morning
>https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-trump-investigations-business-government-and-politics-80592eae7ba9ca508a3161e085a0fec6
New grand jury seated for next stage of Trump investigation
New York prosecutors have convened a special grand jury to consider evidence in a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business dealings, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The development signals that the Manhattan district attorney’s office was moving toward seeking charges as a result of its two-year investigation, which included a lengthy legal battle to obtain Trump’s tax records.
The person familiar with the matter was not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity. The news was first reported by The Washington Post.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into a variety of matters such as hush-money payments paid to women on Trump’s behalf, property valuations and employee compensation.
The Democratic prosecutor has been using an investigative grand jury through the course of his probe to issue subpoenas and obtain documents. That panel kept working while other grand juries and court activities were shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The investigation includes scrutiny of Trump’s relationship with his lenders; a land donation he made to qualify for an income tax deduction; and tax write-offs his company claimed on millions of dollars in consulting fees it paid.
The new grand jury could eventually be asked to consider returning indictments. While working on that case, it also will be hearing other matters. The Post reported that the grand jury will meet three days a week for six months.
Trump contends the investigation is a “witch hunt.”
“This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors,” Trump said in a statement.
Vance’s office declined to comment.
The new grand jury is the latest sign of increasing momentum in the criminal investigation into the Republican ex-president and his company, the Trump Organization.
Attorney General Letitia James said last week that she assigned two lawyers to work with Vance’s office on the probe after her civil investigation into Trump evolved into a criminal matter.
James, a Democrat, said her office also is continuing its civil investigation into Trump. She did not say what prompted her office to expand its investigation into a criminal probe.
In recent months, Vance hired former mafia prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to help run the investigation and has been interviewing witnesses, including Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Vance declined to run for reelection and will leave office at the end of the year, meaning the Trump case is likely to pass to his successor in some form. An election next month is all but certain to determine who that will be.
Trump said in a statement last week that he’s being “unfairly attacked and abused by a corrupt political system.” He contends the investigations are part of a Democratic plot to silence his voters and block him from running for president again.
In February, the U.S. Supreme Court buoyed Vance’s investigation by clearing the way for the prosecutor to enforce a subpoena on Trump’s accounting firm and obtain eight years of tax returns and related documents for the former president, the Trump Organization and other Trump entities.
The documents are protected by grand jury secrecy rules and are not expected to be made public.
Vance’s investigation has appeared to focus in recent weeks on Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg. His former daughter-in-law, Jen Weisselberg, is cooperating with both inquiries.
She’s given investigators reams of tax records and other documents as they look into whether some Trump employees were given off-the-books compensation, such as apartments or school tuition.
Allen Weisselberg was subpoenaed in James’ civil investigation and testified twice last year. His lawyer declined to comment when asked Tuesday if he had been subpoenaed to testify before the new grand jury.
A message seeking comment was left with Jen Weisselberg’s lawyer.
>Prone man at George Floyd memorial shooting
>Biden admin shut down a closely-held State Dept effort launched late in the Trump admin to prove that COVID-19 likely originated in a Chinese lab over concerns abt the quality of the work, per sources
>Republican ballots were mislabeled as Democrat ones on electronic screen at polling locations.
<But Dominion says it wasn’t their fault.
>it wasn’t their fault
>total at 7:25 Washington DC time in less than an half an hour
>Fauci told Rand that he was “completely and entirely incorrect” to question whether the NIH was funding Wuhan lab bat research
what a weasel
>Dr. Judy Mikovits explained that Ebola couldn't infect humans until they taught it to?
source? that would be a nice clip
“When we talk about transparency,” said Fann, “From day one the entire process has been live-streaming, so anybody…”
“On OAN,” Lah interrupted, referencing the right-wing One America News Network, which has trafficked in election conspiracies. “With cameras controlled by OAN.”
“Are you saying that OAN is not a credible news source? Are you saying that?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. I’ll remember that. CNN is saying that OAN is not a credible one.”
