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Raw Story
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[l] at 6/10/23 9:54am
In a column for the conservative National Review, longtime political observer Andrew McCarthy made the case that Donald Trump can no longer call the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith a "witch hunt" since key evidence contained in the 37-count indictment was provided courtesy of his own lawyers.As McCarthy points out, the charges against the former president should give his defenders pause and that analogies to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's national security issues are grossly misplaced.More to the point, McCarthy suggested that the "witch hunt" Trump has been ranting about is non-operative since the damning information about his treatment of sensitive government documents came from his own lawyers who were employed to defend him.He wrote, "Now, since we’re hearing a lot, and we’re going to hear a lot more, about selective prosecution, about the sense that the 'boxes hoax' is the 'biggest witch hunt of all time,' understand this: The evidence of this soliloquy — wherein it was Trump-splained that a 'great job' by a lawyer entails making incriminating evidence disappear and taking the fall for it so the client escapes jeopardy — does not come from Donald Trump’s enemies."RELATED: 'Stuck with whatever he can get': Trump has a lawyer 'problem' as he faces off with Jack SmithNoting that Trump attorney Evan Corcoran stuck by the former president after he learned he "had been had" with regard to the hiding of the documents the FBI was forced to recover, McCarthy wrote, "Corcoran was not trying to hurt Trump, even though Trump had thought nothing of putting the lawyer’s livelihood at risk. Corcoran provided the lurid testimony reflected in the indictment — including Trump’s suggestions that he falsely tell the FBI and grand jury that he did not have documents marked classified, and that he 'pluck' out of a package of documents responsive to the subpoena 'anything really bad in there' — because the law required him to, not because he wanted to.""As for Trump, say what you want about Democrats being out to destroy him. I know all about that — wrote a book about it, in fact. But if Trump ends up being destroyed in this case, it will be based on the accounts of people who had his best interests at heart," he wrote before adding, "If you tell me I need to look the other way on that because Hillary Clinton got a pass, I respectfully suggest that you’ve lost your way."You can read more here.
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[l] at 6/10/23 9:00am
Now that the contents of special counsel Jack Smith's 37-count indictment of Donald Trump have been unsealed, some close advisers to the former president are expressing dismay and shock at the details with one saying it all could have been avoided if the former president had only complied with government requests.According to a report from the Washington Post, confidence in the Trump defense has waned after the evidence presented in the indictment became public knowledge.The Post is reporting, "The indictment unsealed Friday rattled some of his advisers, who were not aware of the granular evidence obtained by the Justice Department, according to people familiar with the matter," before adding, "Two people said the evidence was more damning than they expected, and could have been avoided if Trump would have just listened to his lawyers and advisers."RELATED: Michael Cohen points to new signs of Trump's 'state of panic'Noting the departure of two key Trump lawyers within 24 hours of the indictment announcement, which has left the Trump legal team scrambling before the Tuesday Florida hearing, the Post reports the recovery process is being "driven by unforced errors and stubbornness."According to one adviser to the former president, "The story of this will be we didn’t have to get to this place. None of this really had to happen. It was all so, so dumb.”Republican pollster Whit Ayres admitted that the Smith case is profoundly more concerning than the indictment brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, telling the Post: "If you were trying to design a lawsuit that was easy for Republicans to dismiss as a partisan witch hunt, you would produce exactly the lawsuit that Alvin Bragg brought. Jack Smith is not a jokester.”You can read more here.
