Michael Flynn May Have To Testify In Order To Withdraw Guilty Plea

A federal judge said Friday that former national security adviser Michael Flynn may have to testify under oath in order to withdraw from a plea deal he struck with the special counsel’s office.

Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered attorneys in the Flynn case to file legal briefs addressing the need for a hearing “where the parties would present all testimony and evidence concerning the issue of whether Mr. Flynn can show that there is good cause to set aside his guilty pleas.”

Any testimony from Flynn does not guarantee that he will be allowed to scrap his plea agreement. Instead, “testimony from Mr. Flynn and other witnesses under oath, subject to cross-examination,” will be required to show a “fair and just reason” to grant the retired Army general’s motion to withdraw from the deal, Sullivan said.

Flynn’s lawyers requested the plea withdrawal on Jan. 14 in response to prosecutors’ recommendation that Flynn serve up to six months in prison for making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak.

Flynn pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017 to making false statements to FBI agents on Jan. 24, 2017 regarding his contacts a month earlier with Kislyak. He met with the special counsel’s team 19 times and gave interviews to federal prosecutors in Virginia as part of an investigation of Bijan Rafiekian, a former partner at Flynn’s consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group.

In a Jan. 7 court filing, prosecutors reversed a previous recommendation that Flynn receive only probation in his case. They asserted that Flynn had “failed” to complete his cooperation with the government, and that he “tried to thwart” the investigation of Rafiekian, who was indicted on charges of conspiring to act as a foreign agent of Turkey.

Prosecutors tabled a plan for Flynn to testify at Rafiekian’s trial over a dispute over his testimony.

Flynn’s lawyers argued in their Jan. 14 motion seeking withdrawal from the plea deal that prosecutors were retaliating against Flynn because of the Rafiekian case.

Flynn and prosecutors were not always at such odds.

Prosecutors recommended in December 2018 that Flynn receive only probation because of his “substantial” cooperation with the special counsel’s investigation. But the tide turned when Flynn pulled out of a Dec. 18, 2018 hearing after Sullivan indicated that he would impose a jail sentence in the case.

Flynn fired his legal team months later and hired Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who was an outspoken critic of the special counsel’s investigation. Powell took a more aggressive approach in the case, pressing the government for information that she said showed Flynn did not lie to the FBI in his January 2017 interview.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/24/michael-flynn-testify-withdraw-plea/

Study: Professors Donate To Democrats Over Republicans By A 95:1 Ratio

Diversity in hiring is the top priority of most colleges and universities. However, the effort to hire more women, minorities, and LGBT individuals notably lacks one group: ideological diversity. It is well-known that most faculty are composed of an overwhelming majority of liberal and democratic members. However, this view, while generally accepted, is largely anecdotal. Now a new study by Heterodox Academy Director of Research Sean Stevens and Brooklyn College Professor Mitchell Langbert claims to have put hard numbers on that lack of diversity. In reviewing records with the Federal Election Commission, they say that they found that professors gave to Democrats over Republicans by a 95:1 ratio.

The researchers looked at 2,301 political donations and found that 2,081 went to Democrats while just 22 went to Republicans. Only nine professors gave to both parties.

An earlier study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by a 10:4 ratio. Business Management Associate Professor Mitchell Langbert reviewed the party affiliations of 8,688 professors at 51 of the top 60 liberal arts colleges listed in U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 rankings.

These studies magnify concerns for those of us who have objected to increasing speech regulation on campuses — restrictions that have seem to be more often applied to conservative students and speakers. Indeed, academics have at times been at the heart of such attacks on the free speech rights of conservatives on campus. In one incident at the California State University where assistant professor of public health professor Greg Thatcher is shown on a videotape wiping out the pro-life statements written in chalk by members of Fresno State Students for Life.

Perhaps the most unnerving controversy involved the confrontation of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young with pro-life advocates on campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Miller-Young led her students in attacking the pro-life display, stealing their display, and then committing battery on one of the young women. She was convicted and sentenced for the crime. Despite the shocking conduct of Miller-Young and the clear violation of the most fundamental values for all academics in guaranteeing free speech and associational rights, the faculty overwhelmingly supported Miller-Young and the university decided not to impose any meaningful discipline. Faculty and student defenders attacked the pro-life advocates and one even referred to them as “terrorists” who did not deserve free speech. Miller-Young should have been fired but was instead lionized by faculty and students.

A recent study found at Harvard found that only 35 percent of conservative students felt free to share their views on campuses. That chilling effect is the result of not just open hostility to conservative voices on campus but a striking lack of diversity among academics in terms of ideology.

https://jonathanturley.org/2020/01/23/study-professors-donate-to-democrats-over-republicans-by-a-951-ratio/

Australia's first coronavirus case confirmed in Victoria

Australia has recorded its first case of coronavirus, a man aged in his 50s, Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos announced today.

Authorities warn it is "highly likely" there will be other cases in Australia and it is still possible more passengers on this man’s flight will be diagnosed with coronavirus.

The man is a Chinese national and is being treated at Monash in Clayton, Ms Mikakos said.

He arrived in Melbourne on January 19 from China and displayed no symptoms on flight to Melbourne, she said.

Deputy chief health officer Angie Bone said she was concerned that the man had visited a GP the day before presenting in hospital, but the doctor did not suspect the man had coronavirus despite him having just returned from China.

