Oversight Group Presses Justices to Remove Cruz, Hawley from Supreme Court Bar

A judicial oversight group is pressing to disqualify Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) from the Supreme Court bar because of their connection to the Capitol riot.

Fix the Court, a nonpartisan watchdog, wrote in a letter Wednesday that the lawmakers engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer of the Court by "baselessly objecting to the certification of the Electoral College results." The justices have the power to remove members of the Supreme Court bar for misconduct, and a few dozen members are usually disbarred each year.

Cruz and Hawley are both well-credentialed members of the legal elite, having graduated from top law schools and clerked for legal luminaries. Removing them from the Supreme Court bar would amount to a stunning rebuke, especially as SCOTUS lawyers and justices alike prize collegiality and respect despite deep disagreements.

"It's unlikely these senators will be removed from Congress, so we seek a consequence that is both meaningful and achievable," said Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth. "Suspension and removal from the Supreme Court bar hits that mark, as both senators would find such expulsion deeply unsettling given their SCOTUS experience. We welcome members of the Supreme Court bar to join us in our effort."

Roth told the Washington Free Beacon that removing Cruz and Hawley from the Supreme Court bar could satisfy other legislators looking to punish the pair over the Jan. 6 riot. Cruz and Hawley might even prefer disbarment, Roth argued, because they wouldn't have to worry about losing a plum committee assignment or being expelled from Congress.

Fix the Court called on other lawyers admitted to practice in the Court to support its request.

Lawyers must meet certain professional criteria to argue cases or file briefs in the Supreme Court. Qualifying attorneys are admitted to the Supreme Court bar during official sessions on the motion of two bar members in good standing. Even if the men are removed from the Supreme Court bar, they could still practice law in other courts.

Both men have substantial ties to the institution. Cruz clerked for former Chief Justice William Rehnquist and argued nine cases before the Court as Texas's top appeals lawyer. Recently, he offered to argue an election lawsuit before the justices on President Donald Trump's behalf. Hawley was a clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts and met his wife, Erin Morrow Hawley, in Roberts's chambers, where she was also a law clerk.

Both men have signed on to legal briefs in politically salient Supreme Court cases since taking office. Hawley even authored a brief in an abortion case from Louisiana in June 2019. Lawmakers usually lend their names to such briefs, rather than writing one themselves.

https://freebeacon.com/courts/oversight-group-presses-justices-to-remove-cruz-hawley-from-supreme-court-bar/

Facebook Played Major Role Coordinating 'Capitol Riot' As Sandberg Deflects Blame

Over the last week, Twitter alternative Parler was summarily executed by Amazon, which kicked the conservative social media platform off of its servers due to 'far-right' users coordinating last week's protest at the Capitol which turned into a riot after a small group split off, gained access to the Capitol building, and ran amok.

Now we learn that Facebook also had a giant role in coordinating the so-called 'Capitol Riots' which President Trump was just impeached over on Wednesday for allegedly inciting the incident.

According to the Washington Post, a "growing body of evidence shows that Facebook played a much larger role" than COO Sharyl Sandberg claimed in a Monday interview livestreamed by Reuters, in what the Post described as 'deflecting blame.'

"I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate, don’t have our standards and don’t have our transparency," said Sandberg.

She noted that last week the company took down content affiliated with the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory and the Proud Boys extremist group, as well as content affiliated with the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement seeking to delegitimize election results. She said there was likely to be some content on Facebook because the company’s enforcement was “never perfect.” -Washington Post

Au contraire Sharyl, it's far more than just 'some' content.

According to the Post, the hashtag #StopTheSteal was still widely in use as of Monday, when a search revealed that 128,000 people were talking about it, and in many cases using it to coordinate for the rally, according to Eric Feinberg, Vice President with the Coalition for a Safer Web.

What's more, two dozen GOP officials and organizations in at least 12 states coordinated bus trips to the rally via Facebook, according to Media Matters.

