#sanctions evasion

[trendynewsnow]

Spain Seizes Chemical Weapons Precursors in Major Operation Against Russian Sanctions Evasion

Spain Intercepts Chemical Weapons Precursor Shipment to Russia In a significant operation, Spanish authorities have intercepted a massive shipment of 13 tonnes of chemicals destined for Russia, which included materials that could potentially serve as precursors for chemical weapons or nerve agents. The National Police announced the seizure, which took place at the bustling port of Barcelona, and…

[worldwidebreakingnews]

ResearchGate North Korea's Nuclear Knowledge Exchange Explore the covert use of social media by North Korean scientists. Stay informed!

[just2bruce]

Dark Fleets and Flag States

It’s no secret that flag states are a weak point in maritime standards and regulations enforcement. Shipowners can easily circumvent rules by reflagging to a state that is more interested in the revenue from fees than in enforcement. And there are lots of them. This article paints a darker picture than we have heard of– outright bribery of flag states. The motivation is to skirt sanctions of…

[grogumaximus]

Written by Ryan Smart

Minimum super licence age

Verstappen joined Toro Rosso at the age of 16 and successfully obtaining his super licence in time for the 2015 season. But in January of that year, the FIA brought in new regulations which forced new drivers to be 18 years of age and hold a valid driving licence before they could obtain a super licence.

Moving under braking

At the 2016 Japanese Grand Prix, Verstappen avoided punishment for moving under braking while defending from Lewis Hamilton, despite the Mercedes driver needing to take evasive action. The FIA subsequently banned drivers from changing direction under braking while defending - although the rule is subjective and therefore isn't applied in all situations.

Unsportsmanlike behaviour clarifications

The FIA issued a clarification on regulations surrounding unsportsmanlike behaviour and physical altercations after an incident between Verstappen and Esteban Ocon following the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Overtaking and defending guidelines

Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton had a fierce on-track battle at the 2021 Brazilian Grand Prix, with the Dutchman forcing Hamilton off the track on more than one occasion. Subsequently, the FIA decided to issue a new guideline for defending, which stated that if an overtaking car is 'significantly alongside, the defending driver must leave at least one car's width of space'.

Parc ferme guidelines

After the Grand Prix, cameras caught Verstappen inspecting Hamilton's rear wing in parc ferme conditions - which was prohibited. He was given a €50,000 fine by the FIA, who subsequently enhanced security measures and monitoring for upcoming Grands Prix and warned that drivers who breached the regulations in future could receive time penalties.

Post-race celebration guidelines

The FIA released new guidelines surrounding post-race dangerous driving after Verstappen performed burnouts across the line to celebrate his victory at the 2021 Styrian Grand Prix. Drivers now must travel safely back to the pit lane after finishing each Grand Prix and cannot endanger other drivers.

Pit lane guidelines

Drivers were told they could not cross any part of their car over the pit exit line while rejoining the circuit. Verstappen did so during the race but escaped a penalty. In future, however, any violation would cause a driver to be sanctioned.

New safety car rule

After the 2022 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, the FIA intervened after Verstappen pulled up alongside Charles Leclerc before a safety car restart. A clarification was added to the rulebook which stated that drivers could not have any part of their car alongside another car before the safety car restart line.

Track limits clarification

After Verstappen overtook Kimi Raikkonen while off the track to finish third in the 2017 United States Grand Prix - he was subsequently penalised and demoted to fourth - the FIA released a new clarification for track limits. Track limits would subsequently be defined by white lines, with that particular rule being refined and adjusted over time.

Minimum super licence age update

While the original rule stated that drivers had to be 18 years of age, the FIA added a discretion to the wording - which they likely would have applied had Verstappen been in such a situation in 2015. Following an application from Mercedes to allow Kimi Antonelli - who is 17 - to drive in practice at this year's Italian Grand Prix, the rule now states: 'At the sole discretion of the FIA, a driver judged to have recently and consistently demonstrated outstanding ability and maturity in single-seater formula car competition may be granted a super licence at the age of 17 years old'.

