Charlie Baker revs up reelection campaign
He's running against who?
Court documents shed new light on Cape Cod driver’s criminal past
They are talking about the crash in Cotuit.
(flip)
‘All I did was be black.’
See: "The rising sophomore at Smith College was quietly eating her lunch in a campus common room when a police officer approached her Tuesday afternoon. A college employee had called police to report someone who “seemed out of place,” the latest example of police being called to investigate black people in everyday situations....."
She couldn't even “sit down and eat lunch peacefully,” and it is similar to an episode in May at Yale.
I didn't know it could be such a challenge at Smith, and I hear ya'! It's not like working at Bo$ton Water and $ewer or the Fire Department, though, and I feel sorry for the employee. On the one hand we are told to stay ever vigilant, if you see something, say something. On the other hand, we must all bow before the God of political correctness in the face of what increasingly seem to be staged provocations for agenda-pushing purposes (just stay out of the North End, 'kay?).
All this guy did was be rich:
"Manafort sought redemption in Trump but wound up in court" by Matt Apuzzo, Eileen Sullivan and Sharon LaFraniere New York Times August 04, 2018
WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort’s services did not come cheap. His consulting work helped prop up foreign strongmen, who in turn kept him in $12,000 bespoke suits from Beverly Hills, but by 2016, Manafort was broke. His longtime cash cow, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, was out of office, living in exile. Manafort had $1 million in clothing debt alone, his business was hemorrhaging money, and he was angling for bank loans to stay afloat.
He was in such bad shape that one of his accountants, Cynthia Laporta, who testified Friday at Manafort’s fraud trial, said she had agreed in 2015 to fraudulently lower his reported income on a tax return because she had been told he was unable to pay what he owed. She saved him about $500,000 in taxes.
The problems did not go away by 2016, so it was a peculiar time to volunteer his services to the Trump campaign. “I am not looking for a paid job,” Manafort wrote in a memo proposing he help Donald Trump secure the Republican nomination for president.
Manafort’s work running the campaign is the backdrop to his federal bank and tax fraud trial in Northern Virginia. Prosecutors are not addressing that work, but as they present evidence he was growing desperate for money, the question of why Manafort, now 69, agreed to an unpaid job for Trump has become increasingly tantalizing.
While his trial is unlikely to reveal the answer, there is evidence that Manafort saw Trump’s campaign as a potential loss leader — an upfront freebie he could use to boost his stature and eventually parlay into more work for foreign clients. After working decades for Bob Dole, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Gerald Ford, Manafort viewed the Trump campaign as a chance to return to prominence on the biggest stage in US politics, his associates said.
OMFG!
Manafort’s memo made its way to Trump through a mutual friend, Thomas Barrack, who described Manafort to the candidate as “the most experienced and lethal of managers” and “a killer.” For the notoriously stingy Trump, the price was right. And he liked the fact that he and Manafort lived in the same Trump-owned Manhattan high rise. He once quipped that it was great to have a campaign chairman who paid him money, and not the other way around, campaign officials said.
Running a winning presidential campaign is a surefire path to a White House job, but Manafort told people he had no interest in working in the Trump administration. “My dad is Trump’s right-hand man right now and will be through November,” Manafort’s daughter, Andrea Manafort Shand, wrote in a text message that was publicly disclosed after her phone had been hacked. “But he won’t accept any position in the White House.”
HACKED BY WHO?
But Manafort recognized that his work with the Trump campaign was worth something. In April 2016, just days after becoming a Trump campaign strategist, he tried to use his positive news media coverage as leverage in a debt dispute with a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.
“I assume you have shown our friends my media coverage, right?” Manafort wrote in an e-mail to a business partner.
“Absolutely,” the partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, responded. “Every article.”
“How do we use to get whole,” Manafort asked. The e-mails were reported by The Washington Post and The Atlantic.
Later, Manafort suggested providing campaign briefings to Deripaska. No evidence has emerged that such briefings occurred.
As Manafort ascended to one of the premier jobs in US politics, prosecutors now say, his career was privately in shambles. In early 2016, his accountant testified, he worked to mortgage some of his seven or eight homes. Prosecutors said he had become accustomed to a lavish lifestyle and was preoccupied with clinging to it.
And this all has to do with Russian influence in the 2016 election and collusion with the Trump campaign how? It looks like Manafort was trying to use Trump for his own influence!
