Two Companies and Nine Individuals Indicted for Alleged Large-Scale Visa Fraud Employment Scheme
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-companies-and-nine-individuals-indicted-alleged-large-scale-visa-fraud-employment-scheme
Former federal employee admits leaking confidential information to drug traffickers
A former paralegal specialist in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge that she lied to federal agents about divulging sensitive law enforcement information to drug smugglers linked to Mexican cartels.
Jennifer Loya was arrested last year by the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which had been investigating traffickers that included Roland Gustamante, who is married to her sister.
The investigation found that Gustamante and his group were tied to other traffickers and Mexican cartels and that Gustamante had inside information that Loya saw in the course of her job.
Loya was initially charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine; conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin; conspiracy to obstruct justice (each carrying 10 years to life in prison); and making a false statement to agents.
As part of a plea deal, Loya pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Fred Biery only to making a false statement. She admitted that, on May 7, 2020, when the FBI and DEA questioned her, she falsely denied passing on any sensitive information to her sister.
The other charges will be dismissed at sentencing. She faces up to five years in prison.
Her lawyer, John Convery, said Loya is sorry and remorseful, and only wanted to get her sister, Kimberly Loya, out of a bad situation. Jennifer Loya began working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio as a legal assistant in 2017, and was promoted to paralegal specialist in February 2020. She resigned after her arrest, Convery said.
“She told her sister an investigation was underway; the purpose of that was to have her sister take her children and get away from him and his crowd,” Convery said of Jennifer Loya. “She had no idea his sister would tell him.”
Kimberly Loya faces sentencing in July for her guilty plea in September to money laundering conspiracy. She admitted she transported drug proceeds from San Antonio to Laredo for the group.
https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Former-federal-employee-admits-leaking-16115819.php
Amnesty for sex buyers will enable human traffickers
When I learned that one of our elected officials had created a policy to decriminalize sex buyers in our community, I was in shock.
Put simply, Washtenaw County Prosecuting Attorney Eli Savit has created a policy where sex buyers will not be criminally changed for the purchase of sex.
Savit contends that his policy is “empowering” for women selling sex in consensual transactions. He says he intends to continue to prosecute trafficking, and transactions involving violence and minors.
There is nothing empowering about prostitution and enabling the commercial sex industry. We have seen around the world that the sex industry grows when it is legitimized. When the demand for commercial sex increases and there are not enough willing participants to fill the demand, sex traffickers enter to meet that demand with vulnerable persons — especially children and young adults.
The sex trade preys on the vulnerable. The vast majority of those trafficked are females of color, girls, LGBTQ and homeless youth. And yet, in his first days in office, Savit published a policy that will normalize an inherently harmful sex trade and further disenfranchise those he promised to protect by exempting most sex buyers from prosecution.
Research is clear that legitimizing the sex trade explodes the demand for paid sex, and creates sex tourism destinations. Washtenaw County is a destination for sports, higher education and other attractions let’s not add sex tourism to the list.
For a decade as president and CEO of Vista Maria, I have seen first-hand the trauma and suffering caused by sexual exploitation and trafficking of the hundreds of children placed in our care. We have provided treatment services to girls as young as 11, with the average age of 15. Trafficking experiences for children last not days, but years. Our Michigan childrens' rights organizations have been working tirelessly to reduce trafficking.
What we need is a policy with a statewide demand-reduction strategy, providing a legal framework with criminal penalties as well as treatment and rehabilitation.
My anti-trafficking recommendation is for partial decriminalization, also known as the Equality Model. This model includes three equally important components:
First, we must decriminalize and offer services to prostituted people. We need to educate and address public perceptions regarding prostitution. Prostitution isn’t glamorous; it is exploitation of a human being. and it is inhumane. People in prostitution must be provided exit strategies and services, not arrest.
Second, we must hold exploiters accountable, including sex buyers and third-party facilitators such as pimps and traffickers.
https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2021/04/20/washtenaw-county-eli-savit-prostitution-sex-industry/7239926002/
THEY ARE MOCKING THE PEOPLE
YouTube CEO receives freedom of expression award as conservatives say the site censors them
"I’ve just seen the real benefits that freedom of speech has," YouTube's Susan Wojcicki said.
https://justthenews.com/nation/culture/youtube-ceo-receives-freedom-expression-award-conservatives-say-site-censors-them
Biden praises Derek Chauvin murder conviction, blames US for ‘systemic racism’
President Biden on Tuesday praised the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd, but also accused the United States of deep-seated “systemic racism” as he said the guilty verdict was “too rare.”
