WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence said he was never part of discussions to remove President Trump from office and would take a lie-detector test ‘‘in a heartbeat’’ to prove that he was not the author of last week’s anonymous New York Times op-ed, who claimed to be part of a resistance movement within the Trump administration.
He won't have to worry, they are not even looking, casting doubt as to whether the whole thing was a massive bait and switch by Trump himself. Odd him using the word heartbeat, though. I mean, he is that far away from the presidency as it is.
In interviews with ‘‘Fox News Sunday’’ and CBS’s ‘‘Face the Nation’’ that aired Sunday, Pence also said that he is ‘‘100 percent certain’’ that no one from his staff authored the op-ed and that he would be ‘‘more than willing’’ to sit down for an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller III as part of his ongoing Russia probe.
I haven't watched those shows in more than 10 years.
The appearances by Pence come as Trump has stepped up his calls for the Justice Department to investigate the author of the piece, which described a ‘‘two-track presidency’’ in which some senior aides are actively working to thwart Trump’s ‘‘misguided impulses’’ and have even discussed removing the president from office via the 25th Amendment.
See: The chaotic aftermath of invoking the 25th Amendment
They also come as former president Barack Obama has stepped forward to harshly criticize Trump and Republican politics, comparing Trump in a speech Friday to demagogues around the world who exploit ‘‘a politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment.’’
Not to get into the weeds too much, but:
"Former president Barack Obama says the November midterm elections will give Americans ‘‘a chance to restore some sanity in our politics,’’ taking another swipe at his successor as he raises his profile campaigning for fellow Democrats to regain control of the House. Obama didn’t mention President Trump by name during a 20-minute speech Saturday in the key Southern California battleground of Orange County, but the allusions were clear. His appearance — one day after a strongly worded critique of Trump at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — touched on themes of retirement security, climate change, and education. Obama gave shout-outs to seven Democratic candidates in competitive House districts across California that are considered crucial to the party’s efforts to oust Republicans from control. Four of those districts are at least partly in Orange County, a formerly reliable GOP bastion that went for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Clinton trounced Trump by more than 4 million votes in California in 2016 and carried Orange County by 9 percentage points. A surge in immigrants has transformed California and its voting patterns. The number of Hispanics, blacks, and Asians combined has outnumbered whites in the state since 1998. Meanwhile, new voters, largely Latinos and Asians, lean Democratic....."
He admits his own failures and negligence yet it goes over their heads, and has the fraud already been programmed into the machines?
Related:
"The elevators at Aquarium Station have been out of service for months, roped off from passengers. Corroding ramps at the commuter rail station in Winchester are patched with plywood, and exposed rebar peeks from the canopy overhead. The ceilings at the commuter and Red Line stops in Porter Square leak during rainstorms, forming small puddles on the platforms below. While not on the scale of the falling concrete that forced the closure of the Alewife parking garage in August, hundreds of MBTA properties — stations, garages, and parking lots — are in disrepair, from equipment that seems permanently broken to shabby surroundings that make the daily commute that much more unpleasant. “Dripping water, corroding metal, chunks of concrete missing,” Concord resident Christina Scherer said, listing conditions at the Porter Square commuter rail station. “If you’re not sure something’s going to fall on you, it certainly doesn’t put out a very good impression.” Just how widespread are the problems? The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has begun compiling a detailed inventory on the condition of its facilities to comply with new reporting requirements from the Federal Transit Agency. In an interview, Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said that T facilities are safe and that any dangerous conditions are quickly addressed, but though the agency is planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades, Pollack said they are not as high a priority as buying new vehicles or improving tracks and related equipment that more directly affect commutes. “If they are not unsafe, then whether your stations are a little nicer or not nicer may not change the length of your commute or the on-time performance of the line,” Pollack said. In a city and region undergoing a building boom, with new construction and remodeled homes everywhere, the T’s properties are often the neighborhood eyesore.
Looks good from the outside.
Outside the gates of one of the world’s most prestigious universities, the underground bus stop in Harvard Square has holes in the ceiling where lights used to shine. At the foot of the gleaming new Millennium Tower, Downtown Crossing Station has big puddles of water even in dry conditions. And in Winchester, across the street from an idyllic town park, a commuter rail station from the 1950s is dressed in scaffolding as workers fight off years of disrepair. “It’s definitely falling apart,” Tamara McDonald said of the Winchester station, which is scheduled to be rebuilt in the next few years. “It would be wonderful to have a station that matched the beauty of our town.” The T provided the Globe with a spreadsheet listing the scores for individual properties, but cautioned that those ratings were not comprehensive and could change as a result of new, more detailed guidelines from the federal government. Therese McMillan, a former Federal Transit Agency chief in the Obama administration, said the T’s findings are not surprising. The new assessments were developed, she said, because federal officials suspected older systems were in need of so much repair. “It’s endemic across [older transit systems],” McMillan said. “This country has a very poor record of investing in its infrastructure. . . . But I think it’s important you start with knowing exactly what your problem is.”"
What an indictment of the Obama years, and it has now become a campaign issue (Globe driven? You would have to be blind not to see it (you can briefly check the box for a ride). Makes you wonder who sandbagged the efforts and it is about to get a lot worse.
And think about this: they wanted to host the Olympics and will have World Cup soccer coming in 8 years.
Related:
One man dies as fires, explosions rock Lawrence area
For residents, the day suddenly turned chaotic
Cause of explosions, fire in Lawrence area unclear
We are being told it was decrepit gas infrastructure (talk about a real threat if true, and where did all the money go?) and it stinks to high heaven given the helicopter footage I saw on NECN, and looks like a total mind f***. In conjunction with the mass evacuations in the Carolinas, we are getting whatever this is (I didn't see loads of fires and smoke, sorry) in preparation for martial law? People had to just grab their stuff and run, huh?
What was yesterday exactly? Who or what was the government looking for? Did the gangs gleefully evacuate, too?
House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, argued in a Fox News appearance that the anonymous op-ed piece served as proof of a ‘‘deep state’’ seeking to create a constitutional crisis.
‘‘We have a Constitution. We have a responsibility to uphold. This individual thinks they are smarter than the voters of America, and they are going to change course,’’ he said on ‘‘Sunday Morning Futures.’’ ‘‘This person is a coward. If this person really believed in their convictions, put their name on it, stand up and resign.’’
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said in an appearance on CNN’s ‘‘State of the Union’’ that she believes the author of the piece ‘‘is going to suss himself or herself out.’’
‘‘I think cowards are like criminals. Eventually, they confess to the wrong person: ‘Shh. It was me, but don’t tell anyone.’ And, of course, the person will tell someone,’’ Conway said.
Some Democrats, meanwhile, argued that the op-ed and Trump’s response to it are proof that the president is not fit to serve.
‘‘Does this president not understand that the Justice Department is not a tool of his own personal power?’’ Senator Mark R. Warner, Democrat of Virginia, said on CNN in response to Trump’s recent statements calling on Sessions to investigate the op-ed author’s identity.
OMG!!!!!!
Did the last one understand because he sure didn't act like it?!!??
‘‘That is one of the reasons why I think you’re seeing not only Republican members, but what appears to be a lot of folks in the White House, have real concerns about this president’s stability,’’ Warner added.
All quiet under Obummer.
In the ‘‘Fox News Sunday’’ interview, Pence also disputed the veracity of one of the episodes reported by Bob Woodward in his new book, ‘‘Fear,’’ in which the veteran journalist writes that Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn removed a document from the president’s desk in September 2017 to stop him from signing it.
‘‘I have every doubt that that happened,’’ Pence said. He continued to suggest that the incident never occurred, even after Wallace held up for Pence a copy of the document, which would have terminated the free-trade deal with South Korea.
The vice president declined to speculate on whether someone had purposely inserted the word ‘‘lodestar’’ into the New York Times op-ed to set him up, telling Wallace simply, ‘‘I wouldn’t know.’’ Pence has frequently used the word in his speeches, and its inclusion in the piece prompted some to wonder whether the vice president was behind it.....
--more--"
Related:
New York Times Gets Letter From the Deep State
Bo$ton Globe Invokes 25th Amendment
The clock is ticking on his removal from office.
With God on His Side
Praying For a Pence Presidency
He will be a hero to save us and they're watching us.
He will be far from a cultural ideal, but he is a stopgap that will be a force for change that is ready — and waiting — to be activated.
"Trump vents over leaks as Bob Woodward pushes back on criticism" by Catherine Lucey and Jonathan Lemire Associated Press September 11, 2018
WASHINGTON — It appeared to be another instance of the president versus the presidency, as President Trump proceeded on one track while his administration largely moved on another. There was fear among some Trump advisers that if the president felt that his staff or the Justice Department was not carrying out his order to find the leakers, then he could feel compelled to make changes.
He will be firing Mattis after the midterms.
It would set off alarm bells throughout Washington if the president were to mobilize the Department of Justice to investigate a matter in which no crime was committed or classified information disclosed.
Why? They are letting Mueller run amok and they refused to prosecute Clinton for the very real crimes.
Trump spent the weekend complaining about the book as well as the op-ed writer. He argued that the person purposely put the piece in the Times to anger him, and some advisers have urged him to let the matter go, said a person familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to discuss private conversations.
Trump tweeted Monday that he has been subjected to ‘‘Phony books, articles and TV ‘hits’ like no other pol has had to endure.’’
Trump also derided his predecessor’s return to politics. While the president expressed annoyance that Barack Obama was taking credit for the nation’s economic success, he told one adviser that the former president’s increased visibility would give Trump more chances to attack a figure who remained very unpopular with his base.
Set for public release Tuesday, ‘‘Fear’’ has thrown an already chaotic White House into disarray. On Monday, it was ranked as the top-selling book on Amazon.
The op-ed was not the only thing on Trump’s mind as he called around to advisers over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the conversations. He told allies that he was certain that his stance on the national anthem controversy contributed to the NFL’s lower television ratings for its Thursday night opener — though ratings were largely up for the league’s first Sunday of games.....
Related:
"Somerville police are hoping to identify a person of interest in connection with a report that a man entered the Somerville Veterans Cemetery and urinated on American flags he had uprooted from the city’s World War II memorial, police said. In an e-mail, Somerville Police Deputy Chief James Stanford wrote Tuesday that police have been alerted to a Facebook post in which a man described witnessing the incident Monday while passing the cemetery. In the post, the man wrote that he was driving on Broadway when he was stopped behind a bus and saw a group of people in their early to mid-20s enter the cemetery and approach the statue built in honor of the World War II veterans. “The guy took the flags and tossed them behind the statue. What I saw him do next pushed me to a point where I said to myself ‘ENOUGH,’ ” he wrote. “The guy started urinating on the flags.”
Has anyone brought that to the attention of the president?
--more--"
Also see:
"Two former Trump administration officials on Tuesday criticized journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, ‘‘Fear,’’ as the president continued to fume about its portrayal of a White House in disarray. Onetime White House staff secretary Rob Porter and former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn issued statements Tuesday afternoon. ‘‘Having now read Bob Woodward’s Fear, I am struck by the selective and often misleading portrait it paints of the President and his administration,’’ Porter said. In one anecdote reported by Woodward, President Trump ordered Porter to draft a letter on withdrawing the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement in the spring of 2017. Fearing that such a move would lead to economic and diplomatic calamity, Porter reportedly spoke with Cohn, who told him he would ‘‘just take the paper off his desk,’’ referring to Trump. In his statement, Porter did not address any specific episodes reported in the book but said the suggestion that materials were ‘‘stolen’’ from Trump’s desk ‘‘misunderstands how the White House document review process works.’’ He also defended his performance as staff secretary, which he described as a position that required him to ‘‘ensure that relevant viewpoints were considered’’ by Trump. ‘‘Fulfilling this responsibility does not make someone part of a ‘resistance’ or mean they are seeking to ‘thwart’ the President’s agenda. Quite the opposite,’’ he said. Cohn did not dispute any details reported by Woodward, issuing a statement that simply took aim at the book as a whole. ‘‘This book does not accurately portray my experience at the White House. I am proud of my service in the Trump Administration, and I continue to support the President and his economic agenda,’’ Cohn said."