[naamahdarling]

Maybe it isn't that I actually hate medical professionals? They just suck and are weird sometimes, and a lot of them shouldn't be practicing, but I don't hate them as a group, like, personally.

What I hate is their ability to make my life harder in ways that are often completely opaque to me, and a lot of the crap things they do are not really possible to challenge. And I hate the fact that holding them responsible fort dogshit behavior in any way that will actually benefit me is almost always impossible.

And I also hate the fact that they have to do stupid things sometimes because that's how the system is set up, and those things sometimes mean patients actually get harmed. They aren't fond of that part either! They don't want the system to be the way it is! But they don't have a choice, so sometimes people like me get forced by bureaucracy into doing things that are re-traumatizing. And I can't imagine that feels good for them at all, knowing that their patients are sometimes only "consenting" because that bureaucracy will not let them be helped in any other way. Which isn't consent at all. I imagine that must be pretty traumatizing for them, too, sometimes.

If it were easier to actually access medical care without tremendous delays in this country right now I would have much less trouble finding providers who are good at what they do and are not horrible people, and who have clinic staff who can do their fucking job.

Oh and I also don't appreciate how evasive and unwilling to commit they are out of fear of being held to an answer that turns out to be inaccurate, but I can't make an informed decision about my own care unless they give me at least some information about probabilities and trajectories and typicalities. Genuinely, how the fuck am I supposed to navigate that shit. I get that some patients are really fucking difficult, but I should be able to get a special stamp on my file or something that says I understand that sometimes medicine isn't an exact science and the best answers that my doctors can give may not always prove to be accurate in the long term. I know they don't like being in that situation either.

A lot of medical professionals are fucking assholes, and unfortunately the ones who are not are still hamstrung by a system set up to actively prevent people from getting care.

I miss my old doctor. He gave no shits about anything that wasn't the patient. He prescribed scheduled meds based on what the patient needed and not based on fear of consequences potentially being imposed on him by the punitive patient-hostile drugs-are-bad moral panic machine developed to force suffering people into buying more dangerous drugs off the street in order to prevent far fewer people from maybe getting high off of drugs that at least weren't laced with lethal substances. (The purpose of a system is what it does.) Did he get sanctioned and become locally unhireable? Unfortunately yes he did. Does he now provide concierge care to rich people? Yes he does. He found a way to make it work, God bless him.

Everything about the medical system in this country is fucked. Hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacies, pharmacists, pharmacy techs, phlebotomists, clinic administrative staff, insurance companies, medical schools and schooling, licensing boards, drug advertising to both providers and patients, pharmaceutical reps, researchers, research, publishing, medical trials, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and distributors, medical equipment, charting software, billing and billing codes, diagnostic criteria, charity and low income services, accessible transportation, home care, the lack of independent individual patient advocates, dietitians and nutritionists, access to physical and occupational therapy and physical and occupational therapists, the massive bigotry of every kind rampant in every corner of the medical field, social work, senior care and assisted living, deprioritization of informed consent and harm reduction, disability applications, inaccessibility of medical records, especially psychiatric notes which are specifically allowed to be withheld from patients, lack of continuity of care for disadvantaged people, care that is equitably accessible to disabled people, telemedicine, patient portals, phone systems, clinic hours, every single aspect of inpatient and outpatient psychiatry, facility security, all sorts of things going on with therapists who are nevertheless probably the least malicious group of people in this entire charade, aaaaaand patients themselves.

Also hospital toilets that are too tall and make it literally physically impossible for me to poop while I'm there waiting for somebody to come out of surgery. I just needed to take a crap, guys. You didn't need to make the toilets so tall that my feet didn't even touch the floor. It is very clean but there is no shitting for short people at St Francis.