“It was a murder in the full light of day. And it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism the vice president just referred to,” Biden said in an evening speech at the White House.
“The systemic racism that’s a stain on our nation’s soul — the knee on the neck of justice for black Americans — profound fear and trauma, the pain, the exhaustion that black and brown Americans experience every single day.”
Biden called on Congress to pass a Democratic police reform bill named after Floyd, who died in May 2020 after Chauvin knelt on his neck for 9 minutes. The bill would ban chokeholds and do away with “qualified immunity” for law enforcement, among other reforms.
Biden said “this can be a moment of significant change” and “we also need Congress to act. George Floyd was murdered almost a year ago. There’s meaningful police reform legislation in his name.”
“Nothing can ever bring their brother, their father back. But this can be a giant step forward in the march toward justice in America,” Biden said.
“Let’s also be clear that such a verdict is also much too rare. For so many people, it seems like it took a unique and extraordinary convergence of factors. A brave young woman with a smartphone camera, a crowd that was traumatized… a murder that last almost 10 minutes in broad daylight for ultimately the whole world to see.”
The comments came a day after his Attorney General Merrick Garland said racism is an “American problem,” adding that he does not believe America has equal justice under the law.
“Look, racism is an American problem,” Garland told ABC News.
“It’s plain to me that there has been and remains discrimination against African Americans and other communities of color, and other ethnic minorities. I think it’s reflected in discrimination in housing and employment and the justice system,” he said. “We do not yet have equal justice under law.”
“This is an important part of the role of the Justice Department, to help bring it about,” Garland added.
The verdict won bipartisan praise in Washington, and relief across the country due to the presumed reduced risk of violent civil unrest if Chauvin was acquitted. Last year, rioting after Floyd’s death caused up to $2 billion in damage, according to insurance estimates.
https://nypost.com/2021/04/20/biden-praises-chauvin-murder-conviction-blames-us-for-systemic-racism/
Woke Medicine Comes to New York City
How nonprofits installed an activist at a top health department post
A pair of doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital last month outlined a pilot program that, they said, would offer "preferential care" to patients of color. The proposal, published in Boston Review, accuses hospitals across the country of practicing "medical apartheid"—something they said must be addressed through "race-explicit interventions."
Those interventions may violate civil rights laws, and Brigham and Women's Hospital assured the Washington Free Beacon that they are "not currently underway at the hospital." That hasn't stopped one of its authors, Dr. Michelle Morse, from moving on up: She is now the chief medical officer of New York City.
In her new post, Morse will wield enormous influence over New York's hospital system, and she has promised to use it to "advance health equity." Part of her job will be serving as a liaison between the health department and local medical centers, including three she singled out as examples of "apartheid": Montefiore, New York-Presbyterian, and Mount Sinai. She was also named the deputy commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness, a division within the New York City health department.
Asked how her office would address apartheid at local hospitals, Morse did not respond to a request for comment.
Morse's ascent reflects the larger trajectory of progressive activism, which has migrated from the fringe of academia to the heart of public health bureaucracies. Vermont's health department announced this month that people of color will get first dibs on the coronavirus vaccine as a part of the state's commitment to "health equity." And in December, the Centers for Disease Control proposed vaccinating essential workers before the elderly because the elderly skew white.
Morse's march through the institutions—from foundations to fellowships and finally to a top government post—reveals how radicalism gains influence. Supported by an incestuous network of left-wing nonprofits that credentialize activists and funnel them into positions of power, activists like Morse use studies funded by those same nonprofits to give their agenda a veneer of scientific credibility. And since the nonprofits combine charity with activism, it is easy for them to launder the latter as the former, further insulating them from critique.
Take EqualHealth, which Morse cofounded after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. What began as a support system for Haitian health care workers soon became an effort to stem "the miseducation of health professionals on the root causes of illness." Those root causes, per the group's website, are racism and capitalism, which it seeks to combat through "disruptive pedagogy."
In 2015, EqualHealth founded the Social Medicine Consortium, "a collective of committed individuals, universities and organizations fighting for health equity." Morse received a $100,000 grant from the Soros Equality Fellowship three years later to launch the "Campaign Against Racism," a network of health equity activists who work to "dismantle racial capitalism."
All the while, EqualHealth continued its original work in Haiti—giving an air of humanitarian legitimacy to what became a radical group.
