not mention it in the multiple police reports gathered that night, someone took her keys and her phone. Something that night happened to this mother.

A faint knock on the door awakened that morning at 8:45 Jeanne Meyers, the homeowner of the house that was hosting the party. She and her boy toy Jose Barrera lay quiet in the bed, and the faint knocking happened again. Jeanne then summonsed the knocker to come in.

Madeline Lombardi, Jeanne Meyers’s aunt, who lived in her basement, was at the door. She needed to talk to Jose. Tells Jeanne that something is wrong with one of her friends. And she tells Jose to come to look.

Madeline didn’t call the police; instead, she called Jose. Madeline didn’t try to help Tam; instead, she called Jose.

Jose Barrera-Tamla Horsford Forsyth County

Jose Barrera-Tamla Horsford Forsyth County

Jose Barrera threw on some shorts, ran down the stairs, and yelled to Jeanne his much older girlfriend to bring her phone. Jose’s career background is in probation/law enforcement. He’s trained to study body language, perform CPR, and to be quick on his feet.

Instead of trying to feel for a pulse or even rolling Tam over, he bent her leg instead. Why? What training did Forsyth and Hall county provide that bending a person’s leg who is not responsive seemed like the best thing to do.

On Sunday, November 4th, 2018, it was cold outside, its Georgia.

Tam lay facedown in Jeanne Meyers’s backyard while she and Madeline Lombardo watched Jose Barrera attempt to bend her leg. A hung-over Jennifer Morrell came out a few moments later. Watching. They all waited while a mother like themselves lay face down. No one attempted to give Tam medical attention, no one. Jose Barrera instead paced around her body, poking at her as he replayed the events from the previous night. Almost ignoring the dispatcher’s questions,

“Can you tell if she is breathing.”

They dispatched the police, crime scene, and to the home of Jeanne Meyers. Not an EMT or any medical provider. No one attempted to help Tamla Horsford, the mother of five boys. She laid face down until the coroner collected her. And took her to the GBI headquarters.

They found her “face-planted,” as described by Jeanne Meyers. Tamla Horsford wasn’t wearing shoes or a jacket. Stacey and Thomas Smith had her cellphone. Unlike Tamla, She would have never separated herself from her boys, and having her phone would have provided her communication with them, had an emergency arose. It was cold, and she only had on her pajamas, no shoes, no jacket. Also, unlike Tamla, Let me explain.

Tamla was from the Caribbean.

She enjoyed warm weather and a good time. One of her friends even noted she always wore a jacket indoors,

“Tam was cold nature, we used to tease her a lot about always wearing a jacket.”

I’ve mentioned multiple times that Tamla Horsford was a mother. Because before anything else, that is what she was. Tam didn’t arrive at the party on time because the boys came first. She and her husband Lee did everything possible for the boys, any move or decision always went with the boys in mind.

If it ain’t right, it ain’t right.

Michelle Wynn Graves is that ride or die friend that everyone needs.

Nothing about the statements given to police or even the explanation given by police made sense. So, Michelle Graves told them. Since the mysterious and suspicious death of her friend, Michelle Wynn Graves has been vocal about trying to understand what happened that night. Even with Jeanne Meyers and the Forsyth 12 trying to silence her.

Abuse of process and intimidation are crimes, so is filing a false police report. Jeanne Meyers filed a frivolous and fictitious police report against Michelle. She then attempted to get a stalking order taken out against her. Because what Jeanne Meyers was saying made little sense, so Michelle became very outspoken in her quest for the truth.

Jose Barrera

I wouldn’t be writing this article if it were not for Jose Barrera.

Because a healthy black mother that ended up dead under very suspicious circumstances is not at all suspicious. Nor is it newsworthy. But when a court employee who was a witness of death is under investigation. Barrera misused his work credentials to look up information on a case and gets fired, is newsworthy. And with that, it flicked a tiny spark with me, and the rest of the world got to know Tamla Horsford.

Aside from her family and friends, no one local to the case made any effort in solving it. They even interviewed witnesses an entire 3 weeks after the fact. And Jeanne Meyers also interrupted Madeline Lombardo’s interview to give the detectives Dunkin Donut’s gift cards. Like even she realized that this isn’t the sharpest group of cops she’s dealing with, or they were cheap. Cheap and dumb, and she could sway them with donuts.

Forsyth police

Jose Barrera had connections inside Forsyth County sheriff’s office.

Before being rendered unemployed for his policy violations. He has ties and connections with multiple LEO’s in Forsyth County and the court. Not a single investigator said, or thought it was a good idea to have an outside agency to investigate this? No. The world-class and sophisticated detectives that makeup Forsyth county’s criminal investigation unit did not. Investigator Michael Edwards Christian initially thought Tamla, tripped over a small object in the yard, ground level and had a medical emergency and died.

The investigation was half-ass.

They left evidence at the scene. Responding officers drove Tamla’s car to her home. The investigation into her death stood still until Sandra Rose posted about the case on her blog, and others online took notice of the claim. Within a week, the sheriff’s office wrote a statement. The following week they held a press conference announcing the case had been closed, and her death deemed accidental.

Unacceptable. From the case was incompetently and grossly mishandled. Ron Freeman, the sheriff of Forsyth county, claims Forsyth is a former shell of its racist past. And now a progressive county. That was a lie. Forsyth is still as racist as they were 30 years ago that they are today. Prosecutors are still over prosecuting people of color who are being accused of crimes and under prosecuting crimes when they are the victim.

I could have been Tamla Horsford, my mom, sisters, aunts, friends, even cousins. You could have been Tamla Horsford.

Tamla Horsford was a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, and a friend. She laid face down and not a signal person from the homeowner, her alcoholic friends, the passive aunt, her boy toy boyfriend, nor any of the responding officers attempted to help Tamla.

Both Jose and Jeanne spoke as if they already knew she was dead before attempting to help her. Tamla Horsford laid face down for hours, and no one helped her. These actions within itself are criminal. Tamla Horsford deserved better, her boys and family deserve more. Demand justice for Tamla Horsford.

Tamla Horsford

Forsyth County News.

[kerahlekung]

Azmin in deep trouble over sex video scandal...

Azmin in deep trouble over sex video scandal....

 Azmin  Has Nobody But Himself To Blame....

At best, Azmin Ali is a bisexual. At worst, he’s a homosexual. Either way, his extraordinary sexual preference is unacceptable to the conservative Malays in the country. And that alone means his political career will surely take a massive hit. He can forget about becoming the next prime minister, if that was indeed his ambition from the beginning. After the explosive revelation of a sex video clip, people have been putting their creative and investigative skills to work in speculating the real mastermind behind the incredibly bold admission of Muhammad Haziq Abdul Aziz – that he was the man indulged in the gay sex with none other than Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali, the blue-eyed boy of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Those who believe the sex video was an inside job have argued that the PM-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim is definitely the mastermind. It’s no brainer to point Anwar as the culprit due to his rivalry with Azmin, his once loyal minion. In the same breath, Anwar is the stupidest man on the planet, if indeed he masterminded the sex video and thought he could get away with it. The only reason Anwar would go to the extent of killing off the political career of Azmin, hence infuriating Mahathir, is when the prime minister pissed off the PM-in-waiting with truckloads of bullshit excuses and refused to set a tentative timetable to hand over the premiership, despite rounds of talks behind closed doors. But so far, there have been no hints of such arguments. However, it’s also true that nobody could or dare pulling such a stunt except Mahathir himself. After all, this is the same man who started (even created) the homosexual phenomenon back in 1998 when he accused his deputy – Anwar Ibrahim – of sodomy. With Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador now behind him, Mahathir has all the resources to bring down Azmin.