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[l] at 6/10/23 8:07am
Now that special counsel Jack Smith has slammed Donald Trump with a 37-count federal indictment containing conspiracy and Espionage Act violations, it's time for the Department of Justice to look into the former president and his family's dealing with the Saudi royal family.That is the opinion of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen who visited with MSNBC host Katie Phang early Saturday morning to discuss the groundbreaking indictment of a former president.Claiming such an inquiry could already be in the process of being pursued, Cohen told the host that Trump as well as son-in-law Jared Kushner appear to have an "unholy" relationship with the Saudis."Donald will throw anyone and everyone under the bus in order to preserve his own freedom, in order to benefit himself," the former Trump "fixer" told the MSNBC host."I think the DOJ should be, if they're not already, [be] looking at the unholy relationships that exist between Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and Jared Kushner," he explained."I mean, this whole two plus billion dollars to an unqualified hedge funder makes no sense to me, and in light of the information that came out, that there was military information on Iran, and we all know what that Saudi Arabia has had with Iranian aggression on their mind for a long time -- who knows what was shown to them? Who knows what was discussed? Who knows what was sold? None of us.""I do believe that our law enforcement, because we have the greatest law enforcement in the world, they can find anything, and I do believe they will find a lot of information that goes on outside of Trump, even though I do believe he probably had his hands in it, that he certainly knows about it, and chances are, if he had his hand in it and he knew about it, he profited it from it," he charged.Watch below or at the link: MSNBC 06 10 2023 08 32 51 youtu.be
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[l] at 6/10/23 7:24am
Reveling in special counsel Jack Smith's 37-count indictment of Donald Trump on charges ranging from obstruction of justice to very serious Espionage Act violations, former Trump "fixer" Michael Cohen said his ex-boss is showing definite signs of fear.Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, the former Trump lawyer said the now twice-indicted ex-president's flip-out on Truth Social is a sign that he is in a "state of panic.""At twelve o'clock midnight Trump is in an absolute panic," Cohen told the MSNBC host. "You may have seen it on his Truth Social, all caps again, which connotes in Trump's speech that he's angry. But it also connotes that he's nervous, that he's in a state of panic."He continued, "And he starts attacking the Biden administration, he starts attacking the DOJ, he starts attacking the attorney general and why? Again, read my book 'Revenge' and you'll understand why. That's what Donald Trump did during his administration. Donald Trump went ahead, he weaponized the DOJ using a willing and complicit attorney general."He added, "It's typical Trump deflection."Watch below or at the link: MSNBC 06 10 2023 08 26 41 youtu.be
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[l] at 6/10/23 6:42am
Appearing on MSNBC early Saturday morning, former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA) lashed out at a fellow Republican who responded to Donald Trump's latest indictment with what appears to be a call for another insurrection.After the announcement that the former president will be formally indicted by the Department of Justice in Florida next week, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) fired off a tweet stating: "President Trump said he has been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM. This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.”Agreeing with militia expert Jeff Sharlet, who wrote, "This isn’t a metaphor. This isn’t slow civil war. This is a congressman calling for the real thing. I think this is scary as hell," Riggleman piled on.Speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, he stated, "I know Clay, I've served with him back in 2019 to 2021. This is so irresponsible.""But it's also almost a cosplay ridiculousness that actually could spark violence with people that maybe are too ignorant to understand, or absolutely understand what a Clay Higgins is putting out there," he suggested."I think at this point, he probably needs to retract that or delete it, and to apologize for such ridiculous language," he continued. " Because it makes real military individuals almost cringe. It's so cringeworthy that I do believe that we have to have a point in this country where their saying rise up against this hyperbolic bulls--t.""I think, for me as a former military person, it's embarrassing to see somebody, especially an elected representative, It's just embarrassing to see somebody tweet something like that, " he added.Watch below or at the link: MSNBC 06 10 2023 07 28 11 youtu.be
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[l] at 6/10/23 6:33am