At the helm of Trump’s candidacy, Manafort knew from experience that he was well positioned to bounce back. In the early 1980s, Manafort used his experience as a midlevel campaign aide for Reagan to build the preeminent lobbying and consulting shop of Reagan-era Washington. He helped major corporations broker access to the president’s inner circle — and he was paid handsomely for his services.
A Trump victory would have positioned him for a triumphant and lucrative return to Washington lobbying.
At the FBI, agents began to wonder whether Manafort had something else in the works. In late July 2016, agents learned that Russian operatives had offered help to a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos. A second campaign adviser, Carter Page, traveled that month to Russia and met with a suspected Russian intelligence officer.
The FBI began investigating whether Manafort, with his deep ties to the pro-Russia political movement in Ukraine, was involved in the Russian operation to interfere in the election. The Justice Department never brought charges accusing him of any involvement, but the investigation helped unravel whatever career plans Manafort plotted for himself.
This was the premise by which they could spy on the campaign, and why didn't they tell the Trump campaign they hired some bad characters?
The news media attention that he once saw as so valuable ultimately helped knock him from his powerful post. Journalists revealed confidential details about his work in Ukraine, including a ledger showing millions of dollars in secret payments — revelations that forced his departure in August 2016.
Okay. And that proves collusion with Russia how?
Prosecutors, who had scrutinized Manafort’s foreign lobbying for years, began investigating that area in earnest. By the time Trump was sworn into office, Manafort was under scrutiny in at least two investigations. If convicted of the charges against him, he faces years in prison and millions of dollars in fines.
Manafort’s lawyers say he almost certainly would not have faced charges if not for his brief, unpaid stint with the Trump campaign.
WTF?
We are/have been told Mueller has evidence, the pre$$ has turned the page and totally dropped the Obama spying scandal, and now we find that the FBI paid for Steele dossier pos that was the basis for the warrants to surveil.
Yeah, there was Russian interference in the campaign, and it was on the side of the Democrats and the Clinton campaign! The Washington Compost will make it clear to you!
--more--"
As usual, there is a kernel of truth underlying his claim.
Related:
"Paul Manafort’s trial on financial fraud charges is the first trial stemming from charges brought by Robert Mueller. Prosecutors have said they do not intend to delve into questions about collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in this case, which focuses on how Manafort handled the money he earned working as a consultant in Ukraine. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks, and a second trial is scheduled to follow in September. The 32-count indictment from the Virginia court charged Manafort with lying to banks, evading taxes, and disguising more than $30 million in overseas income by moving it through offshore accounts. When pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia after a popular uprising in 2014, prosecutors say, the spigot of funds from Ukraine dried up. According to the indictment, Manafort was helped by his right-hand man, Rick Gates, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and lying to the FBI. Gates, who also worked for the Trump campaign, is expected to testify against Manafort. The most serious charges against Manafort could carry sentences of up to 30 years each. He also faces charges of money laundering. Manafort’s supporters claim that these charges do not fit into Mueller’s inquiry, and exceeded his authority. If Manafort is convicted, it will be harder for Trump and his supporters to claim the special counsel is waging a “witch hunt.” If he is acquitted, it would probably elicit more calls from Trump’s supporters for Mueller to wind up his work. The charges against Manafort do not involve any allegations that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians to tip the 2016 election. Nonetheless....."
Yeah, nonetheless, the ma$$ media will continue to promote the misrepresentation!!
"The new counts could make it harder for Manafort to avoid jail before he goes on trial for alleged financial crimes that largely predate his time on the Trump campaign. The new charges revolve around allegations that Manafort, 69, and his associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, 47, tried to influence two public-relations executives who were involved in lobbying work in 2012 on behalf of the Ukraine government. According to court filings, after Manafort was accused in February of additional instances of secretly lobbying on behalf of a foreign government without registering as a lobbyist. Sending Manafort to jail ahead of his trial would intensify the pressure on him to reach a plea deal with prosecutors on the alleged coverup......"
That is why the judge ordered him jailed.
"In opening remarks, Paul Manafort’s lawyers blame associates" by Sharon LaFraniere and Emily Baumgaertner New York Times July 31, 2018
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Paul Manafort’s trial on financial fraud charges opened Tuesday with an effort by his defense team to deflect blame to the government’s star witness in the case, Rick Gates, Manafort’s longtime political consulting partner.