  Sex Video Scandal 

Just because Mahathir condemned the sex video as fake, despite the fact that his premature declaration would invite criticism of a possible cover-up by the police, did not mean the premier meant what he said. After all, this is the same old man who had thrown his support behind his deputy 20 years ago only to make a U-turn and sacked him anyway days later. True, Mahathir deliberately appointed Azmin Ali as the powerful Economic Affairs Minister as part of his “divide and rule” strategy to check on Anwar, whose party – PKR – won the most parliamentary seats after last May general election . But that did not mean the prime minister treated Azmin like a prophet who must be crowned as the next prime minister. So far, Azmin’s performance as the economic affairs minister has been pathetic. It appears he has done nothing to boost the country’s economy except screwing around in posh hotels. His accuser, Haziq, was arrested on Friday (June 14) at the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) en route to Manila. But he was later released on police bail and is allowed to leave the country if he desires. Kevin Nguyen, a digital forensics expert from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, reportedly had analysed the sex videos implicating Azmin Ali but did not find the clips to be digitally modified – suggesting that the videos could be genuine after all, although the experts could not confirm if Azmin was the superstar featured in the video. The biggest hint that Mahathir wasn’t as gullible as some may think is when Rais Hussin, a supreme council member of the PM’s own party, took offence of Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman’s idiotic defence of Azmin Ali. Mr. Rais, also the strategist of PPBM party, exposed that Azmin did not actually support Mahathir as the PM before the 14th general election. Yes, both Anwar Ibrahim and Mahathir Mohamad have their own reasons to finish off Azmin Ali’s political career. At best, Azmin’s meteoric rise must be stopped, at least temporarily. At worst, Azmin cannot be trusted. Azmin is an opportunistic who would sell his wife for the right price, not to mention a double agent and a snake oil salesman who has no problem sleeping with anyone. As early as 2014, when PAS Islamist Party endorsed Azmin Ali as the state of Selangor’s Chief Minister, despite everyone wanted Anwar’s wife, Wan Azizah, to become the chief minister in the controversial “Kajang Move” political manoeuvre, it has been established that Mr. Azmin would be forever grateful to the extreme Islamist party for their support.

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad - Thinking

Perhaps that was the message Rais Hussin tries to send across when he tweeted that Azmin wanted now-defunct Pakatan Rakyat more than Pakatan Harapan. PAS was part of Pakatan Rakyat until its president, Hadi Awang, was bribed RM90 million by ex-PM Najib Razak to leave the coalition in order to split the opposition parties. Apparently, Azmin was also very close with Hishammuddin Hussein, the cousin of former PM Najib Razak. Eyebrows were raised when Ameer Azmin, eldest son of Azmin Ali, posted a photo of the families of Azmin and Hishammuddin holidaying in Morocco last year. After the photo – with the caption “reunited after so long” – went viral in the social media, it was taken down. It doesn’t matter whether the mastermind behind the disgusting gay sex video was Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir Mohamad or someone from UMNO. The most important question is whether the video is real or fake. If the video is real, which seems like the case so far, it won’t matter even if Anwar is found to be indirectly involved in the so-called gutter politicking. Mahathir would be seen as a hypocrite for protecting “Azmin the Gay”, when the premier had proudly rejected gays and lesbians when he declared that Malaysia will not recognise LGBT culture or same-sex marriage in the country as it does not subscribe to “Western values”. The elder statesman will also have difficulties explaining his support for Azmin now, but not Anwar in 1998. In 1998, Anwar Ibrahim was given a 9-year prison sentence when he was accused of engaging in homosexual acts, despite claims of police brutality and witness torture. Today, Haziq voluntarily admits of being the man engaged in homosexual acts with Azmin Ali – together with video clips to prove their happy moments at Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Sandakan, Sabah. Azmin Ali can put up a brave face for all he wants. But his reputation and integrity have taken a plunge. Azmin’s case is different from Anwar’s. Anwar’s sodomy allegations, first in 1998 and then in 2008, were seen as a poorly scripted political assassination due to lack of strong evidence. Azmin’s gay sex allegation comes with the “unnatural sex” video clips as proof.

Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali

Even if the police subsequently announce that the sex video clip is real, but the man was not Azmin Ali, how many would believe it? It would make people believe more that Mahathir ordered the police to cover-up because Azmin is the blue-eyed boy of the prime minister. People would believe that the man who screwed Haziq (and vice-versa) in the homosexual acts was Azmin. Like it or not, Azmin Ali has lost the perception war when he refused to sue Muhammad Haziq Abdul Aziz from the moment the latter exposed that both individuals were not only took turns bonking each other in a hotel room, but also the accusation that the Economic Affairs Minister was a bloody corrupt minister. And Azmin has nobody but himself to blame. Mr. Azmin had gotten big-headed and incredibly arrogant upon his promotion as the economic affairs minister. He thought that under Mahathir’s protection, he was invincible hence burning his bridge with Anwar. Not only did he disrespect Anwar as the PM-in-waiting and his former boss, Azmin had also insulted the family members of Anwar. In March, Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah, expressed that it wasn’t easy working with an ex-dictator (Mahathir) who was the source of so much damage in the past. Azmin, sucking up to his new boss Mahathir, said – “This country needs doers who are prepared to tough it out all the way, not cry babies. Whatever it takes, we must make it work. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Perhaps karma comes early for Azmin. Despite the gutter politics in the country, Azmin will be judged whether he can take the heat as a result of the sex scandal, or get out of the kitchen like a cry baby – moaning, whining and bitching after caught having sex with another man. Had he kept a low profile and be humble and stop counting the chickens before they hatch, he would not be where he is today. - FT

Dr.M dah buntu dengan 

video semburit ni...

Isu video lucah Haziq orang melihat ia seakan tidak mengapa-apakan Dr Mahathir. Orang lihat Mahathir rileks sahaja dan ia sudah membuat kerjanya apabila mengatakan video berkenaan palsu? Tetapi hakikatnya tidak begitu. Saya tetap yakin sebagai PM dia sudah mendapat maklumat awal daripada orang lain. Sebelum video itu tersebar, tentu dia sudah tahu dan mengenali seorang demi seorang peribadi, kegiatan dan fiil para menterinya. Tidak terkecuali. PH tidak ada sistem atau kaedah khususnya untuk mengenali perwatakan dan peribadi seseorang untuk dilantik jadi menteri. Kalau ada pun hanya semakan dari segi integriti kekayaan dan hal-hal lain, seperti mana dimaklumkan oleh Sprm tetapi tidak hal dalam kain. Namun bagi Dr Mahathir dia mempunyai kayu ukurnya sendiri untuk membuat penilaian kepada semua jemaah kabinetnya. Dalam hal ini beliau pasti sudah mendapat apa-apa maklumat baik secara langsung atau tidak. Tunggu lagi beliau sedang memantau dari masa ke semasa sahaja.

Mengenai video lucah itu saya yakin beliau sudah ada maklumat mengenainya. Dan perkembangan hari ini mengenai video itu telah meletakkan beliau dalam keadaan terjempit dan serba salah. Bukan sahaja Azmin, atau Anwar ataupun Haziq, Dr Mahathir juga sedang dilanda kebuntuan. Tentu sejarah lampaunya menghantui pemikirannya. Pengalaman lalu amat menjadikan dia serba salah. Dalam kes membabitkan Anwar tahun 1998 lalu beliau telah bertindak memecat Anwar kerana fitnah sebelum fitnah itu dibuktikan dimahkamah. Apakah dalam kes Azmin ini “difitnah” kali ini menyebabkan Mahathir mengambil sikap berbeza. Jika ikut kepada cara tindakannya sebelum ini, dia juga perlu menggugurkan Azmin dari kabinet walaupun belum disahkan mengenai ketulenan video itu seperti mana dilakukan kepada Anwar dahulu. Jika Mahathir mengubah sikapnya, tidak melakukan apa-apa ke atas Azmin jelas beliau sudah bertindak double standard. Dah perubahan ini mengesahkan bahawa Mahathir seorang Melayu tulen yang bersifat mudah lupa. Tegasnya kondisi video lucah Haziq kini menjadi cabaran besar kepada Mahathir bukan sahaja kepada kepimpinannya tetapi kepada maruahnya sebagai seorang pemimpin. Justeru saya yakin sekembali dari UK beliau akan membuat sesuatu yang penting dan mengejutkan. - MSO

Video lucah Haziq: Yang terjempit kini Mahathir?

Mana satu suara Azmin, mana satu suasa Haziq? I dah confuse... 

Dengaq macam suara depa,tapi dak kot.

Mungkin gambaq tengah dok bikin,sabaq sikit nuuu...