Interestingly, "the one staffer who seems to have lots of options is Gary Cohn, who left his perch as the president of Goldman Sachs to be the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, but exited the administration in April."
The next book will be titled "I'm not an unindicted coconspirator," and it's already making people queasy and angry.
"Mexico’s next president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will allocate 75 billion pesos ($3.9 billion) in the budget next year for oil extraction in a bid to resuscitate flagging output. The new government will call for bids for oil service contracts as soon as Lopez Obrador takes office at the start of December, along with an announcement of his strategy to revitalize oil production. And there will be “zero tolerance” for corruption in the energy sector and clear rules. “We have to simplify the procedures so that we can honestly but agilely untangle everything that prevents us from producing, extracting oil,” he said....."
They will be getting help from Ford.
"China’s trade surplus with the United States widened to a record $31 billion in August as exports surged despite US tariff hikes, potentially adding fuel to President Trump’s battle with Beijing....."
I'm told Mass. companies are confident about the economy and the record number of jobs and the Globe is even giving him credit, but it isn't a miracle (and he cites Schuster, Goodman, and Rosman, among others, to prove it) and is more folly.
"While President Trump swings away at China in a global trade war, the maker of Babe Ruth’s baseball bats is being sized up by Chinese suitor. China’s Anta Sports Products Ltd. has offered $5.5 billion for Finland’s Amer Sports Oyj, owner of Louisville Slugger, which has turned out bats for America’s pastime for 134 years. The bat maker got its start when Pete Browning, a late-1800s baseball star known as the Louisville Slugger, worked with founder John Hillerich to make an implement to his specifications, according to the brand’s website. Since then, baseball icons from Ted Williams to Hank Aaron to Derek Jeter have gone to the plate with Louisville Slugger bats in hand....."
How many trees have been murdered on the altar of that sport?
Trump confirms new talks in US-China trade war, but makes new threat against Beijing
Last week's newz:
Senator Collins: Oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination
"Both of New Hampshire's Democratic U.S. senators, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shahee, have announced their opposition to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Democrats don't have the votes to block President Donald Trump's nominee, but that didn't stop them from putting up a fight at his confirmation hearings......"
Yeah, if you enjoyed more manufactured theater than normal!
Feinstein says she referred letter concerning Kavanaugh to federal investigators
Must be the encore.
Despite Jon Kyl’s interest, GOP steers clear of Affordable Care Act repeal
In health care venture, Berkshire Hathaway investors see another blockbuster for Buffett
It could be "his final act, and they have to balance the need for profit and the need for the social mission. They don't want to lose money. They want to at least break even, but if they looking at the venture as a way of increasing profit for their corporations, it will fail."
The Gloucester Gulls and Gawande
Bezos has already contributed $2 billion to it. It's an early Christmas present.
I say let the voters of each state decide what they want.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
This has been the story of this week:
Hurricane Florence may approach Category 5
Thing roared into a Cat 4, huh?
Did someone say weather weapon?
‘Big and vicious’ Hurricane Florence closes in on Carolinas
Trump touts readiness for Hurricane Florence
They rebuked him for it!
Hurricane Florence expected to bring catastrophic rain
I hope you have flood insurance, and at least it missed Cuba.
‘Threat becomes reality’: Florence begins days of rain, wind
Now a Cat 1, meaning either it was overhyped or.....
Emergency team leaves Mass. to help with response to Hurricane Florence
Local emergency officials head south to help with hurricane rescue efforts
58 years ago, Hurricane Donna hit New England
The power may be out for a while.
Heavy rains hit Maui as Olivia approaches Hawaii
They cancelled all flights out.
Super typhoon is brewing in Pacific and heading to Hong Kong
China move points to possible end of birth limits
Typhoon Mangkhut aims at Philippines’ breadbasket
Big safety testing failure rate for California pot products
How much of the crop (gasp!) has burned up, btw?
California highway reopens after blaze forces six-day closure
Did someone say weather weapon?
But why, you a$k?
"Yellen touts carbon tax as ‘textbook solution’ to climate change" by Jennifer A. Dlouhy Bloomberg News September 10, 2018
Former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen says a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would do more to combat climate change than a slew of federal environmental regulations being undone by the Trump administration.
Yellen joins former Walmart chairman Rob Walton, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, and former Secretary of State George Shultz in delivering a pitch for the carbon tax-and-dividend plan, released Monday along with an analysis of its potential emissions reductions.
‘‘From the standpoint of an economist, the most efficient way to tackle climate change is to tax emissions — to create a disincentive to emit carbon dioxide,’’ Yellen said in an interview before the report’s release. ‘‘It’s the right solution to a problem, and it’s collected in a way that is practical and feasible.’’
Look at this!
Yeah, the bankers are going to save the world while literally creating money out of thin air that they can then collateralize for derivatives like they did the MBSs.
The proposal has the backing of a broad coalition of prominent conservatives, economists, and corporations that have united as the Climate Leadership Council and developed a multiyear strategy for advancing the initiative on Capitol Hill. Corporate supporters, which have a roughly $2.4 trillion market cap, include Exxon Mobil and three other oil giants and the largest US automaker, General Motors; utility, Exelon, and telecommunications firm, AT&T.
Given the supporters, I can't think of a better rea$on to oppo$e.
The campaign is the broadest, most serious effort in years to put a price on the carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change. The proposed tax aims to increase the cost of energy derived from oil, natural gas, and coal, thereby discouraging the use of those fossil fuels and encouraging the free market to develop low-carbon power alternatives.
Nothing burns me up more than the pos pre$$ pushing this cause.
When you guys shut down the war machine then get back to me.
The tax would result in slashing more heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions than could be pared under Obama-era environmental regulations, and the resulting cuts would exceed reductions the United States promised as part of the Paris climate accord, according to an assessment by the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future.
Still, Yellen and other proponents face significant political opposition. The House voted in July to condemn the very idea of a carbon tax as ‘‘detrimental’’ to the US economy, with only six Republicans breaking ranks to vote against the measure, but that House vote on a carbon tax concept is not a reliable indicator of support for the more nuanced tax-and-dividend plan, said Ted Halstead, founder of the Climate Leadership Council.
Under the council’s blueprint, every ton of carbon dioxide would be hit with a tax, potentially starting at $40 per ton and rising over time, with revenue redistributed to households in the form of quarterly dividend checks. In exchange, regulations aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions — and much of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate them — would be eliminated.
You know, it sounds good but why can't I just KEEP THE MONEY THEN?
Why do they need to play with it?
In the essay released Monday, Shultz, Summers, Yellen, and other supporters call the effort a grand bargain that’s ‘‘not only the most environmentally ambitious plan but also the most politically viable.’’
Related:
"On December 12, 1991, while serving as chief economist for the World Bank, Summers authored a private memo arguing that the bank should actively encourage the dumping of toxic waste in developing countries, particularly "under populated countries in Africa," which Summers described as "UNDER-polluted."
He's also the one that put Harvard at risk with the hedge funds, but now Larry is a health and labor social justice warrior.
--more--"
Now if only the bankers had a candidate for president.
Related:
Calif. aims to phase out use of fossil fuels to generate electricity by 2045
Trump administration wants to make it easier to release methane
The word fracking was never used, nor did they tell you it is 20-25 times more destructive than that co$tly air you are breathing.
Strike in India over fuel prices
Don't they ride bikes over there?
"A different kind of climate summit comes to San Francisco" by Seth Borenstein Associated Press September 11, 2018
The international effort to fight climate change is about to get injected with a bit of Hollywood flash, a lot of Wall Street green, and a considerable dose of cheerleading rather than dry treaty negotiations.
Business leaders, mayors, governors, and activists from around the world gather this week in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit, where participants will trumpet what they’ve done and announce new efforts to slow a warming world.
Umm, excuse me, but what is that smell and where can I find a bathroom?
(Blog editor than has volcanic diarrhea -- which I share in the interests of complete environmental transparency, of course)
In addition, a smattering of celebrities such as musician Dave Matthews and actor Alec Baldwin will add a touch of red carpet feel to the summit, which starts Wednesday.
I would like to know HOW ARE THEY ALL GETTING THERE and WHAT IS ITS CARBON FOOTPRINT?
It will involve trillions of dollars of pledges for spending on cleaner energy and getting out of investments in heat-trapping fossil fuels, according to officials involved. And it will include a newer way of fighting climate change by emphasizing more climate-friendly land use, food production, and diets, along with massive increases in forests — something one expert called ‘‘the forgotten climate solution.’’ Cities, states, businesses, and charitable foundations are all going to get in the act.
‘‘It’s a bit like a game show,’’ said summit communications director Nick Nuttall. ‘‘It’s going to be loads of Hollywood style announcements.’’
You mean staged elitist illusion and imagery that is going to turn most of us off?
And when you are talking about shifting trillions of dollars to finance initiatives, the private sector needs to get involved and that’s happening, said Nigel Purvis, chief executive officer of the non-profit Climate Advisers and a former climate negotiator in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
Yeah, you want to move that $tuff over to Wall $treet right away!
‘‘This is the climate action summit, emphasis on the action,’’ Purvis said. ‘‘Despite the lack of leadership from Washington, it’s really about action,’’ but so far such pledges have produced more talk than action, said Angel Hsu, an environment professor at Yale University and the National University of Singapore. She is the lead author of a United Nations report released Monday on what businesses, states, and local governments can do and already have done.....
That hot air isn't helping the, you know!
--more--"
While in California:
Gunman kills ex-wife, 4 others, and himself in California
Also see:
Active shooter study finds semi-automatic rifles more deadly
New York State sought pre-primary opening for new bridge
I'm sure they blame Trump for that, too.
4 impeached West Virginia justices to face trials
In the interest of keeping things moving.
Case against officer who killed neighbor to go to grand jury
Did you know the leading cause of death among police officers nationwide is suicide?
Time for some smart legal reform.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
$10 million from FEMA diverted to pay for immigration detention centers
Here is why:
"Detention of migrant children has skyrocketed to highest levels ever" by Caitlin Dickerson New York Times September 12, 2018
Even though hundreds of children separated from their families after crossing the border have been released under court order, the overall number of migrant children under detention has exploded to the highest ever recorded — a significant counternarrative to the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the number of families illegally coming to the United States.
Population levels at federally contracted shelters for migrant children have quietly shot up more than fivefold since last summer, according to data obtained by The New York Times. The new data was reported to members of Congress, who shared it with The Times.
It shows that despite the Trump administration’s efforts to discourage Central American migrants, roughly the same number of children are crossing the border as in years past. The big difference, said those familiar with the shelter system, is that red tape and fear brought on by stricter immigration enforcement have discouraged relatives and family friends from coming forward to sponsor children.
Bull. They would move heaven and earth to find them if they were parents or family.
Mark Greenberg, who oversaw the care of migrant children for the Health and Human Services Department under President Barack Obama, said, “Even if there’s not a sudden influx, they will be running out of capacity soon unless something changes.”
The administration appeared to move to address that on Tuesday, when it announced it will triple the size of a temporary “tent city” in Tornillo, Texas, to house up to 3,800 children through the end of the year. Immigrant advocates and members of Congress reacted to the news with distress, because conditions are comparatively harsh in such large overflow facilities, compared with traditional shelters.
Facilities like the one in Tornillo are also more expensive to operate, according to Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the shelter program.....
--more--"
Now he is drawing fire for a ‘misleading’ link between terrorism and immigration.
"Man pleads guilty to marriage fraud scheme involving six women over 10 years" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff September 12, 2018
On paper, you might think Peter Joseph Hicks is simply unlucky in love, having married six times in recent years, but the Worcester man is not, as rocker Steve Earle famously sang, a fearless heart coming back for more. Instead, prosecutor say, he’s a fraud who entered into a half-dozen sham marriages with foreign nationals in exchange for money, to help them gain lawful immigration status.