Former President Donald Trump's associates were initially hopeful that his being indicted in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case would be a good thing for him, by giving him a boost to his fundraising and polling — but they were horrified when they actually got a look at the indictment and realized he was on the hook for 37 charges including Espionage Act offenses and obstruction, reported Kristen Holmes on CNN Friday."What are you learning about the mood in Trump World tonight, now that they know he's been indicted, now that they've had a very riveting read and a very damning read in this indictment?" asked anchor Erin Burnett."We spent the day talking about Trump's orbit," said Holmes, adding that "there was a shift in the mood in Trump World.""As we reported last night, some of these Trump advisers were feeling really bullish," said Holmes. "They were talking about how good this was going to be politically. I had one person tell me that they were happy that the indictment came before the fourth quarter was over because they were looking for a fundraising boost like they saw after that Manhattan indictment. Today it seemed to shift a little bit. Even this morning Trump played golf with a representative. Allies were calling Trump World trying to shore up support for the president. Once the charges were revealed, it took a shift once people started weighing what was in the document. It went from being political to legal. The legal implications of these charges. What is this going to mean? What is a trial actually going to look like? As you noted, how is this going to affect the election?"I had talked to a number of advisers who said, yes, this might help him win the GOP nomination," continued Holmes. "There is no doubt this will rile up the base. However, what is this going to do for a general election? It seems as though it wasn't a small handful of advisers I had spoken to, that a larger group that this perspective was starting to sink in. As we talk about the shifting view, looking at the legal aspect. As you noted, this is a day when Trump is rebuilding his entire legal team. He has two top lawyers who have resigned and he is looking at Miami-based lawyers right now. We know he is scouting that out."I have been talking to a couple of sources down in Florida who have heard about calls being made," Holmes added. "Something to keep an eye on. They are taking this seriously, and it really does seem as though the gravity has sunk in of the charges."Watch below or click here. Kristen Holmes says Trump allies thought indictment would help him until they saw it www.youtube.com

[Category: Gop, Donald trump]

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[l] at 6/10/23 6:23am
For 40 days after their plane crashed, four Indigenous children were lost in the Colombian Amazon rainforest.A major search operation, with rescuers finding a steady string of clues about their whereabouts, came to an end on Friday with the discovery of the children alive.They were flown to the capital Bogota early Saturday, where ambulances awaited. AFP looks at the timeline of events.Doomed flightOn the morning of May 1, a Cessna 206 plane run by Avianline Charters left a jungle area known as Araracuara to head for San Jose del Guaviare, one of the main towns in the Colombian Amazon.On board were the pilot, an Indigenous leader of the Huitoto community, as well as Magdalena Mucutui Valencia and her four children -- aged 13, nine, four and 11 months.Minutes after starting the 350-kilometer (217-mile) flight over the jungle, the pilot reported engine problems and the plane disappeared from radar.According to officials, the four Huitoto siblings boarded the plane with their mother to flee threats from members of an armed group.Signs of lifeBetween May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the pilot and the two adults in the Caqueta area. The plane was stuck vertically in thick vegetation, with its nose destroyed.They did not locate the children.A sniffer dog found the baby's bottle in a secluded spot near the crash site.More than 100 military personnel were deployed to the area, suspecting there was at least one survivor.The search was joined by dozens of Indigenous people from nearby villages who are accustomed to traveling through the Amazon -- home to jaguars, snakes and other predators, as well as armed drug smuggling groups.Military aircraft dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with survival tips and instructions in Spanish and the children's own Indigenous language.An air force helicopter also broadcasted an audio recording of the children's grandmother, urging them to stay put.Shoes, clothes and half-eaten fruit were found among the trees.About 2.5 kilometers from the crash site, soldiers also found a camp abandoned by guerrillas.Premature announcementHeavy rainfall and giant trees that can grow up to 40 meters (130 feet) tall made the "Operation Hope" search difficult.Three weeks after the crash, soldiers found diapers and shoes, and claimed that they had passed within 100 meters of the children. The search was reduced to a 20-square-kilometer section of jungle.On May 17, soldiers came across a makeshift shelter, constructed out of sticks and branches. A dog also found scissors and hair ties.On the same day, President Gustavo Petro announced that the children had been found alive. But he retracted the statement a day later, saying he had been given false information.On May 26, the military organized a symbolic celebration for the baby, who turned one year old that day, having spent almost a month lost in the jungle.Finally foundOn June 9, Petro announced that the children were found alive and released a photo showing them surrounded by soldiers and Indigenous people who participated in the search. The children appear thin and have no shoes."They were alone, they made it on their own. An example of absolute survival that will go down in history," the president said.According to the military, rescuers found the children about 5 kilometers west of the crash site.Army rescuers "immediately took charge of and stabilized" the four siblings, who were transferred to San Jose del Guaviare, according to the defense minister.They arrived at a military airport in Bogota early on June 10, with ambulances waiting to take them to hospital.© 2023 AFP