[aqlstar]

Just unsealed by the DOJ- keep pushing for more steps in this direction

[darkeagleruins]

HUNTER BIDEN UPDATE: Investigative reporter Paul Sperry, who has been closely following Hunter Biden's latest criminal trial, reports that the judge in the case has ordered Hunter's lawyers to stop lying to the court and correct the record.

District Judge Mark C. Scarsi issued an order directed at the legal team of Robert Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. The order demands that Hunter Biden's counsel respond in writing to correct a false statement of material fact previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer.

Hunter Biden faces federal tax-related charges, initially brought by David Weiss while he was serving as a U.S. Attorney. Weiss later transitioned to the role of Special Counsel, continuing to handle the case against Hunter Biden. The charges include two misdemeanors related to tax offenses, which were part of a plea agreement that fell apart in the summer of 2023.

In their recent motion to dismiss the indictment, Hunter Biden's legal team claimed that David Weiss "did not file any charges" during his tenure as U.S. Attorney, suggesting that all charges were brought only after Weiss became Special Counsel.

Judge Scarsi pointed out that this assertion was incorrect and that Hunter Biden's attorneys were aware of its inaccuracy. Weiss had indeed filed charges against Hunter Biden prior to his appointment as Special Counsel. Judge Scarsi criticized Hunter Biden's lawyers for "distorting the history" of the case and emphasized that he has "little patience for dishonesty." He issued a three-page document outlining his concerns and gave the legal team one week to clarify their position. Failure to do so could result in sanctions, including professional disciplinary actions or financial penalties.

Hunter Biden's attorneys argued that the appointment of special counsels like Weiss is unconstitutional and unlawfully financed. They referenced a decision by District Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed a classified documents case against former President Donald Trump based on similar arguments. However, Judge Scarsi highlighted a meaningful distinction: Hunter Biden was initially charged by a U.S. Attorney before Weiss became Special Counsel, unlike Trump, who was charged exclusively by a Special Counsel.

Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to the tax evasion charges and related offenses. His trial is scheduled for September. The recent developments and Judge Scarsi's order add another layer of complexity to an already high-profile case.

[eretzyisrael]

by David Collier

Amnesty International has long denied supporting the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign that seeks to destroy Israel. They play evasive, denying BDS is harmful but stating ‘Amnesty do not take a position’.

But behind the scenes it seems that things are very different. In this exclusive, I show that the Amnesty Marketing and Communications Director didn’t just support an official BDS campaign – she even created the toolkit for it.

The Boycott Chevron Campaign

Chevron has been a target of BDS since 2022, but the latest BDS ‘escalation’ started in January 2024 – when the BDS National Committee (BNC) issued a call ‘for a consumer boycott of Chevron-branded gas stations’:

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) that issued that statement is the organising body behind the BDS movement. It has long been established that BDS is a movement seeking the destruction of Israel, and the organising BNC is closely tied to terrorist factions.

I have personally described BDS as akin to the siege engines used in medieval battlefields – a means of choking a fortified city and breaking down their defences. BDS is part of a war machine that denies Israel’s right to exist – and seeks to weaken, and eventually overrun it. No genuine human rights NGO would be going anywhere near it.

On September 25, the BDS account on X posted this call to support the Boycott Chevron Campaign.

What is of real interest to us is the link to the toolkit advertised by the offical BDS account.

The BDS toolkit

The document is explicit in its support for BDS – and opens with an explanation that this boycott is in line with the BNC’s ‘escalating campaign’.

This makes it absolutely clear that this campaign is a BDS campaign – which perhaps is not surprising, given that this is the same toolkit that was posted by the BNC on its official account.

The toolkit provides information and resources to people wanting to engage in the Boycott Chevron campaign. It gives ideas about what people can do, provides links to follow – and even provides graphics to download.

If we search the history of the website, we learn that the domain was created on the 13 March 2024.