"BUS TRIP to DC … #StoptheSteal. If your passions are running hot and you’re intending to respond to the President’s call for his supporters to descend on DC on Jan 6, LISTEN UP!" wrote the Polk County Republican Party of North Carolina in a Facebook post which has since been deleted.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/facebook-played-major-role-coordinating-capitol-riot-sandberg-deflects-blame

Chinese American socialite Lili Luo plunges to death with baby

A Chinese American socialite who once rubbed elbows with Hillary Clinton plunged naked from her penthouse in Hong Kong while holding her 5-month-old daughter in her arms, leaving them both dead, according to reports.

The horrific incident involving 34-year-old Lili Luo and her daughter, Aier, happened on Jan. 6 in Yau Ma Tei, local media reported. The mother and her baby were pronounced dead at the scene.

An autopsy will determine the cause of death, according to police, who did not publicly identify the woman and her baby.

Authorities are probing whether the woman, who is reportedly the only daughter of real estate tycoon Lin Luo, the chairman of China’s Jinlin Real Estate company, had suffered from post-partum depression, local reports said.

“The woman and the baby girl were certified dead at scene. Initial investigation revealed that they fell from a unit,” police said in a statement, according to the Daily Mail, which reported that the woman was found naked after plunging from her penthouse, citing other reports.

Local news outlets HK01 and Ming Pao have identified the victims as Lili Luo and her daughter.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/13/chinese-american-socialite-lili-luo-plunges-to-death-with-baby/

National Guard troops from around US continue to pour into DC for inauguration security

The number of states sending their National Guard troops to Washington to help with security for next week’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden continues to grow.

There could be as many as 20,000 National Guard troops in the nation’s capital as more than 30 states plan to send National Guard personnel to assist local police with security, logistics and communications during the scheduled Jan. 20 event.

The announcements came a week after a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the results of the presidential election. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump an unprecedented second time on Wednesday, making him the first president to be impeached twice.

On Jan. 12, National Guardsmen were given authorization to be armed in support of the U.S. Capitol Police to protect the Capitol and individual members of congress and their staff, according to a National Guard Bureau media release. This was requested by federal authorities and authorized by the Secretary of the Army.

Governors in Maryland, Ohio and Connecticut announced they were sending Guard troops on Tuesday. Maryland will send 1,000 Guard troops next week, while Ohio is sending 200 troops; Connecticut is sending over 100 troops.

Florida

The Florida National Guard is sending about 600 soldiers and airmen to D.C. for the inauguration. While they are there, they will fall under the direction of the DCNG and their specific missions sets will come through them, said Lt. Col. Caitlin Brown, a spokeswoman. Brown declined to specify which units would be traveling, citing operational security concerns.

Illinois

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is sending about 200 members of the Illinois National Guard would travel to Washington in advance of Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

“In the wake of the recent incident at the Capitol, ensuring a peaceful transfer of power to the Biden administration is of the utmost importance,” Pritzker said in a statement.

Maj. Gen. Richard Neely, commander of the Illinois National Guard, said in a statement that “supporting the presidential inauguration is a great opportunity for the Illinois National Guard to be part of history and represent the state of Illinois.”

Nevada

The Nevada National Guard will send more than 200 troops to Washington, D.C., to help with security for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

The Guard said in a statement Tuesday that the decision was not prompted by last week’s deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol and that the units had already been scheduled to support law enforcement at the ceremony.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/13/national-guard-troops-from-around-the-country-continue-to-pour-into-dc-for-inauguration-security/

Computers Voting Instead of People in Our Brave New World

With the 2020 election results now set to stand, whether it's a coup or pure laziness, or computer glitches, or diabolical machinations or some combination of these, we now have what I call "a stealth government." This stands in opposition to a legitimate or authentic government — implying that not only liberty, but our lives are being threatened. This constitutes a re-modelling of government. Under this re-modelling, technocratic systems like Dominion move to center stage, defining through technology what authentic voting is. The computer and not the voter becomes the focus for defining the election. A.I. (artificial intelligence) sets the standard for what a comprehensive and valid approach to election engineering and administration is. Substitute your own initials for A.I., and then demote yourself in the process. You are contributing to outcomes, but you are not the engine for producing those outcomes.