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[l] at 6/10/23 6:15am
In a square in central Warsaw, a couple of people are bent over a huge sculpture of a blue egg, their heads turned and pressed against the shell.As they listen to the soft sounds of a baby bird hatching, a hooded crow cocks his head and sips from a shallow pool of water installed nearby."This chick and the mini-pond next to it speak to a sensitivity to Warsaw's non-human residents," Warsaw deputy mayor Aldona Machnowska-Gora said at the unveiling."Don't hesitate to walk up to the egg and hug it. It makes for an incredible experience," she said.Located at Five Corners Square -- once home to an arena where animals would fight to the death -- the acoustic installation titled The Hatchling is a call for empathy with other lifeforms in the era of climate change."The idea was to bend people's bodies over something other than themselves," said Joanna Rajkowska, the artist behind the sculpture."We care about our well-being so much. It's like a complete obsession... It's time to think about other species," she told AFP.- 'The Hatchling speaks' -At around two meters (6.6 feet) high and three meters long, The Hatchling is a larger than life version of a song thrush's blue spotted egg.The color is more intense than the real blue because the sculpture will inevitably fade in the sun."Inside, instead of a bird, we have a lot of electronics, a lot of circuits and sound transducers... So The Hatchling speaks," said Rajkowska."Literally, like pecking the shell. But also the heartbeat, which is three times faster than the human heart. You can also hear all the movements and the chirping," she added."So it's a whole spectrum of sounds. Basically the desperate life that is trying to get out of the egg."She teamed up with her musician partner for the recordings, though they do not come from a song thrush, as the stress of the process would have been enormous for a wild bird."An ornithologist told me that if I take an egg from the nest and then return it, the parents will not accept it... So I decided to find safe conditions," Rajkowska said.They came across "this crazy guy who is trying to revive old species of chickens" who allowed them to record in his lab as long as they kept the eggs warm."So we had to really rush to do the recording and put it back in the incubator," Rajkowska said.- 'Surreal, unexpected' -The artist is also the creator of a massive fake palm tree that has for years added a tropical note to the Polish capital and even become a popular postcard landmark.Similarly, the egg -- whose top is already speckled with bird droppings, to Rajkowska's amusement -- is meant to be "surreal, unexpected and slightly out of touch with reality".Piotr Nowacki, a life-long Warsaw resident, is a fan of the project, which he has visited several times and calls "a break from routine, somewhat abstract, surprising"."It also educates (and) draws your attention to nature... It's cool that it's dynamic, that it's alive, right?" the 36-year-old software engineer told AFP.Rajkowska has also exhibited a series of collages juxtaposing old and new magazine clippings, old photographs of the plaza -- and birds, of course."I love that they evolved from the dinosaur and they have such a long, long history... And we make their habitats smaller and smaller and smaller. We concrete everything," Rajkowska said."The Hatchling is actually a sad project. It is tinged with disappointment but also with hope that we mature enough to see beyond ourselves."
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[l] at 6/10/23 6:09am
"Here it is women who command!" declared Rigopoula Pavlidis, as she sang the virtues of her remote village on the island of Karpathos, one of Greece's rare matriarchal societies.Sitting at a desk across the room painting religious icons, her husband Giannis nodded silently."My husband can't do anything without me, not even his tax return," Pavlidis laughed as she embroidered a traditional dress inside her workshop.In contrast to most of patriarchal Greece, the women of Olympos play a commanding role in village life.Isolated from the rest of the Dodecanese island, the spectacular hillside village has safeguarded this centuries-old tradition, which has survived the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century and Italian rule in the 20th.Until the 1980s, there was no asphalt road to Olympos.Among the traditions that survive is a Byzantine-era inheritance system that gives a mother's property to the eldest daughter, said local historian Giorgos Tsampanakis.Rigopoula, the seamstress, is one of the beneficiaries of the tradition. She inherited 700 olive trees from her mother."The families did not have enough property to divide among all the children... and if we had left the inheritance to the men, they would have squandered it," she said.Greek women traditionally moved into their new husband's home upon marriage. In Olympos, the opposite takes place.And women's prominence is also reflected in their names."The eldest daughter took the first name of the maternal grandmother, unlike the rest of