An affidavit filed in the case by Robert H. Rice, a special agent with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, laid out the details of Hicks’s phony unions.
Rice “uncovered evidence that Hicks, 58, was married to six foreign national women between 2003 and 2013,” the agent wrote. “All six of the women were foreign nationals from sub-Saharan Africa.”
Hicks made a stunning admission during a May 2009 interview with immigration officials as part of an application for spousal benefits for one wife, according to Rice.
“During the interview, Hicks admitted marrying” three women “solely to obtain immigration benefits for them,” Rice wrote.
Hicks is free on the bond pending sentencing.....
--more--"
Related: Fugitive arrested in Dominican Republic will be arraigned in Boston on murder charge
At least the hurricane coverage drowned out Mueller:
"US backtracks on spy suspect offering sex for access" by Eric Tucker and Chad Day Associated Press September 09, 2018
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are backtracking on their allegation that a Russian woman accused of working as a secret agent offered to trade sex for access, according to a Justice Department court filing.
Prosecutors had earlier accused Maria Butina, a gun rights activist in US custody on charges she worked as a covert agent and tried to establish back-channel lines of communication to the Kremlin, of offering to exchange sex for a position with a special interest organization.
The salacious allegation, which immediately escalated the public interest in the case, was based on a series of text messages to and from Butina and other information that prosecutors say they had obtained, but in a new court filing late Friday, prosecutors said they misinterpreted the messages. They said ‘‘even granting that the government’s understanding of this particular text conversation was mistaken,’’ there is other evidence to support keeping Butina in custody as the case against her moves forward in Washington.
Butina, 29, was arrested in July and accused of gathering intelligence on American officials and political organizations. Prosecutors say she used her contacts with the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast to develop relationships with US politicians and gather information for Russia. They also say she used her role as a student at American University in Washington as a cover.
Butina’s lawyer, Robert Driscoll, had strongly denied the accusation and said the government had relied on an ‘‘innocuous’’ three-year-old text message exchange between Butina and a longtime friend, assistant, and public relations professional for a gun rights group that she had founded.
The individual, identified in court papers only as DK, had said in the text that he didn’t know what Butina would owe him after he took her car for an insurance renewal and government inspection. She replied, ‘‘Sex. Thank you so much. I have nothing else at all. Not a nickel to my name.’’
In a court filing last month, Driscoll said that the sex comment was clearly a joke and that Butina is friends with DK’s wife and child and treats him like a brother. He said there is no evidence that the two ever had sex.
‘‘The impact of this inflammatory allegation, which painted Ms. Butina as some type of Kremlin-trained seductress, or spy-novel honeypot character, trading sex for access and power, cannot be overstated,’’ Driscoll said.
On Sunday, Driscoll said, ‘‘I’m happy the government walked back their false allegation.’’
Butina has pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Russia. Driscoll has denied that Butina is a Russian agent, calling the case ‘‘overblown.’’ He has said his client was merely a student who wanted to see a better relationship between the United States and Russia.
There was nothing covert about her work, Driscoll said, noting several news stories about her over the past several years.
The sexual allegation was only a small part of the evidence presented by prosecutors in arguing to jail Butina. Prosecutors largely argued that she posed an ‘‘extreme’’ flight risk and raised the prospect of her being swept out of the country by Russians using their diplomatic immunity to shield her from US law enforcement. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia.
Prosecutors have said her activities in the United States were being directed by a Russian official, identified by Driscoll as Alexander Torshin. He is a senior official in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, a former lawmaker and a member of the NRA since 2012.
Prosecutors say Torshin was Butina’s handler, but Driscoll has said he was only a friend and mentor with whom Butina traveled openly when he visited the United States.
Torshin was also among a number of Russian businessmen and officials sanctioned this year by the US Treasury Department for their ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and for their part in ‘‘advancing Russia’s malign activities.’’
Prosecutors have said they also found evidence that Butina has had contact with Russian intelligence.
FBI agents photographed her dining with a diplomat suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent. They found she had contact information for people suspected of being employed by Russia’s Federal Security Services, or FSB, the successor intelligence agency to the KGB. They also found notes in her home referring to a potential job offer from the FSB.
Just "suspected," huh?
The notes were found among the belongings of her boyfriend, conservative political operative Paul Erickson, who is referred to as ‘‘US Person 1’’ in court papers that allege he was Butina’s channel for establishing ties with the NRA.
Prosecutors have questioned the authenticity of Butina’s romantic relationship with Erickson, who is in his mid-50s. Driscoll has disputed the government’s characterization of the relationship.
Driscoll said during a hearing this summer that Butina cooperated with a federal fraud investigation into Erickson in South Dakota.
Erickson has not been charged with any crimes.
The case is being handled by the US attorney for the District of Columbia and not by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been leading an investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign as well as Russian interference in the 2016 US election.....
All this pos story does is support the narrative that the Russians interfered with and stole the election for Trump, and if the Dems don't win big in 2018 they can cry foul.
--more--"
Wow, she's smoking hot.
Also see:
"A Romanian national admitted Tuesday to his role in a brazen ATM-skimming scheme that resulted in $868,000 being pilfered from bank accounts in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, prosecutors said. Bogdan Viorel Rusu, 38, pleaded guilty in federal court in Springfield to charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft, according to the office of Andrew E. Lelling, the US attorney for Massachusetts. Rusu’s lawyer, Kevin G. Murphy, said he hopes for a sentence of three to four years on the fraud charges. The identity theft charge carries a mandatory two-year term to be served consecutively to any other sentence. According to prosecutors, Rusu and his coconspirators engaged in a widespread plot that targeted various banks in the three states between 2014 and 2016. They captured bank card information from customers using ATMs. Armed with that sensitive information, the thieves raided hundreds of individual bank accounts, stealing $364,419 from customers in Massachusetts, $75,715 from New York account holders, and $428,581 from New Jersey victims, Lelling’s office said in a statement....."
Related:
"A hacker known as Guccifer gained global notoriety after he hacked the e-mail accounts of US officials, including former secretary of state Colin Powell and members of the Bush family. He also claimed to have hacked the e-mails of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but prosecutors found no evidence of that. However, he was found to have hacked an e-mail account of Sidney Blumenthal, a confidant of Clinton, in March 2013. The subsequent leak of Blumenthal’s e-mails was the first time that outsiders became aware of Clinton’s private ‘‘clintonemail.com’’ address, which she used to communicate with Blumenthal. It became part of the investigation into whether Clinton mishandled sensitive e-mails. Among the Americans he hacked was ‘‘Sex and the City’’ author Candace Bushnell....."
Globe titillates you with that but goes no further.
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"Les Moonves, longtime CBS chief, steps down" by Edmund Lee New York Times September 09, 2018
NEW YORK — Leslie Moonves, the longtime chief executive of CBS Corp., stepped down Sunday night from the company he led for 15 years. His fall from Hollywood’s highest echelon was all but sealed after the publication earlier in the day of new sexual harassment allegations against him.
The CBS board announced his departure, effective immediately. As part of the agreement, the network said it would donate $20 million to one or more organizations that support equality for women in the workplace. The donation will be deducted from a potential severance benefit to Moonves, although he could still walk away with more than $120 million, according to two people familiar with the settlement agreement. Moonves, however, will not receive any severance payment until the completion of an independent investigation into the allegations, the board said. He could receive nothing, based on the investigation’s results.
Moonves’s departure marks a stunning reversal for an executive credited with turning CBS into television’s most-watched network, but he has been under intense pressure since July, when The New Yorker published an article by investigative journalist Ronan Farrow in which six women accused Moonves of sexual harassment.
For several weeks, Moonves has been grappling with two separate but equally fateful issues while negotiating a settlement with CBS Corp.’s board on his exit. In addition to the harassment allegations against him, Moonves has been involved in a protracted legal fight with the company’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone.
That Moonves could receive any money for stepping away from CBS outraged many in the entertainment industry and in the #MeToo movement. On Sunday, the magazine published another article by Farrow in which six more women detailed claims against Moonves.
The pace of the board’s deliberations accelerated after Farrow contacted the board last week regarding his latest article, according to one of the people familiar with the negotiations.
The incidents described in the two articles went back to the 1980s and brought the number of women now accusing Moonves of harassment to 12.
“It’s completely disgusting,” one of the accusers, Jessica Pallingston, told The New Yorker about the reports of Moonves’s potential exit package, which had been reported last week to total more than $100 million. “He should take all that money and give it to an organization that helps survivors of sexual abuse.”
The women claim that Moonves, 68, had forced himself on them and in some cases retaliated professionally after some declined his advances. One woman, a veteran television executive named Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department last year, according to The New Yorker. She said Moonves forced her to perform oral sex on him and, in another instance, had “violently” thrown her against a wall.
Whatever happened to Schneiderman anyway?
Golden-Gottlieb described encounters as having occurred nearly 40 years ago when Moonves was the leading executive at Lorimar Television, but other women in the article detailed harassment that they said happened while Moonves was at CBS. Moonves joined the network in 1995 and became chief executive in 2003.
Moonves did not respond to requests for comment from The New York Times on Sunday, but told The New Yorker, “The appalling accusations in this article are untrue.” He admitted to “consensual relations” with three of the women.
“In my 40 years of work, I have never before heard of such disturbing accusations,” Moonves continued. “I can only surmise they are surfacing now for the first time, decades later, as part of a concerted effort by others to destroy my name, my reputation, and my career.”
Public reaction was swift. Rachel Bloom, the star and co-creator of “Crazy Ex Girlfriend,” which airs on The CW, a network jointly owned by CBS and Warner Media, said on Twitter after The New Yorker article was published that Moonves should be fired without receiving any money, adding an expletive.
“The actions described in this article are those of sexual assault and shame on anyone else in the corporation who knew about his crimes,” she wrote.
When the most recent television season ended in May, CBS was the nation’s most-watched network for the 10th consecutive year — an accomplishment that had made Moonves one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. Now his departure has helped cast the future fortunes of the company in doubt.
Moonves has drawn an annual pay package worth $69.3 million. From 2006 to 2017, Moonves’s total compensation, including salary and stock awards, totaled more than $1 billion, according to Equilar, a research firm.
Shortly after the first New Yorker article was published, the CBS board enlisted two law firms to lead an inquiry into the claims against Moonves and the wider workplace culture at the network. The board soon after folded a separate examination of CBS News — underway since March — into the larger investigation.
The board hired Nancy Kestenbaum and Mary Jo White to conduct the inquiry. White led the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Obama administration and was previously the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Kestenbaum was also a federal prosecutor in the same district. The investigation into CBS News is also being overseen by the two law firms.
The talks included a potential payout to Moonves that could have been as much as $280 million, said one of the people briefed on the matter, before board members negotiated that down to more than $120 million, but a filing from April states the company would not have to pay Moonves if the board fired him for cause, such as violating company policies regarding sexual harassment.
The size of the payout had been a source of contention in the negotiations, said three people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity.....
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Look, the Moonves has gone dark.
"CBS sets aside $120 million for Moonves" by David Bauder Associated Press September 10, 2018
NEW YORK — CBS revealed Monday that it set aside $120 million in severance for ousted chief executive Leslie Moonves, but whether he sees a penny of it is one of the tough and potentially incendiary decisions the network faces after his resignation over sexual misconduct accusations.
Despite Moonves’ announced exit Sunday, outside lawyers hired by CBS continue to investigate allegations against him and Jeff Fager, the top executive at ‘‘60 Minutes.’’
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
Any payment to Moonves is likely to anger the #MeToo movement that has brought down other powerful men in Hollywood and the media, including Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein, NBC’s Matt Lauer, and CBS’ Charlie Rose.
Meanwhile, Moonves’ wife, Julie Chen, did not appear Monday on the season-opening episode of her daytime show, ‘‘The Talk,’’ and cohost Sharon Osbourne said on the air that ‘‘everyone here at CBS is nervous about their jobs.’’ CBS’s stock price slid.
As head of television’s most popular network, Moonves was among the most powerful and richest executives in the TV industry, making nearly $140 million over the last two years.