Other institutions of our society are also moving away from the centrality of the person to promoting computer-generated models of cost efficiency. Already, the healthcare system is being re-organized. Instead of just encountering physicians, nurses, and aides in hospitals, now we also find in greater and greater numbers physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, nurses, nurses' aides, aides, and "others." At the same time, there are fewer and fewer physicians. Now there is a varied mass of caregivers. Job titles proliferate. But that is not all: elaborate computer models are setting up efficiency strategies for hospitals. Risk analyses are put in place to justify cost efficiencies.

So even when I was in the hospital for heart surgery in June, the surgeon and the anesthesiologist were the only surgeons present even though I was "semi-dead" on a heart-lung machine. There was no surgeon present except the surgeon performing the surgery, which definitely represents a change in traditional practice. The surgical report I received after the surgery noted that instead of a physician in attendance, a physician's assistant was in attendance. As I lay on the stretcher in the waiting area prior to my surgery on the morning of June 10, I noticed that when the various medical personnel were gathering, there were no actual medical doctors except my anesthesiologist (my thoracic surgeon had not shown up yet). I asked the head surgical nurse about this, and she nodded and told me my observation was correct. Further, no doctors were stationed on the floor even though it was the heart wing (assuredly the most life-and-death wing in the hospital, right?).

When I was in the same hospital for intestinal surgery in 2015, two doctors (probably residents) were in charge of the floor and on duty 24/7. Obviously, the strategic computer model had done a cost-risk analysis and determined that the limitations put on physician presence did not incur a risk that offset the cost savings. The setting of "risk scores" for all kinds of medical issues and procedures is becoming commonplace.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/computers_voting_instead_of_people_in_our_brave_new_world.html

US Sentences Bulgarian Owner of BitCoin-Laundering Hub

A court in the United States has sentenced a Bulgarian national for his role in a multi-million dollar cyber-fraud and money laundering racket, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.

Rossen Iossifov, former owner and operator of cryptocurrency exchange RG coins, will serve ten years (Photo: flickr, Creative Commons Licence)Rossen Iossifov, former owner and operator of cryptocurrency exchange RG coins, will serve ten years (Photo: flickr, Creative Commons Licence)OCCRP previously reported in October 2019 that the court had convicted Rossen Iossifov after he was shown to have used his cryptocurrency exchange RG coins, headquartered in Sofia, to assist fraudsters in laundering their proceeds.

The DoJ said in its release on Tuesday that Iossifov has now been sentenced to ten years behind bars, of which he will have to serve a minimum of 8.5 years before being eligible for release.

According to evidence presented at trial, Iossifov’s main clients were Romanian scammers who took part in an international criminal enterprise referred to by the DoJ as the Alexandria Online Auction Fraud (AOAF) network.

Iossifov helped defraud at least 900 American citizens and laundered nearly US$5 million in cryptocurrency for the scammers in less than three years. In return, he received over $184,000 in profits for processing related transactions.

During this period, the Romania-based members of the criminal organization used widely-recognised sales websites, such as eBay and Craigslist, to advertise high-cost goods, mostly vehicles, that did not actually exist.

Once victims made their purchase, local associates would receive the funds, which they would then convert into cryptocurrency and later transfer to money launderers abroad.

Iossifov was one such foreign-based money launderers who facilitated this final step in the scheme, allowing his clients to conduct cryptocurrency exchanges for cash without any documentation regarding the origin of the funds.

Two months before Iossifov was convicted, fifteen other defendants in the case pleaded guilty for their roles in the online auction fraud.

A U.S. court said then that members of the conspiracy created fictitious online accounts to post the advertisements. They also delivered invoices to the victims bearing trademarks of reputable companies and set up legitimate-seeming call centers so as to impersonate customer support.

A further three defendants named in the case remain at large.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13623-us-sentences-bulgarian-owner-of-bitcoin-laundering-hub

Cameroon: Boko Haram Female Suicide Bomber Kills 13 in Jihadist Attack

A young woman reportedly of the Boko Haram terror group blew herself up in northern Cameroon last Friday, killing at least 13 people, the Barnabas Fund reported Tuesday.

A group of armed Islamic militants raided the predominantly Christian village of Mozogo in Cameroon’s Far North Region, after which the young woman detonated her explosives amidst a crowd of villagers, killing men, women, and children.