Setelah digemparkan dengan penyebaran empat video lucah Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz yang dikaitkan dengan lelaki mirip Menteri Hal Ehwal Ekonomi, Mohamed Azmin Ali, hari ini tersebar satu lagi klip perbualan pula. Klip berdurasi 47 saat yang dipetik dari YouTube itu rata-rata berkisar tentang perbualan dua pihak mengaturkan pertemuan. Pada awal perbualan, lelaki dipercayai Haziq bertanya kepada pasangannya bila mereka boleh bertemu. “Bila you free?,” kata individu yang dipercayai Haziq. “Now (sekarang) I free dalam dua jam. I boleh turun sekejap. Kalau you lalu kat lobi tu nanti mereka (tidak pasti siapa) nampakkan,” kata lelaki yang didakwa pasangan Haziq. “Dekat lobi ke macam mana?,” tanya Haziq lagi. “Biar I turun dulu, tunggu I turun,” jelas lelaki berkenaan. Video itu disebarkan tatkala Mohamed Azmin mengadakan sidang media di Majlis Perjanjian Persefahaman antara Konsortium PCB-MGB dan Must Ehsan Development Sdn Bhd bagi pembangunan Rumah Idaman Rakyat Selangor di Shah Alam hari ini. Menurut individu yang dipercayai memuatnaik video berkenaan, Rahim Jaafar, perbualan itu dirakam pada Mac lalu ketika lelaki yang didakwa mirip Mohamed Azmin menjadi Menteri Pengiring kepada Sultan Brunei. Sultan Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah mengadakan lawatan ke Malaysia pada 5 Mac lalu dan bertemu Perdana Menteri, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. - f/bk

Jom goyang bola walaun  dan macai super taksub...

Semah dah bagi keterangan sebagai saksi dalam kes yang sama, jadi mana boleh dia duduk situ nak dengar apa pula keterangan suami dia dalam Mahkamah, berkenaan kes mereka yang sama. Nak compare notes kot...

cheers.

Sumber asal: Azmin in deep trouble over sex video scandal... Baca selebihnya di Azmin in deep trouble over sex video scandal...

[saadullah-faisal-world]

Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast/Photos GettyIf you’re accused of stealing an animatronic child from Disney World, maybe don’t make a wildly popular Disney-related Twitter account and post a picture of the stolen robot child with its eyes gouged out.“Buzzy,” an animatronic boy from an abandoned Disney World attraction, has been missing for months. Online, Disney superfans treated the disappearance like a kidnapping. But the investigation into the theft led police to someone in the online Disney fandom: a Disney blogger who taunted Disney about their security, posted conspiracy theories about Buzzy’s disappearance and, in the final days before his arrest, uploaded a picture of the robot’s decapitated and eyeball-less head.Patrick Spikes, 24, was arrested last week. He worked at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, until last year. But Spikes didn’t completely part ways with the theme park after he stopped working there. Instead, he started churning out videos, podcasts, and tweets under the username “BackDoorDisney.” His Twitter account, which amassed more than 17,000 followers before going dark last week, promised to give fans an inside view of Disney World. In its seven months of operation, the account uploaded pictures of Disney control rooms, secret maps, and Disney cast members pretending to have sex while dressed as characters from Toy Story.Soon, Spikes was posting about an even more salacious Disney World story. In August, Disney told police that someone had stolen clothes off Buzzy. The 300-pound animatronic child used to sit inside the “Cranium Command” exhibit, in Epcot’s Wonders of Life Pavilion. But the building, which hosted somewhat dated attractions, had been closed for years. The stolen clothes (including a miniature bomber jacket) were worth nearly $7,000, Disney claimed, according to an affidavit from Florida’s Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Later, the entire robot was stolen, an operation that required the thief to cut through electric cables.Spikes and other Disney bloggers posted about Buzzy’s rumored disappearance. But Spikes and a crowd of Disney fans who broke into the park soon came under suspicion. Spikes routinely boasted of secret trips through Disney World, including with a friend who climbed the park’s Thunder Mountain roller coaster.“Good job filling the holes under the Mk back fence this morning,” Spikes wrote in a January tweet directed at Disney. “I told you guys about this issue 2 months ago but it took somebody going in and climbing one of your coasters for you to care.”On his personal Twitter account, Spikes taunted Disney, advising them to buy a bulk box of security cameras from Best Buy. As the search for Buzzy continued, Disney fans speculated that an urban explorer might have snatched the robot.Eventually, police began narrowing in on Spikes and his scene. Investigators found an October picture of Buzzy on Spikes’ @BackDoorDisney account. The picture does not appear to have been taken inside the Cranium Command exhibit. In texts with investigators, Spikes allegedly let slip that Buzzy’s clothes were sold on the black market for $8,000.Police got a warrant for Spikes’ cellphone and called him in for questioning in December. The meeting went poorly when Spikes tried to cut it short.“The defendant stated he felt sick and felt that he was going to vomit,” police alleged in an affidavit. “A short time later, he began to make strained breathing noises, and stated he couldn’t breath. He requested water, which was given to him, and also was allowed to lay on the floor. The fire department responded and all vitals were normal.” Spikes was taken to a hospital. Police charged him with non-violently resisting arrest. He has pleaded not guilty.Spikes later made a video about a police search on his house, and professed his innocence.“I said ‘really? The entire thing got stolen?’ I didn’t really believe it,” he said in the March video. “It blew my mind. I was like, you can’t be serious right now.”Later in the video, Spikes suggested that Disney had staged Buzzy’s disappearance in order to shut down his BackDoorDisney account.“There’s a theory someone talked about that Imagineering [a Disney team] removed Buzzy and didn’t tell anyone else. So when Operations, the part of the company that runs the Pavillion noticed he was missing, they filed him as ‘stolen,’” he said. “Did Disney willingly file a report, knowing the thing wasn’t stolen, just to run me down? Because obviously I had been posting a lot of backstage photos and stuff, and information … It almost seems like they wanted my phones because they knew I had a lot of backstage photos on them.”But BackDoorDisney kept implying inside knowledge of Buzzy’s disappearance.In a May 12 tweet, he tweeted a picture of Buzzy’s fate. The tweet showed a picture of Buzzy’s decapitated head, with its eyeballs scratched off. The image was included in a screenshot of a text Spikes received, which meant someone else might have stolen the robot.TwitterFive days later, police arrested Spikes. Although Buzzy’s disappearance featured prominently in an arrest affidavit (police appear to have started investigating him over Buzzy’s theft), Spikes was actually charged for a different series of alleged thefts from Disney World. His lawyer did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.In July, police alleged, Spikes printed a fake Disney employee card for his cousin and snuck him into the park. The pair allegedly snuck into the Haunted Mansion, a popular ride, and stole a collection of wigs and outfits from backstage. The clothes, which were designed for the ride’s animatronic ghosts, cost between $40 (a tiara) and $1,746 (a robot’s jacket), adding up to more than $7,000.Spikes and his cousin allegedly took pictures throughout the heist, and posed in the wigs at a nearby 7-Eleven. A video from shortly after the theft allegedly shows Spikes’ cousin’s girlfriend wearing a robot’s stolen dress.Disney may have priced the clothes at just over $7,000, but they allegedly went for four times that price on the black market. Days after the alleged burglary, Spikes allegedly received a combined $29,451 payment from two people over Paypal. One of the people, whose name is redacted in the affidavit, told police he paid Spikes $8,890 for 18 items from various Disney heists, including $1,000 for a Haunted Mansion dress.Shortly before his arrest, Spikes teased a forthcoming video about the black market for stolen Disney gear.Police haven’t charged Spikes with Buzzy’s disappearance. But they say his video about the raid on his house raised questions about his involvement. In the video, he showed part of a search warrant for his house. Police say he edited the document to remove references to two pieces of evidence police sought.“The fact that Spikes altered the warrant for his video and only removed these two items indicate that he was aware these items were used in a crime,” the affidavit reads.In that same video, Spikes tells viewers he’ll keep his lips tight about Buzzy’s disappearance until the investigation is over.“If things are still under investigation, I’m not going to get on YouTube and run my mouth about it,” he said. “That would be dumb.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://yhoo.it/2VMdNLG

[theconservativebrief]

On Sunday, President Donald Trump said that many women were “extremely happy” with the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, despite the sexual assault allegations against him.

“They’re thinking of their sons, they’re thinking of their husbands, their brothers, their uncles, and others,” Trump said.