His exit was announced hours after The New Yorker posted a detailed story alleging misconduct. In two stories posted this summer, a total of 12 women have said they were mistreated by the TV mogul, including forced oral sex, groping, and retaliation if they resisted. Moonves has denied the charges, though he said he had consensual relations with some of the women.
Even before the latest New Yorker article came out, Moonves was already facing pressure to leave.
Osbourne said she was particularly taken by the story of Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, who told The New Yorker that Moonves pushed her head into his lap and forced her to perform oral sex when they both worked at the production company Lorimar in the late 1980s.
The New Yorker also reported Sunday that a former intern at ‘‘60 Minutes’’ three decades ago, Sarah Johansen, said that Fager groped her at a party. Fager is the gatekeeper for the most influential news show on television, and only the second executive producer it has ever had.
Earlier this summer, six former employees told the magazine that Fager had touched employees in ways that made them uncomfortable. Some women said Fager tolerated a workplace where men were protected.
Fager told the magazine that he had encouraged staff to talk to the lawyers investigating ‘‘60 Minutes,’’ and added: ‘‘I believe that a fair and open investigation will determine ‘60 Minutes’ is a good place where talented women and men thrive and produce some of the finest broadcast journalism in America.’’
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"‘60 Minutes’ producer Jeff Fager is ousted at CBS" by John Koblin and Michael Grynbaum September 12, 2018
NEW YORK — Jeff Fager, the longtime executive producer of “60 Minutes” on CBS, was fired on Wednesday for sending a bullying text message to one of the network’s reporters, just days after Leslie Moonves stepped down as the company’s chief executive following numerous allegations of sexual misconduct.
In recent articles in The New Yorker and The Washington Post, Fager had been accused of touching women at company parties in ways that made them feel uncomfortable and fostering a culture of harassment at “60 Minutes.”
He sent at least one text with a threatening tone to a reporter pursuing the story, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal issues.
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"Video shows Weinstein caressing woman before alleged rape" Associated Press September 13, 2018
NEW YORK — A video of Harvey Weinstein caressing and propositioning a woman who accused him of rape aired on television Wednesday.
Melissa Thompson, who sued Weinstein in June, said she made the recording, shown by Sky News, while demonstrating video technology for the movie mogul-turned-#MeToo villain at his New York City office in 2011.
Weinstein is seen on the video rejecting a handshake from Thompson and then hugging her instead and rubbing her back.
He then caresses her shoulder as they sit side-by-side in front of her laptop computer during what was supposed to be a business presentation.
At one point he tells her: ‘‘Let me have a little part of you. Can you give it to me?’’
That makes you want to vomit!
After quickly agreeing to use the technology to promote his movies, Thompson said, Weinstein put his hand up her dress.
The video, which captures the two from the waist up, doesn’t show Weinstein’s hands at that point, but it does show Thompson reacting with discomfort and telling Weinstein: ‘‘That’s too high. That’s too high.’’
It also shows her joking about his advances, saying, ‘‘Data is hot.’’
Weinstein’s lawyer said the full video ‘‘demonstrates that there is nothing forceful’’ and shows ‘‘casual, if not awkward, flirting from both parties.’’
‘‘Anything short of that is intended to make Mr. Weinstein appear inappropriate and even exploitative,’’ lawyer Ben Brafman said. ‘‘It was produced by Ms. Thompson to bolster her position in a civil lawsuit seeking money. This is a further attempt to publicly disgrace Mr. Weinstein for financial gain, and we will not stand for it. Facts do matter.’’
Thompson said she later met Weinstein at a nearby hotel bar, where she said she expected to close the technology deal. She said Weinstein instead led her to a hotel room and raped her.
Along the way, she said, he rebuffed her attempts to fight or get away.
‘‘If I would try to fight myself away from him, he would then move around to where he could block me in somewhere, and he’s a big individual,’’ Thompson told Sky News. ‘‘I constantly felt trapped, no matter where I turned.’’
It's the way he wobbled that fooled her.
Weinstein has been charged in New York with sexually assaulting three women. Thompson is not among them. Brafman says the defense team has stacked up ‘‘overwhelming evidence’’ from e-mail traffic and witness accounts to refute those allegations.
Weinstein is free on bail pending trial.
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Trump tweeted that “the glorification of these dangerous predators” must end!
"Lawyer calls Miss America report finding no bullying a whitewash" by Wayne Parry Associated Press September 10, 2018
ATLANTIC CITY — Hours after a new Miss America was crowned, the Miss America Organization released a report Monday denying the outgoing pageant winner had been bullied by pageant leaders, including chairwoman Gretchen Carlson.
She should know better after being harassed at Fox.
The lawyer for former Miss America Cara Mund called the report, commissioned by the Miss America Organization, ‘‘dishonest’’ and ‘‘a complete whitewash.’’
Mund was not interviewed for the report. She had offered to meet with an investigator working on the report after the next Miss America was crowned Sunday, but pageant officials insisted it had to happen before then.
The report was intended to put an end to a turbulent year in which the former leaders of the Miss America Organization were forced from office by a misogynistic e-mail scandal, new female leaders took over and dropped the swimsuit competition, state pageant officials revolted against the new leadership, and Mund herself took the extraordinary step of saying Carlson and chief executive Regina Hopper bullied her, but it does not appear the issue is going away anytime soon.....
Oh yes it is!
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"Magistrate to decide if Plymouth police captain will be charged with assaulting female officer" by Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff September 12, 2018
A Plymouth police captain appeared Tuesday before a clerk magistrate in a closed-door session in Fall River District Court to determine whether he should face a criminal charge over an allegation that he assaulted a female patrol officer at the station in mid-May, according to his lawyers.
The officer, Robin Hale, 33, also filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination about Captain John Rogers’s conduct, the agency said.
“She’s basically had to do this to ensure that she could continue with her work in a harassment- free environment,” said attorney Corinne Hood Greene, who represents Hale in her civil complaint to the anti-discrimination commission. “Even when her superiors were witnessing this behavior, nothing seemed to be done.”
The incident being reviewed by the clerk magistrate occurred May 15, according to attorney Robert Jubinville, who represents Rogers. Rogers and Hale have worked together for about seven years and during that period, Jubinville said, his client has touched Hale hundreds of times, including tapping her on the arm and giving her high-fives. The touching was never sexual and Hale never objected before the incident in May, he said. “He was a touchy-feely kind of guy. And she didn’t tell him to stop,” Jubinville said.
Those guys always creep me out.
The magistrate, John O’Neil, must decide whether there is probable cause for Rogers to face a criminal charge or whether the petition should be dismissed. O’Neil could also table the matter for the time being, raising the possibility that Hale’s petition would be dismissed if Rogers doesn’t face new accusations.
H Harrison, a spokesman for the anti-discrimination commission, said it’s investigating Hale’s complaint against Rogers and the Police Department. He declined to comment further and said the agency could not release the case file.
Rogers, a 33-year veteran of the department, has been on paid administrative leave since July, pending the outcome of the case, his lawyers said.
He was also investigated by a lawyer hired by the town in May after a police lieutenant complained that Hale had been sexually harassed, Jubinville said. That investigation, conducted by attorney Deborah Ecker, cleared Rogers of misconduct, he said. Ecker didn’t respond to messages left Tuesday.
In a statement, Plymouth Police Chief Michael E. Botieri said the department “believed this issue was already vetted through an independent outside investigation and had been resolved.”
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"Man charged with threatening fiancee and killing her dog in Peabody" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff September 12, 2018
A 31-year-old Lowell man who claimed to have mob ties is behind bars for allegedly killing his fiancee’s puppy over the weekend and threatening the woman, prosecutors said.
Think he knows Frank?
According to a Peabody police report filed in court, Jeremy Picchierri’s fiancee told police Sunday that Picchierri killed her 5-month-old golden retriever puppy, Jack, the day before inside a Peabody apartment the couple had been sharing.
Picchierri tried to leave the hospital upon seeing a North Andover police officer in the lobby and the fiancee also told police that Picchierri was aware of a phone call she had received on Saturday from an ex-boyfriend.
“When I asked [the fiancee] if there was any history of abuse in the relationship she reported that in July/Aug they had broken up and Jeremy threatened to ‘kill himself,’ at which time she decided to go back to him and accepted his marriage proposal,” the report said. “She also noted that two weeks ago while they were having a discussion of marriage, Jeremy told her ‘once we are married, that’s it. . . . you can’t leave me or I’ll kill you.’ ”
In addition, the fiancee told police that Picchierri previously mentioned having a gun, but she had never seen one. She obtained an emergency protective order against Picchierri in the aftermath of the weekend incident, records show.
A court officer held the heavyset Picchierri’s arm as the defendant, clad in a periwinkle collared shirt, listened to the proceedings with a glum expression on his face, according to footage posted of the hearing on the WCVB website.
His lawyer said Picchierri denies the charges and has no significant criminal record, WCVB reported.
That lawyer later turned the case over to prominent defense attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., who declined to comment to the Globe Wednesday when reached by e-mail.
Picchieri’s court appearance came on the same day that Richard Piquard, 24, was arraigned on charges of burying his ex-girlfriend’s dog alive in Northbridge.
Piquard allegedly buried the dog, who was later euthanized at an animal hospital, because his new kitten didn’t get along with the pooch, according to court filings.
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Also see:
Arraignment for Celtics’ Jabari Bird delayed as he remains hospitalized
Girlfriend says Celtics guard Jabari Bird choked her a dozen times
Paper seeking to unseal records
Red Sox wives walk the runway for charity
Fenway fan struck by bat is taken to hospital
Woman suffers serious injuries after bat flies into stands at Fenway Park
She got better and is now in good condition.
She welcomed the new netting, but is suing anyway (hoping for $1 billion in damages).
Want to hit the concession stand?
"Some McDonald’s workers vote to strike over sex harassment" by David Crary Associated Press September 13, 2018
NEW YORK — Emboldened by the #MeToo movement, McDonald’s workers have voted to stage a one-day strike next week at restaurants in 10 cities in hopes of pressuring management to take stronger steps against on-the-job sexual harassment.
Organizers say it will be the first multistate strike in the United States specifically targeting sexual harassment.
Plans for the walkout — to start at lunchtime on Sept. 18 — have been approved in recent days by ‘‘women’s committees’’ formed by employees at dozens of McDonald’s restaurants across the United States. Lead organizers include several women who filed complaints with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May alleging pervasive harassment at some of McDonald’s franchise restaurants.
The strike comes as union-backed organizations have been putting pressure on McDonald’s on several fronts for better working conditions, including $15 an hour wages — at a burger chain that employs tens of thousands of people around the country, many of them at low pay.
Organizers said the strike would target multiple restaurants — but not every local McDonald’s — in each of the 10 cities: Chicago; Durham, N.C.; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; Miami; Milwaukee; New Orleans; Orlando, Florida; San Francisco, and St. Louis.
They said they could not predict with precision how many workers would join the strike, but noted that hundreds of workers had participated in the committee meetings at which the strike was planned.
McDonald’s defended its anti-harassment efforts.
Labor lawyer Mary Joyce Carlson, who has been collaborating with women who filed the EEOC complaints, is an attorney for Fight for $15, a national movement seeking to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. She said McDonald’s has successfully resisted efforts to unionize its employees, and suggested that workers’ anger related to sexual harassment might fuel broader efforts to gain better working conditions.
Among the strike organizers is Tanya Harrell, 22, of New Orleans, who filed a complaint with the EEOC in May alleging that her two managers at a local McDonald’s teased her, but otherwise took no action after she told them of sustained verbal and physical harassment by a co-worker. Harrell, who makes $8.15 an hour, said she and many of her colleagues were skeptical of the company’s commitment to combating harassment.
‘‘They want people to think they care, but they don’t care,’’ she said. ‘‘They could do a way more better job.’’
Another organizer is Kim Lawson, 25, of Kansas City, who also filed an EEOC complaint alleging that managers responded ineffectively when she reported sexual harassment by a co-worker.