This date is important, as the toolkit was also created on 13 March 2024 – exactly the same day as the domain was purchased:

Which means that whoever created the toolkit, did not do so as an afterthought – or as part of a personal mission – but instead, must have played a leading role in the BDS advertised ‘Boycott Chevron’ campaign.

Luckily for us – the campaign toolkit is hosted on Google Docs, which means we can search for the document’s owner.

The Amnesty International BDS host

Looking at the details of the Google hosted document, we learn that the email of the owner of the toolkit is ‘Vanessalouiseserna@gmail.com’.

And that email address, leads us straight to Vanessa Serna, who just happens to be the US based Director of Digital Marketing and Communications at Amnesty International.

This is clear evidence that despite Amnesty’s protests – key figures are working behind the scenes to support the extremist BDS movement – and promote the destruction of the Jewish state.

Busted.

[st-armand]

Hobie Brown & Anarchism: A Discussion Pt 1

Authors Note: This is my dissertation for the discourse about Hobie’s politics being misrepresented as your friendly community radical leftist

Warnings: Political Ideologies, mentions of violence and oppression

Hobie Brown is an anarchist, he would be considered a radical leftist, not just by the ideological title of anarchism but by his own actions, he has killed cops, fascists, not just one, probably many considering the Oscorp and V.E.N.O.M worldbuilding where the police and military are symbiotes.

One of the primary bases for a fascist regime is a overly abundant police force, and the police worldwide are authoritarian figures meant to protect wealth and property not people.

Anarchists can go 70/40 on the violent revolutionary means discussion, but Hobart Brown is definitely pro revolutionary violence (we will define this later on), he doesn’t like violence in his everyday life but sees it as a measure to protect people, he also understands that not everyone’s place in the revolution is through armed liberation, but that all roles in the revolution violent or otherwise are all valuable to the end goal.

That being said a very contested discourse around radical leftist politics is the divide between Marxists/Maoists/Leninist etc vs Anarchists because Anarchists believe in a non-centralized, organizational systems, some anarchists can be anarcho-primitivists; they believe in a post-revolutionary society without the heavy industrialized civilization we have now I don’t think Hobie is, he enjoys technology too much to do so but he does believe in a social organization that is communally centralized, but regardless of his ideas of the organization of people post revolution he happily shares space and works in solidarity with leftists of other thinking and practices in the struggle and fight.

What is armed revolution and revolutionary violence? Armed revolution is the act of taking arms through guerrilla warfare, community protection, clandestine operations. Revolutionary violence is pretty self-explanatory, but these two interconnects as an understanding that liberation won’t come from within the systems that oppress us, and to instead arm the people towards liberating themselves from fascism, and state sanctioned violence.

I head canon that Hobie as Spiderman works within a clandestine underground armed forces with mixed ideologies and skillset, they’re all civilians who act as an unassuming threat who focus on assassinations and bank robberies, through those victories they help Spiderman redistribute funds.

Hobie’s praxis doesn’t just extend to revolutionary violence, but he puts labor into community gardens, refurbishing abandoned lots and buildings to be used as clinics, or schools, or housing, his skills especially are shown through his engineering and technical capabilities, like siphoning electricity from higher class neighborhoods for their buildings for free, fixing heating systems, or adapting heating and water systems so that they’re controlled in the community rather than by heating and water conglomerates.

He's also a part of a group of boosters who donate and barter clothes, food and other necessities, they sell their spoils in the middle of the people’s market.

Hobie is also the best comrade during protests, he’s a human shield whether as Spiderman or as a civilian, he’s the kind of person to go head to head with five police officers to de-arrest people who get snatched during protests, he’s returned with so many broken bones and large purple bruises from being wailed on by cops, but however much they hurt him, he can return much worse, especially with his enhanced strength, its actually a pretty cool sight, he’s more likely to kills cops while masked as spiderman, he’s almost entirely focused on defensive and evasive methods as an alternative since he has many warrants out for his arrest as Hobart Brown, but Spiderman has a list of federal and international offensives that he can easily navigate with the obscured identity.