Greece, where it was that of the paternal grandmother," said Tsampanakis."Many women still call themselves by their mother's surname and not their husband's," he added.The role of women in Olympos was further strengthened in the 1950s when the village men began to emigrate for work -- mainly to the United States and European countries -- leaving their wives and daughters behind to manage families and farms on their own.'We had no choice'"We had no choice but to work in the absence of the men. It was our only way of surviving," recalled 67-year-old Anna Lentakis as she picked artichokes in the hamlet of Avlona near Olympos.A few years ago, Lentakis ran the Olympos tavern. This has now passed into the hands of her eldest daughter Marina."I don't know if we were early feminists... but I like to say that the man is the head of the family, and the woman the neck," said Marina, who is in her 40s.Marina's daughter Anna is only 13 years old, but she knows that one day she will take up the torch."It's my grandmother's legacy and I'll be proud to take care of it!" she said.But the "feminist" inheritance system only benefits the eldest children, said Alain Chabloz of the Geographical Society of Geneva, who has studied the subject."The youngest sons were forced into exile, and the youngest daughters had to stay on the island at the service of the elders. A kind of social caste was created," he said.Giorgia Fourtina, the youngest of her family and unmarried, helps her older sister in the restaurant and in the fields.Fourtina does not feel that Olympos society is particularly progressive: "It's a small society where a woman alone in a cafe is frowned upon," she said.Women "are the ones who maintain the traditions," said Yannis Hatzivassilis, a local sculptor, who has crafted an iconic statue of an Olympos woman gazing at the sea, waiting for her husband to return.The older women of Olympos traditionally wear embroidered costumes consisting of flowered aprons, a headscarf and leather boots.Treasured heirlooms that are part of a girl's dowry, these costumes can cost up to 1,000 euros ($1,077) and require hours of work.Irini Chatzipapa, a 50-year-old baker, is the youngest Olympos woman to still wear it every day."I taught my daughter to embroider, but except for the holidays, she does not wear it as it's not adapted to modern life," she said.Chatzipapa's 70-year-old mother chimes in: "Our costume is becoming just folklore for the holidays... Our world is disappearing."© 2023 AFP
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[l] at 6/10/23 6:00am
Four Indigenous children who had been missing for more than a month in the Colombian Amazon rainforest were found alive and flown to the capital Bogota early Saturday.The children, who survived a small plane crash in the jungle, were transported by army medical plane to a military airport at around 00:30 am Saturday (0530 GMT).They were taken off the plane on stretchers, wrapped in thermal blankets, with ambulances waiting to bring them to hospital, AFP journalists said.General Pedro Sanchez, who led the search operation, credited Indigenous people involved in the rescue effort with finding the children."We found the children: miracle, miracle, miracle!" was the message he told reporters he received on Friday.President Gustavo Petro announced their rescue and told the media: "Today we have had a magical day.""They are weak. Let's let the doctors make their assessment," he said.Petro had posted a photo on Twitter showing several adults, some dressed in military fatigues, tending to the children as they sat on tarps in the jungle. One rescuer held a bottle to the mouth of the smallest child, whom he held in his arms."A joy for the whole country! The 4 children who were lost 40 days ago in the Colombian jungle were found alive," he wrote on Twitter.Video shared by the Defense Ministry late Friday showed the children being pulled up into a helicopter as it hovered over the tall trees in almost complete darkness.Originally from the Huitoto Indigenous group, the children -- aged 13, nine, four and one -- had been wandering alone in the jungle since May 1, when the Cessna 206 in which they were traveling crashed.The pilot had reported engine problems only minutes after taking off from a jungle area known as Araracuara on the 350-kilometer (217-mile) journey to the town of San Jose del Guaviare.The bodies of the pilot, the children's mother and a local Indigenous leader were all found at the crash site, where the plane sat almost vertical in the trees.Officials said the group had been fleeing threats from members of an armed group.A massive search involving 160 soldiers and 70 Indigenous people with intimate knowledge of the jungle was launched after the crash, garnering global attention.The area is home to jaguars, snakes and other predators, as well as armed drug smuggling groups, but clues such as footprints, a diaper, and half-eaten fruit led authorities to believe they were on the right track.Worried that the children would continue wandering and become ever more difficult to locate, the air force dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children's own Indigenous language, telling them to stay put.The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military dropped food parcels and bottled water.Rescuers had also been broadcasting a message recorded by the children's grandmother, urging them not to move.According to the military, rescuers found the children about five kilometers (three miles) west of the crash