Lawson, who has a 4-year-old daughter, says she makes $9 an hour. She is heartened by strong support from other workers for the planned walkout.
‘‘Everybody’s been brave about it,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s time to stand up for what we believe in.’’
Thus far, the nearly year-old #MeToo movement has not triggered a strike targeting a specific US company. Last March, on International Women’s Day, there were broad-based calls for women to stay away from work in several countries, notably in Western Europe.
Annelise Orleck, a history professor at Dartmouth College who has written about low-wage workers, said she knows of only one precedent in the United States to the planned McDonald’s walkout.
In 1912, she said, several hundred garment workers at a corset factory in Kalamazoo, Mich., walked off the job in a strike prompted by pervasive sexual harassment, as well as other poor working conditions. The strikers did not win all of their demands, but succeeded in winning public support and drawing attention to workplace abuses.....
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I hope you don't need a place to stay for the night.
Rumors are that Stormy Daniels and Leonardo DiCaprio have been hooking up, and it could be serious.
Casey Affleck said Ben Affleck is ‘doing great’ in rehab
That's not what I heard.
Guy broke my heart.
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"Antitrust law, Net giants, speech: US treads on new ground" by Hiawatha Bray Globe Staff September 09, 2018
Plenty of legal scholars believe there are legitimate grounds to bring federal antitrust actions against Facebook, Google, and Twitter. But to go after them for political bias, or for stifling speech?
The legal world reacted with alarm to a surprise statement from US Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week that the Justice Department is considering investigating these companies over the way they present news and information and ban controversial voices from their platforms.
John Samples, vice president at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called it “a kind of bullying exercise” and added “there’s not much evidence that getting the government involved in social media is going to serve the cause of free speech.”
And at a left-of-center Washington think tank called Open Markets Institute, fellow Matt Stoller said that Sessions was “weaponizing” antitrust law. “We don’t think the antitrust division should be using its enforcement authority to go after political opponents of the White House,” Stoller said.
They didn't mind when it was Obama spying on the Trump campaign or using the IRS against conservative groups.
Last Wednesday, as executives of Twitter and Facebook were wrapping up testimony at a congressional hearing, the Justice Department e-mailed a terse statement, but lawmakers also addressed a litany of complaints from conservative political activists — that Facebook, Twitter, and the giant search service Google are run by avid liberals who suppress news, opinions, and other information with a conservative slant.
The issue first gained national attention in 2016, when the online publication Gizmodo reported that news editors at Facebook suppressed stories from conservative news sources. Since then, conservative critics have made similar claims, though none has provided proof of a deliberate effort to stifle their views.
President Trump recently cited a report from a conservative website, PJ Media, that claimed 96 percent of news stories on Google News were from sources with a “left-wing” bias. “Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good,” Trump wrote.
Days later, in an ominous foreshadowing of the Justice Department announcement, Trump said major Internet companies might be in “a very antitrust situation.”
Many critics of the Internet giants say there’s good reason to launch antitrust probes of Facebook and Google, companies that dominate multiple markets, including social media, search, e-mail, messaging, and advertising.
“The problem with Facebook and Google is that they’re running institutions that billions of people are using, and that’s too big,” said Stoller, who favors breaking up the Internet giants.
Like Stoller, Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University, believes Google and Facebook should be broken up because their sheer size scares off potential competitors, stifling innovation in every market these companies touch.
“The president indicating that he’s not averse to an antitrust investigation gives the Justice Department and the antitrust division considerable leeway,” said Wu, author of the forthcoming book “The Curse of Bigness,” which calls for a court-ordered breakup of Facebook, Google, and Amazon.
Meanwhile, more-conservative thinkers like Samples of the Cato Institute argue against legal action, because, they say, there’s little evidence consumers are being harmed, especially when almost all of the companies’s products and services are given away at no charge.
Moreover, they still face meaningful competition: Microsoft’s Bing search engine, for example, offers a high-quality alternative to Google’s, but on the matter of Internet “media bias,” there appears to be universal unease among scholars about the prospect of government intervention.
Wu said it might be necessary to pass legislation similar to the now-defunct Fairness Doctrine, which required radio and television broadcasters to provide equal time to opposing points of view. In practice, this led many stations to avoid broadcasting partisan programming of any kind. Abolition of the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan administration was widely considered a boon to conservatives, allowing stations to offer radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh’s program without providing equal time to liberal broadcasters with lower ratings.
Ironically, conservatives are now toying with the idea of a Fairness Doctrine for Internet companies. In an April meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee about social media bias, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina suggested that “you’ve got to have a validating system where the government can come in and validate that this whole system is neutral.”
As if they were neutral!
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At least they know where you are:
"Google’s location privacy practices are under investigation in Arizona" by Tony Romm Washington Post September 11, 2018
WASHINGTON — Google’s alleged practice of recording location data about Android device owners even when they believe they have opted out of such tracking has sparked an investigation in Arizona, where the state’s attorney general could potentially levy a hefty fine against the search giant.
No criminal charges?
Google spokesman Aaron Stein said in a statement that location data ‘‘helps us provide useful services when people interact with our products, like locally relevant search results and traffic predictions,’’ nothing that it collects that information in many ways.....
Yeah, nothing to see here.
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Whether we are speaking about government surveillance and invasions of privacy, corporate spying and intrusion, or voluntary self-reporting of private information, we cannot ignore the fact that we are living in a state of complete and perpetual surveillance.
"Google, Facebook dealt blow by EU lawmakers on copyright" by Natalia Drozdiak Bloomberg News September 13, 2018
BRUSSELS — Tech platforms and Internet activists protested the outcome of a European Parliament vote Wednesday to back copyright rules that would help video, music, and other rights holders seek compensation for use of their content online.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc., and other tech firms may soon be forced to negotiate licenses for content that appears on their sites, creating legal headaches for the companies, after lawmakers broadly supported a legislative proposal for new copyright rules, unveiled in 2016 by the European Commission.
The world would be so much better without an EU.
The European Parliament in July had rejected the rules but backed them in a final vote Wednesday after lawmakers submitted slight tweaks to the text, which included ensuring small platforms were excluded from the scope of the law.
If they fail to negotiate a license with video or music producers, tech firms could have to actively filter out copyrighted content from what users upload on their platforms, which has sparked concerns among Internet activists that this could lead to censorship. The parliament sought to address those concerns by ruling that any action platforms take to check uploads should avoid catching works that don’t infringe any copyrights.
That is what it is INTENDED to DO!
The parliament’s decision Wednesday is part of a broader push by legislators to make Web services more legally liable for what appears on their sites. Earlier Wednesday, the commission proposed new legislation forcing Internet companies to wipe Islamic State videos and other terror content from their services within an hour or face fines if they fail to do so. That effort by EU lawmakers marks a shift away from allowing tech platforms freedoms absolving them of such responsibility, partly in a bid to ensure growth in the sector.
European lawmakers “decided to support the filtering of the Internet to the benefit of big businesses in the music and publishing industries despite huge public outcry,” said Siada El Ramly, director general of Edima, an Internet platform association that includes Facebook and Google.
Wednesday’s decision by the parliament follows months of a bitter campaign and aggressive lobbying, with publishers and creators squaring off against tech firms and Internet activists and each side accusing the other of misleading legislators.
Julia Reda, an Internet activist and German member of European Parliament, said the decision was “a severe blow to the free and open Internet” and that the parliament was putting “corporate profits over freedom of speech.”
NOOOOOOOOO!!
Copyright holders for music, images, and other content believe rules are needed to negotiate fair compensation for their work from Web companies like Google and Facebook, who they say indirectly profit from displaying their content and running advertising.
Then I will stop providing links to their videos.
For copyrighted works, services like Google’s YouTube already use technology that scans and identifies protected content that’s uploaded. Copyright owners can then either have the material taken down or choose to make money from it by running ads and sharing revenue with the uploader, but under the new rules, Facebook and Google would be required to prevent works from appearing on their sites at all if rights holders demand it.
“Today is a victory for Europe and its independence from a few tech giants who have profited off outdated legislation,”said Anders Lassen, president of GESAC, a European umbrella association of authors and composers. The association added the rules “will at last provide the tools to ensure the fair remuneration that creators have been asking for.”
Oh, it's a MONEY GRAB!
The new copyright rules supported by the parliament would also grant publishers new legal rights to help them seek compensation from search engines like Google for displaying small fragments of their articles. While Google News recently stopped showing such snippets under article headlines, depending on the final version of the law, the links and headlines could also be covered by the rules.
The final version of the law still needs to be agreed with the commission and EU member states, who also broadly support the commission’s proposal, before it enters into force.
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Forget the new phone then:
"Apple to kick off product blitz with iPhone Xs line, new watches" by Mark Gurman Bloomberg News September 10, 2018
Apple will kick off a blitz of new products this week, ending a year of minor updates and setting the technology giant up for a potentially strong holiday quarter.
Through the rest of 2018, the world’s most valuable public company will launch three new iPhones, revamped iPad Pros, Apple Watches with larger screens, a new entry-level laptop with a sharper screen, a pro-focused Mac mini desktop computer, and new accessories like the AirPower wireless charger.
The focus will be on Apple’s latest iPhones. It’s still the company’s most-important product, generating about two-thirds of revenue and spurring purchases of other Apple devices, along with services like app subscriptions, movie downloads, and iCloud storage. While smartphone market growth has slowed, higher prices have helped Apple keep expanding and it has gained market share.
Looming over Wednesday’s event will be tariffs imposed on products from China by President Trump. Apple warned last week that this will raise prices for some of its popular offerings.....
Then just don't carry one.
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At least they can get the lithium someplace else.
Facebook ramps up effort to combat fake images, video
Facebook uncovers attempts to influence upcoming midterms
At least Trump is doing something about it.
Social media makes family members less social
Must be China's fault.
"Alibaba sets up $2b Russia venture with Kremlin help" by Ilya Khrennikov Bloomberg News September 11, 2018
MOSCOW — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is setting up a $2 billion joint venture with billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s Internet services firm Mail.ru Group Ltd. to strengthen the Chinese company’s foothold in Russian e-commerce.
The deal is backed by the Kremlin through the Russian Direct Investment Fund and the local investors will collectively control the new business. Alibaba’s Russian unit AliExpress mostly sells goods imported from China and hasn’t had to worry about competition from Amazon.com Inc. because the US behemoth has little presence in the country.
“A big part of what we’ve been able to develop so far in Russia has been our cross-border business,” said Alibaba president Mike Evans. “But the future, which will require the presence of our partners at this table, will involve building a much bigger local business.”
The parties inked the deal at a Vladivostok economic forum attended by President Vladimir Putin and Alibaba chairman Jack Ma. The Chinese firm had been negotiating a similar deal with Sberbank PJSC, Russia’s largest bank, but abandoned talks after the lender partnered with Yandex NV instead.....
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Also see: Russia, China conduct joint war games
Looks like a challenge to US supremacy.
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Hungary’s leader rejects criticism in EU parliament debate
"EU parliament votes to punish Hungary for backsliding on democracy" by Michael Birnbaum The Washington Post September 12, 2018
BRUSSELS — European lawmakers voted Wednesday to initiate sanctions proceedings against the Hungarian government for what they said was backsliding on democracy, an extraordinary censure for a nation that was once a beacon of post-Communist transformation.
The decision creates head winds for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ambitious quest to remake the continent in his model of ‘‘illiberal democracy’’ — a bloc that would be closer to Russia, less open to migration, and less concerned about independent judiciaries, a free press, and minority rights.
That is the problem right there.
Despite the vote’s symbolism, however, it is probably too late for Orban’s critics to succeed in blocking Hungary’s EU voting rights or win major concessions from him. Orban has teamed up with Poland, another EU country that has been slapped for rule-of-law problems, to protect each other against punitive measures targeting either nation that require the unanimous vote of all 28 EU countries.