It’s become a common refrain — the #MeToo movement, critics claim, is leading to an epidemic of false accusations against men. And over the course of the last few months, that refrain acquired a hashtag: #HimToo.

As Vox’s Aja Romano notes, the hashtag gained new attention earlier this week when Twitter user BlueStarNavyMom3 used it to claim that the #MeToo movement had made her son unwilling to go on “solo dates” with women — and her son, Pieter Hanson, joined Twitter to politely correct her.

That was my Mom. Sometimes the people we love do things that hurt us without realizing it. Let’s turn this around. I respect and #BelieveWomen . I never have and never will support #HimToo . I’m a proud Navy vet, Cat Dad and Ally. Also, Twitter, your meme game is on point. pic.twitter.com/yZFkEjyB6L

— Pieter Hanson (@Thatwasmymom) October 9, 2018

BlueStarNavyMom3’s initial tweet inspired a lot of funny memes, but the exchange also prompted a serious discussion about the role of men in the #MeToo era. Trump and others appear eager to pit men against women, implying that taking claims of sexual misconduct seriously means unjustly ruining men’s lives.

But men aren’t just the subject of misconduct allegations — they also experience sexual assault and harassment at significant rates. One in six men has experienced sexual violence involving physical contact in his lifetime, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. As Amanda Wallwin, chief of staff for New York State Assembly Member Dan Quart, tweeted, men are probably more likely to be assaulted than falsely accused.

Our cultural expectations around sex and masculinity, however, lead to a lack of awareness of sexual violence against men. “A lot of people colloquially just see this sort of thing as something that happens to women,” Seth Stewart, director of development and communications at 1in6, a group that offers resources for male-identified survivors of unwanted sexual experiences, told Vox.

#HimToo could make matters worse. The hashtag is a symptom of a misconception that’s spread as part of the backlash to the #MeToo movement: the idea that false accusations are just as serious a problem as actual sexual misconduct. This false equivalency not only misrepresents the prevalence of false accusations — by presenting sexual assault as something women report and men are accused of, it could perpetuate myths that hurt male survivors.

It’s not just Harvey Weinstein: More than 250 powerful people have been accused of sexual misconduct. Here’s the list.

The hashtag #HimToo has been around since at least 2015, Emma Grey Ellis reports at Wired, and it wasn’t always political — initially, it “referred to any male who was also doing something” — “if you went to go get froyo with your boyfriend, you might tweet ‘I love Pinkberry. #HimToo.’” After the #MeToo movement gained steam in October 2017, some began using #HimToo to call out men for sexual misconduct — and, occasionally, to draw attention to issues facing male survivors. But by sometime earlier this year, it was used to refer to false accusations.

Members of the anti-feminist subreddit Men Going Their Own Way started using the hashtag this summer, Ellis notes — it cropped up in posts like this one, referencing an Associated Press story about a former police officer freed from prison after the woman who accused him of rape admitted she lied in her testimony. (Incidentally, the woman maintains that the officer really did rape her when she was 13 years old; her “lie,” she says, was telling the court she had never been sexually active before, when in fact her stepfather had sexually assaulted her.) In early October, it began to appear on Twitter in reference to the allegations against Kavanaugh.

The real breakout moment for #HimToo, though, was BlueStarNavyMom3’s tweet (her account has since been deleted) on October 6:

BlueStarNavyMom3 via Twitter

The tweet tapped into a larger narrative emerging alongside #MeToo: the notion that false allegations are rampant. Trump has fed this narrative for months, tweeting in February, “Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused — life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?”

But his rhetoric kicked into high gear after allegations against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford and others became public. “It’s a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of,” he said on October 2. “This is a very difficult time.”

Asked if had a message for young women as well, he said, “Women are doing great.”

He wasn’t the only one. Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday that during the Kavanaugh confirmation fight, women in America saw a man suffering from “political character assassination, and also we looked up at him and saw possibly our husbands, our sons, our cousins, our coworkers, our brothers.”

On the day Ford and Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, right-wing activist Laura Loomer tweeted that “men aren’t safe in America anymore.”

If you have a son, make sure you buy him a note pad, a body camera, & a recording device. Get him a battery pack too so he can always protect himself with video evidence of every single encounter he has with a woman.

Men aren’t safe in America anymore.

There is a war on men.

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 27, 2018

To hear Loomer and others tell it, American men are suffering from an onslaught of false accusations. And Trump’s comments implied that such accusations were an even bigger problem than sexual assault itself. This is the larger picture of which #HimToo forms a particularly visible part.

Despite Trump’s remarks, false allegations of sexual assault are rare: Experts estimate that between 2 and 8 percent of sexual assault reports are false. As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte points out, not everyone who makes a false report accuses a real person — some “blame a made-up stranger.” That means the percentage of sexual assault reports that turn out to be false allegations against innocent people is even smaller than the rate of false reports more generally.

It’s difficult to determine exactly how many men have been falsely accused, but extrapolating from the number of men in America and the percentage of false reports (even using the highest estimates), it’s likely that fewer than 0.005 percent of American men are falsely accused each year.

Being falsely accused of a crime is, of course, very serious. But far from being some sort of epidemic requiring a campaign of self-protection, being falsely accused of sexual assault is very, very uncommon for American men. It’s far more common for men to be sexually assaulted.

According to CDC data gathered between 2010 and 2012, one in three women and one in six men have experienced some form of sexual violence involving physical contact. And a survey conducted earlier this year by the group Stop Street Harassment found that 81 percent of women and 43 percent of men had been harassed or assaulted at some point in their lives.

Sexual misconduct against men is probably underreported, Stewart told Vox. Male survivors of what others might see as sexual assault might describe the experience as hazing, physical abuse, or humiliation, Stewart said, and “if they talk to someone who says ‘it was abuse, it was rape,’ many men will psychologically go into hiding.”

American conceptions of sex, assault, and masculinity can make it harder for male survivors to come forward or even acknowledge their experiences to themselves, Stewart said. While women are often blamed for being sexually assaulted, they said, “for men, as opposed to saying, ‘it was your fault,’ the saying is, ‘it didn’t happen.’”

Men are assumed to always want sex: “if a boy has sex with a much older woman he’s somehow gotten lucky or scored,” Stewart said. This leaves men with unwanted sexual experiences feeling ignored or disbelieved. Men are also expected to be independent, in control, and powerful, which can make it hard for them to admit to an experience they didn’t want. And there’s a lack of public understanding that men’s bodies can respond to sexual contact even if that contact is unwelcome, Stewart said.

The #MeToo movement has actually inspired many male survivors to seek help. Traffic to the 1in6 website skyrocketed in 2017 as the movement grew, Stewart said. The group also saw an uptick in requests for services in the wake of Ford’s testimony.

“This is why we are so thankful, and I think many male survivors are so thankful, for things like #MeToo, for the courage of someone like Dr. Ford,” Stewart said. “It inspires survivors across all groups.”

Using #HimToo to focus on false allegations against men, meanwhile, can discourage all survivors from coming forward, they explained: “Seeing #HimToo used to support a man who has been accused of sexual abuse or assault explicitly casts doubt on a survivor’s story, thus enforcing secrecy over disclosure for male and female survivors alike.” And by dividing the conversation on the basis of gender, the hashtag “surely causes some male-identifying survivors to feel invisible in the conversation — the very thing #HimToo was seeking to ameliorate.”

To hear Trump, Conway, and others tell it, sexual assault breaks down neatly along gender lines: women make accusations, men are accused. (It’s not clear what percentage of these accusations #HimToo advocates believe are actually true.) But in fact, people of all genders can be sexually assaulted. And by telling one false story about assault — women are lying to try to destroy men — #HimToo advocates are keeping the real stories from being told.

Original Source -> #HimToo, the online movement spreading myths about false rape allegations, explained

via The Conservative Brief

[victoriagloverstuff]

Rebecca Solnit: They Think They Can Bully the Truth

Cousin to the noun dictator is the verb dictate. There are among us people who assume their authority is so great they can dictate what happened, that their assertions will override witnesses, videotapes, evidence, the historical record, that theirs is the only voice that matters, and it matters so much it can stand tall atop the conquered facts. Lies are aggressions. They are attempts to dictate, to trample down the facts and those who hold them, and they lay the groundwork for the dictatorships, the little ones in families, the big ones in nations.

