merci, boulanger
was about to start posting flyers around the hood
I'd like to go on record in favor of any U.S. president speaking out against travesties of justice whenever and wherever they occur. Fuck your tradition. Fuck your decorum. Fuck your feelings. #PardonRogerStone
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1227968432705953792
Roger Stone jury foreperson comes forward to defend prosecutors
The foreperson on the jury that convicted Roger Stone has come forward, and is revealed to be a failed Democrat candidate for Congress and activist vehemently opposed to President Donald Trump.
Tomeka Hart, a former Memphis City Schools Board President, came forward as the Stone jury foreperson in a Facebook post on Wednesday, voicing support for prosecutors in the case.
Hart confirmed to The Daily Memphian that she wrote the Facebook post, but she declined an interview with the newspaper.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7998815/Tomeka-Hart-Roger-Stone-jury-foreperson-revealed-anti-Trump-activist.html
The Power of Plasma: Extracting REEs From Coal
As the world continues its transition to a highly tech-driven economy, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) supports innovative techniques to develop a reliable domestic supply of rare earth elements (REEs), which are vital materials for modern technologies. To that end, NETL is collaborating with the University of Kentucky and their subcontractor, Virginia Tech, to demonstrate a novel process that could see America’s coal country become a new supplier of these vital materials.
REEs are a group of 17 chemical elements that are included in the periodic table, which represent the 15 elements of the lanthanide series, plus scandium and yttrium. The word “rare” in REEs does not stem from a scarcity of deposits; rather, it signifies that REEs are often found in low concentrations too small for economical extraction. REEs are necessary components of smart phones, cars, television screens, and defense technologies, as well as windmills and other green energy assets.
Although the United States is a substantial consumer on the world market for REEs, the Nation is at a historically low level when it comes to extracting and processing these highly valuable resources; the United States relies heavily on imports. As a result, NETL is leading research efforts at businesses and research organizations across the country to help the United States secure a domestic supply of REEs from its own energy reserves and eventually supply the global market.
One of the country’s most important power resources, coal, could become an abundant and easily accessible domestic REE source. Appalachia’s coal, along with fly ash and acid mine drainage, contains recoverable REEs. To date, hydrophobic-hydrophilic separation and acid leaching processes have successfully extracted REEs, and NETL remains committed to exploring all available methods.
“While searching for a reliable supply of these vital elements, we need to research all viable technologies to determine which are the most efficient and cost-effective,” said NETL’s Federal Project Manager Jason Hissam. “While we’ve seen several methods of extracting these resources from coal, the University of Kentucky’s low-temperature plasma research has been shown to be technically viable.”
Plasma—which is distinct from the liquid, gaseous, and solid states of matter—is formed by heating a gas with a high enough temperature that gas molecules are ionized. During the past century, thermal plasma treatment was used in torch welding/cutting, spray coating, metal synthesis, extractive metallurgy, refining metallurgy, hazardous waste destruction, and more.
https://www.energy.gov/fe/articles/power-plasma-extracting-rees-coal
>https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-huawei-and-subsidiaries-charged-racketeering
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Huawei and Subsidiaries Charged in Racketeering Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets
Charges also Reveal Huawei’s Business in North Korea and Assistance to the Government of Iran in Performing Domestic Surveillance
A superseding indictment was returned yesterday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (Huawei), the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and two U.S. subsidiaries with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Brian A. Benczkowski, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s National Security Division; Richard P. Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and Christopher A. Wray, Director, FBI, announced the charges.
The 16-count superseding indictment also adds a charge of conspiracy to steal trade secrets stemming from the China-based company’s alleged long-running practice of using fraud and deception to misappropriate sophisticated technology from U.S. counterparts.
The indicted defendants include Huawei and four official and unofficial subsidiaries — Huawei Device Co. Ltd. (Huawei Device), Huawei Device USA Inc. (Huawei USA), Futurewei Technologies Inc. (Futurewei) and Skycom Tech Co. Ltd. (Skycom) — as well as Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Wanzhou Meng (Meng). The new superseding indictment also contains the charges from the prior superseding indictment, which was unsealed in January 2019.
The means and methods of the alleged misappropriation included entering into confidentiality agreements with the owners of the intellectual property and then violating the terms of the agreements by misappropriating the intellectual property for the defendants’ own commercial use, recruiting employees of other companies and directing them to misappropriate their former employers’ intellectual property, and using proxies such as professors working at research institutions to obtain and provide the technology to the defendants. As part of the scheme, Huawei allegedly launched a policy instituting a bonus program to reward employees who obtained confidential information from competitors. The policy made clear that employees who provided valuable information were to be financially rewarded.
Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated U.S. technology were successful. Through the methods of deception described above, the defendants obtained nonpublic intellectual property relating to internet router source code, cellular antenna technology and robotics. As a consequence of its campaign to steal this technology and intellectual property, Huawei was able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage.
The superseding indictment also includes new allegations about Huawei and its subsidiaries’ involvement in business and technology projects in countries subject to U.S., E.U. and/or U.N. sanctions, such as Iran and North Korea – as well as the company’s efforts to conceal the full scope of that involvement. The defendants’ activities, which included arranging for shipment of Huawei goods and services to end users in sanctioned countries, were typically conducted through local affiliates in the sanctioned countries. Reflecting the inherent sensitivity of conducting business in jurisdictions subject to sanctions, internal Huawei documents allegedly referred to such jurisdictions with code names. For example, the code “A2” referred to Iran, and “A9” referred to North Korea.
Huawei employees also allegedly lied about Huawei’s relationship to Skycom, falsely asserting it was not a subsidiary of Huawei. The company further claimed that Huawei had only limited operations in Iran and that Huawei did not violate U.S. or other laws or regulations related to Iran. In fact, the indictment alleges Skycom was Huawei’s unofficial subsidiary that, among other services, assisted the Government of Iran in performing domestic surveillance, including during the demonstrations in Tehran in 2009.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1248961/download
>https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1227995634533269506
Don't suck.
The defendants’ activities, which included arranging for shipment of Huawei goods and services to end users in sanctioned countries, were typically conducted through local affiliates in the sanctioned countries. Reflecting the inherent sensitivity of conducting business in jurisdictions subject to sanctions, internal Huawei documents allegedly referred to such jurisdictions with code names. For example, the code “A2” referred to Iran, and “A9” referred to North Korea.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-huawei-and-subsidiaries-charged-racketeering
https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1228026845578190849
>https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/doj-hands-down-massive-indictment-against-chinese-telecoms-giant-huawei/
Only a few days after it was revealed that the Department of Justice charged Chinese military hackers with the 2017 Equifax breach, the DOJ has handed down a massive superseding indictment against Chinese telecommunications conglomerate Huawei.
The charges are numerous and include: racketeering (RICO), conspiracy to steal trade secrets, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to violate International Emergency Economic Powers Act, money laundering and obstruction of justice.