This sort of legitimation gives activists a foothold to further burnish their credentials. Morse went on to a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellowship that sent her to Washington, D.C., to work on "health equity priorities" with the House Ways and Means Committee. By the time she became New York's chief medical officer, she had experience in both nonprofits and government, making her a prime candidate for the position.
https://freebeacon.com/policy/woke-medicine-comes-to-new-york-city/
Former President Bush Issues Warning About Biden’s Decision To Withdraw Troops From Afghanistan
Former President George W. Bush on Tuesday warned that President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all American troops from Afghanistan could hurt women and girls if the “brutal” Taliban returns to power.
“My first reaction was, wow, these girls are going to have real trouble with the Taliban,” Bush said on NBC’s “Today.” “A lot of gains have been made, and so I’m deeply concerned about the plight of women and girls in that country.”
“I think the administration hopes that the girls are going be OK through diplomacy. We’ll find out. All I know is the Taliban, when they had the run of the place, they were brutal,” Bush said.
The Republican has been making public appearances to hawk his new book, “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.”
The war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks. But despite campaign pledges by Barack Obama in his first run for the White House — as well as Donald Trump — neither ever fully withdrew U.S. troops from the war-torn nation. The war has cost more than $2.2 trillion, according to one analysis conducted by Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs.
Biden said last week that the events of 9/11 “cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021.”
“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden said.
“War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” Biden said, noting that service members now serving in Afghanistan had parents who served in the same war.“We were attacked,” the president said in his 16-minute speech. “We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives,” he said. “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for withdrawal, and expecting a different result.”
“I’m now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan — Two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth,” said Biden, noting that it has become the “forever war.”
Biden said he spoke to Bush before announcing the move.
“I spoke yesterday with President Bush to inform him of my decision,” Biden said. “While he and I have had many disagreements over policy throughout the years, we’re absolutely united in our respect and support for the valor, the courage, and integrity of the women and men in the United States Armed Forces who served, and immensely grateful for the bravery and backbone they have shown through nearly two decades of combat deployments.”
The president also said Obama, who issued his own statement on the matter Wednesday, supported the withdrawal.
But other Republicans countered with fiery rhetoric, with one U.S. senator saying the withdrawal could lead to another 9-11.
“With all due respect to President Biden, you have not ended the war, you’ve extended it,” the South Carolina Republican said during a Capitol Hill press conference. “You have made it bigger, not smaller.”
“The likelihood of this happening again is going through the roof after President Biden’s decision today,” Graham said. “He’s setting Afghanistan on a path to deteriorate rather quickly and for the enemy, radical Islam, to reconstitute. It can all be avoided with a minimal commitment compared to the past.”
http://www.scoopyweb.com/2021/04/former-president-bush-issues-warning.html
NSW school accused of 'brainwashing' kids
Call for Sydney teacher to be fired over anti-police posters
A Sydney school has come under fire after kids after were encouraged to create anti-cop posters using phrases like "Pigs out of the country".
A school in Sydney's North Shore has come under fire after children were encouraged to create anti-police and BLM posters.
The Daily Telegraph obtained photos of posters created by year 5 and 6 students at Lindfield Learning Village, which were emblazoned with the phrases “Stop killer cops” and “Pigs out of the country”.
The posters have sparked calls for the teacher responsible to be fired, with Police Minister David Elliot expressing his fury at “half-witted” educators for “brainwashing” students.
The posters have sparked calls for the teacher responsible to be fired, with Police Minister David Elliot expressing his fury at "half-witted" educators.
"The racist rants that are on that board, lines about how white lives don’t matter or they matter too much. This is the sort of racism that gets the United States in trouble. It’s got no place in Australia," he told 2GB's Ben Fordham.
"They have completely let their student body down by indoctrinating and brainwashing them at a time when they really should be learning how to read and write."
The school opened in 2019 and was touted as having an “innovative educational model”. Students don't wear uniforms and there are no bells.
The Education Minister has ordered a review into the posters, with officials confirming the posters have now been removed from the school.
https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/live-breaking-news/live-coverage/bcdedc09972454d66db74165ab3dfcdf
Four Philadelphians Charged With Sex Trafficking of Minors
The defendants allegedly advertised the minors online and harbored them in area hotels and properties
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/four-philadelphians-charged-sex-trafficking-minors
106 Pounds of Illegal Ketamine Seized by Cincinnati CBP
CINCINNATI—Since April 1, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in Cincinnati have seized ten shipments containing a total of over 106 pounds of smuggled ketamine. The shipments were coming from locations throughout Europe and Africa and were destined to addresses across the United States.Ketamine
During routine inspections, officers decided to take a closer look at multiple shipments containing décor, clothing, spices, and protein powder, among other articles. After testing bottles of nutritional supplements, unknown liquids, and bath salts with a handheld chemical analyzer, officers discovered liquid or powder ketamine in all of the products. The cumulative value of the ketamine was $704,270.