Black Lives Matter has shown us policemen who continued to insist on their version of events when there is videotaped evidence to the contrary, or when physical evidence and eyewitnesses contradicts their account of events. You realize that they had assumed they could dictate reality, because for decades they actually had, and they were having a hard time adjusting to reality dictating back. As one of the Marx Brothers quipped long ago, “Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” The police assumed it was neither our eyes nor the evidence.

In February of 2015, two San Francisco policemen shot a 20-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, to death. All the bullets entered him from behind—four went into his torso through his back—but they claim they shot in self-defense because he was rushing them. They did not face consequences, for lying, or for taking the life of a young man trying to get by in a strange land. Two months later, in North Charleston, South Carolina, Walter Scott was shot by a policeman while he too fled. He too died of bullets to the back, but his killer claimed self-defense in an account that differed dramatically from the videotape (which appears to show him planting a weapon on the victim after he had fallen) and eyewitness accounts. Scott’s killer got a 20-year sentence.

That victims will remain voiceless was the presumption behind much of the sexual abuse that’s been uncovered in the #MeToo era. Getting away with it is the same thing as assuming that no one will know, because your victim will be intimidated or shamed into silence, or that if he or she speaks up they can be discredited or menaced back into silence, or that even if they don’t shut up no one will believe them because your credibility crushes theirs. That yours is the only version that counts, even if you have to use savage means to make it so. Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow reported of former New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman’s four victims, ��All have been reluctant to speak out, fearing reprisal.” But it was he who faced reprisal in the end, because the rules changed, because a critical mass of women broke the silence and the system that perpetuated that silence, because the media that largely ignored or trivialized these stories began to take them seriously.

Article continues after advertisement

Most of us think of truth as something that arises from facts that exist independently of our wills and whims; we have no choice in the matter, but we also believe in some sort of objective reality—either a thing did or did not happen, a sentence was or was not said, a substance is or is not poison. (And yes, I read lots of postmodern theory once upon a time and know all the counterarguments, but you know what I’m talking about.) What’s clear now is that most is not all, that a minority of us think that they can enforce a version that is divorced from factuality, and they always have. It corrupts everything round them and the corruption begins within them. Somewhere inside they know that they are liars and that they are imposing compliance to lies.

There are lies subordinates tell to avoid culpability, but they tend to be about specific things—I did not eat the cake, I did not show up late—while these fact-bullies can take charge of whole categories, as when a menacing father insists that his whole family pretend that everything is fine and they adore him. Gaslighting is a collective cultural phenomenon too, and it makes cultures feel crazy the way it does individual victims. That we are supposed to pretend that mass shootings and the epidemic gun death rate have nothing to do with the availability of guns is insane. That there is nothing to the Trump team’s dozens of covert contacts with Russian regime figures during the campaign and the Mueller investigation is a baseless witch hunt is a counterfactual agenda being pushed by sheer aggression from the Republicans and right-wing media and some supposedly left-wing darlings.

“The country is now in a sort of civil war, and part of what is at stake is truth and facts in the form of history, scientific fact, political accountability, and adherence to the law.”

This summer we are once again witnessing the indignation that arises in powerful men when it turns out other people have things to say and that they might be listened to and believed. Congressman Jim Jordan is outraged that nine former wrestlers report that when he was the assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State, he knew but did nothing about their sexual abuse by the team doctor. It’s not a wrestling match he’s likely to win, but he seems to be unable to conceive that he’s not the boss of this story. (He tweeted on July 11 that CNN is contacting former staff and interns and “getting desperate,” as though this thing called reporting was both outlandishly unfamiliar and transgressive—“How can you ever trust such #fakenews?” he concluded.) Defenders of Darla Shine, racist conspiracy-theory-pushing wife of former Fox honcho Bill Shine (now the new White House communications director), claim that she is being smeared by having her own words recirculated. How dare you repeat things that I said! How dare you not let me rewrite what did and did not transpire!

It’s kind of like the Bill Cosby case—in which a surprising number of people seemed to be willing to believe that ten or twenty or thirty or eventually more than fifty women, most of whom were strangers to each other, were lying rather than that their idol was. It seemed to be less about the facts in the case than their conviction that he should be able to outweigh them, the way the person with the mic can shout down the crowd. Feminism, like many other human-rights movements, has been a process of amplifying voices until they can hold their own and of solidarity so that small voices can be cumulatively loud enough to counter the dictators. Thus have so many recent cases—from Fox News CEO Roger Ailes to Harvey Weinstein—been built by many other women coming forward to support the testimony of the woman or women who broke the ice.

In 2014, singer Kesha sued to be released from her recording contract on the grounds that her producer, Dr. Luke, aka Luke Gottwald, had raped and otherwise abused her and that she had almost no creative control over her own music (a year earlier, her fans started a Free Kesha petition). Gottwald and the corporation refused to release her from the contracts she signed in her mid-teens, so there was a trial that brought more attention to the situation—when she lost, she remained stuck with him, hostage to a man she seems to dread and loathe. Now, four years later, he’s suing because “Gottwald’s music career will never recover from the damage she has caused.” By speaking up when his assumption seems to be that a superstar singer with a series of #1 hits would remain voiceless. But also, if you assume that Kesha is telling the truth (and I find her credible), Dr. Luke and his backers are blaming her for what he did, or rather for not keeping it secret. They assume he had a right to impunity, which is a right to do what you like and dictate the reality around it, a right to confront no competing versions, even from the other parties involved.

Article continues after advertisement

Meanwhile, the radio host who groped Taylor Swift at a meet-and-greet and then sued her for saying so and getting him fired (he lost) complains he’s afraid to talk to women (perhaps because talking to a woman and grabbing a woman’s ass are apparently so hard for him to tell apart, a kind of confusion we’re hearing about from many men who are now “afraid to talk to” women). He says says he wants to tell her, “How can you live with yourself? You ruined my life.” That seems to be his way of saying that he was shocked to find that one of the most powerful figures in pop music had a voice and people believed her when she used it. During the trial that may be her greatest performance to date, Swift noted that contrary to accusations and long-established conventions, she had no responsibility to protect her assailant: “I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault. Here we are years later, and I’m being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are the product of his decisions—not mine.” She was going after the assumption that no matter what he did, she has to keep life pleasant for him, by keeping her mouth shut.

“The [media] are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. Right? And they sort of made it sound like I have this feud with the intelligence community.” –Donald Trump

Politifact published a timeline of White House positions on Trump’s alleged one-off sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels, a rollercoaster of denials and admissions of things that were denied, and other contradictions. What’s noteworthy was that she signed, just before the election, a standard nondisclosure agreement: a contract to pay a woman to be silent so that a man’s version of reality might prevail. These things often happen when unequal status or menace alone don’t enforce the desired silence; Daniels also reports being threatened by a man who approached her and her child in a parking lot: “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’”

Lies require enforcement. Harvey Weinstein used nondisclosure agreements and armies of lawyers, spies from Mossad, threats to people’s careers and reputations, and the aid of a lot of others at the Weinstein Company and beyond to keep his high-profile victims silent, but he also had help from a society that traditionally silenced and discredited women. Long ago I wrote in my essay “Men Explain Things to Me” that credibility is a basic survival skill; the police have assumed that they have more than the people they target; men have assumed they have more than women. Despite everything going on in electoral politics, we are in era of leveling out who has this precious asset—or perhaps what’s going on in Washington is the backlash. Credibility is not inherent; it’s present in our own priorities and assumptions about who to believe. And those who are silenced beforehand don’t even get a chance at credibility.

More and more I come to see the compulsive, frenetic pace of lies by the president as a manic version of that prerogative of dictating reality. It’s a way of saying, I determine what’s real and you suck it up even if you know it’s bullshit. He has abandoned credibility for dictatorial power. When you’re a star, they let you do it, and the size of your stardom can be measured in how much you can force people to accept—or pretend to accept—contrary to their own intelligence and orientation and ethics. This is, after all, the liar who at CIA headquarters on January 21, 2017, told hundreds of CIA employees—skeptics whose profession is the collection and verification of facts—easily disproved lies about the size of his inauguration and the state of the weather the day before.

