>dough
>KASH PATEL: The reporting is accurate enough for the Uniform Code of Military Justice to be applied to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, General Milley.
https://nypost.com/2021/09/17/pompeo-didnt-know-about-about-milleys-talks-with-china/
Pompeo, WH didn’t know about about Gen. Milley’s talks with China
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley didn’t tell then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien about his calls with China’s military during the final months of President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a report.
Pompeo and O’Brien also were unaware of any intelligence that China might suspect a Trump-ordered US attack, as was reportedly the reason for unusual assurances conveyed by Milley, Fox News reports.
Milley, the highest-ranking US military officer, allegedly told his Chinese counterpart that he would provide a heads-up if Trump ordered an attack on China.
“If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise,” Milley allegedly told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army on Oct. 30, which critics called a stunning move that undermines civilian control of the military.
Milley called again on Jan. 8, two days after a wild mob stormed the US Capitol to disrupt certification of President Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. The calls are described in a book due for release next week by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
Biden on Wednesday stood by Milley, saying “I have great confidence in General Milley,” and the general’s office said in a statement that Milley “regularly communicates with Chiefs of Defense across the world, including with China and Russia.”
“His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability,” the statement said. “All calls from the Chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mark-milley-says-calls-to-chinese-general-were-within-his-duties-11631878596
Mark Milley Says Calls to Chinese General Were Within His Duties
Top U.S. general under fire over reports of talks with Chinese counterpart at end of Trump term
ATHENS—The Pentagon’s top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, said he would mount a vigorous defense of two calls he placed to his Chinese counterpart in the tumultuous last days of the Trump administration, describing an effort to calm Beijing’s nerves and avert a military conflict.
“These are routine calls in order to discuss issues of the day, to reassure both allies and adversaries in this case, in order to ensure strategic stability,” Gen. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him on a military jet Friday. “And these are perfectly within the duties and responsibilities of the chairman.”
https://nypost.com/2021/09/15/trump-defense-sec-miller-denies-giving-ok-to-china-call/
Trump Defense Sec. Miller denies giving Milley OK to China call
Gen. Mark Milley said his calls to a Chinese counterpart were a normal part of his duties, after a new book reported he secretly contacted Beijing amid worries over Donald Trump's mental state.
Then-President Donald Trump‘s last secretary of defense said Wednesday that he did not sign off on a call from Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to his Chinese counterpart days after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol.
Christopher Miller, who led the Pentagon on an acting basis between the 2020 presidential election and the inauguration of Joe Biden, told Fox News that Milley’s action “represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the Nation’s top military officer”.
The Jan. 8 phone conversation between Milley and People’s Liberation Army Gen. Li Zuocheng is detailed in the forthcoming book “Peril,” written by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and reporter Robert Costa. The authors report that Milley told Li that the US government was “100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”
Woodward and Costa write, Milley feared Trump had suffered a “mental decline” following his defeat by Biden the previous November — and told senior military officers to check the validity of any orders the lame-duck president issued involving nuclear weapons with Milley himself.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking military officer whose sole role is providing military-specific advice to the president, and by law is prohibited from exercising executive authority to command forces,” Miller said Wednesday. “The chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense, not through the Chairman.”
https://www.kwtx.com/2021/09/15/federal-judge-will-hear-texas-arguments-against-temporarily-blocking-abortion-ban-before-ruling-biden-administration-request/
Federal judge will hear Texas’ arguments against temporarily blocking abortion ban before ruling on Biden administration request
A federal judge on Wednesday scheduled a hearing for Oct. 1 to consider temporarily blocking Texas’ near-total abortion ban, following an emergency request from the Biden administration.
The Justice Department requested the temporary restraining order late Tuesday as part of its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas aiming to overturn the law.
Instead of immediately acting on the request, U.S. District Judge Robert L. Pitman agreed to the state’s request to hear arguments before ruling. If the restraining order is granted, the law’s implementation will be blocked as court proceedings unfold.
The law will have been in effect for one month by the time the hearing is held. The statute outlaws abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected — which can occur before many people know they’re pregnant. Texas abortion clinics worked until the last minute to finish procedures before the deadline and canceled future appointments. Some have even stopped offering abortions that are still allowed under the law, for fear of being sued.