During protests he’s evacuating people to safe zones, distracting cops from looters, defending people from being arrested, creating evasive plans to destroy or disable V.E.N.O.M. technology and weapons, he’s especially adept at guerilla warfare, navigating the skyline, sewers, and alleys of New London to gain a territorial advantage because the cops can’t traverse the projects and slums as easily as someone who lives in the grime of New London.

Books I think Hobie would’ve read;

Anarchism and the Black Revolution – Lenzo Ervin

A Soldier’s Story – Kuwasi Balagoon

Black Jacobins – CLR James

Conquest and Bread – Kroptokin

Anarchy & At the Café – Malatesta

 More in the next parts! Platonic, Romance, Racial and Cultural

[dailyanarchistposts]

A.2.8 Is it possible to be an anarchist without opposing hierarchy?

No. We have seen that anarchists abhor authoritarianism. But if one is an anti-authoritarian, one must oppose all hierarchical institutions, since they embody the principle of authority. For, as Emma Goldman argued, “it is not only government in the sense of the state which is destructive of every individual value and quality. It is the whole complex authority and institutional domination which strangles life. It is the superstition, myth, pretence, evasions, and subservience which support authority and institutional domination.” [Red Emma Speaks, p. 435] This means that “there is and will always be a need to discover and overcome structures of hierarchy, authority and domination and constraints on freedom: slavery, wage-slavery [i.e. capitalism], racism, sexism, authoritarian schools, etc.” [Noam Chomsky, Language and Politics, p. 364]

Thus the consistent anarchist must oppose hierarchical relationships as well as the state. Whether economic, social or political, to be an anarchist means to oppose hierarchy. The argument for this (if anybody needs one) is as follows:

“All authoritarian institutions are organised as pyramids: the state, the private or public corporation, the army, the police, the church, the university, the hospital: they are all pyramidal structures with a small group of decision-makers at the top and a broad base of people whose decisions are made for them at the bottom. Anarchism does not demand the changing of labels on the layers, it doesn’t want different people on top, it wants us to clamber out from underneath.” [Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 22]

Hierarchies “share a common feature: they are organised systems of command and obedience” and so anarchists seek “to eliminate hierarchy per se, not simply replace one form of hierarchy with another.” [Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, p. 27] A hierarchy is a pyramidally-structured organisation composed of a series of grades, ranks, or offices of increasing power, prestige, and (usually) remuneration. Scholars who have investigated the hierarchical form have found that the two primary principles it embodies are domination and exploitation. For example, in his classic article “What Do Bosses Do?” (Review of Radical Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 2), a study of the modern factory, Steven Marglin found that the main function of the corporate hierarchy is not greater productive efficiency (as capitalists claim), but greater control over workers, the purpose of such control being more effective exploitation.

Control in a hierarchy is maintained by coercion, that is, by the threat of negative sanctions of one kind or another: physical, economic, psychological, social, etc. Such control, including the repression of dissent and rebellion, therefore necessitates centralisation: a set of power relations in which the greatest control is exercised by the few at the top (particularly the head of the organisation), while those in the middle ranks have much less control and the many at the bottom have virtually none.

Since domination, coercion, and centralisation are essential features of authoritarianism, and as those features are embodied in hierarchies, all hierarchical institutions are authoritarian. Moreover, for anarchists, any organisation marked by hierarchy, centralism and authoritarianism is state-like, or “statist.” And as anarchists oppose both the state and authoritarian relations, anyone who does not seek to dismantle all forms of hierarchy cannot be called an anarchist. This applies to capitalist firms. As Noam Chomsky points out, the structure of the capitalist firm is extremely hierarchical, indeed fascist, in nature:

