Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty of Rape in Los Angeles Sexual Assault Trial

Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape in the Los Angeles sexual assault trial.

Weinstein was found guilty on one count of sexual batter by restraint.

The jury was hung on three counts.

ABC News reported:

A Los Angeles jury has found disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein guilty on three of seven counts, including rape, in his Los Angeles sexual assault trial.

The jury found Weinstein not guilty on one count — sexual battery by restraint — and it was hung on three counts. The jury will return Tuesday to hear arguments on special findings.

Weinstein, who is already serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York for criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape, was accused by four women of assaulting them in hotels between 2004 and 2013. He faced two counts of rape and five counts of sexual assault.

The 70-year-old former movie executive pleaded not guilty and has said all of the encounters were consensual.

Weinstein initially faced 11 counts in the trial, but four charges relating to Jane Doe No. 5, including two counts of forcible rape and two counts of forcible oral copulation, were dropped by the prosecution.

The four women all testified during the trial, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Siebel Newsom was referred to as Jane Doe No. 4 during the trial, but she has been publicly identified by her lawyer.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/harvey-weinstein-found-guilty-rape-los-angeles-sexual-assault-trial/

Sam Bankman-Fried Has Agreed To Be Extradited

Update (1815ET): It has been quite a day in Nassau. The on-again, off-again deportation process of Sam Bankman-Fried has once again swung the other way.

Following a chaotic court hearing earlier today - in which his local lawyer appeared at odds with his US legal team - The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to a person familiar with the matter, the FTX founder has agreed to be extradited, and plans were being fleshed out by his legal team after the day’s court proceedings.

Jerone Roberts, who represents Mr. Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas, has reportedly agreed to draft the necessary documents after having a conference call with the former chief executive and his U.S. lawyers.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers hope to have a new hearing on the matter as early as Tuesday.

• • *

Update (1250ET): Bankman-Fried reportedly wants to see the indictment against him before agreeing to extradition to the United States, according to Reuters, citing a statement made by SBF's attorney to a court in the Bahamas on Monday.

He had been expected to waive his right to an extradition hearing on Monday morning, but in court demanded to see a copy of his federal indictment.

As we detailed earlier, reports over the weekend suggested that Bankman-Fried would consent to extradition, but the former crypto billionaire told a different story Monday, demanding to see a copy of his federal indictment before agreeing to return to the U.S. He will return to Fox Hill jail rather than surrendering himself to U.S. custody.

CNBC reports that in open court, chaos reigned.

Bankman-Fried, dressed in a blue suit and white button down, was visibly shaking. His Bahamian defense attorney told the court that he was “shocked” that Bankman-Fried was in court.

“I did not request him to be here this morning,” the attorney said. Franklyn Williams KC, the Bahamian prosecutor, said that he “understood that [Bankman-Fried] intended to waive extradition,” according to an NBC News producer present in the courtroom.

As Cointelegraph notes, some members of the crypto space, including the team behind YouTuber Ben Armstrong, also known as Bitboy Crypto, reported on Twitter they appeared in person at the hearing to “look SBF in the eyes.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/bankman-fried-expected-be-extradited-soon-today

Didn't know you got a choice?

Former NYU Administrator Charged in $3.5M Fraud Scheme

A former New York University director of finance allegedly siphoned $3.5 million meant for minority and women-owned businesses and blew some of the cash on herself — including on an $80,000 pool for her Connecticut home, prosecutors said Monday.

Cindy Tappe, 57, was charged with diverting funds from New York State Education Department grants into shell companies that she created over a six-year scheme that was discovered in 2018, when she left NYU, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

Some of the embezzled money went to expenses related to the grants or employee reimbursements — but at least $660,000 ended up in Tappe’s own pockets, according to the indictment.

She allegedly spent the dough on personal expenses, including the pool and renovations on her her home in Westport, Connecticut.