The defense strategy pits the credibility of Manafort, a former campaign chairman for President Trump, against that of Gates, who has pleaded guilty to charges in the same case and is cooperating in the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and it sets up a dramatic courtroom showdown between Gates, who is scheduled to take the stand for the prosecution, and Manafort, who worked closely with him in aiding pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine for a decade and also in 2016 on Trump’s campaign.
The trial, over charges that Manafort hid tens of millions of dollars he received for his work in Ukraine and then engaged in bank fraud when those funds dried up, got underway at a rapid clip.
In his opening statement, Thomas Zehnle, one of Manafort’s five defense lawyers, said Gates embezzled millions from Manafort and then, fearing prison time for his own misdeeds, turned on him under pressure from Mueller.
That happens a lot.
“Rick Gates is their foundation,” Zehnle said.
Even though Gates has pleaded guilty to lying to federal authorities and conspiracy to engage in financial fraud, Zehnle said, “the government is going to ask you to trust him.”
The trial is the first stemming from charges brought by Mueller in his investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Although the charges against Manafort involve neither Trump nor allegations of collusion with Russia, the trial is the first courtroom test of Mueller’s work and the likelihood of it being focused on two former senior Trump advisers savaging each other’s honesty in coming weeks will only draw more attention to it.
Gates is one of about 35 prosecution witnesses scheduled to testify about what the government calls a shrewdly crafted multiyear scheme by Manafort to evade taxes on $15 million in income he earned while working to promote the political fortunes of Viktor F. Yanukovych, a former leader of Ukraine.
Uzo Asonye, an assistant US attorney on the prosecution’s team, told the jury that Yanukovych was Manafort’s “golden goose” and that Ukrainian oligarchs who ran entire industries in Ukraine paid Manafort $60 million over a decade to bolster Yanukovych’s fortunes.
Manafort hid most of his income, and roped bookkeepers, tax accountants, and bank officials into his scheme “in order to get and keep money,” Asonye said. “He even lied about where he was living.”
Russia 2016?
Although it was only the first day of what is expected to be a three-week trial, it seemed clear that the central argument would be whether Manafort directed the various fraudulent financial schemes, or was duped or directed by others, including Gates.
Zehnle said Manafort was too busy as a highly paid political consultant working overseas to keep track of his finances, and relied on a staff of professionals, including Gates.
“Mr. Gates was the point man,” he said.
If Manafort’s payments for his Ukraine work were made in an unorthodox fashion through accounts in Cyprus, he said, it was because his financial patrons insisted that is how he should be paid, not because Manafort was trying to hide his income.
“That is the way the client wanted it to be done,” he told the jurors. “His Ukrainian patrons set up the accounts, not Paul Manafort.” But the prosecutors said Manafort deliberately hid the money he made so he could indulge his taste for luxury, paying millions in cash for homes in the United States, driving a Mercedes-Benz convertible and splurging on purchases like a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made of ostrich feathers.
SO?
When his Ukrainian patrons quit paying, he said, Manafort filed false documents with banks to keep up his cash flow. “All of this was willful,” he said.
Manafort, in a black suit with a silver tie, took an active part in his defense. He consulted with his lawyers during the selection of the jurors, putting on his glasses to pore over his notes.
Thomas A. Devine, a Democratic political consultant who was hired by Manafort to develop media strategy for Yanukovych, was the only witness to testify.
Called by the prosecution, he said that Manafort ran an “incredible” operation to resurrect Yanukovych’s political career.
Written off as a political loser in 2005, Yanukovych was elected president of Ukraine in 2010, then ousted in 2014 amid a political uprising.
Political uprising is a polite way of saying Obama administration coup.
Manafort, 69, is the only American charged by Mueller’s team so far to force the prosecutors to present their evidence at trial.
The other four Americans who have been indicted all pleaded guilty, including Michael T. Flynn, a campaign adviser who became Trump’s national security adviser, and George Papadopoulos, an unpaid campaign adviser who was targeted by emissaries who have been linked to Russian intelligence.....
--more--"
"Judge raps prosecutors over testimony on Manafort’s luxuries; Calls the detailing of defendant’s wealth irrelevant" by Chad Day Associated Press August 02, 2018
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort personally directed millions of dollars in international wire transfers to pay for high-end suits and more than $3 million in improvements at his various houses, witnesses testified Wednesday on the second day of his financial fraud trial.