“Yes.”
“Ok. Very good.”
As Lah pointed out in her report, OAN on-air personalities have fund-raised for the “audit.”
>crotch chakra 'focus constantly on sex and be distracted' shills
>Worst. Swastika. Ever.
>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9619125/Walmart-apologizes-racist-email-N-word-sent-George-Floyd-anniversary.html
Walmart apologizes after racist email with the N-word is sent to hundreds of customers around the world on the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder
Hundreds of customers around the world received an an email saying 'Welcome to Walmart, N*'
The company apologized and blamed a 'bad actor' for signing up customers to its online database and changing their first name to the N-word
A Walmart rep says it is unsure how many offensive emails were sent, and has blocked servers from sending out racial slurs
Detroit woman Courtney Rhodman said she was angered to receive an email with 'such a hateful word like that' on the anniversary of George Floyd's murder
A security expert said the email addresses had probably been acquired after a previous unrelated data breach
>Welcome to Walmart, N*
https://twitter.com/rothschildmd
I wonder how many 'journalists' post here
>wait until Trump is thrown in prison
https://qposts.online/post/1374
Can you serve from jail?
https://twitter.com/PreetBharara
crunchy
The parallels between the stories of Enkidu/Shamhat and Adam/Eve have been long recognized by scholars. In both, a man is created from the soil by a god, and lives in a natural setting amongst the animals. He is introduced to a woman who tempts him. In both stories the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and must leave his former realm, unable to return. The presence of a snake that steals a plant of immortality from the hero later in the epic is another point of similarity.
hah nice
A rare proverb about the strength of a triple-stranded rope, "a triple-stranded rope is not easily broken", is common to both books.
>https://www.reuters.com/article/iran-blast-pipeline-int-idUSKCN2D7162
Blast at Iran's petrochemical plant oxygen pipeline kills one
An explosion on an oxygen pipeline in a petrochemical plant in Assaluyeh on Iran’s Gulf coast killed one worker, Iranian state media reported on Wednesday, adding that the ensuing fire had been extinguished.
“One worker was killed and two others were injured in the explosion on the oxygen transmission pipeline,” Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted Abdolnabi Yusefi, governor of Assaluyeh in Iran’s Busher province, as saying.
“The reason for the blast is under investigation and the fire has been extinguished.”
>the only people reading them are from here kek
>A veteran of World War II and the Korean War, Mr. Warner served in the Senate from 1979 to 2009 after a brief period as Navy secretary. He rose to chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
how's that eclipse going
https://apnews.com/article/world-news-belarus-europe-business-government-and-politics-450f548007a8146114830ec05b926451
Belarusian leader defends diversion of flight that drew fury
Belarus’ authoritarian president defended Wednesday his decision to tell a passenger jet to land in his country and accused European leaders of waging a “hybrid war” to “strangle” his nation by ordering up new sanctions for diverting the flight and arresting an opposition journalist who was aboard.
Speaking before lawmakers and top officials, President Alexander Lukashenko maintained his contention that there was a bomb threat against the Ryanair flight and called it an “absolute lie” that a fighter jet he scrambled was forcing the passenger plane to land in Minsk. The carrier has said its crew was instructed to land. The plane was searched once on the ground, and no bomb was found — but Raman Pratasevich, a 26-year-old journalist and activist, and his Russian girlfriend were detained.
“I acted in a lawful way, protecting people in line with international rules,” said 66-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron fist for more than a quarter-century, relentlessly stifling dissent.
He doubled down on the idea that there was a grave security risk, saying the plane was flying not far away from the Astravets nuclear power plant and adding that he ordered air defense systems on high alert. “I had to protect people, I was thinking about the country’s security,” he said.
But European Union leaders have denounced the move to divert the plane — which was traveling between two EU countries and being operated by an airline based in a third — as an act of piracy. They quickly agreed to ban Belarusian airlines from using the airspace and airports of the 27-nation bloc and urged European airlines to avoid Belarus’ airspace. They agreed to draft more sanctions on officials linked to the diversion and ones targeting businesses that are the main cash earners for Lukashenko’s regime.
