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POTUS' former lawyer heads to U.S. prison that offers matzo ball soup and full-time rabbi
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With a menu that includes matzo ball soup and gefilte fish, as well as a full-time rabbi and a chance at the occasional visit home, the U.S. prison where Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer will spend the next three years is unique in the federal system.
Michael Cohen is due to report to the Federal Correctional Institute in Otisville, New York, about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of New York City, on Monday.
The 52-year-old Cohen will be housed in dorm-like accommodations at the facility’s minimum-security camp, which prison consultants say has become a destination for Jewish inmates due to its proximity to New York City’s Jewish and upstate New York’s Orthodox Jewish enclaves.
“He’s going to what I like to refer to as ‘Jewish heaven,’” said Larry Levine, founder of Wall Street Prison Consultants, who served a 10-year prison sentence that ended in 2007 for racketeering and other crimes.
Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, was sentenced in December for orchestrating payments to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal shortly before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Cohen said Trump directed the payments.
Trump, who has denied the affairs, said he never directed Cohen to do anything illegal.
Cohen received a three-year prison term for the payments and unrelated financial crimes.
At Cohen’s sentencing hearing, his lawyer at the time, Guy Petrillo, asked that Cohen be sent to Otisville but did not give a reason for the request. Petrillo could not be reached for comment on the choice of prison.
Jack Donson, a former manager at the prison who now runs a prison consulting firm, said the camp was “a great place for white-collar Jewish guys.”
Unlike most federal prisons, which periodically bring in part-time “contract rabbis,” Otisville has a full-time rabbi, Levine said.
The federal Bureau of Prisons said in an email that only four of the more than 100 prisons run by the agency have full-time rabbis.
Another thing that sets Otisville apart is the food.
“The availability for kosher food is much greater,” said Michael Frantz, another former inmate, who founded Jail Time Consulting.
The commissary menu on Otisville’s website advertises matzo ball soup, gefilte fish and rugelach, a pastry, alongside Doritos tortilla chips and Diet Sprite soda. Kosher items are marked throughout with the letter K.
The camp is not fenced in and inmates’ movements throughout the day are not as tightly controlled as in more secure facilities.
Inmates are given jobs, which Levine described as “busy work” like cleaning or emptying garbage.
But, in practice, work hours at Otisville are short, sometimes one or two hours a day, said Justin Paperny, a former inmate whose consulting firm White Collar Advice has clients in the camp.
For much of the day, Cohen “can pretty much do what he wants,” Frantz said.
The camp offers weights and other exercise equipment, a basketball court, a tennis area and a baseball field, and bocce ball, according to its handbook.
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Paperny also said Otisville grants furloughs - temporary releases for inmates, usually one or two days, which can be granted for family and other reasons - “in my experience more than other facilities.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-cohen-prison/trumps-former-lawyer-heads-to-u-s-prison-that-offers-matzo-ball-soup-and-full-time-rabbi-idUSKCN1SB08G
POTUS, Putin discuss new N-pact, possibly with China
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on Friday the possibility of a new accord limiting nuclear arms that could eventually include China in what would be a major deal between the globe’s top three atomic powers.
Trump, speaking to reporters as he met in the Oval Office with Peter Pellegrini, prime minister of the Slovak Republic, also said he and Putin discussed efforts to persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, the political discord in Venezuela, and Ukraine during a call that stretched over an hour.
The 2011 New START treaty, the only U.S.-Russia arms control pact limiting deployed strategic nuclear weapons, expires in February 2021 but can be extended for five years if both sides agree. Without the agreement, it could be harder to gauge each other’s intentions, arms control advocates say.
Trump cited the expense of keeping up the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a motivating factor behind wanting to limit how many weapons are deployed.
“We’re talking about a nuclear agreement where we make less and they make less and maybe where we get rid of some of the tremendous firepower that we have right now,” he said.
Trump said China during trade talks had “felt very strongly” about joining the United States and Russia in limiting nuclear weapons.
“So I think we’re going to probably start up something very shortly between Russia and ourselves maybe to start off, and I think China will be added down the road. We’ll be talking about nonproliferation, we’ll be talking about a nuclear deal of some kind, and I think it’ll be a very comprehensive one,” he said.
The New START treaty required the United States and Russia to cut their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550, the lowest level in decades, and limit delivery systems — land- and submarine-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0005718982
Fears of Higher Gas Prices Loom Following Latest Refinery Fire in Carson
from friday but still getting play-and of course right before labor day
Southern California motorists are fearing the worst Friday after the second fire in less than two months scorched an oil refinery facility in Carson.
The blaze erupted in the coker unit of the Phillips 66 Los Angeles Refinery's Carson facility shortly after 4:50 p.m. Thursday, according to a statement released by the refinery on Friday.
The fire burned at the facility – located at Sepulveda Boulevard and Alameda Street – for nearly three hours before it was extinguished by the refinery's emergency response team and Los Angeles County firefighters about 7:45 p.m., the statement read.
No injuries were reported, and air quality measurements taken Thursday afternoon were normal, officials said.
"Appropriate regulatory agency notifications were made following onset of fire, including notifications to the South Coast Air Quality Management District," the statement read.
#CARSON REFINERY UPDATE:
Details on our response to yesterday’s Phillips 66 Refinery fire can be viewed in our incident report: https://t.co/NVhTb19SgD
— South Coast AQMD (@SouthCoastAQMD) May 3, 2019
The only part of the refinery that is not operating on Friday is the area impacted by the blaze, according to Phillips 66.
The same refinery caught fire in an even larger fire on March 15.
Three crude oil pumps caught fire in that incident, which prompted a temporary closure of the refinery.
That shut down, combined with other refinery closures, caused gas prices to skyrocket.
Oil industry experts don’t yet fully know the impact of Thursday’s blaze because the extent of the damage is still unknown, but early energy prices on the West Coast pointed to a potentially positive outcome.
"First glimpse into energy prices on the West Coast after #California refinery fire is positive- so far NO reason to believe #gasprices will react. Coast not completely clear yet, but looks okay so far," Patrick DeHaan, the head of petroleum analysis for fuel website GasBuddy.com, tweeted on Friday morning.
By Friday afternoon, he tweeted that the blaze may not have any effect on pump prices.
"It appears at this point there will be little/no impact on #gasprices from the refinery fire yesterday," he wrote on Twitter.
#California: It appears at this point there will be little/no impact on #gasprices from the refinery fire yesterday.
— Patrick DeHaan ⛽️⚠️ (@GasBuddyGuy) May 3, 2019
First glimpse into energy prices on the West Coast after #California refinery fire is positive- so far NO reason to believe #gasprices will react. Coast not completely clear yet, but looks okay so far.
https://ktla.com/2019/05/03/fears-of-higher-gas-prices-loom-following-latest-refinery-fire-in-carson/
Top 10 Lowest Gas Prices & Best Gas Stations in Los Angeles
https://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPrices/California/Los%20Angeles
total ass-hat he is
dealing with the neighbor's to the south for sure.
do you want those epstein island pics put in a bun?
awesome stuff anon!
those have been there since late last year.
it's that or other suggestion re comey