The testimony was aimed at bolstering prosecutors’ argument that Manafort orchestrated a scheme to hide millions of dollars in income from the IRS.
The prosecution’s focus on Manafort’s personal finances — at times laid out in painstaking detail — revealed the vast amount of evidence gathered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team against the longtime political consultant, but it also tried the patience of US District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who repeatedly scolded the government’s lawyers for what he said was excessive and unnecessary information.
Ellis warned prosecutors Wednesday against using the word ‘‘oligarchs’’ to describe wealthy Ukrainians and admonished them for spending so much time documenting Manafort’s extravagant lifestyle.
It’s not a crime to be wealthy, he noted. And the pejorative term ‘‘oligarchs’’ and evidence of home renovations aren’t necessarily relevant to the charges in question, he added.
‘‘The government doesn’t want to prosecute somebody because they wear nice clothes, do they?’’ Ellis said amid testimony that Manafort had spent nearly a million dollars on clothing from a boutique retailer where he was one of only about 40 clients. ‘‘Let’s move on.’’
Is it possible he could throw the case out due to prosecutorial misconduct?
Ellis even called out lawyers from both sides for rolling their eyes.
The trial is the first courtroom test for the special counsel, who was tasked last year with investigating Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election and to determine whether the Trump campaign was involved. So far, Manafort is the lone person to stand trial as a result of the ongoing probe, even though the charges of bank fraud and tax evasion are unrelated to possible collusion.
If the trial is a test for special counsel, then he has failed miserably.
Still, the trial has pulled back the curtain on the former lobbyist who steered Trump’s election efforts for a time, including descriptions of Manafort’s $15,000 jacket made of ostrich and the more than $6 million in cash he put toward real estate. One witness, Maximillian Katzman, testified that Manafort spent more than $900,000 at his boutique retailer in New York. He said Manafort was the only business client of his who paid via international wire transfer.
An FBI agent described the July 2017 raid on Manafort’s Virginia condominium, saying he knocked multiple times before entering with a key. He found Manafort sitting inside.
I was told they appeared without warning in the predawn hours of July 26, and where did the FBI agent get a key to his house anyway -- and why would he knock if he had one?
The searches described by agent Matthew Mikuska found expensively tailored suits and documents related to other luxury items allegedly bought by Manafort, including two silk rugs bought for $160,000 paid from offshore accounts, but when prosecutors introduced photos of Manafort’s high-end condo and expensive suits, Ellis interrupted so as to limit the growing list of evidence jurors would have to consider.
‘‘All this document shows is that Mr. Manafort had a lavish lifestyle,’’ Ellis said. ‘‘It isn’t relevant.’’
Prosecutor Greg Andres argued that documenting Manafort’s spending for the jury was important to the case.
‘‘Judge, this is not an effort to prove Mr. Manafort lived lavishly,’’ Andres said. ‘‘It’s evidence of his income.’’
Ellis seemed to grow impatient after being told that lawyers on both sides were seen rolling their eyes after leaving the bench or in response to his rulings. The lawyers’ facial expressions, Ellis said, appeared to show them thinking: ‘‘Why do we have to put up with this idiot judge?’’
So am I.
The proceedings clearly caught the attention of President Trump.....
Who tried to obstruct the trial with a tweet.
--more--"
"Manafort’s bookkeeper testifies against him, alleging efforts to inflate income" by Rachel Weiner and Justin Jouvenal Washington Post August 03, 2018
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Paul Manafort’s longtime bookkeeper testified against him Thursday, telling a Virginia jury that his seven-figure lifestyle lasted until about 2015 when the cash ran out, the bills piled up, and he and his business partner began trying to fudge numbers to secure loans.
The dry but potentially damaging testimony from the bookkeeper, Heather Washkuhn, appeared to undercut Manafort’s defense against bank and tax charges, which is that his business partner is responsible for any financial misdeeds.
Washkuhn spent hours on the witness stand, describing account balances, bills received, and payments. Her testimony is critical to the case being heard by a six-man, six-woman jury in Alexandria, Va.
On the witness stand, Washkuhn said she prepared ledgers for Manafort’s finances, which she would eventually hand off to his accountants to file his tax returns. She said she sometimes saw transactions in those accounts from other accounts to which she did not have access.