Lukashenko derided that response.
“Our ill-wishers outside and inside the country have changed their methods of attacking the state,” Lukashenko said. “That’s why they switched from organizing riots to trying to strangle us.”
He added: “It’s no longer just an information war, it’s a modern hybrid war and we need to do everything to prevent it from spilling into a hot conflict.”
Lukashenko has faced unprecedented pressure at home with months of protests triggered by his reelection to a sixth term in an August 2020 vote that the opposition rejected as rigged. But he has only doubled down on repression, and more than 35,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, with thousands beaten.
Pratasevich, who left Belarus in 2019, has become a top foe of Lukashenko with a popular messaging app he ran playing a key role in helping organize the huge protests. After his detention, the journalist was seen in a brief video clip on Belarusian state television late Monday, speaking rapidly to say that he was confessing to some of the charges authorities have leveled against him. A U.N. official expressed concern for his welfare, saying his appearance likely was not voluntary and there seemed to be bruising to his face.
On Wednesday, Lukashenko threatened that Belarus would retaliate against the EU by weakening its border controls halting Western-bound illegal migration and drug trafficking.
“We were stopping migrants and drugs — now you will catch them and eat them yourself,” he said.
Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko also warned that the country could halt Western cargo shipments via Belarus.
“Our measures would be quite painful for the countries that have taken an openly hostile stance — from import bans to restrictions on transit,” he said. “Still, we hope that those who rush to pass the point of no return to sober up and think twice before entering a slippery path of economic war in which there will be no winners.”
Pratasevich had been charged in absentia with staging mass riots and fanning social hatred. Those carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years, and some fear Pratasevich could face more serious charges, including some that carry the death penalty.
Lukashenko alleged Wednesday that Pratasevich and his associates were working in cahoots with foreign spy agencies to “organize a massacre and a bloody rebellion in Belarus.”
Albert Speer
Little remains of Speer's personal architectural works, other than the plans and photographs. No buildings designed by Speer during the Nazi era are extant in Berlin, other than the 4 entrance pavilions and underpasses leading to the Victory Column or Siegessäule, and the Schwerbelastungskörper, a heavy load-bearing body built around 1941. The concrete cylinder, 14 metres (46 ft) high, was used to measure ground subsidence as part of feasibility studies for a massive triumphal arch and other large structures proposed as part of Welthauptstadt Germania, Hitler's planned post-war renewal project for the city. The cylinder is now a protected landmark and is open to the public. The tribune of the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg, though partly demolished, can also be seen.
During the war, the Speer-designed Reich Chancellery was largely destroyed by air raids and in the Battle of Berlin. The exterior walls survived, but they were eventually dismantled by the Soviets. Unsubstantiated rumors have claimed that the remains were used for other building projects such as the Humboldt University, MohrenstraĂźe metro station and Soviet war memorials in Berlin.
>Schwerbelastungskörper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerbelastungsk%C3%B6rper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_(city)
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_(city)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkshalle
The Volkshalle ("People's Hall"), also called GroĂźe Halle ("Great Hall") or Ruhmeshalle ("Hall of Glory"), was a monumental domed building planned by Adolf Hitler and his architect Albert Speer for Germania in Berlin. The project was never realized.
Just as Augustus's Domus on the Palatine was connected to the Temple of Apollo Palatinus, so Hitler's palace was to have been connected by a cryptoporticus to the Volkshalle, which filled the entire north side of the forum. This truly enormous building was, according to Albert Speer, inspired by Hadrian's Pantheon, which Hitler visited privately on May 7, 1938. But Hitler's interest in and admiration for the Pantheon predated this visit, since his sketch of the Volkshalle dates from about 1925. Hermann Giesler records a conversation he had with Hitler in the winter of 1939–40, when Hitler was recalling his “Roman Impressions” (Römische Impressionen):
From the time I experienced this building – no description, picture or photograph did it justice – I became interested in its history […] For a short while I stood in this space (the rotunda) – what majesty! I gazed at the large open oculus and saw the universe and sensed what had given this space the name Pantheon – God and the world are one.