The scam started with a $23 million grant awarded to NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation, where Tappe worked, with the cash meant to go to state programs to help special education students and those learning English.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/19/former-nyu-administrator-charged-for-orchestrating-3-5m-fraud-scheme/

https://twitter.com/RollingStone/status/1604888071513726976

Former Portland Area Non-Profit Director Pleads Guilty to Stealing Covid Relief Funds

https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/former-portland-area-non-profit-director-pleads-guilty-stealing-covid-relief-funds

Bipartisan Bill Would Let Americans Voluntarily Give Up Gun Rights

Congress is trying to pass a bill to allow the federal government to pressure people to give up their Second Amendment rights in the name of suicide prevention. At the same time, newly released documents show multiple federal law enforcement agencies have effectively done this to people without congressional approval.

On Thursday, Gun Owners of America (GOA), put all its evidence online that shows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has permanently disarmed people. The gun rights group is lobbying on Capitol Hill to stop this practice from being codified.

Capitol Hill Supports FBI Disarming Program

The bipartisan bill called the “Preventing Suicide Through Voluntary Firearm Purchase Delay Act” passed the Judiciary Committee last week. It says the FBI would create a new database for people who volunteer to be blocked from buying or possessing a gun. The “delay” in the bill title refers to the period from which the person put themselves into the database and potentially subsequently took themselves out of it.

The FBI program, which claims it ended in 2019, and the House bill both use a “self-submission” program to make people prohibited who could not be blocked from having a gun under current law. The Brady Law of 1993 created the NICS system of background checks to help enforce the nine prohibited categories of people (from the Gun Control Act of 1968 ) from buying guns.

The House bill would upend federal background check gun law by making it arbitrary who loses the right to own or buy a gun. Under current law, a person is prohibited from buying or owning a firearm for mental health reasons only due to being adjudicated as mentally defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution. The House bill makes it so people in this new FBI database who have not experienced these situations would still be committing a federal crime by possessing a gun.

The Opposition

“I’d like to make sure this bill in Congress doesn’t become law—lest it be weaponized against the American people,” Aidan Johnston, GOA’s director of federal affairs told The Epoch Times.

“The very existence of a bill to codify what the FBI was already doing proves the FBI had no authorization from Congress to carry out this program,” said Johnston. The GOA’s released records showing the FBI has forced 23 people to permanently sign away their rights to own a gun, and the agency has still withheld documents in the ongoing Freedom of Information lawsuit.

“Congress should be punishing those bureaucrats who abused it instead of codifying the program and the unconstitutional behavior,” said Johnston.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bipartisan-bill-would-let-americans-voluntarily-give-gun-rights

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd posted to Washington as Australia's new US ambassador

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd will be sent to Washington DC as Australia's new ambassador to the United States.

Key points:

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd will be the next US ambassador

Mr Rudd has lived and worked in the US for most of the last decade

The Prime Minister said a political appointment was appropriate

Mr Rudd will commence the posting early next year, replacing Arthur Sinodinos.

Announcing the role, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Mr Rudd had extensive experience and connections in the US.

"Kevin Rudd is an outstanding appointment, he brings a great deal of credit to Australia by agreeing to this appointment," Mr Albanese said.

"As someone who has links to the global community in Washington DC, he will be a major asset."

Mr Rudd was most recently serving as chief executive of international relations institute the Asia Society, spending most of the past decade in the US where he worked with American politicians and business people.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-20/kevin-rudd-appointed-washington-us-ambassador/101791798

Here's part of my old dig on this traitor, images included

Kevin Rudd, once a firm China sceptic, has become Australia’s first (former) prime minister to openly consort with the ruling Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD).In October 2018, he was greeted as a “rock star”according to a report in the AFR at the United Front-sponsored Australia-China Future Forum.

Now he’s downplaying concerns over Chinese influence in Australia.Rudd said it was “kind of crazy to overreact and to get into reds under the bed land, to get into yellow peril land” regarding warnings from Australian security chiefs about Chinese influence.