See: Polish leader slammed for saying EU has little relevance
Orban on Tuesday attacked European lawmakers in a fiery speech at the parliamentary chambers in Strasbourg, France, saying, Europe had no right to interfere in the actions of a sovereign government. ‘‘Hungary will not accede to this blackmailing, and if needed we will stand up to you.’’
Orban, who has been elected four times and now presides over what is effectively a one-party state, has been a thorn in the side of EU leaders since he came back to office in 2010. He cracked down on media freedoms, rewrote laws to favor his center-right Fidesz party, and has blasted Brussels for allowing a wave of more than 1 million migrants into Europe in 2015.
When Orban began consolidating power after his 2010 election victory, he was largely the only leader in the EU promoting what he calls his ‘‘illiberal’’ platform. Since then, far-right politicians have gained ground across the continent, including in Italy, where they are in government, and in Sweden, where an anti-immigrant party won its best result to date in elections on Sunday.
Along the way, Orban has been shielded by his alliance with fellow center-right European leaders as part of the European People’s Party, an arrangement that gives them control of the European Parliament and, other leaders have said, more sway over his moves at home.
The partnership has created increasing uneasiness as leaders who portray themselves as defenders of liberal European values, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have found themselves covering for Orban as he cracks down on civil society and the free press.....
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The proposals come as EU nations bicker over who should take responsibility for people rescued in the Mediterranean Sea.
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"N.H., R.I. hold primaries this week: Here are the races to watch" by James Pindell Globe Staff September 11, 2018
The finale of New England’s primary election season is at hand: This week, New Hampshire and Rhode Island will be among the last states in the nation to pick major party nominees for the midterm elections.
Wait, is New Hampshire voting on a Jewish holiday? And is Rhode Island voting on a Wednesday?
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, complicated the primary calendar in many states.
Well, if that doesn't ground you, I don't know what will.
So what are the top races in both states?
In New Hampshire, all eyes are on the 11-way Democratic primary in the state’s First Congressional District, currently represented by Democrat Carol Shea-Porter, who is retiring.
Two candidates lead the pack in advertising and fund-raising. Maura Sullivan, an Iraq war veteran and former Obama Administration official, moved to the state just few months before announcing her campaign. She is the Washington-establishment pick and has raised more money for Congress — nearly $2 million — than any other person in the history of the state. Her main rival is Executive Councilor Chris Pappas, a darling of the New Hampshire Democratic establishment.
Related:
"Democratic voters in New Hampshire on Tuesday selected Molly Kelly, a former state senator, as their nominee for governor, as female candidates for governorships continue to show their strength in primary elections this year. Kelly’s victory brings to 15 the number of women who have won governor’s nominations, a record. Backed by the local political establishment — she was endorsed by both of the state’s US senators — Kelly, 68, defeated Steve Marchand, a former mayor of Portsmouth who ran to her left, according to results compiled by the Associated Press. Her road to the governor’s mansion, however, is uphill: In the general election, she will face the Republican incumbent, Chris Sununu, who is one of the most popular governors in the country. In another contest in the state, voters went to the polls to select candidates for a crucial open seat in the First Congressional District, a perennial swing district. On the Democratic side, Executive Councilor Chris Pappas, an openly gay former state lawmaker who is serving his third term on the governor’s Executive Council, runs a family restaurant in Manchester, had the backing of the state’s US senators, and said he is grounded in issues that voters care about....."
The other nine candidates are almost all running to the left of Sullivan and Pappas, and, the thinking goes, will divvy the progressive side of the electorate. Predicting the outcome of this race is as difficult as it was last week to foretell the winner of last week’s Democratic primary in the Massachusetts Third Congressional District.
The state took over the recount and the loser will be the winner.
In Rhode Island, all the chatter is about the race for governor.
First-term Democratic incumbent Gina Raimondo faces a serious challenge from the left by former secretary of state Matt Brown. The contentious campaign even featured a fight between Raimondo, the state’s first female governor, and feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem, who supports Brown, over abortion rights.
Raimondo is not especially popular with the liberal base of her party, but she has the cash advantage: In all, she will have spent about $4 million on this race, compared with Brown’s $400,000. Raimondo has refused to debate Brown and the third Democrat in the race, former state representative Spencer Dickinson.
The front-runner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, won’t debate his opponents, either. His leading opponent is House Republican Leader Patricia Morgan, who is running as the conservative favorite. Although Rhode Island is a deep blue state, don’t assume that a Republican can’t unseat the Democratic incumbent. Raimondo was elected with just 41 percent of the vote, in a three-way contest. Her approval ratings haven’t improved much beyond that number. Polls show a tie between Raimondo and Fung.
See: R.I. governor fight will mirror 2014
That means the Republican wins this time?
OK, so those races are getting all the attention, but are there any that deserve more notice?
Totally.
In New Hampshire there are two other races of note. Democrats will pick a nominee to take on first-term Republican Governor Chris Sununu. And Republicans will choose a candidate to represent them in the First Congressional District race.
Finally, an overlooked race in Rhode Island features a narrative common in Democratic primaries this season, in which a progressive upstart tries to unseat a more conservative incumbent. Lieutenant Governor Dan McKee, 67, faces a vigorous challenger in state Representative Aaron Regunberg, 28, an activist with union backing.
So what’s going to happen?
Who knows?
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"In N.H. election stunner, a onetime refugee knocks off entrenched incumbent" by Michael Levenson Globe Staff September 12, 2018
He’s a veteran state representative who has railed against immigrants “getting everything” at the expense of people born and raised in the state. She’s a 27-year-old former Afghan refugee making her first run for political office.
So when the tally from Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Concord, N.H., was announced, even Safiya Wazir said she was astounded. She hadn’t just beaten state Representative Dick Patten, a 66-year-old former city councilor. She crushed him, winning 329 votes to his 143.
“When I heard the results, I was shocked, and I had this look, like, ‘Did I hear that right?’ ” she said Wednesday. “And I looked down and, oh my gosh, it’s true. It was absolutely outstanding. I couldn’t believe I won the primary.”
The upset seemed to reflect the insurgent energy that is propelling women and people of color in primaries across the country, from Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old political newcomer who won a New York congressional primary in June, to Ayanna Pressley, the Boston city councilor who defeated a 10-term incumbent earlier this month.
See: Final Tip of the Capuano
Only this match-up unfolded on a much smaller stage: Ward 8 in Concord, a district that encompasses the blue-collar neighborhood known as the Heights, home to a mall and numerous fast-food outlets. Like many races featuring women and nonwhite candidates, this one, too, dredged up darker sentiments and resentments. New Hampshire, in particular, is a predominantly white state, where relatively few candidates of color run for office, and even people from outside the state can be looked on skeptically, let alone women born in Afghanistan.
The Globe is saying New Hampshire is a racist state!
Patten said he is now planning to support Wazir’s Republican opponent, Dennis Soucy, in the November election because Soucy and his wife “have been on the Heights for over 50 years.”
Wazir dismissed Patten’s comments, saying she ran to be a voice for all New Hampshire residents, regardless of how long they have lived in the state.
“We have a diversity that is rising up, and we want to be able to have everybody heard in the State House,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re native born or refugee.”
Actually, it does.
Wazir’s unlikely path to New Hampshire politics began when she was 6, and her family fled the Taliban in Afghanistan and moved to Uzbekistan, where she was taunted by classmates who called her “terrorist” and “Taliban kid.”
She lived in Uzbekistan until 2007, when she was 16 and moved with her mother to Concord. She graduated from Concord High School and became an American citizen in 2013. Three years later, after juggling jobs at Walmart and the campus library, she received a degree in business from NHTI, the local community college.
Married with two daughters, ages 5 and 2, and pregnant with a third child due in January, she said she never considered running for office until earlier this year, when a friend who works for the New Hampshire Children’s Trust suggested she consider challenging Patten.
The Children’s Trust had given Wazir an “Unsung Hero Award” in February, in recognition of her involvement with Head Start, where she has served on the policy council, parent committee, and State Parent Advisory Committee, but Wazir said she didn’t immediately see herself as a candidate.
A fixture in local politics, Patten is known for organizing the State House’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony and the city’s holiday parade.
Wazir launched her candidacy in June, after a crucial endorsement from her mother, who promised to watch her children while she campaigned, and told her: “You’ve got this. Go for it.”
Despite nausea during the first trimester of her pregnancy, and 90-degree heat, she knocked on doors across the Heights, returning home so heat-stricken she said she “looked like a tomato.”
She must have done better than Wu.
“I had no negative things said about me,” Wazir said. “People would open their doors and welcome me, and talk to me for 10, 15 minutes. That was warming for me.”
She campaigned on a promise to fight for expanded Medicaid coverage, increased funding for early childhood education, and paid parental leave, issues that resonate with her own life story as a young mother raising a growing family.
How about ending the wars?
Lucas Meyer, president of the New Hampshire Young Democrats, said his group also paid for mailers and automated calls and text messages to help her. Wazir said she hopes her victory on Tuesday encourages other women, immigrants, and political newcomers to defy expectations and run for office.
“I want to be an example to everybody that, actually, you can do it,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not from here, and you’re not born here. I want to show them that, yes, you can do this.”
It does matter here, and yes we can!
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"DA candidate is hailed nationally, but locally her plan not to prosecute petty crimes alarms some" by Maria Cramer Globe Staff September 13, 2018
She has gotten a shout-out from Barack Obama and has compared notes with Larry Krasner, the civil rights lawyer who last year rode a liberal wave to become Philadelphia’s district attorney.
Since becoming the first black woman to win the Democratic nomination for Suffolk district attorney, Rachael Rollins has received national attention for her breakthrough victory, seen widely as a symbol of a new era of criminal justice reform, but locally, one of Rollins’s major campaign proposals has raised skepticism and even alarm in legal and law enforcement circles. Specifically, her plan to forgo prosecution of 15 offenses, ranging from trespassing to drug possession with intent to distribute, has drawn criticism from police and even some criminal defense attorneys.
Declining to prosecute less serious crimes, an about-face from decades of tough-on-crime policies, would help break a cycle of incarceration that falls heavily on minorities, proponents say.
Rollins unveiled the list of offenses she would not prosecute weeks before she won the Sept. 4 primary, but since she emerged from a five-candidate field to become the clear favorite to win election in November, her proposals have been receiving closer scrutiny.
Doesn't that encourage crime?
In a result that stunned political observers. Rollins easily defeated Greg Henning, a longtime prosecutor who had the backing of police. She received 40 percent of the vote. She now faces Michael Maloney, a Brockton defense attorney who’s running as an independent.
Rollins, 47, said she came up with the list of crimes she wouldn’t prosecute after meeting with prosecutors, defense attorneys, and retired judges to learn what kinds of cases were clogging up the court system. She said her goal is to free prosecutors from pursuing charges against low-level offenders so they can have more time to focus on violent crimes.
Except violent crime is at record low levels.
Lesser crimes could still be prosecuted in “exceptional circumstances” after the line prosecutor has sought permission from a supervisor, according to a description she posted on her campaign website.
“I think what’s getting lost is what I really want to focus on are the violent individuals and offenses that represent a danger to our community,” Rollins said.
Her plan has also sparked debate in the legal and law enforcement communities over whether it represents a substantial departure from prosecutorial norms or simply advances an ongoing trend in criminal justice.
Dismissing cases outright would help defendants avoid the stigma of a criminal record, said Zachary Lown, a criminal defense attorney who practices in Roxbury and Dorchester. “It’s impossible to get a job with a criminal record . . . or get an apartment or a place to live. It’s a moral issue,” Lown said.....
Now you know they have lost!
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The Globe says her plan has merit as the current DA steps down.
Rosenberg asks judge to dismiss parts of civil lawsuit against him
In ad war over ballot question, both sides give nurses leading roles
Three ballot campaigns, $14 million raised (so far)
ER STAT!
"Some patients with mental illness, particularly children, are spending days stuck in tiny windowless rooms in hospital emergency departments waiting for treatment, a persistent problem despite new statewide rules designed to resolve the backlogs. From February through May, 155 patients in mental health crisis spent at least four consecutive days in an emergency room, according to Massachusetts officials who began gathering the data six months ago. A few patients slept or “boarded’’ in the ER for two weeks. Many others waited two to three days for a spot to open in a psychiatric facility. In most cases, patients are not allowed to go outside — or even leave their rooms — and do not have access to a shower. Television is usually the primary distraction....."