“a fascist system… [is] absolutist — power goes from top down … the ideal state is top down control with the public essentially following orders. “Let’s take a look at a corporation… [I]f you look at what they are, power goes strictly top down, from the board of directors to managers to lower managers to ultimately the people on the shop floor, typing messages, and so on. There’s no flow of power or planning from the bottom up. People can disrupt and make suggestions, but the same is true of a slave society. The structure of power is linear, from the top down.” [Keeping the Rabble in Line, p. 237]

David Deleon indicates these similarities between the company and the state well when he writes:

“Most factories are like military dictatorships. Those at the bottom are privates, the supervisors are sergeants, and on up through the hierarchy. The organisation can dictate everything from our clothing and hair style to how we spend a large portion of our lives, during work. It can compel overtime; it can require us to see a company doctor if we have a medical complaint; it can forbid us free time to engage in political activity; it can suppress freedom of speech, press and assembly — it can use ID cards and armed security police, along with closed-circuit TVs to watch us; it can punish dissenters with ‘disciplinary layoffs’ (as GM calls them), or it can fire us. We are forced, by circumstances, to accept much of this, or join the millions of unemployed… In almost every job, we have only the ‘right’ to quit. Major decisions are made at the top and we are expected to obey, whether we work in an ivory tower or a mine shaft.” [“For Democracy Where We Work: A rationale for social self-management”, Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), pp. 193–4]

Thus the consistent anarchist must oppose hierarchy in all its forms, including the capitalist firm. Not to do so is to support archy — which an anarchist, by definition, cannot do. In other words, for anarchists, ”[p]romises to obey, contracts of (wage) slavery, agreements requiring the acceptance of a subordinate status, are all illegitimate because they do restrict and restrain individual autonomy.” [Robert Graham, “The Anarchist Contract, Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), p. 77] Hierarchy, therefore, is against the basic principles which drive anarchism. It denies what makes us human and “divest[s] the personality of its most integral traits; it denies the very notion that the individual is competent to deal not only with the management of his or her personal life but with its most important context: the social context.” [Murray Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 202]

Some argue that as long as an association is voluntary, whether it has a hierarchical structure is irrelevant. Anarchists disagree. This is for two reasons. Firstly, under capitalism workers are driven by economic necessity to sell their labour (and so liberty) to those who own the means of life. This process re-enforces the economic conditions workers face by creating “massive disparities in wealth … [as] workers… sell their labour to the capitalist at a price which does not reflect its real value.” Therefore:

“To portray the parties to an employment contract, for example, as free and equal to each other is to ignore the serious inequality of bargaining power which exists between the worker and the employer. To then go on to portray the relationship of subordination and exploitation which naturally results as the epitome of freedom is to make a mockery of both individual liberty and social justice.” [Robert Graham, Op. Cit., p. 70]

It is for this reason that anarchists support collective action and organisation: it increases the bargaining power of working people and allows them to assert their autonomy (see section J).

Secondly, if we take the key element as being whether an association is voluntary or not we would have to argue that the current state system must be considered as “anarchy.” In a modern democracy no one forces an individual to live in a specific state. We are free to leave and go somewhere else. By ignoring the hierarchical nature of an association, you can end up supporting organisations based upon the denial of freedom (including capitalist companies, the armed forces, states even) all because they are “voluntary.” As Bob Black argues, ”[t]o demonise state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.” [The Libertarian as Conservative, The Abolition of Work and other essays, p. 142] Anarchy is more than being free to pick a master.

Therefore opposition to hierarchy is a key anarchist position, otherwise you just become a “voluntary archist” — which is hardly anarchistic. For more on this see section A.2.14 ( Why is voluntarism not enough?).

Anarchists argue that organisations do not need to be hierarchical, they can be based upon co-operation between equals who manage their own affairs directly. In this way we can do without hierarchical structures (i.e. the delegation of power in the hands of a few). Only when an association is self-managed by its members can it be considered truly anarchistic.