He told them, “And the reason you’re my first stop is that as you know I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. Right? And they sort of made it sound like I have this feud with the intelligence community.” Which he did, since he’d compared them to Nazi Germany a few weeks before, but he tends to praise to their faces those he attacks behind their backs, as he’s just done with British Prime Minister Theresa May (and then denied the earlier statements; the Washington Post’s headline read “Trump denies he said something that he said on a tape that everyone has heard.”). One imagines that he has since childhood never been held accountable; it seems more than possible that after a lifetime of this he’s convinced that he actually dictates reality, or rather that it doesn’t exist, or only exists at his whim, that he is as freefloating in a void of unaccountability as the blimp in his image was in the air over London. That is, that he’s a nihilist.

His lying is sometimes regarded as a distraction or an annoyance, but it is a dangerous thing in itself, and he is himself a product of a system of producing and enforcing lies. This week we saw him lying, again, about the Russian role in making him president and corrupting our election; he surrendered to Putin in public with the latter as the victor in a cyberwar both men insist we pretend did not happen, a war they had perhaps just discussed in secret. Trump also insists that we take Putin’s word over that of US intelligence, the world’s news agencies, the Mueller investigation, and a lot of senators and congresspeople. The thing to remember here about an assault on truth is that it’s an assault.

His followers have had their minds weaponized by decades of Fox News and right-wing pundits promoting conspiracies and denying crucial phenomena, including the valuable role immigrants play in our economy and the urgent reality of human-caused climate change. The country is now in a sort of civil war, and part of what is at stake is truth and facts in the form of history, scientific fact, political accountability, and adherence to the law. In “The Prevention of Literature” George Orwell wrote that, “A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened… Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.”

The internet has produced its own form of informational relativism. Facebook is now taking heat for its refusal, amid what is supposed to be an informational clean-up, to ban InfoWars—which, among the other conspiracy theories it’s pushed, claimed the Sandy Hook massacre of children was a hoax and the teenage Parkland mass shooting survivors were “crisis actors.” Asked about the continued presence of InfoWars, Facebook News Feed head John Hegeman said, “I think part of the fundamental thing here is that we created Facebook to be a place where different people can have a voice. And different publishers have very different points of view.” That some of them are libelous and destructively false doesn’t seem to faze him (Sandy Hook parents, six of whom are suing InfoWars, have received threats from people who InfoWars directed to believe that the massacre was “a hoax to take away your guns”). This is a consequence of internet companies pretending they’re neutral platforms rather than information organizations with the responsibilities that have always come with that role. This is the result of their desire to serve any product to any customer, as long as it’s profitable.

Meanwhile Safiya Umoja Noble’s new book Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism proposes that one driving force behind Charleston church mass murderer Dylann Roof’s racism was Google. Pacific Standard’s James McWilliams reports in a piece on Noble’s book that Roof did a search on “black on white crime” and was directed to a website by the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist website promulgating lies. Google owns YouTube, which the Wall Street Journal reported last winter offers recommendations to viewers that “often present divisive, misleading or false content.” Tech critic Zeynep Tufekci noted, their “algorithm seems to have concluded that people are drawn to content that is more extreme than what they started with—or to incendiary content in general,” and it gives them what they want or think they want, whether or not it’s good for them or us or the record. The most powerful corporations on earth have, in other words, concluded that lies are profitable and pursued that profit.

As Hannah Arendt famously said, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” Making those distinctions, doing the work to be clear, is resistance. It consists in part of supporting and reading good news outlets (including the newspapers whose financial basis has been undermined by the internet), and being informed both about the news they report and the historical background to the current crises to be found in books (and in universities, which makes it worth noting that the value of a humanities education is also under attack; one of its values is making people thoughtful sifters of data who are well-grounded in history). It consists of maintaining your capacity to fact-check and sift and evaluate information and your independence of mind. Solidity and steadfastness are key to resistance, and clarity, about who you are and what you believe. Principles are contagious, and though we need direct and dramatic action, the catalytic power of myriad people standing on principle and living by facts matters too. It means holding yourself and those around you to high standards not only of truth but of accuracy.

Good read found on the Lithub

[super123hazelnut]

Island days...

YEAR 2013

1/2-1/15  computer hacking

1/4  emailed older brother..are we moving forward to some kind of truce yet?  saw a picture of my niece on facebook.  still have these people stalking me..I believe my family is behind of these situations.

1/4  attached investigative report from private investigator I hired re:  Marvin L. Kay...is he still alivbe??

1/7  my mother’s friend evelyn sends me a picture and message (visual) on facebook

1/11 my niece deleted me from her sight after she shows me her fantastic life in NY city with her star studded celebrity friends...big fucking deal!  I am a bigger celebrity than any of them and you may never meet me spoiled brat..started to call a bunch of lawyers but don’t have the money to sue...hope mom continues paying for my health insurance.

1/12  email to older brother..did my mother get rid of my burial plot?

1/15  email from Liz Dane....’ KAREN, DON’T DO IT”

1/16 consignment of Mark Lovett painting Potomack co

1/19  looking for homes outside of DC

1/21  report concluded (private investigator)  my father is still alive...call him to discuss.

1/29  email from my older brother.  Karen, if you need help we will help you with what you need...(your a fucked up person...BRO...you tried to eat a leaf 4 times as big as your head as an infant and you put your fingers in electrical sockets to shock yourself as a child...who needs the help?  YOU!!!!

1/30  letter to my older brother asking for his help.  PLEASE HELP ME..I have these women stalking me for 5 years now.  

1/30 emailed older brother....mom abused me by not allowing me to see my dad ever again...blah blah blah

1/30 email to sister-in-law (older) if there were another suicide attempt in my family...wouldn’t you feel guilty?...you can block me now

2/18  contacted man from Italy sent by the women stalking me on facebook..told him to stop harassing me.

3/21  letter from me to judicial inquiry Richmond va...judge at 520 king street petition for protective order...when I showed up at court, judge haddock refused to look at my evidence...would not give me a protective order

4/2  computer hacking

4/4 email exchange with younger brother...DON’T BLAME THE MESSENGER  

4/10  FAKE EMAIL FBI  anti-terrorist and monitory crime division

4/11  letter from david curry, counsel commonwealth of va (judicial inquiry & review commission) in response to my follow up letter dated 4/2/2013 complaint does not provide valid basis for commission action

4/16  more email arguments with younger brother over the internet..no returned necklaces that I sent to my nieces as gifts..email from my brother stating that I think he is stealing, let’s go to the magistrate in Alexandria.  I feel he is stealing and he is calling my bluff.  let’s go to court...going on to tell me my thoughts are scrambled.  I told him to stop emailing me.  I made copies of our conversations.

4/16  email to younger brother..still trying to gaslight me and telling me that I am sick and left a message with the magistrate

4/16  letter to my nieces that I am sorry I hurt their dad’s feelings

4/17  continued fight with brother..NO MEETINGS ALONE WITH HIM..NEVER...I am afraid of him

4/18  email from brother younger...attempting to gaslight me..asked if I was above the plan?

4/27  email to older sister-in-law  where does my cousin live now(daryl) DC?  How is her life?

5/1  email looking for attorney

5/2 email from attorney found a probate attorney for me that I should contact

5/3  wrote a check to antonoples & associates to retain services  to try to sue my mother..gave him 5,000 check and original documents reit left office...realized on the way home he was a fake...Rockville address as well as DC...contacted him when I got home told him I want my documents back....went back to his office the next day or day after...had a big fight with him in the lobby of his fake shared office space...he gave me back copies of original documents  and my ..for 5,0000 tampering of evidence

realized for sure I was set up by my family at this point...

5/6  letter from antonoples & associates  denial of representation of me as a client...ASSHOLE..I DUMPED YOU FIRST..

5/7  office of counsel of appeals  my letter to them stating that I now have multiple lawsuits..didn’t know if my father was still alive but that he was close to death.blah blah blah

5/7  response from me to attorney representing brother (younger)  adam n helmwood  110 Washington street suite 207 Rockville md cease and desist letter

5/9  vicious fight between me and younger brother.  he involves other people in our fight...on this day my aunt, uncle his friend sister & brother-in-law emails on this day my brother was upset that I sent a letter to the friends brother ...all I did was state the truth and to warn this man that he should stay away from this garbage if he wants to lead a life with integrity.