Hitler believed that as centuries passed, his huge domed assembly hall would acquire great holy significance and become a hallowed shrine as important to National Socialism as St. Peters in Rome is to Roman Catholicism. Such cultism was at the root of the entire plan.
>Hitler believed that as centuries passed, his huge domed assembly hall would acquire great holy significance and become a hallowed shrine as important to National Socialism as St. Peters in Rome is to Roman Catholicism. Such cultism was at the root of the entire plan.
<Speer in his Playboy magazine interview
>https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid
>1861 when the legitimate Congress adjourned "Sine Dei"
The final entry in the Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America made on March 18, 1865 reads: "The hour of 2 o'clock having arrived, The Speaker announced that the House stood adjourned sine die."
https://apnews.com/article/myanmar-business-b2187c696e428139437778aeab0c43d4
Myanmar's junta using bodies to terrorize
Two black pickups speed down an empty city street in Myanmar before coming to a sudden stop. Security forces standing in the back of the trucks begin firing at an oncoming motorbike carrying three young men.
The bike swerves, crashing into a gate. More shots are fired as two of the passengers run away, while the third, Kyaw Min Latt, remains on the ground. Moans are heard as officers grab the wounded 17-year-old from the pavement, throwing his limp body into a truck bed before driving off.
The incident lasted just over a minute and was captured on a CCTV camera. It is part of a growing trove of photos and videos shared on social media that’s helping expose a brutal crackdown carried out by the junta since the military’s Feb. 1 takeover of the Southeast Asian nation.
>https://apnews.com/article/myanmar-business-b2187c696e428139437778aeab0c43d4
An analysis by The Associated Press and the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, looked at cases where bodies of those targeted indiscriminately by police and the military are being used as tools of terror. The findings are based on more than 2,000 tweets and online images, in addition to interviews with family members, witness accounts, and local media reports.
The AP and HRC Lab identified more than 130 instances where security forces appeared to be using corpses and the bodies of the wounded to create anxiety, uncertainty, and strike fear in the civilian population. Over two-thirds of those cases analyzed were confirmed or categorized as having moderate or high credibility, and often involved tracking down the original source of the content or interviewing observers.
Since the military takeover, more than 825 people have been killed — well over two times the government tally — according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a watchdog organization that monitors arrests and deaths. The junta did not respond to written questions submitted by AP.
The HRC Lab examined hours of footage posted online over a two-month period showing dead bodies being snatched off the streets and dragged like sacks of rice before being thrown into vehicles and driven to unknown destinations. Some people have been disappeared or arrested one day and returned dead the next, their corpses mutilated with signs of torture, witnesses confirmed to AP.
Autopsies have been carried out without the permission of families. And some death certificates blame heart attacks or falls after violent attacks, contradicting witness accounts and images captured by protesters, journalists, or residents, including some who have been stealthily recording incidents with mobile phones through windows or from rooftops.
Cremations and exhumations of the deceased have been secretly conducted in the middle of the night by authorities. Other times, grieving families have been forced to pay military hospitals to release their loved ones’ remains, relatives and eyewitnesses told the AP.
Though the incidents may seem random and unprovoked — including kids being shot while playing outside their homes — they are actually deliberate and systematic with the goal of demobilizing people and wearing them down, said Nick Cheesman, a researcher at Australian National University, who specializes in the politics of law and policing in Myanmar.
“That,” he said, “is exactly the characteristic of state terror.”
Taking a page from the army’s historical playbook, experts say the violence also appears aimed at keeping the death toll artificially low and concealing evidence. But unlike past violence, the attacks are being captured on smartphones and surveillance cameras in real-time and could one day be used against the regime before international criminal courts, as has happened elsewhere in the world.