No court has yet reviewed the constitutionality of the law because of the way it was written. State officials and state and local law enforcement agencies are not allowed to enforce the restrictions; instead the statute relies on private citizens to file lawsuits against anyone who may help a person get an abortion that is illegal under the law. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the law from going into effect, citing procedural difficulties but not addressing its constitutionality.
Because there isn’t a clear defendant to name in lawsuits seeking to overturn the law, it’s difficult for a court to issue an injunction to block it. Legal experts say it’s hard to predict how such lawsuits will play out.
Justice Department attorneys wrote in their filing that the abortion law is “in open defiance of the Constitution.” They argued it should be overturned on those grounds, as well as alleging that it interferes with federal interests.
“The United States has the authority and responsibility to ensure that Texas cannot insulate itself from judicial review for its constitutional violations and to protect the important federal interests that S.B. 8 impairs,” the petition read.
It isn’t the only ongoing lawsuit aiming to stop the law. Pitman, a 2014 Obama nominee, is also overseeing a suit filed in district court by abortion providers before the law went into effect. Pitman refused a request from defendants to throw out that case, prompting them to appeal.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, known as perhaps the nation’s most conservative appeals court, canceled the district court hearing on the providers’ lawsuit and issued a temporary stay on the suit, keeping it in limbo since late August. The lawsuit would return to district court if the stay is ended.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10000731/Geoffrey-William-Moyle-jailed-sexually-abusing-children-sharing-footage-online.html
UNMASKED: Monstrous Australian paedophile who created the global online child porn trade and abused underage sex slaves in Asia - and how he was finally caught after 20-year worldwide manhunt
Geoffrey William Moyle jailed for sexually girls in Cambodia between 2002-2005
An international manhunt for Moyle had been ongoing for nearly 20 years
Perverts said he 'wrote the Bible on child abuse' and shared his own videos
He was sentenced to eight years in jail but could be freed on parole in 2024
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10002619/US-drone-strike-Kabul-DID-kill-aid-worker-nine-members-family-defense-official-says.html
General McKenzie admits Biden drone strike in Kabul DID kill seven children, aid worker and two other adults, says there was NO suicide bomber in car and offers 'my sincere apologies'
'It was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology,' Head of US Central Command Gen. McKenzie said Friday
He said the Pentagon is considering reparations for the family of the victims killed in the US drone strike
Vehicle struck belonged to Zemari Ahmadi a 43-year-old aid worker who worked with the US
Ahmadi and nine of his family members, including seven children, were killed by the Hellfire missile
He had just returned home with clean water when his children and his brother's children ran out to greet him
McKenzie said there had been repeated warnings an attack would come from a white Toyota Corolla, the same car Ahmadi drove
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10001679/Clarence-Thomas-says-judges-wading-politics-asking-trouble.html
Justice Clarence Thomas warns against 'destroying institutions because they don't give us what we want' and says SCOTUS is now most 'dangerous branch of government'
Thomas said the high court has become the 'most dangerous branch' of government due to politicization
He said the nation's leaders should not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don't get the outcome that we like'
Thomas, himself a Catholic, gave a rare public address at Notre Dame University on Thursday evening
>Place called Tom Jones Family Restaurant on Rt 352
if you can source that, they just got a lot of business
https://www.businessinsider.com/marc-elias-lawyer-democrats-perkins-coie-donald-trump-voting-rights-2021-9
How Marc Elias, the Democrats' $1,200-an-hour legal bulldog, is preparing for his own war with Trumpism
Marc Elias, the preeminent lawyer for Democrats, has launched a new firm to be "purely mission-driven."
Marc Elias has shot to stardom and financial success as a go-to lawyer for Democrats.
He's leaving the law firm Perkins Coie on good terms, despite dissing a client and an ex-colleague.
Elias says his new firm will be "purely mission-driven."
It was a moment most any corporate law firm would celebrate as a testament to its clout.
But in February 2019, shortly after seeing one of his Perkins Coie law partners confirmed as a federal judge, the election-law attorney Marc Elias — a legal star in the Democratic Party firmament — fired off an email to his firm's leaders.
Elias asked that the firm "avoid any display of support or pride" in Eric Miller's elevation to the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit after he was nominated by President Donald Trump.
"It is, for my group at least, a source of deep embarrassment and sadness," Elias wrote in the email, which was first reported by Above the Law.