We are sorry to belabour this point, but some capitalist apologists, apparently wanting to appropriate the “anarchist” name because of its association with freedom, have recently claimed that one can be both a capitalist and an anarchist at the same time (as in so-called “anarcho” capitalism). It should now be clear that since capitalism is based on hierarchy (not to mention statism and exploitation), “anarcho”-capitalism is a contradiction in terms. (For more on this, see Section F)

[mariacallous]

In September of 2022, not long after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) raided and seized several luxury properties in both New York City and Miami. The average person would have had little idea why these particular properties were special; the official register only listed an anonymous Panamanian shell company, one with a mailing address at Madison Square Garden, as the putative owner. But it was later revealed that the DOJ officials were part of KleptoCapture, a special task force created to seize and freeze the assets of Russian oligarchs, and that the true owner of the $70 million property portfolio was Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian-Cypriot billionaire who had been subject to U.S. sanctions for many years. Even though the authorities eventually pieced together the puzzle and located his gargantuan property portfolio, Vekselberg had managed to fly under the radar for years until that point.

The Vekselberg incident illustrates two alarming facts about American real estate. The first is that offshore investors can easily hide their identity by using opaque corporate ownership structures to keep their name off the register. The second is that, because this practice is so common, offshore investment in the real estate sector is likely far greater than what can be measured with public data.

Real estate has always been considered a risky sector, highly vulnerable to money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption. This is because high-value properties offer both a safe store of wealth and an asset that can easily be flipped for the purposes of laundering. It is also a sector that is very rarely subject to the same level of effective due diligence checks or automatic reporting requirements that financial accounts are. The true amount of money laundered through U.S. real estate is unknown, but recent reports by groups like the Anti-Corruption Data Collective and Global Financial Integrity have uncovered at least $2.6 billion worth of cases through both residential and commercial property in recent years.

These risks are amplified even further when the ownership originates offshore, as foreign authorities will struggle to spot instances of tax evasion or corruption when the wealth is hidden in U.S. real estate, with no public transparency of ownership. But to understand the risks that offshore ownership poses, we first need to understand just how much real estate foreigners own in the U.S.

[warsofasoiaf]

If it was up to you what would the best response be from the US to the North Koreans deploying forces in Ukraine

Loosen arms restriction on striking into Ukraine, revitalize the defense sector, speak out in support of South Korea loosening its own arms export restrictions, and step up efforts to hit DPRK actors abroad. And of course, ratchet up sanctions on Russia, crack down on evasion.

But let's be honest with ourselves, Russia tried to conduct terrorism against the US and we've done nothing.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

Switzerland has for years been the destination of choice for Russian oligarchs and corrupt officials to hide their stolen money. Swiss banks are estimated to hold over $200 billion in stashed Russian cash.

The United States recently opened an investigation into Swiss banks helping #Russia to evade sanctions, subpoenaing the two largest Swiss banks at the time. Switzerland is also key to Russian #evasion of export controls meant to ensure Russia cannot resupply its military and continue its war.

Russian-induced corruption within the Swiss law enforcement system led to the resignation of the former top prosecutor of Switzerland and the conviction of a senior Swiss law enforcement official on bribery charges. Switzerland is now primed to send millions in frozen Russian dirty money related to the revelations of Sergei Magnitsky to the Russians who stole it.

This hearing will examine Switzerland’s key role in laundering Russian money. Witnesses will discuss how Switzerland came to be a favorite destination for Russian dirty money, how Russian corruption in Switzerland endangers U.S. national security and the ability of Ukraine to defend itself, and possible policy responses. This hearing builds on years of work by the #Commission to hold Switzerland to account for its role in Russian money laundering and corruption.

The following witnesses are scheduled to testify:

1Bill Browder, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign

2Drew Sullivan, Co-Founder, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)

3Olena Tregub, Secretary General, Independent Defense Anti-Corruption Committee (NAKO)

HEARING

Russia’s Alpine Assets: Money Laundering and Sanctions Evasion in Switzerland

July 18, 2023

1:00 p.m.