How much are they being paid?
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Trump pays tribute to heroes of Flight 93
He's not helping by reinforcing the narrative while pissing on Palestinians and getting ready for war on Iran. I know, Deep State and all, well, pfffffft!
September Morn
17 years after 9/11, the United States and Al Qaeda Are On the Same Side!
"Theories about the 9/11 attacks run in the extreme; however, it is clear from the official investigations that the US intelligence community--particularly the CIA and the FBI--hid evidence before and after the fact and have a great deal of accounting for their horribly poor performance. Robert Mueller, who came in as FBI Director weeks before 9/11, went out of his way to conceal evidence from the Congressional inquiry. He argued for the burying of the 28 pages. Protecting the FBI from embarrassing disclosures took precedent over getting at the truth about the 9/11 attacks. The fruits of that perfidy have carried forward in ways that were clearly not imagined at the time of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent coverup....."
9/11 War Games
Israel Did 911
That's all the proof you need as others reflect on it.
"As politicians and others went on Twitter Tuesday to mark the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Trump used the platform to launch a fresh round of assaults on the FBI and Justice Department. Apparently seizing on allegations leveled the night before by a conservative ally in Congress, he referred in particular to two former FBI officials who became infamous for trading anti-Trump texts: Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The president repeated a claim from Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, that the pair had employed a ‘‘media leak strategy’’ to undermine his administration. He blamed the bureau and Justice Department for inaction on the matter. Meadows’ claim is debatable. Strzok’s attorney said his client’s reference to a ‘‘media leak strategy’’ was an effort to stem unauthorized disclosures of information. Both Strzok and Page have since left the FBI — Strzok because he was fired for his anti-Trump texts. The tweet came amid a string of tweets Tuesday morning, with Trump interspersing messages about Sept. 11 with his thoughts on the Justice Department, apparently quoting from a segment on Fox News....."
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Bombing of peaceful protest in Afghanistan kills at least 32
Taliban say they’re ready for second round of talks with US
Then why attacking up and down the frontier as U.S. pulls back -- unless not Taliban and a CIA anti-Taliban paramilitary?
"US-backed forces launch what may be last big battle against ISIS in Syria" by Liz Sly Washington Post September 11, 2018
BEIRUT — US-backed forces have launched what they hope will be the final battle for territory in the four-year-old war against the Islamic State with an assault on the militants’ last major holdout in the eastern Syrian desert, the US military said Tuesday.
Ground forces with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces began the offensive Monday night, advancing toward Hajin on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, aided by US airstrikes, US and SDF officials said.
Hajin is the largest town in an approximately 95-square-mile stretch of mostly desert terrain along the river’s east bank. Conquest of this territory would mark an effective end to the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate, which at its peak in 2014-2015 spanned vast areas of Syria and Iraq.
The battle, however, won’t spell an end to the threat posed by the militants, who are regrouping in pockets of territory in Iraq and maintain cells scattered across the vast desert area to the west of the Euphrates, which is under Syrian government control.
US military officials say they are anticipating a tough fight for the Hajin area, which has served as the final retreat for Islamic State fighters who chose not to surrender or flee earlier battles. US and SDF estimates put their number at between 1,500 and 2,500, out of an army that may have once numbered as many as 100,000, but they include the toughest and most ideologically committed militants of the entire war, with experience gained in battles such as Mosul and Raqqa. They are unlikely to give up easily, said Colonel Sean Ryan, a US military spokesman in Baghdad.
‘‘We’re thinking it’s going to be a very difficult battle, and it’s not going to be a quick one,’’ Ryan said.
All an excuse to stay.
Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the SDF forces, which will bear the brunt of the ground fighting, said many foreign fighters are among those making a last stand in the Hajin pocket.
It has also been widely speculated that the town, or one of the surrounding villages, could be the hiding place of top Islamic State officials, including perhaps their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Tuesday that he ‘‘wouldn’t be surprised’’ if some ISIS leaders were in the Hajin area, but, Gabriel said, it is more likely that Baghdadi has already escaped the US-led coalition’s dragnet and is taking refuge in one of the other pockets of terrain loosely controlled by the Islamic State.
Baghdadi, the CIA-Mossad cut out creation, has been in and out of the grave so many times, and yet here they are waving him at you again.
The offensive in eastern Syria comes at a time when international attention has been focused elsewhere in the country: on Idlib province in the northwest, where Syrian government forces are massing for a possible assault on a rebel stronghold.
Oh, then this is a distraction!
The offensive for Hajin, code named Operation Roundup, has been months in the making. It comes after Trump administration officials put an end to the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the northeastern Syrian enclave controlled by the SDF by declaring that US troops would stay there indefinitely.
The United States maintains about 2,000 troops in northeastern Syrian, across an area amounting to more than a quarter of the country. They were dispatched there to aid in the fight against the Islamic State and in the process facilitated the expansion of the Kurdish-dominated SDF into vast areas of mostly Arab-populated territory.
The withdrawal of the troops would have left the area vulnerable to the ambitions of the Syrian government to reclaim all of the territory it lost after the uprising against President Bashar al Assad in 2011, but earlier this month, Trump administration officials said they had switched course, and that US troops will remain indefinitely in the area, pending an overall solution to the Syrian war, both to ensure that the Islamic State doesn’t return and that Iran doesn’t expand its influence there.
That last point is the real reason they are staying (because it is what Israel wants)!
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Related:
"This is the ‘carte blanche’ U.S. forces need to muscle into Idlib on the back of their self-styled mandate for occupying Syria which is to “Fight ISIS.” Recent statements from the U.S. about intervening in Idlib may have alluded to this very possibility. Such a move by U.S. would exacerbate an already tense situation between the Syrian and Russian coalition at attempting to liberate the province from its al-Qaeda led terrorist occupation. Add to this, a confused Turkey who is torn between the rebel-terrorists groups it’s been hosting and supporting for the last 7 years and wanting to also eliminate any Kurdish opposition in northern Syria – while trying to maintain a respectable face with its Astana and NATO partners. A staged chemical stunt may not be needed by the US to intervene in Idlib, if instead ‘ISIS’ becomes the US imperative, thus using the cut-out bait terror group to justify the ongoing US disruption and illegal ‘train and equip’ operations in Syria. As long as ISIS fighters are there, so are U.S. forces – such is official Washington’s public-facing policy....." -- Problem, Reaction, Solution: US Bait Arrived in Idlib, ISIS Now in Position
Also see: Syrian troops celebrate recapture of Jordan border crossing
As Russian military police were seen taking up positions on both sides.
"ISIS attacks in West drop sharply, but threat remains high" by Rukmini Callimachi September 13, 2018
Since the lightning rise of the Islamic State group in 2014, law enforcement has scrambled to stop an endless array of plots. It is only now, more than four years after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate, that the cadence has finally slowed.
Islamic State attacks in the West fell steeply in 2018 compared with the previous four years, the first time the number has fallen since 2014, but the number of attempted attacks remained steady, suggesting that the group remains committed to carrying out catastrophic harm.
The difference, analysts say, is that law enforcement is increasingly foiling the plots.
Good thing they have instigators, 'er, informants planted inside them.
The Islamic State remains the world’s deadliest terrorist organization, and its attacks are on the rise in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the West, not only has the number of attacks plummeted, but the devastation inflicted by each has also declined.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has lost 99 percent of the land it once held in Iraq and Syria, and the fight to evict it from the last vestige started this week. Some analysts have linked the drop in activity to the loss of territory, but the number of attempted attacks in Europe has remained unchanged, according to data collected by the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. That data suggest that while the Islamic State’s capacity may have been diminished, its effort has not.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said several advances had made them better at hunting terrorists: “Closer monitoring of social media. Better understanding of the networks. And better coordination with other countries.”
That is where the print piece ended.
RELATED:
"A tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself. At first, Emet floundered, without an executive director or a well-defined mission. But that changed after Sept. 11, and Emet changed too, into what is now the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The name is different, but the goal of influencing America's opinion-forming classes remains. What makes all of this possible is the support the foundation receives from its billionaire backers. Its nearly $3 million annual budget comes from 27 major donors, most of whom are members of "the Study Group"--also sometimes called the "Mega Group" because of their sizeable contributions--a semi-formal organization of major Jewish philanthropists who meet twice a year to discuss joint projects. Leonard Abramson was the point man for establishing Emet. He, Michael Steinhardt, and Edgar Bronfman were the foundation's board of directors at the time of its incorporation in the spring of 2001....."
Yeah,"We are Israelis. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are your problem," and here is what his daughter has been up to:
"An heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune was arrested Tuesday in connection with her work with an upstate New York self-improvement organization accused of branding some of its female followers and forcing them into unwanted sex. Clare Bronfman, a daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., and three other people associated with the NXIVM organization were taken into custody and charged with racketeering conspiracy, the US attorney’s office announced....."
She claims she was drunk, and she finally knows what it feels like to be a Gazan.
The web continued with this:
Electronic surveillance has been crucial.
Most of the attacks in 2016 and 2017 were carried out by people who were introduced to the Islamic State online and whose only connection to the group was a Wi-Fi signal. In a growing number of instances, they were directed by one of the group’s cyber-coaches — men based in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and beyond — who guided them from the planning to the execution of a plot.
Law enforcement agencies have increasingly been able to infiltrate this online universe, analysts say, sometimes lurking in the Islamic State’s chat rooms on Telegram, the encrypted messaging platform that is the group’s preferred medium.
In 2016, a Toronto teenager, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, used the app to make contact with an Islamic State member who went by the screen name Kill Kuffars, meaning infidels. In a series of feverish chats, the two made plans to meet in New York City with the aim of carrying out a “Paris- or Brussels-like terrorist attack,” federal authorities said.
Bahnasawy recruited a third accomplice in the New York area, whom he also met on an encrypted app, and shipped 40 pounds of hydrogen peroxide, the raw ingredient used to make the explosive TATP, to the accomplice’s home address. They researched renting a cabin in the woods to assemble the bomb and swapped maps of the New York subway, with arrows indicating where the explosives should be placed, but the New York accomplice was an undercover FBI agent. Bahnasawy was arrested, days after his 18th birthday, in a hotel parking lot just before reaching the city.
We have met the enemy and HE IS US!!
That is how you keep endless wars going and impose the tyranny of fear at home.
With each arrest, authorities seize the suspects’ cellphones and electronics, download their contacts and study their chats, turning one arrest into an opportunity to roll up an entire network. For more than a year after Bahnasawy’s arrest, authorities kept his imprisonment secret in an effort not to tip off Kill Kuffars. Kill Kuffars, a 19-year-old American living in Pakistan whose real name is Talha Haroon, was eventually arrested.
Did they trace it back to his CIA handler?
As terrorist attacks have declined, arrests have soared. In 2014, there were 395 terrorism-related arrests in Europe. In 2016 and 2017 there were more than 700, according to data collected by Kacper Rekawek, who heads the defense and security program at Globsec, a Slovakia-based research institute.
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God help us all:
"The highest-ranking American at the Vatican insisted Tuesday he never knew or even suspected that his former boss, disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, allegedly sexually abused boys and adult seminarians, telling The Associated Press he is livid that he was kept in the dark because he would have done something about it. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican’s family and laity office, spoke as the U.S. church hierarchy has come under fire from ordinary American Catholics outraged that McCarrick’s misconduct with men was apparently an open secret in some U.S. church circles. Some Catholic commentators have speculated that Farrell must have at least heard the rumors that Catholic laity, students and professors at Catholic University in Washington and even some journalists had heard. Farrell lived with McCarrick and other priests and bishops in a converted school building off Dupont Circle that serves as a residence for Washington clergy, but Farrell said he never heard any rumors about his boss’ penchant for young men, or suspected anything, and was not McCarrick’s roommate, as some bloggers have claimed. “That might be hard for somebody to believe, but if that’s the only thing on your mind, well, never once did I even suspect. Now, people can say ‘Well you must be a right fool that you didn’t notice.’ I must be a right fool, but I don’t think I am. And that’s why I feel angry.”