5/9 brother cc:  mom on email-bullying me, telling me I will only get 1,000 a month until I start to behave, no blackmail attempts, mental torture, humiliation inflict on the family

5/10 Alexandria police show up at my home while I am vacuuming the rug in my living room.  we talked..i explained that my father had money and was kicked out of my birth family home for no reason and that I thought my other family members were stealing  money from the estate.  2 officers showed up and took the report Alexandria police.

5/11  brother accusing me of not working

more fighting..told brother I may get a restraining order from him...afraid of him..what my brother needs is a hospital..i am blocking him

5/10 letter from bar counsel investigating my complaint against Peter antonopolis

5/13  my brother keeps telling me that I am ill...curious..not up for debate..no financial assistance no trust or trustee until I admit myself into a mental hospital.

5/15 letter from bar counsel..answer to my complaint  downey/matthews bar doct 2013-d190 denies misconduct

note:  mother & brother trying to make me believe I am crazy..they are obsessed w/me checking myself into a mental hospital and having a judge determine that I am ill.  both are trying to direct my life...

gain meaningful employment w/someone else running the business.  ia m not capable of managing a successful business and I need a weekly paycheck..(interesting..I am 53 years old treating me like I am only 17 years old..curious..already had a business for 6-7 years with 600 clients..curious?

I will get paid by the family as long as I am employed...ha ha ha!!!!!!!

5/17  answer to my complaint against peter antonopolis office of bar counsel

5/18  vicious fight with younger brother..i was trying to muster up some empathy for him...hard to do..just wanted to diffuse the situation...I realize this is insanity...need to go no contact completely.

distance...in this letter brother admits guilt for what he has done..knows that the relationship has severed...he knows my mother & sister-in-law are pure evil but is having trouble digesting this information.

5/22 letter to dc health dept reporting my mother’s psychiatrist in treatment of my mother..

6/4 letter to Elizabeth herman deputy bar counsel dc court of appeals:  re antonopolis/matthews case

7/9  brother threatening to file protective order against me for continuing harassing behaviors and attempts to illegally extort money & continued attempts to disrupt his established business relationships through non sensible communications..blah blah blah

repulsive behavior, you leave me no option but to get the court involved so that when you harass next you will land in jail

8/16 brother emails...see you in court.  I need to throw away the computer and face the world

8/18  email from brother (younger)  am I above the law?  no one has taken dad away  my mother wants nothing to do with me...DITTO!!!!!  I sold you condo, I took you into my townhouse when I broke up w/first husband..i took care of your etopic pregnancy, I threw a bachelor party for your 1st hubby when no one knew him...your jewelry theft/ring helen monsein...stop trolling on the internet  terrorist...tell your twitter friend Prince I hate purple rain and loved it when he got booed off the stage at the stones concert....(well I would tell Prince what you said but he is DEAD NOW!)

8/21  I realize just how crazy my family is and that my life could be in danger..need to go no contact completely.  My younger brother sends me a picture on the internet of my mother looking alive and well...(he made me believe prior through the internet that she was dead)  brother wants me to sign a document that I will not pursue a lawsuit against him...ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY???????  YOU are in la la land

9/14 govt of dc  psychiatrist letter received complaint from karen

12/2013  divorced my 2nd husband over the phone w/judge in AZ

[politicalfilth-blog]

How the Media Turned Al Qaeda into a US Ally in Syria

We Are Change

How did Al Qaeda turn into a US ally in Syria?

Article via Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

The Syrian government—a dictatorship known for imprisoning, torturing and disappearing dissidents—is easy to vilify. And over the last five years of Syria’s civil war, it has committed its share of atrocities. But there is more than one side to every story, and US media coverage has mainly reflected one side—that of the rebels—without regard for accuracy or basic context.

As the Syrian government recaptured East Aleppo from rebels in recent weeks, media outlets from across the political spectrum became rebel mouthpieces, unquestioningly relaying rebel claims while omitting crucial details about who the rebels were.

Almost always overlooked in the US (and UK) media narrative is the fact that the rebels in East Aleppo were a patchwork of Western- and Gulf-backed jihadist groups dominated by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra)—Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria—along with its ally, Ahrar al-Sham (Daily Beast, 8/8/16; Foreign Policy, 9/1/16). These groups are explicitly anti-democratic and have been implicated in human rights violations, from mass execution and child beheadings to using caged religious minorities as human shields.

In the absence of any desire to evoke a political response, US media would surely have identified East Aleppo’s rebels by the name of the most famous militant group in the world—Al Qaeda. Yet press reports regularly referred to the militant forces dominating East Aleppo simply as “rebels.”

“Women in Aleppo Choose Suicide Over Rape,” declared a headline at the Daily Beast (12/12/16). The source of this very serious claim was Abdullah Othman, a member of Jabhat Al-Shamiya, or the Levant Front, an umbrella group whose membership consists of several jihadist rebel factions. So far no evidence has been presented, at least not publicly, to substantiate Othman’s claim. But that didn’t stop his story from spreading like wildfire across social media and being picked up by Commentary (12/13/16), Mic (12/16/16), Elle (12/13/16) and Foreign Policy (12/16/16), among others.

NBC News (12/13/16) reported that “scores of civilians were burned alive by regime forces.” The source for this accusation was unspecified “reports from Arab media.” The Independent (12/17/16) warned of “house-to-house murder.” The source was British politician David Miliband. The UN (12/13/16) cited “credible reports” of 82 civilians being shot “on the spot” by pro-government forces. While this is certainly plausible, the UN, which was not on the ground in East Aleppo, has yet to follow up on the matter.

US media also promoted accusations made by self-described “media activists” in East Aleppo warning that the Syrian regime was going to slaughter them. State Department spokesperson John Kirby called the messages “brave” and praised those who posted them as providing “independent third-party media coverage” of the horrors in Aleppo.

But information coming out of rebel areas is far from independent. On the contrary, it is tightly controlled by the jihadist groups that control these areas. These groups do not tolerate activism. They jail, torture and summarily execute activists, as well as lawyers, humanitarian workers, journalists and minorities. This should raise questions about anyone purporting to be an activist from rebel areas. But in the Western press, it doesn’t, which is why one of the most widely featured media personalities out of rebel-held Aleppo, Bilal Abdul Kareem, has been uncritically promoted by CNN (12/16/16) and even the usually adversarial Intercept (6/30/16), despite a well-established record of pushing hyper-sectarian propaganda for extremist groups (AlterNet, 12/29/16).

If media outlets were quick to grant legitimacy to rebel accusations, they ignored or downplayed rebel atrocities.

For example, when the rebels burned several buses (and killed the drivers) meant to evacuate the sick and injured from two besieged Shiite villages in Idlib, the New York Times (12/18/16)  buried the details of the incident deep inside in the 19th paragraph of a story on evacuations.

Reports that the rebels shot at civilians attempting to flee to government areas and withheld food and humanitarian aid from civilians rarely made it into Western media reports.

While both sides have accused the other of carrying out massacres in Aleppo, only rebel accusations received widespread US media coverage. But the only evidence to emerge so far points to the rebels as culprits. Ahead of their evacuation from East Aleppo, rebel groups reportedly executed an estimated 100 Syrian soldiers they were holding prisoner, according to pro-government forces. The bodies were found in a local school. Despite photos, corroborating video evidence and the fact that rebels have carried out mass summary executions of Syrian soldiers taken prisoner in Aleppo in the past, US media outlets mostly ignored it. One of the groups alleged to be behind the killings is Nouriddeen Al-Zinki, a recipient of US weapons. (Months ago, Al-Zinki fighters videotaped themselves beheading a child. The gruesome act was met with a shrug by the group’s Western backers.) Russia also reported finding mass graves of tortured civilians and booby traps during its sweep of East Aleppo, which received little to no attention.

If none of this were true, the loathing that many Syrians in government areas express for the rebels, and for the Western media who glorify them, would be hard to explain.

In November, I visited government-held areas of Syria, where the overwhelming majority (an estimated 75 percent) of Syrians live, and I witnessed a side of the conflict that US media outlets have almost entirely overlooked. It’s as if the views and well-being of some 17 million Syrians don’t matter, simply because they live on the government side.