site.'Absolute survival'Huitoto children learn hunting, fishing and gathering, and the kids' grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, had told AFP the children are well acquainted with the jungle."I just want to see them, to touch them," he said early Saturday after learning of their rescue.News came as Petro returned home from Cuba, where he signed a six-month truce with Colombia's last active guerrilla group, the ELN."Getting closer and attaining peace in the agreement that is moving forward with the ELN... And now I return and the first news is that indeed the Indigenous communities that were in the search and the military forces found the children 40 days later," he told reporters in Bogota."They were alone, they made it on their own. An example of absolute survival that will go down in history," he said.With her "warrior" spirit, 13-year-old Lesly kept her younger siblings safe, the children's grandmother Fatima Valencia told AFP.Seventeen days after the children went missing, Petro announced that they had been found alive but he retracted the statement a day later, saying he had been given false information.On Friday, he praised "the effective coordination between the military and the Indigenous people" during the search, saying it was an "example of an alliance for the country to follow."Fidencio Valencia told AFP that the children had been found by a native of Araracuara who had been participating in the search.Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez paid tribute to the various army units' "unshakeable and tireless" work, as well as to the Indigenous people who took part in the search.Army rescuers "immediately took charge of and stabilized" the four siblings, who were transferred to San Jose del Guaviare, according to the minister, and then later to Bogota.(AFP)
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[l] at 6/10/23 5:51am
Appearing on CNN early Saturday morning, the state attorney for Palm Beach County claimed the lawyer turmoil Donald Trump is experiencing as he heads to Florida where he will be formally charged on dozens of charges from the Department of Justice puts him at a disadvantage.Speaking with host Amara Walker, prosecutor Dave Aronberg pointed out that the former president has put himself in the position of not having legal representation experienced in dealing with national security issues that are at the heart of the case against him.Noting that Trump lawyers Jim Trusty and John Rowley walked away less than 24 hours after the indictments were announced, Aronberg said that is a "problem" for the now twice-indicted former president.With Walker prompting, "There's a high turnover rate of his legal team," Aronberg quickly responded, "The strategy is just to find a lawyer who will take the case in Florida with knowledge in this area.""The problem is, as respected as his new lawyer is, apparently he's not an expert in the field of national security," he continued. "We lawyers are specialists and you want someone who is used to this stuff, dealing with classified information because they're going against Jay Bratt who's the head of the Department of Justice's Counterintelligence division and you are going against Jack Smith who is a bulldog.""You want to bring your A-game, and you don't want to bring someone new to this area," he continued. "But this is what happens with Donald Trump. You know lawyers are reluctant to work for him because look at Chris Kise, well-respected former solicitor general, brought on to help Trump, given a $3 million retainer. Trump didn't like his advice. Kise wanted Trump to be cooperative with the DOJ-- Trump rejected it, he sidelined him. He's stuck with whatever he can get."Watch below or at the link: CNN 06 10 2023 07 05 29 youtu.be
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[l] at 6/10/23 5:51am
Two giant yellow ducks meant to signify good fortune in Hong Kong ran into bad luck of their own after one was deflated Saturday to protect it from the heat.The art installation by Dutch artist Forentijn Hofman, featuring twin 18-metre (59-feet) inflatable ducks, was unveiled to the public on Friday.The exhibition came a decade after one of Hofman's air-filled avians first visited the Chinese city, with the artist saying the new work would bring "double luck".But organisers had to let the air out of one bird due to high summer temperatures, which on Saturday reached highs of 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 degrees Fahrenheit).The "rubber duck skin had become strained because the hot weather has caused air pressure to rise", the organizzers said in a statement.The affected creature was drained of air to "avoid risk" and was pending repair, organizers said, leaving just one sitting duck in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour.Hofman's Rubber Duck series has made appearances in major cities since its 2007 debut, and made headlines in Hong Kong when it arrived in 2013.That exhibit lasted 13 days before it, too, was deflated.© 2023 AFP
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[l] at 6/10/23 5:47am