The man was confirmed as having coronavirus at 2.15am on Saturday.

NSW Health has confirmed five people are being tested for coronavirus in the state.

Ms Mikakos said there was no cause for alarm for community, and the patient in Victoria was isolated.

Ms Mikakos said the risk of transmission remained low. Victorian and Commonwealth officials would be stationed at Melbourne Airport and a hotline would be set up for people to get information about coronavirus.

Every passenger on the man’s flight will be contacted by health authorities in the coming days, she said.

"This is an evolving situation. We are now one of eleven countries who have confirmed cases," Ms Mikakos said.

"I do want to stress… there is no reason for alarm in the general community. We have had flu epidemics in the past, including SARs and our system is geared up well to deal with this situation."

The man has pneumonia and is in a stable condition, she said. Hospital staff treating him are wearing masks, gloves, and gowns while treating the man in an isolated room in the Monash Medical Centre.

The man arrived on the morning of January 19 from Wuhan to Melbourne via Guanghzhou. The first leg of the flight was on flight number CZ3706.

The minister stressed the man had spent his time since arrival with relatives at their home. He did not visit any public places, authorities said

No passengers on his flight have been contacted yet, despite the government suspecting the man had contracted the virus 24 hours ago.

Victorians and visitors returning from Wuhan City or other locations cases have been detected are being urged to closely monitor their health.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/coronavirus-case-confirmed-in-victoria-20200125-p53unk.html

Syrian Army Rips Through Militants’ Defense, Liberates Five More Towns In Southeast Idlib

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) continued its advance in southeast Idlib, penetrating militants’ defenses and capturing several new towns in the late hours of January 24.

Pro-government sources said that the army captured the towns of Deir Gharbi, Tqana and Ma’ar Shimmareen following clashes with al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies. Syrian and Russian warplanes provided army troops with close air support.

On another direction, to the west of Abu Duhur Air Base, the army advanced, allegedly imposing control of the towns of Abu Jurif and Kursiyan.

A few hours ago, the SAA resumed its large-scale ground operation in southeast Idlib. In the first hours of the attack, the army captured Deir Sharqi.

HTS and its allies reportedly sustained heavy losses while attempting to stop army forces, which are spearheaded by the 25th Special Forces Division. The elite unit was previously known as the Tiger Forces.

Now, several local sources are reporting heavy clashes west of Aleppo’s city center. The SAA may kick off a ground operation in the region in the upcoming few days, if not hours.

https://southfront.org/syrian-army-rips-through-militants-defense-liberates-five-more-towns-in-southeast-idlib/

https://www.sana.sy/en/?p=183266

People of occupied Syrian Golan renew utter rejection of Israeli project of wind turbines

Quneitra, SANA _ Since the occupation of the Syrian Arab Golan, the Israeli occupation authorities have systematically looted its natural and agricultural resources through hundreds of arbitrary and aggressive schemes and practices against people, land and history of the occupied Syrian Golan.

The people of occupied Syrian Golan on Friday renewed their utter rejection of the new settlement plan through the wind turbines project that the occupation intends to implement on the citizens’ properties and confiscating their lands by force on various pretexts.

They staged a protest at the square of Majdal Shams town in rejection of the Israeli plans, reiterating their adherence to their lands and defending it.

The protesters emphasized that the implementation of the project on their lands and properties is one of the aspects of settlement aiming at stealing and plundering the properties of the Syrian citizens and goods of the Golan, stressing the continuation of the work to abort this project.

The Israeli occupation authorities plan to implement a new settlement project through building 46 on about six thousand dunumms of agricultural lands owned by people of the Syrian Golan in Majdal Shams, Mas’ada, Buqatha and Ein Qunya villages.

https://www.sana.sy/en/?p=183285

2015: “Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate”

The creation of a chimeric SARS-like virus has scientists discussing the risks of gain-of-function research.

Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of to one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.

The results demonstrate the ability of the SHC014 surface protein to bind and infect human cells, validating concerns that this virus—or other coronaviruses found in bat species—may be capable of making the leap to people without first evolving in an intermediate host, Nature reported. They also reignite a debate about whether that information justifies the risk of such work, known as gain-of-function research. “If the [new] virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, told Nature.

In October 2013, the US government put a stop to all federal funding for gain-of-function studies, with particular concern rising about influenza, SARS, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). “NIH [National Institutes of Health] has funded such studies because they help define the fundamental nature of human-pathogen interactions, enable the assessment of the pandemic potential of emerging infectious agents, and inform public health and preparedness efforts,” NIH Director Francis Collins said in a statement at the time. “These studies, however, also entail biosafety and biosecurity risks, which need to be understood better.”

Baric’s study on the SHC014-chimeric coronavirus began before the moratorium was announced, and the NIH allowed it to proceed during a review process, which eventually led to the conclusion that the work did not fall under the new restrictions, Baric told Nature. But some researchers, like Wain-Hobson, disagree with that decision.

The debate comes down to how informative the results are. “The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk,” Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and biodefence expert at Rutgers University, told Nature.

But Baric and others argued the study’s importance. “[The results] move this virus from a candidate emerging pathogen to a clear and present danger,” Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, which samples viruses from animals and people in emerging-diseases hotspots across the globe, told Nature.

https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=57204