On September 2nd, Elias, 52, officially left Perkins Coie to form his own firm, the Elias Law Group. With him, he's taking much of Perkins Coie's political law group, which has generated nine-figure business with Democratic interests during the past decade.
In an interview with Insider, Elias said he was distancing himself from Perkins Coie and its corporate clients to devote his energies more fully to voting rights and defending an American democracy he believes Republicans are attacking.
"I loved the time that I had at Perkins, but it is a large, multinational law firm that has a variety of clients and client interests," Elias said. "And I wanted to be at a law firm that is purely mission-driven."
Elias' decision to leave his firm of nearly three decades was, perhaps, the natural result of his own Trump-era evolution.
Before Trump became president, Elias was the consummate creature of Washington, enjoying inside-the-Beltway prominence as a counselor to the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton, and other leading Democrats. But he largely worked behind the scenes, his name more likely to be read in legal documents than in news headlines, his face more likely seen at a Federal Election Commission meeting than on "The Rachel Maddow Show."
Elias said Trump's election and subsequent presidency lit a fire that led him to go public with his progressive bona fides.
"The fact is that Trump's led the Republican Party down a road in which they no longer are committed to free and fair elections, the peaceful transfer of power, or full participation in the democratic process," Elias told Insider.
So Elias grew more outspoken. He incessantly railed against a Republican Party he viewed as hijacked by Trump. He launched Democracy Docket, a progressive advocacy site devoted to tracking and raising awareness of voter suppression and redistricting efforts, and built a massive email list of liberal acolytes. He defended Joe Biden's 2020 presidential victory from Republican challenges in courts across the country — and sometimes multiple times a day in the court of public opinion.
Elias' Twitter following ballooned from nearly 16,000 in January 2017 to more than 527,000 today, according to the social-media statistics site Social Blade. The number of Google News hits for his name grew from 70 in 2017 to 950 last year.
Elias, in essence, has become the nation's first celebrity election-law lawyer.
"I'm very proud of the work I did for so long in my career, but there's only so many people interested in following FEC Twitter," Elias said. "I had a Twitter account, it just wasn't very popular."
Not always placid at Perkins Coie
Many Big Law firms are wary of being tagged with a political affiliation for fear of alienating deep-pocketed corporate clients.
While a few big firms — such as the Republican-focused Jones Day and Wiley Rein — have election-law practices, most top firms in the field are smaller shops such as the left-leaning Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock and the right-leaning Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky.
"There are very few candidate-focused practices like that left in big firms," said Dan Binstock, a partner at the legal-recruiting shop Garrison & Sisson.
Elias' decision to leave Perkins Coie is in line with that broader trend. He and Perkins Coie jointly announced their schism Sunday.
Both parties described it as a mutual parting and said they intended to "work together on key matters — including litigation aimed at protecting the right to vote for all Americans."
But Elias' relationship with Perkins Coie wasn't always placid, two people familiar with the firm told Insider.
Elias' comments about Miller, his former colleague, initially ruffled feathers. Then, in June, Elias tweeted that the automaker Toyota, a Perkins Coie client, had undermined democracy by contributing to politicians who had opposed the certification of the 2020 presidential election result.
—Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) June 28, 2021
Elias said Perkins Coie, which will maintain its own post-Elias political-activities practice, was "great about fostering a Democratic Party set of clients, and allowing us to do that work." He said his decision to leave arose out of a "desire individually, frankly, to be more outspoken and also be affiliated with only clients that are only part of this mission."
"There are responsibilities you have as a partner at a large law firm to make sure that what you are saying is going to reflect the values of the firm," Elias added. "And Perkins is a very progressive law firm. This was not a huge challenge."
He added: "So it's not that the firm placed restrictions on me that were difficult."
With the Elias Law Group, however, he is planning to go on offense against Republicans as they enact restrictive voting laws and draw new congressional districts in coming months.
'Committed to fighting back'
In election-law circles, Elias' business savvy is widely admired. Perkins Coie represented no fewer than seven candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
Michael Toner, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who's now Wiley Rein's election-law and government-ethics chairman, said he viewed Elias as an "outstanding practitioner."
Perkins Coie made almost $47 million in legal fees off political clients during 2020, including Democratic candidates, party committees, political action committees, and super PACs, an Insider analysis of Federal Election Commission political-committee spending data indicates.