It’s hard to fathom a former prime minister describing credible information about the Chinese government trying install operatives in Australian Parliament as an “overreaction.”

https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/12/12/kevin-rudd-close-ties-chinese-communist-party-ufwd/

Kevin Rudd insists HE was the one who secured 40 million Pfizer vaccines fast-tracked to Australiaas Malcolm Turnbull applauds him - but bitter ex-PM is mocked for being 'bored in retirement' and accused of having NOTHING to do with the deal

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9778655/Leaked-letter-reveals-Kevin-Rudd-met-Pfizer-boss-jabs-earlier.htm

NT man who raped 12-year-old girl - causing her to become pregnant - eligible for parole less than four months after he is convicted of the offence

The Northern Territory Supreme Court heard Ezekial James approached the girl as she was walking past the football oval in a community near Tennant Creek about 9pm, and then walked her back to his family’s home where he raped her.

Justice Barr

Justice Barr described James’s offending in the rape case a “midrange” and said it was unlikely he would reoffend.

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/nt-man-who-raped-12yearold-girl-causing-her-to-become-pregnant-eligible-for-parole-less-than-four-months-after-he-is-convicted-of-the-offence/news-story/ddee0628124f3e98bfa5392b6192c60b

‘Twitter Files’ Make it Clear: We Must Abolish the FBI

As we learn more and more from the “Twitter Files,” it is becoming all too obvious that Federal agencies such as the FBI viewed the First Amendment of our Constitution as an annoyance and an impediment. In Friday’s release from the pre-Musk era, journalist Matt Taibbi makes an astute observation: Twitter was essentially an FBI subsidiary.

The FBI, we now know, was obsessed with Twitter. We learned that agents sent Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth some 150 emails between 2020 and 2022. Those emails regularly featured demands from US government officials for the “private” social media company to censor comments and ban commenters they did not like.

The Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), a US government entity that included the FBI as well as other US intelligence agencies expressly forbidden from domestic activities, numbered 80 agents engaged regularly in telling Twitter which Tweets to censor and which accounts to ban. The Department of Homeland Security brought in outside government contractors and (government-funded) non-governmental organizations to separately pressure Twitter to suppress speech the US government did not like.

US Federal government agencies literally handed Twitter lists of Americans it wanted to see silenced, and Twitter complied. Let that sink in.

This should be a massive scandal and likely it would have been had it occurred under a Trump Administration. Indeed, Congress would be gearing up for Impeachment 3.0 if Trump-allied officials had engaged in such egregious behavior. But since these US government employees were by-and-large acting to suppress pro-Trump sentiment, all we hear are crickets.

What is interesting about these Twitter revelations is how obsessed the FBI and its government partners were with satire and humor. Even minor Twitter accounts with small numbers of followers were constantly flagged by the Feds for censorship and deletion. But knowledge of history helps us understand this obsession: in Soviet times the population was always engaged in joking about the ineptitude, corruption, and idiocy of the political class. Underground publications known as samizdat were rich with satire, humor, and ridicule.

Tyrants hate humor and cannot withstand satire. That is clearly why the FBI (and CIA) was determined to see a heavy hand raised against any American poking fun at the deep state.

There is good news in all of this, however. As Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote over the weekend, a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found that even though the mainstream media has ignored the “Twitter files,” Americans have not. Nearly two-thirds of respondents believe that Twitter was involved in politically-motivated censorship in advance of the 2020 election. Some 70 percent of those polled believe Congress must take action against this corporate/state censorship.

As Professor Turley points out, although the First Amendment only applies to the US government, “it does apply to agents or surrogates of the government. Twitter now admits that such a relationship existed between its former officials and the government.”

So now we have proof that the FBI (along with US intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security) have been acting through “private” social media companies to manipulate what Americans are allowed to say when they communicate with each other.

Is there anything more un-American than that? Personally, I find it sickening.

We do not need the FBI and CIA and other federal agencies viewing us as the enemy and attacking our Constitution. End the Fed…and End the Federal Bureau of Investigation!

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/december/19/twitter-files-make-it-clear-we-must-abolish-the-fbi/