“Boko Haram terrorists stormed the village, firing shots in the air. Villagers fled to a park, where Boko Haram fighters brought a girl strapped with explosives,” said Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of the Far North Region. “Twelve villagers, the young suicide bomber, and a Boko Haram terrorist were killed in the explosion, while two more people were seriously injured.”

According to the village chief, Mahamat Chetima Abba, the militants arrived brandishing machetes and firing guns into the air in the early hours of Friday 8 January.

“They infiltrated the population. Boko Haram is inflicting more and more damage here,” Mr. Abba said.

“Frightened, the population fled into the park. It was at this point that a woman carrying an explosive charge allegedly entered the fleeing crowd and detonated her charge,” reads a U.N. security report.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said that five of the people killed in the attack were young children between the ages of 3 and 14 and another six children, aged 9 to 16, were “gravely injured.”

“I condemn this horrific act and call for the immediate cessation of attacks against children, their families and communities,” Ms. Fore said in a statement. “There is absolutely no justification for the targeting or use of children to carry out attacks.”

Boko Haram is very active in Far North Cameroon, where Christian communities are often subjected to lethal violence from heavily armed Islamist militants.

Since Boko Haram began its violent activities in northeast Nigeria in 2009, more than 36,000 people have been killed, mostly Nigerians, and three million people have been forced from their homes.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/01/13/cameroon-boko-haram-female-suicide-bomber-kills-13-in-jihadist-attack/

Cameroon Sees Chinese Migrant Wave from Central African Republic

More than 250 foreign workers, mostly Chinese, have fled violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) for the Cameroon border town of Garoua Boulay over the past week, Cameroon government authorities said on Monday.

Roughly 152 of the 250 foreign workers were Chinese miners, merchants, and construction engineers working in CAR.

“The foreign workers say they are being targeted by rebel groups disgruntled with the C.A.R.’s December 27 presidential election that saw Faustin-Archange Touadera reelected,” Voice of America (VOA) reported on January 11.

“Armed rebel groups began threatening Chinese mining workers after the December 27 elections in the CAR,” a man named Li Yu, 23, who said he was a spokesman for the Chinese workers fleeing CAR for Cameroon, told VOA.

“The situation worsened during the first week of January when groups of heavily armed men started searching their [Chinese workers’] homes, looting and asking all Chinese citizens to leave or be killed,” Li said.

CAR’s military assisted some of the foreign workers in fleeing to the Cameroon border, according to Li.

News of the Chinese workers fleeing CAR’s post-election violence comes just three weeks after the country’s Chinese embassy said it had evacuated about 250 Chinese nationals “to a safer area” after eight Chinese mining company vehicles were stolen during armed conflict ahead of the nation’s December 27 general election.

“Eight vehicles and other property belonging to four Chinese mining companies were stolen. No Chinese citizens were injured,” the Chinese embassy, located in CAR’s capital, Bengui, said in a statement on December 23.

“About 250 were evacuated to a safe place as the situation became more tense in ensuing days,” the embassy added, without revealing if the Chinese nationals were still in CAR.

The December 27 election saw Faustin-Archange Touadera reelected president of the Central African Republic with more than 53 percent of the vote. CAR’s government on December 3 barred former CAR President Francois Bozize from participating in the presidential election as a candidate. The decision led rebel groups to march on the capital, Bangui, an action which CAR’s ruling government has described as a coup attempt. Various rebel groups have been engaged in armed conflict with CAR government forces since then.

China’s relationship with CAR is limited but has shown signs of progressing over the past few years. Unlike many other African nations, CAR has yet to sign on to Beijing’s infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). President Touadera expressed support for the BRI in a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2018 after attending the seventh annual Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing.

“China has taken steps to cultivate a relationship with Touadéra’s government over the past year by donating military vehicles, sending medical teams, and establishing a China-CAR Friendship Village [in CAR],” the U.S. Institute of Peace noted in December 2019.

https://www.breitbart.com/africa/2021/01/12/cameroon-sees-chinese-migrant-wave-central-african-republic/

How COVID Paved The Road To Serfdom

Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom maintains a near unrivalled influence on the political imagination of conservative and classical liberal thinkers. Published in 1943, at the height of the Keynesian consensus, it elaborated a worldview considered intolerable within academic economics.