The firm probably made millions more from clients that don't publicly report their spending, according to lawyers in the field.
One such client was George Soros, who put $5 million in a trust to fund Elias' work, The Washington Post reported in 2016.
In an email to Insider, Michael Vachon, a Soros spokesman, called Elias "one of the most effective advocates for voting rights," saying, "We have long supported his litigation efforts and will continue to do so."
While Elias can't charge clients the $2,000-an-hour rates of top mergers-and-acquisitions lawyers or bet-the-company litigators such as former Attorney General Eric Holder, he doesn't work cheap.
His hourly rate soared from $735 in 2015 to $1,190 in 2019, according to court filings — far more than what his election-law competitors charge. It's probably higher now, but Elias and a Perkins Coie spokesman didn't respond to questions about it. (It's common, however, for lawyers to discount their standard rates to secure big engagements.)
Attorney Marc Elias walks down the steps of the Supreme Court surrounded by other attorneys
Elias, center, was one of several lawyers who appeared in the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah, in 2016. J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The work ahead
Elias Law Group is launching with 15 partners, all but one of whom are coming from Perkins Coie, with a total of 50 lawyers, Elias said. He expects it to have more than 60 by the end of September and more than 70 by the start of 2022.
It will have two groups, with the partner Elisabeth Frost overseeing litigation and Ezra Reese presiding over the political-law practice, where lawyers counsel campaigns, political action committees, and nonprofits on campaign finance and other election-related issues.
Even more notably, Elias will begin work with more than 500 clients, he said, including the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, an operation led by Holder.
He expects a busy beginning. Elias is already representing Democrats in preemptive lawsuits in Louisiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin asking the judiciary to prepare to step in if elected leaders deadlock in redrawing voting districts.
As the redistricting process begins across the country, Elias said, he expects the firm to be involved in litigation in a "dozen or more states."
Last week, two days before the formal launch of Elias' new firm, the Texas legislature passed a bill — spurred in part by Trump's stolen-election claims— tightening the state's already-restrictive voting rules. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law Tuesday, declaring "election integrity is now law in the state of Texas."
After handing out the black Sharpies he used for the signing ceremony, Abbott said he would "be astonished if a law like this wasn't challenged in court," but the Republican governor said he was confident it would survive in court.
On Twitter, Elias announced that his firm was suing to block the new law.
"What we have right now is one major party that is no longer committed to democratic norms, democratic institutions, and free and fair elections," Elias told Insider. "And we see that now manifesting itself in new voter suppression laws in state after state and state — states like Texas, states like Georgia, states like Florida, but also states like Arkansas, and Iowa, and Montana, and Kansas. And so, right now, there is an urgency to this that I think is underappreciated."
He added: "These things escalated, higher and higher, my state of alarm about where we are and has made me be even more committed to fighting back. And Elias Law Group is a part of that. Democracy Docket is a part of that."
'Actions and inactions have consequences'
Last year, in an email to the Perkins Coie partnership, Elias again addressed Miller, the federal judge.
He highlighted a divided 2-1 ruling from the 9th Circuit, in which Miller and another Trump appointee lifted an order that prevented federal law-enforcement agents from forcing journalists and legal observers from the scene of nightly protests in Portland, Oregon.
Elias copied and pasted his email from the previous year, in which he asked Perkins Coie to not celebrate Miller's ascension to the 9th Circuit, and said the firm did not grant his request.
"Miller was feted by many at the firm, including many on this email, who now stand in horror at his ruling in Portland. I stand by those words today," Elias wrote. "Actions and inactions have consequences."
With the launch of his new firm, Elias said he had taken action "to be mission-driven at this point in my career because it's what I think history is going to remember this time for.
"It's going to be, 'What did we do when democracy was at stake?'"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpWuTTYIybo
Voting rights attorney Marc Elias discusses the rapid spread of voting restriction bills based on the Big Lie in states and how Democrats need to act alone when it comes to voting rights legislation.
>Marc Elias discusses the rapid spread of voting restriction bills based on the Big Lie
Brian Williams celebrates his 10th anniversary as the NBC Nightly News anchor by joining Jimmy & The Roots to slow jam the news.
>Marc Elias was partners with Michael Sussman at the law firm Perkins Coie
lost connectivity for a moment there
https://downdetector.com/