Critically, Washkuhn testified she did not have any records of foreign accounts controlled by Manafort, and had not been aware of such accounts. Prosecutors have already introduced evidence that Manafort used foreign accounts to pay for millions of dollars of clothes, cars, real estate and home remodeling.
Prosecutors charge that Manafort made $60 million between 2010 and 2014, while working for the Ukraine government, and hid millions in foreign accounts that were not reported to the IRS.
Washkuhn described how Manafort’s firm, Davis Manafort Partners, took in millions of dollars a year before its revenue cratered in 2015. Prosecutors say that’s because Manafort’s biggest client — what one associate called his ‘‘golden goose,’’ Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych — fled for Russia in 2014 amid massive protests against his government.
As his business was gasping, Manafort was tapped to run Trump’s campaign in mid-2016.
He received no pay for the job, even though his firm was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, according to election filings and evidence presented to the jury.
Trying to pay Manafort’s bills became a problem, Washkuhn testified, and he needed more than $1.1 million to pay off credit cards and other expenses.
Washkuhn’s testimony is important not just for the tax charges against him, but the bank fraud counts as well.....
Russia 2016?
--more--"
What is incredible is the Globe not reporting that "former lobbyist Tony Podesta and former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig are under investigation by federal prosecutors over alleged foreign work." Instead the Globe gives his brother space on the opinion page!
They've been unmasked!
Related:
"Three months before the 2016 election, a small group gathered at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son. One was an Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Another was an emissary for two wealthy Arab princes. The third was a Republican donor with a controversial past in the Middle East as a private security contractor. At the time, the emissary was also promoting a secret plan to use private contractors to destabilize Iran. The meetings, which have not been reported previously, are the first indication that countries other than Russia may have offered assistance to the Trump campaign....."
I'm sorry, NYT, SAY AGAIN?
The contractor is Erik Prince (brother of Betsy DeVos) of Blackwater fame, the specialist is Joel Zamel, whose company employs several Israeli former intelligence officers specializing in collecting information and shaping opinion through social media and was paid up to $2 million, and the emissary would be the infamous Israeli fixer and interventionist George Nader, a convicted pedophile with a shadowy past, who frequently met with Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn.
Maybe Clinton’s lackluster, establishment-oriented campaign foundered in its own overconfidence, huh? Thought the FBI and DoJ had their back. That's why Bill visited Loretta on the tarmac.
*************
Needham astronaut heading back to space on first commercial flights
During his final roll call, Evans tells officers to be safe out there
Amongst the garbage.
Details emerge on Nathan Carman’s gun purchase before grandfather’s murder
He keeps changing his story.
Governor Baker spikes toll discount trial again
That won't win him any votes as people fume at the traffic on the Pike.
Better tell the kid to hide in the trunk, too.
Bird scooters about to be pulled off Cambridge streets
I'm going to scoot right around that.
*************
2 workers at child immigrant centers accused of sex abuse
Talk about a horror show!
Saville, Sandusky, Ohio State, Michigan State, Weinstein, et al, what kind of perversions are going on up the at the pinnacles of power anyway? A judge decides if the kid could consent?
All of sudden, the pushing of the gay, transgender, and all the rest, agenda by the rich and powerful pre$$ makes a lot of sense. They are grooming them with ma$$ media.
Pope’s declaration won’t stop execution
Nor should it (WTF?)!!
Looks to me like he is protecting the lives of the pedophile priests!
Parts of Virginia city evacuated because of flood risk
"President Trump renewed his campaign against the media Thursday night in a state that he took from the Democrats in 2016 and that has a Senate seat he is trying to place in the Republicans’ column this fall, but the race took a back seat to Trump’s invectives against the media. Thousands packed into a loud, overheated Wilkes-Barre arena to hear him. ‘‘Whatever happened to the free press? Whatever happened to honest reporting?’’ Trump asked, pointing to the media in the back of the hall....."
That's not the M$M, if it ever was. It's always been a rich man's pre$$, and they disparage and insult truth seekers. By that I mean the recent addition to the New York Times editorial board shows they are not even trying to hide their hate anymore, they are excusing it.
How ironic is it that she is a Harvard graduate, huh?
I wonder how her classmates feel about her as she stays silent on wealth inequality.
Time to Tap out (do these guys even listen to themselves?).