The central thesis of The Road to Serfdom is that descent into tyranny is the ultimate and inevitable trajectory of a society in which the sovereignty of the individual is subverted in the accumulation of economic power by the state. Central planning leads invariably to authoritarianism. Hayek is not timid in making these claims.

Studying the seemingly disparate political systems which dominated Europe in the run-up to the Second World War (communism, fascism, socialism), Hayek concluded that they each had a common endpoint – the development of a totalitarian state. Despite their contrasting social and economic goals, each necessitated the central consolidation of power and the explicit planning of an economy to achieve those goals.

As such, their distinct political flavours were largely irrelevant to their ultimate destination. Position along the political axis was less important than most commentators predicted. The binary Hayek was interested in, rather than left wing versus right wing, was whether the state uses its authority to promote individual freedom or to restrict it.

Hayek saw that the wartime governments of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and communist Russia all fell within the latter category: they sacrificed the freedom of individuals to empower the state to achieve its own goals. In doing so, their citizens suffered similarly. Repression, poverty and death are the consequence of a government which has taken ownership of those responsibilities previously held by individual citizens.

Hayek’s argument faced an uphill struggle. Despite its enormous popularity among classical liberals and conservative policymakers, we continue to view the political machines of the first half of the 20th century through the lens of their self-assigned labels, rather than under Hayek’s consequentialist umbrella of totalitarian collectivism.

His criticism of socialism is not a left versus right argument, but a general observation of the tendency of systems of government who accumulate economic power to achieve social goals to veer towards repression. The different political labels are just different positions along the road to serfdom, valuing centralised economic planning over individual liberty.

By transcending traditional political labels, and regrouping governments in terms of how they wield the formidable power of the state, The Road to Serfdom gains its enduring appeal. Its lessons are a stern warning to any who believe that a government can accumulate vast powers and maintain them for purely beneficent purposes.

The road described by Hayek, one in which citizens entitled to commercial freedom, private property and the rule of law might ultimately see their individual sovereignty become secondary to the aims of the state, is worryingly benign in its superficial appearance. The transition is not particular to any time or place or political position. There is no discontinuity or abrupt transition of power. The passage by which individuals find themselves subservient occurs gradually, and often in places where commentators would not believe it possible.

To Hayek, economic freedom is as inseparable from individual liberty. When the economic freedom of the individual is handed over to the state it is a key step towards totalitarian government. Economic freedom is a necessary condition of individual liberty. Individual liberty cannot long exist without economic freedom.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-covid-paved-road-serfdom

READ: Joe Biden Statement On Trump Impeachment And Transition

Statement by President-elect Joe Biden on the House of Representatives Impeachment of President Trump

Last week, we saw an unprecedented assault on our democracy. It was unlike anything we have witnessed in the 244-year history of our nation.

A violent attack on the United States Capitol itself. On the people’s representatives. On police officers who every day risk their lives to protect them. And on fellow citizens who serve as public servants in that Citadel of Liberty.

Windows and doors were destroyed. Offices ransacked. A Capitol Hill police officer was murdered. Another lost his life a few days later. Four other people died in the senseless mayhem of that day.

This criminal attack was planned and coordinated. It was carried out by political extremists and domestic terrorists, who were incited to this violence by President Trump.

It was an armed insurrection against the United States of America. And those responsible must be held accountable.

Today, the members of the House of Representatives exercised the power granted to them under our Constitution and voted to impeach and hold the president accountable. It was a bipartisan vote cast by members who followed the Constitution and their conscience. The process continues to the Senate.

This nation also remains in the grip of a deadly virus and a reeling economy. I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their Constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation.

From confirmations to key posts such as Secretaries for Homeland Security, State, Defense, Treasury, and Director of National Intelligence, to getting our vaccine program on track, and to getting our economy going again. Too many of our fellow Americans have suffered for too long over the past year to delay this urgent work.

I have often said that there is nothing we can’t do, if we do it together. And it has never been more critical for us to stand together as a nation than right now.

So we must remember who we are as Americans and what we stand for and believe.

It’s time for us to be what at our best we have always been.

The United States of America.

https://breaking911.com/read-joe-biden-statement-on-trump-impeachment-and-transition/