“It has always been the military’s strategy to hide the mass crackdown there, the mass killing of the protesters,” said Van Tran, a Cornell University researcher who studied the bloody 1988 and 2007 uprisings in Myanmar. “There are always large-scale operations in order to either cremate the bodies of people that were shot down or … bulldoze and bury those bodies. So a lot of the time, families do not know where their children went.”
Almost a quarter of the recent cases with known locations analyzed by the HRC Lab involved injured people or dead bodies snatched by security forces in the country’s biggest city, Yangon, followed by Mandalay and Bago.
The largest number of those incidents, documented through posts on social media, was reported on March 27. Celebrated annually as Armed Forces Day, it commemorates the start of the military’s resistance to Japanese occupation during World War II after more than a century of British colonial rule.
This year protesters dubbed it “Anti-Fascist-Resistance Day,” and came out in large numbers in a stand against the military takeover.
It was on that day that motorbike rider Kyaw Min Latt was shot, though his family told AP the young carpenter had not been to a demonstration but was instead heading home from the job site to grab an early lunch with two friends.
Using satellite visuals, reverse image searches, and a sun-shadow calculator, the HRC Lab was able to verify that the shooting took place at 10:38 a.m. in front of a high school on Azarni Road in the southern town of Dawei. In the footage, two shots are heard and Kyaw Min Latt, who was sitting between the driver and a fellow passenger, is seen grabbing his head and falling sideways. Officers chased after the two other riders with guns raised. Another bang is then heard.
Sixteen minutes later, a passerby posted a picture on Facebook of blood-soaked concrete and flip flops near the white motorbike that security forces had carefully propped back up before taking Kyaw Min Latt’s body.
Within two hours, the CCTV footage was also being shared widely across social media platforms.
That’s how the teen’s father received the news. He told AP he later learned his son had been taken to a military hospital. He rushed there to see him that afternoon and said the teen was still alive, but unconscious.
“He was badly wounded,” Soe Soe Latt said. “He opened his eyes when we were at the hospital, but could not say any words.”
The boy died soon after, and his father said army doctors wanted to perform an autopsy. The family fought against it, but said the hospital would only release the body if they signed a paper saying their son died of head injuries from falling off the motorbike.
A photo published online before Kyaw Min Latt’s funeral by Dawei Watch, a local news outlet, told a different story: There was a gaping wound in the teen’s neck.
Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley
https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/research-unit/human-rights-center
The Human Rights Center promotes human rights and international justice worldwide and trains the next generation of human rights researchers and advocates.
The Human Rights Center (HRC) is a research and training center that applies innovative technologies and scientific methods to investigate war crimes and other serious violations of human rights. Based on its findings, HRC recommends specific policy measures to protect vulnerable populations and hold perpetrators accountable. HRC trains advocates around the world and provides them with the skills and tools necessary to document human rights abuses and turn this information into effective action.
Three core goals guide the Human Rights Center's activities:
Pursue accountability for mass atrocities
Ensure that needs of survivors are heard
Strengthen the research and advocacy capacities of local and international human rights organizations
The Human Rights Center is part of the UC Berkeley School of Law.
HRC Website: http://hrc.berkeley.edu
>Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley
https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/programs-projects/tech/investigations-lab
Human Rights Center Investigations Lab: Where Facts Matter
In Fall 2016, UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center launched the first university-based open source investigations lab to discover and verify human rights violations and potential war crimes. Today, more than 75 students from two dozen majors and minors who collectively speak some 30 languages are working in teams to contribute verified information to international NGOs, news organizations, and legal partners. Our #HRCLab is training the next generation of students how to find, verify, and analyze information found on social media—photos, videos, and posts—about some of the most pressing human rights challenges of our times. We’re working with partners to investigate potential crimes, abuses, and misinformation around the globe—including here in the United States.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/usa-unlawful-use-of-force-by-police-at-black-lives-matter-protests/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkISH8jKFsE
Minnie Mantlez