Like many anesthetics, ketamine has legitimate medical uses, but can be abused for its hallucinogenic and sedating effects. Ketamine distorts perceptions, causes temporary paralysis, and dangerously slows breathing, potentially shutting down body systems and leading to cardiac arrest or respiratory failure. Along with other club drugs, ketamine abuse typically occurs at raves and dance clubs, and is commonly used to facilitate sexual assault crimes. It is a Schedule III non-narcotic drug regulated under the Controlled Substances Act.
“Our experienced officers continue to protect our citizens and their children,” said Cincinnati Port Director Richard Gillespie. “Our officers are exceptional at integrating and analyzing data to determine shipments that may pose a risk to innocent civilians. This level of skill allows them to excel at identifying and removing these dangerous drugs from the e-commerce supply chain.”
CBP's border security mission is led at ports of entry by CBP officers from the Office of Field Operations. CBP officers screen international travelers and cargo and search for illicit narcotics, unreported currency, weapons, counterfeit consumer goods, prohibited agriculture products, and other illicit items that could potentially harm the American public, U.S. businesses, and our nation’s safety and economic vitality
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/106-pounds-illegal-ketamine-seized-cincinnati-cbp
Facebook Plans To Launch Stablecoin That Will Compete With Dollar Early Next Year
A couple of days ago, Morgan Stanley warned that China's new digital renminbi - the first "central bank digital currency" (or CBDC) - could cement its status as the next reserve currency. But as government and Wall Street continue their embrace of virtual currencies that, some say, threaten to blow up the industry status quo and eliminate the need for banks, corporations are also striving to create the stablecoin of the future, challenging governments' long-held monopoly on money.
Years after Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg first declared his intention to launch a transnational stablecoin via Facebook's "Libra" project that would, he hoped, enable cross-border payments on Facebook's platform, the Facebook-backed digital-currency project Diem is reportedly planning to launch its first stablecoin in 2021 as a small-scale pilot, according to an anonymously sourced report from CNBC.
But Libra, which involved a convoluted plan to launch a stablecoin backed by a potpourri of fiat currencies, was quickly scaled back after Facebook's talk about creating a new international financial system to supplant the dollar apparently rattled too many feathers. What was left was later spun off as Diem, a re-branding that has given life to a scaled-back vision of corporate stablecoin dominance. However, When it finally arrives, Diem won’t come with the same fanfare and controversy of the original idea envisioned by the social media giant nearly two years ago.
The person, who preferred to remain anonymous as the details haven’t yet been made public, said this pilot will be small in scale, focusing largely on transactions between individual consumers. There may also be an option for users to buy goods and purchases, the person added. However, there is no confirmed date for the launch and timing could therefore change.
"It’s really drifted off the radar in a way that’s quite striking," Michael Casey, chief content officer of the cryptocurrency publication CoinDesk and a former financial journalist, told CNBC.
Facebook won't play an official role in the launch, which instead will be overseen by the Diem Association, the Switzerland-based nonprofit which oversees diem’s development.
In comments to CNBC, financial journalist Michael Casey said he was surprised at how under-the-radar the diem project has become. It's almost as if the international community has forgotten about it, he said. "It really drifted off the radar in a way that’s quite striking," said Casey, the chief content officer of the cryptocurrency publication CoinDesk who was one of the first reporters at a major American newspaper (the Wall Street Journal) to cover the rise of crypto.
The soft reaction to Diem is also surprising considering how much of a backlash its predecessor created. "It was such a stunning challenge to the international order, in that the backlash was just really powerful," Casey said.
Diem has lost several senior executives over the past year, as well as the backing of powerful corporations like Mastercard and Visa, among many others. But in the wake of its rebranding, Diem is reportedly in talks with Swiss financial regulators to secure a payment license, a crucial step that would place the organization further along the path toward getting its digital currency project off the ground.
Of course, more "government sponsored" competitors are in the works: in addition to the eRMB, the ECB recently concluded a public consultation on a digital euro and will make a decision this summer, and the Boston Fed is set to release its initial research in the fall.
With stablecoins seen as a more practical alternative to bitcoin and ether, we will be closely watching the rollout of stablecoins as a space where corporations might win an early victory in the battle to use crypto technology to seize the money-making monopoly from government - and from the people.
To sum up, why should readers be skeptical of Facebook's Diem? Well, Tom Luongo once described it as a "Trojan Rabbit" that could quietly help Zuck seize the ability to print money, and launch "the Central Bank of Facebook."
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/facebook-plans-launch-stablecoin-will-compete-dollar-early-next-year