Oil exploration cut scars into Alaskan wilderness
*************
"Zimbabwe opposition says vote was stolen" by Max Bearak Washington Post August 03, 2018
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Police in riot gear on Friday tried to break up a news conference by Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, at which he said the narrow election victory of President Emmerson Mnangagwa was fraudulent and ‘‘stolen from the people.’’
Chamisa said his party would challenge the result in court on grounds of vote rigging and other irregularities.
Mnangagwa, head of the ruling ZANU-PF party, praised the election as ‘‘free, fair and credible . . . an unprecedented flowering of freedom and democracy in our beloved homeland.’’
On Friday, police banged batons on their shields in an attempt to disrupt the press conference, in front of dozens of reporters and international election observers.
The officers stopped short of breaking up the event by force because cameras were present, the Associated Press reported, but their deployment called to mind the suppression of the opposition under Mugabe’s rule, which Mnangagwa has pledged to change.
Chamisa, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), spoke once police withdrew. ‘‘We won this election,’’ Chamisa said, declaring ‘‘a day of mourning . . . for democracy.’’ He alleged that his supporters faced violence and harassment at the polls, as well as claiming vote-rigging.
Election officials declared early Friday that Mnangagwa would stay on as president, a role he has held since a military intervention last November forced Mugabe to resign.
They said Mnangagwa, 75, avoided a runoff with Chamisa, 40, by a razor-thin margin of less than a percentage point, with just 50.8 percent of the total vote. His party, ZANU-PF, also won a two-thirds majority in Parliament, but Chamisa said the MDC’s count showed that it won 56 percent of the vote.
Is that what the exit polls showed?
Zimbabwe’s economy is in a precarious state. After runaway inflation brought Zimbabweans trillion-dollar currency notes in 2009, Mugabe adopted the US dollar which is now in short supply here. Many in rural areas have reverted to barter. Others mostly get by using government bond notes.
Oooooooooh!
That is why there was a propaganda campaign around that time about the monster Mugabe.
Once he signed on to the buck, it died down and went away!
Mnangagwa centered his campaign on attracting foreign investment and creating jobs. But millions have already emigrated, and some Chamisa supporters were only half-joking on Friday morning when they discussed joining that wave.
Remember when the snowflake celebs said they were leaving because Trump won?
They must have caught a glimpse of the tax rates and said nope!
Takudzwa Wazara sat in his car listening to talk radio and searching Google for visa application procedures on his phone. He shook his head.
‘‘This country, this election, my life — it’s a farce, man!’’ said Wazara. ‘‘I just can’t shake the feeling that we are all being made into fools.’’
It takes a while, but we all reach that conclusion.
Like many Chamisa supporters, Wazara doubts the integrity of the election.
Civil rights groups have documented more than a thousand cases of intimidation, vote-buying, and other electoral malpractice. Countless rumors of the various ways ZANU-PF ‘‘cooked’’ the results have circulated on social media, which Zimbabweans use prolifically.
Chamisa tweeted on Friday morning that the Zimbabwe Election Commission denied the MDC its right to check the official results against their own.
On Thursday, police produced a warrant to search the MDC’s headquarters in what party officials claimed was an attempt to confiscate their data on ‘‘the real results.’’
Wednesday’s harsh crackdown on MDC supporters also gave some people a reason to believe that Mnangagwa would work closely with the army to clamp down on dissent, much as Mugabe did.
For years, Mnangagwa was Zimbabwe’s defense minister and head of intelligence.
Meet the new regime, same as the old regime!
He is accused of orchestrating some of Mugabe’s greatest atrocities, including massacres of tens of thousands of members of a minority ethnic group, the razing of neighborhoods with major opposition support, and the campaign of violence that forced the MDC to boycott a runoff in the 2008 elections.....
Oh, yeah?
--more--"
See: Zimbabwe’s Election
Globe skipped over the Yemen again and went straight to Turkey:
"Pompeo warns Turkey to free detained pastor and other US citizens" by Richard C. Paddock New York Times August 03, 2018
SINGAPORE — Declaring that “the clock had run out,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Turkey on Friday to free a US pastor imprisoned on espionage charges, in a case that had spurred the United States to impose sanctions against two top Turkish government officials.
Pompeo discussed the case of the evangelical pastor, Andrew Brunson, with Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, on the sidelines of a Southeast Asia security conference in Singapore. Brunson’s imprisonment has threatened to plunge fraught relations with Turkey, a vital NATO ally, into crisis.
“The Turks [are] on notice that the clock had run out,” Pompeo told reporters.