This rule seems to apply across the media spectrum. An editor at a major progressive publication rejected on-the-ground reporting from government areas, telling me it was a futile journalistic endeavor because the Syrian government watches everything, and Syrians are too terrified of the secret police to say what they really think.

While it’s true that Syrians are limited in their capacity to criticize the government, it doesn’t justify ignoring them. And the situation on the ground isn’t so black and white. Behind closed doors and in private conversations, many Syrians were sharply critical of the Assad regime. Yet they still supported the government, largely out of even stronger opposition to the religious fundamentalism and brutality of the armed groups, whom they view as foreign-backed religious fanatics who have invaded their country and terrorized them and their families.

I’m still haunted by what I saw at Al-Razi Hospital in what was then government-held West Aleppo. I watched as one ambulance after another dropped off civilians wounded by rebel mortars fired into residential neighborhoods around the clock. Medical staff quickly went to work on a man whose chest was pierced by a piece of twisted metal. A frantic woman lingered close by, shouting, “He’s the only son I have left!” The man was soon pronounced dead and the woman collapsed in agony.

Down a crowded hall, 10-year-old Fateh stood on a blood-smeared floor, crying beside a gurney where his 15-year-old brother, Mohammad, was lying. Blood had soaked through the bandage on his leg, but the medical staff was too busy with more life-threatening injuries to take notice. The boys were lucky to be alive. They had been moving furniture out of the house with their younger cousins earlier in the day when they were struck by rebel mortars. Their 6-year-old cousin, a girl, was in the ICU. Their 4-year-old cousin, a boy, had been killed.

Across the street, grieving families waited outside the morgue to identify the bodies of their recently deceased loved ones. A group of sobbing children explained to me how they had watched their father die that morning from the balcony of their apartment. A rebel mortar struck him as he was parking his car. Meanwhile, a shell-shocked father told me his 10-year-old son was shot and killed by a sniper while fetching water on the roof.

A grief-stricken woman, mourning the loss of her husband, cursed the government for not hitting the rebels—or “terrorists,” in her words—hard enough. Her family members agreed, complaining that the Syrian government was being too soft on the armed groups that they blamed for destroying their city.

Underneath all the grief and calls for revenge was exhaustion. After five years of war, these people were tired. I didn’t meet a single Syrian in the government areas I visited who hadn’t lost friends and family since the war started. But their suffering, with a few minor exceptions, has been largely disappeared from Western media, probably because the people most responsible for it are supported by the West.

Even those who expressed disapproval of Russia’s involvement in their country told me they hold the US and its regional allies—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey—most responsible for the disintegration of their country.

These sentiments totally contradict one of US media’s most pernicious lies—that US inaction allowed the bloodshed in Syria to continue with impunity.

“Many thousands of people have been killed in Aleppo…but Washington shrugs,” lamented the New York Times (12/14/16). “The United States’ inaction in Syria has transformed our country into nothing other than a bystander to the greatest atrocity of our time,” complained Leon Wieseltier in the Washington Post (12/15/16).

But Washington has intervened (FAIR.org, 10/1/15)—and by doing so, it prolonged the bloodshed and empowered Al Qaeda.

Despite being warned about the extremist and violently sectarian ideology that dominated the opposition as early as November 2011, the Obama administration spent, according to the Washington Post (6/12/15), a colossal $1 billion-a-year training and funneling weapons to Al Qaeda–linked extremists in order to weaken the Syrian government.

In written testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June 2016, Brett McGurk, the US special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS, warned that “Nusra is now Al Qaeda’s largest formal affiliate in history.” According to US intelligence officials, Nusra is starting to plot attacks against the US.

In other words, the US government outsourced its war against the Syrian government to Al Qaeda, and Americans have no idea, because corporate media continue to promote lies about Obama’s so-called inaction.

Many US media consumers might be shocked to learn that the Syrian uprising was never particularly popular in Aleppo. The rebels, with help from their American benefactors, invaded and captured Aleppo’s eastern neighborhoods by force in 2012. At times they laid siege to Aleppo’s government-held areas, cutting off access to drinking water, electricity and food. American politicians cheered the territorial gains. Hillary Clinton, then secretary of State, expressed hope that the rebels taking East Aleppo would “provide a base for further actions by the opposition.”

With its ground forces already overstretched fighting an insurgency across the country, the Syrian government responded, as it often has, with overwhelming and devastating air power, which Western leaders routinely denounced. But the criminal conduct of the rebels failed to provoke similar outrage.

Many whose neighborhoods were occupied by rebel forces fled early on to government areas or neighboring countries. Their homes were looted in their absence and turned into operating bases. Those who stayed were subjected to strict interpretations of Islamic law that closely resembled the brutal practices imposed by ISIS.

Corporate media’s own accounts periodically reflected these realities, back when Western journalists still ventured into rebel areas.

“We waited and waited for Aleppo to rise, and it didn’t. We couldn’t rely on them to do it for themselves so we had to bring the revolution to them,” a rebel commander told Reuters in July 2012. The article went on to note that the fighters were “lounging inside a school taken over by the rebels as a temporary base” in an area that “appeared to be completely deserted by residents. Fighters were using houses as bases to sleep in.”

“Around 70 percent of Aleppo city is with the regime. It has always been that way. The countryside is with us and the city is with them,” confessed another rebel commander to the Guardian in August 2012.

“In Aleppo, I heard Salafi jihadists talk of slaying the minority Alawites, and call for both the immediate support of America, and its immediate demise,” reported the New York Times in October 2012.

Indeed, schools, medical facilities and residential buildings were transformed into military bases and sharia courts. The Children’s Hospital in Aleppo became a notorious prison and torture facility where several Western hostages, including journalist James Foley, who was later beheaded by the Islamic State, were held.

By late 2013, rebel kidnappings of journalists were so rampant that major Western media outlets collectively urged the Syrian opposition to put a stop to the abductions.

At the same time, Western governments poured millions of dollars into rebel propaganda made up of authentic-looking rebel media outlets and NGOs, like the White Helmets, to glorify the armed groups and agitate for more forceful Western military intervention against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

No longer able to travel to rebel areas for fear of being kidnapped or worse, journalists were relegated to covering the war from Beirut and Istanbul, becoming entirely dependent on Western-funded propaganda to fill the information vacuum.

Falling in line behind the geopolitical interests of their governments, Western media went about whitewashing and romanticizing jihadist groups as liberators and protectors adored by the Syrians living under them, even as their own reporters were being kidnapped, ransomed and even shot by Western-backed rebels.

Take Liz Sly of the Washington Post. In a 2013 on-the-ground report from East Aleppo (3/19/13), Sly details the brutality of Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, which had taken over the area and turned the city’s Eye Hospital into its headquarters. Yet as the government recaptured East Aleppo, Sly and her colleagues omitted any mention of Al Qaeda among the rebels, while promoting the claims of rebel activists who operate under their control.

The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding in light of US media’s fawning coverage of similar military offensives in cities controlled by ISIS in both Syria and Iraq, where US-backed forces have employed many of the same tactics condemned in Aleppo.

In the Syrian city of Manjib, not far from Aleppo, US-backed ground forces imposed a crippling siege that left tens of thousands of civilians hungry as US airstrikes pounded the city, killing up to 125 civilians in a single attack. In Iraq, the US also used airstrikes to drive ISIS out of Ramadi and Fallujah, leaving behind flattened neighborhoods that resemble the ruins of East Aleppo. In Fallujah, 140 people reportedly died from lack of food and medicine during the siege.

After ISIS was ejected from Fallujah, NBC News (6/17/16) ran the headline: “Iraqi Forces Enter Central Fallujah, Liberate Key Areas from ISIS.” In striking contrast, during Al Qaeda’s removal from East Aleppo, NBC (12/14/16) declared: “Aleppo Is Falling. What Does This Mean For Assad, ISIS and Russia?”

Since 9/11, US corporate media have portrayed Al Qaeda as a monstrous organization whose existence justifies a global war without end. Who could have predicted that by 2016, these same media outlets would become Al Qaeda’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders?

This article (How the Mainstream Media Turned Al Qaeda into a US Ally in Syria) by Rania Khalek originally appeared on Fair.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0.

The post How the Media Turned Al Qaeda into a US Ally in Syria appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change http://wearechange.org/media-turned-al-qaeda-us-ally-in-syria/