Nice trick. He turns the outrage out at the accusers and says, well, if that's the only thing on your mind.
Related:
Vatican promises ‘clarifications’ to coverup claims
You know it is bad when you have to cover up the cover up.
Pope to meet US bishops Thursday over abuse scandal
O’Malley tells panel in Rome church must hear the voices of abuse victims
Did you see who came with O’Malley?
What do you mean they won't be prosecuting?
"Pope Francis summons world’s bishops to a meeting about sexual abuse" by Jason Horowitz and Laurie Goodstein New York Times September 12, 2018
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has summoned bishops from around the world to Rome for an unprecedented meeting focused on protecting minors, the Vatican announced Wednesday. The order comes as the pope wrestles with a global clerical sexual abuse crisis and explosive accusations of a cover-up that have shaken his papacy and the entire Roman Catholic Church.
The extraordinary meeting marks the first time that presidents of bishops conferences worldwide have been summoned for a meeting on a specific topic — more than 100 will be there — and the choice of topic was telling.
After three decades of denial, the Vatican is being forced to treat the sex-abuse problem as a global crisis, and not the failing of a particular country or culture.
When the scandal surfaced in the United States in the mid-1980s, Vatican officials called it an American phenomenon, church historians say. When it spread to Canada, Ireland, England, and Australia, they framed it as a problem of the church in English-speaking countries. Then, when the scandal erupted in Germany, Belgium, France, and Austria around 2010, during the papacy of Benedict XVI, the Vatican termed it a problem of the developed world, born of sexual libertinism.
Related:
"The German Bishops Conference said in a written response a few hours later that it regretted the leaking of the report, but that the study confirms ‘‘the extent of the sexual abuse’’ that took place. In 2010, the German church was roiled by a sex abuse scandal triggered by the head of a Jesuit school in Berlin who went public about decades-long sexual abuse of high school students by clergy. Following that, a whole wave of victims who were sexually abused by clergy spoke out across the country....."
That's where Ratzinger was based!
Now, with cases of priests sexually abusing children emerging in Chile and the Philippines, the Vatican may finally be adopting an international approach.....
The cases are coming in vanloads.
--more--"
There are more allegations of harassment and coverups, and a task force for will be needed to get to the bottom of things.
Nuns seek arrest of a bishop in India accused of rape
They will do you one better, and maybe it is time to let the nuns take over.
Pope rejects death penalty in all cases
I can see why. They want to save their own skins.
Irish government says Trump has postponed Nov. trip to Dublin
They protest him but let the Pope in.
I'd say convert to Protestant, but....
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"It isn’t just Boston that has school bus problems" by James Vaznis Globe Staff September 11, 2018
The extent of the driver shortage facing Transdev and the school system remains unclear because Boston school officials have repeatedly refused to answer questions from the Globe about the problem. Officials won’t say how many bus routes had no drivers assigned to them prior to the start of the school year.
Initially, school officials blamed the busing problems at the charter schools on “unexpected driver absences” and for two days released related data, but the school system abruptly stopped sharing that information with the public after Mayor Martin J. Walsh made his comments on the last-minute hiring.
Transdev and the drivers union have been locked in prolonged contract negotiations, and the union has threatened to take its issues to the picket line if its members cannot get a fair contract.
Interim Superintendent Laura Perille refused an interview request Tuesday.
Related: Groups demand BPS interim superintendent be barred from permanent job
Globe says give her a chance.
Transdev could not be reached for comment.
The school system, however, released on-time performance data for Monday and Tuesday, saying each day represented an improvement over the previous year. Some 80 percent of buses arrived at school on time Monday, and 71 percent did so on Tuesday, the first day of kindergarten.
On Monday afternoon, 82 percent of buses arrived at school on time for dismissal.
Some parents plan to present their frustrations over late buses and uncovered routes to the Boston School Committee Wednesday, at its first meeting in two months. The School Committee is scheduled to talk about the contract negotiations — behind closed doors.
Andrew Berg, whose son attends third grade at the Mather Elementary School in Dorchester, said he is not surprised by the last-minute hiring. His son did not arrive home until 90 minutes after his scheduled drop-off after the first day of school. And as Berg followed the bus on a “Where’s My School Bus” app, it appeared the driver was lost as the bus criss-crossed Dorchester. Berg didn’t know if the driver was new.
He couldn't follow the MIT map?
“He definitely didn’t know where he was going,” Berg said. “He looked confused.”
He added, “Nobody is being sufficiently transparent.”
--more--"
Related: "A computerized system that Boston uses to assign students to schools is exacerbating segregation among the city’s schools while locking out many black and Latino students from high-performing ones, according to a report released Monday night. The divide between those who have access to the best schools and those who don’t could not be more stark. The findings illustrate the negligible progress Boston has made in the four decades since court-ordered busing began in closing the gap in educational opportunities: The city’s historically white neighborhoods still have a disproportionate share of high-quality schools....."
The schools are not preparing them anyway.
State shortchanges public schools by $1 billion a year
That's the same amount as the special tax breaks for businesses to the tune of over a billion dollars a year.
"Boston’s battle against youth homelessness gets a big boost" by Milton J. Valencia Globe Staff July 18, 2018
A recently formed Boston Youth Action Board seeks solutions to youth homelessness.
The city’s strategy received a significant boost Tuesday, winning $4.9 million in federal funding, the largest grant of its kind the city has received.
Boston was one of only 11 communities nationwide to receive funding from the $43 million awarded under a Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, which is run by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Over the last year, the city has reached out to an often overlooked demographic: youth homelessness. And with that emphasis comes a recognition that there are a disproportionately affected number of homeless youths who identify as gay, lesbian, or transgender.
I know where there is a room they could have for the night.
On any given night, according to city figures, roughly 360 unaccompanied youths and young adults in Boston are believed to be homeless. That’s not including young adults who bounce from one relative’s or friend’s couch to another each night and have not been identified by social service providers.
Laila Bernstein, deputy director at the city’s Department of Neighborhood Services, who was tasked in 2016 to oversee the city’s Initiatives to End Chronic Homelessness, said officials realized early on that the city would have to carry out a separate strategy to address youth homelessness, due to that population’s unique needs.....
Going to be a tall order.
--more--"
Neither he nor the Globe thanked Trump!
"An unattended backpack containing a gun and several items associated with drug dealing was recovered by police in Mattapan Monday night, police said. Officers found the backpack on the first landing of a staircase in the rear of a house on Hiawatha Road around 11:30 p.m. Inside was an unloaded Smith & Wesson revolver, a BB gun, a plastic bag containing a green herb-like substance, a scale, four glass jars, an undisclosed amount of money, and two large garbage bags, police said in a statement. Officers were not able to determine whose backpack it was. The guns were processed by detectives, police said."
Where did they send it for analysis?
"Man arrested with loaded gun in Seaport after going through red light..... A Boston man who was wearing a GPS tracking device when he was stopped for a traffic violation in front of the Wellesley police station is now facing gun possession charges after police used his GPS data to allegedly link him to a weapon found near a popular trail in town. Matthew Bradley was arraigned in Dedham District Court on Wednesday on illegal gun and ammunition possession charges. A judge revoked his bail on an open domestic violence case and set bail in the gun case at $15,000. Bradley’s next court date is Oct. 4, 2018....."
He's fried.
Time to cool things down:
"Harvard University is embarking on a new partnership with the University of Michigan to fight poverty in Detroit and share knowledge about combating opioid addiction, the schools announced Wednesday....."
How about fixing the water first before testing for opioids?
Walsh administration targets pharmaceutical industry in lawsuit over opioid epidemic
Takeda will move its US headquarters to the Boston
The smart money is on these researchers.
Company may make changes to ship after death of man who fell overboard
He was kicked off for fooling around and they have added some Ironsides to prevent any reoccurrence.
"A nightclub in Memphis is temporarily closing to review security operations after someone brought a gun into the business and shot four people Monday. Police said shots rang out at about 3:25 a.m. during an altercation at Purple Haze Night Club, located just steps from historic Beale Street in downtown Memphis. No identities were released. No arrests have been made....."
"A 17-year-old Michigan high school student could be facing a murder charge after she fatally stabbed a classmate Wednesday over a male student both had dated, police said. The deadly clash between two ‘‘straight-A students’’ took place in a Fitzgerald High School classroom in suburban Detroit, Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer said. Dwyer said the suspect was upset and disturbed when the male student broke up with her and started dating the victim. A witness, Francesca Pascua, 17, told The Detroit News that the stabbing occurred in an economics class. ‘‘I heard screaming, and I thought everyone was running from a bug or something,’’ said Pascua. ‘‘I thought she was going to stab everybody.’’ The suspect was arrested at the scene and is being held at a police lockup until the arraignment. Dwyer said she probably will be charged with murder....."
Also see:
Woman, 5 children die in Michigan motel fire
Michigan man gets 40 years in prison in deaths of 5 cyclists
Isn't DeVos from Detroit?
Could a smaller Kendall Square blossom in Dorchester?
Doesn't UMass-Boston have enough problems?
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I'm sorry, I didn't read the fine print at the bottom of the page.
"Tesla’s finance team is said to be losing another top executive" by Dana Hull and Eric Newcomer Bloomberg News September 12, 2018
The more recent exits have coincided with questionable behavior by Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, raising questions about his leadership and the company’s ability to recruit and retain senior managers. Tesla shares slumped last week to their lowest close in more than five months, battered by the departures of Morton and Chief People Officer Gabrielle Toledano, plus Musk’s decision to smoke marijuana on a comedian’s podcast.
One of Tesla’s biggest bulls on Wall Street cut his rating on the car maker this week, calling it “no longer investable” because of Musk’s antics.....
Romit Shah, an analyst for Nomura Instinet, said it Tuesday on Bloomberg Television after the vice president of worldwide finance and operation is parting ways amid a broader exodus of senior executives that included the chief accounting officer after his predecessor in that role left in March with the corporate treasurer and vice president of finance.
What do they know that you do not?
--more--"
There is a musky smell coming from the car.
Tesla to drop colors as it struggles to deliver Model 3s
"Judge declares ‘serial stowaway’ unfit for trial" AP March 30, 2018
CHICAGO — A woman dubbed a ‘‘serial stowaway’’ for repeatedly trying to sneak onto commercial jets without a ticket has been ruled unfit for trial, a judge ruled Thursday.
Cook County Judge Maura Slattery Boyle ordered Marilyn Hartman, 66, to be sent to a secured mental health facility in Elgin, near Chicago. The ruling comes after psychologists for the defense and prosecution recommended Hartman undergo mental health treatment.
Hartman has been nabbed in and near airports dozens of times and made it onto planes six times. She recently made it into the air on a flight from Chicago to London and was subsequently charged with felony criminal trespass and felony burglary.
Portions of Hartman’s mental evaluations read aloud in court Thursday included a long list of her mental health problems. Psychologist Christopher Cooper described Hartman as an ‘‘intelligent woman’’ and said she understands the charges against her, but, he said, Hartman suffers from major depression, delusions she is being persecuted, and a ‘‘preoccupation with media attention.’’
Why are they enabling her?
Prosecutors said Hartman tried to walk out of an interview room when she was left unattended during an evaluation.
--more--"
Related: Complaint says TSA search of Muslim woman at Logan ‘bordered on sexual assault’
She should just stay quiet about it.
Also see: That fake TripAdvisor review could get you thrown in prison
Just don't go to Mexico or plan a flight to Germany, and stay away from Russia and England, especially if you are a tourist because the financial markets are dominated by the dollar.
I would say head down to New Jersey, but Springfield is closer.
MGM says initial attendance, revenues strong for new casino
That's because they threw out the card counter.
US stocks jump as tech shares rebound
Oh, look at the time!