Somehow, I don't think that is going to cause the tough-as-nails Turks to budge.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration, frustrated by Turkey’s refusal to release Brunson, placed sanctions on two top Turkish officials. Some members of Turkey’s political opposition have called on the government to seize Trump Towers and other US assets in Turkey because of the sanctions, according to local news reports, but the government has adopted a more measured response — at least publicly.
Turkey being reasonable, and it's another obfuscated Obama coup!
For President Trump, the case is important to his evangelical base. Brunson, 50, of North Carolina, has done missionary work in Turkey for 23 years. He and his wife worked at a small Protestant church in Izmir, on Turkey’s west coast. He is one of 20 US citizens who have been prosecuted under a government crackdown since a failed coup in 2016.
He sure looks like CIA!
The pastor was accused of aiding the coup attempt and is also accused of having links to two groups that Turkey considers terrorist organizations: the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and a movement led by a US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Brunson has denied having any ties to terrorist organizations.
Turkey accuses Gulen of initiating the coup attempt and has called on the United States to extradite him in exchange for Brunson so that Gulen can face charges. The Trump administration has rejected that idea.
“Brunson needs to come home, as do all the Americans being held by the Turkish government. It’s pretty straightforward,” Pompeo said in Singapore. “They have been holding these folks for a long time. These are innocent people.”
Says former CIA director.
Pompeo told reporters while en route to Singapore that winning Brunson’s release was a top priority for his meetings with Cavusoglu.
The secretary of state’s first stop was in Malaysia, where he was to meet with its new prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad.
Finally, Malaysians have some hope.
Before the forum began, Pompeo said North Korea had not met its commitment to denuclearize and was still in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
“We can see we still have a ways to go to achieve the ultimate outcome we’re looking for,” he said.
North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, was also at the Association of South East Asian Nations conference in Singapore. A separate meeting between the two was a possible, but not confirmed, the Associated Press reported, citing State Department officials.
The White House announced Thursday that Trump received a new letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and responded quickly with a letter of his own.
I wonder what he wrote.
The correspondence, following up on their Singapore summit in June, came amid fresh concerns over Pyongyang’s commitment to denuclearization despite a rosy picture of progress painted by Trump.....
They did get the remains back, right?
Sure looks like progress to me.
--more--"
Suicide bombing at mosque in Afghanistan kills at least 29
Real, not, who knows, no claims responsibility, but ISIS you know, blah, blah.
1 killed, 90 wounded by Israel in Gaza protests
It was the latest in a series of protests along Gaza’s perimeter fence with Israel, and those Gazans never give up!
Portugal breaks temperature records amid heatwave
**********
"Sometimes, trickle-down economics works. Perhaps not with the stock market, where surging prices tend to benefit already-wealthy investors, but when the job market booms, so do the fortunes of those on the lower rungs of America’s labor ladder. The US labor market has been booming, [but] still, it’s not all good news for less-educated workers. The flip side of their current good fortune is that when the next recession does come, they are likely to suffer most. More than anyone else, it’s the Fed that oversees the US job market, deciding when to push the unemployment rate down and when instead to let it rise, using the sometimes-crude tool of interest rates....."
Your employment fate is in the hands of the Fed!
Year Up helping more young adult workers get a leg up
You're on the front lines now, kids, no thanks to your friends. Just don't expect to be paid well because traditional college programs are useless for millions of workers who need to upgrade their skills.
China announces $60 billion of US goods for tariff retaliation
Trump is winning as the smaller list of goods tagged by China indicates Beijing is running out of products to target due to its lopsided trade balance with the United States.
ExxonMobil accounting probe by SEC ends with no action
They popped the champagne even though New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood and her Massachusetts counterpart, Maura Healey, are still investigating
**********
Las Vegas gunman lost over $1.5 million before mass shooting
They are closing the book on that cover-up with another lone nut story.
From what it looks like to me, it was a crisis drill exercise that was piggybacked upon by government hit teams, providing evidence for both fakery and false flag arguments, thus poisoning the well of truth seeking.
As for Paddock, the shooting angles from windows don't correlate with actual wounds. There is also the strange saga of who he was and what business he was in, how he got into the hotel with all the weaponry, people coming and going the whole time he was there, and the hotel being back in business pdq as if nothing had happened.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?
**********
Time to wind this down and go enjoy the Good Life!