Senate Dirksen Building G50

Live stream:

youtube.com/watch?v=dxX98X…

[house-steiner-stays-winning]

5, 9, 12 for the dark OC asks

(@is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not)

5. What is your OC's moral code?

Dieter: "I'd do anything for my house and my sister. I can't serve my family on the battlefield, so I'll serve them in the best way I can: through cunning and politics."

Theodora: "I seek glory and victory in battle. Whatever must be done to achieve those ends, simply must be done. However, I seek to do right by my brother and the memory of those who came before me. If victory would cost me my brother... I do not think I could do it."

9. Would you consider your OC evil?

D: "I'm certainly not evil. Am I a good person? No. But none of what I do is done out of malice, or hate. I have no love for the things I've had to do to ensure the success of this house, and I feel remorse for every body I've buried in its name. Yet in the same breath, I'd do it all again if it was required of me."

T: "I'm no more evil than any other soldier is. I don't execute surrendering men, I don't try to cause undue pain in the men I kill, I minimize collateral damage and funnel family resources into aiding those whose lives were impacted by my campaigns. So, no, I do not believe I am evil.

12. If your OC was arrested, what would the charges be?

D: "IF I got arrested, which is a big if (I'm much better at what I do than that.) It'd probably be the corporate espionage. Or the tax evasion. Or the murders, but most of those were state-sanctioned duels. Maybe the illegal weapons trafficking?"

T: "Were I to be arrested, though it is unlikely, it would be for the assault of a fellow officer. There are too many gottverdammt narren in this army."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Smith at The Guardian:

Donald Trump intensified his politics of nativism and xenophobia on Friday by announcing a sweeping plan to deport Venezuelans he claimed have “infected” a once peaceful city in Colorado. The Republican presidential nominee held a campaign rally in Aurora on a stage adorned with posters displaying mugshots of people in prison-orange uniforms with descriptions including “illegal immigrant gang members from Venezuela”. Trump told the crowd: “I’m announcing today that, upon taking office, we will have an ‘Operation Aurora’ at the federal level to expedite the removals of these savage gangs.” He pledged to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that allows the president to deport any non-citizen from a country that the US is at war with.

Authorities say the incident happened in a single block and the area is again safe, noting that the local crime rate is actually declining. Aurora’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, called Trump’s claims “grossly exaggerated” and insisted: “The narrative is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.” TDA traces its origins back more than a decade to a notorious prison. In July, the Biden administration issued a sanction against the gang, placing it alongside MS-13 from El Salvador and the mafia-styled Camorra from Italy on a list of transnational criminal organisations, and offering $12m in rewards for the arrest of three leaders. At Friday’s rally, Trump played a series of news clips, accompanied by dramatic music, describing TDA’s crimes and the murder of US citizens by undocumented immigrants, as well as some seemingly evasive answers by Harris, the vice-president, whom Trump branded a “criminal” and the “worst border tsar” in the country’s history.

“My message today is very simple,” he said. “No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become president of the United States.” The former president promised that 5 November, when the election is held, will be “liberation day”, prompting chants of “USA! USA!” from the crowd. “I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered. These towns have been conquered and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country and we will be very, very effective in doing it. It’s going to happen very, very fast. Gonna get them the hell out of our country.” Throwing red meat to his base, Trump added later: “We’re talking a lot about Venezuela, because Aurora is really infected by Venezuela, but they’re coming from all countries.” The remark recalled past dehumanising language in which Trump claimed undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and, earlier this week, suggested that those suspected in homicide cases “have bad genes”.

Speaking in Aurora, Colorado today at his hate-infested rally, Donald Trump intensifies his racist and nativist messages on immigration by proposing an “Operation Aurora” to deport Venezuelans on the false basis that Venezuelan gang group Tren de Aragua (TDA) have “overrun” the city, and more broadly, all undocumented immigrants. Trump also declared November 5th “Liberation Day.”