The latest twist in Donald Trump's attritional war with US law enforcement, as with so much else in the former president's story, throws the United States into unprecedented territory.Facing multiple federal charges over his hoarding of government secrets, the mercurial Republican presents the country with the possibility of a winning candidate moving into the White House while under indictment -- or running the government from a jail cell.The defiant billionaire has dismissed the notion that he would ever drop out of his party's primary contest, reverting instead to a favored tactic of accusing his "corrupt" political adversaries of election interference. "It likely won't sway undecided voters but it will galvanize Trump supporters who might be wavering or looking to a candidate with less baggage," Matt Shoemaker, a national security analyst and former intelligence officer, told AFP.Prosecutors in both the federal documents case and the state-level financial fraud probe targeting Trump in New York will hope to have him face justice before the country goes to the polls in 17 months.But there is no guarantee of either case wrapping up that quickly and Trump also faces federal and state-level probes into his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.He would likely torpedo any outstanding federal prosecutions were he reelected, by attempting to pardon himself -- an unprecedented scenario that would almost certainly spark a constitutional crisis. But he would have little influence over state-level cases and his more immediate worry is the damage his legal woes could do to his campaign to win the Republican nomination in the first place.Going for the jugular?The latest indictment allows Trump's primary challengers -- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former vice president Mike Pence and others -- to level the criticism that the runaway frontrunner is unfit for office.But they run the risk of alienating Trump's loyal base, whose support has only grown more fervent since the Manhattan indictment.As a result, many rivals have rallied to Trump's side, perhaps hoping to keep their powder dry until he is finally taken out of the running by further indictments expected in the coming months.Trump is under federal investigation over his role in the January 6, 2021 US Capitol insurrection and media reports suggest racketeering and conspiracy charges are set to drop in Georgia in August over the tycoon's campaign to overturn the election there."They are hoping Trump is eventually knocked out of the race by a series of indictments, including those concerning January 6 and the attempt to overturn the election," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato."That's it. That's their strategy... They won't do anything. Go for the jugular? Trump's teeth will be in their jugular before they can do the same to him."Prosecutors on Friday said Trump had been charged with almost 40 counts filed under multiple charges, including illegal retention of government secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.'Serious crime'In a recent YouGov poll only half of respondents said it was a "serious crime" to falsify business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star -- the case that he faces in Manhattan.But two-thirds said the same about removing classified government secrets from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them.The figures are 28 percent and 42 percent respectively among Republicans -- a gap that suggests Trump's latest scandal could mark a turning point in his primary campaign.DeSantis -- who has been polling a distant second to Trump -- has exercised restraint in comments over his rival's legal woes but the rhetorical hand grenades lobbed between the camps have become more bellicose in recent weeks.Meanwhile Chris Christie, a political knife-fighter who has indicated he'll take on Trump more directly than the rest of the pack, has jumped into the race since the Manhattan indictment. "DeSantis would most benefit from Trump dropping out of the race but he seems to have calculated that they have many of the same potential voters so doesn't want to alienate them," Shana Gadarian, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, told AFP. "It may take someone like... Christie to shake up that narrative," she added. "Christie's candidacy is about bringing the mainstream back to the party and he may see the benefit of attracting former Republicans who were turned off by Trump's presidency." © Agence France-Presse
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[l] at 6/10/23 5:42am
David Smith, a retired print technician from the north of England, was pursuing his hobby of looking for interesting shapes when he stumbled onto one unlike any other in November.When Smith shared his shape with the world in March, excited fans printed it onto T-shirts, sewed it into quilts, crafted cookie cutters or used it to replace the hexagons on a soccer ball -- some even made plans for tattoos.The 13-sided polygon, which 64-year-old Smith called "the hat", is the first single shape ever found that can completely cover an infinitely large flat surface without ever repeating the same pattern.That makes it the first "einstein" -- named after the German for "one stone" (ein stein), not the famed physicist -- and solves a problem posed 60 years ago that some mathematicians had thought impossible.After stunning the mathematics world, Smith -- a hobbyist with no training who told AFP that he wasn't great at maths at school -- then did it again.While all agreed "the hat" was the first einstein, its mirror image was required one in seven times to ensure that a pattern never repeated.But in a preprint study published online late last month, Smith and the three mathematicians who helped him confirm the discovery revealed a new shape -- "the spectre."It requires no mirror image, making it an even purer einstein.- 'It can be that easy' -Craig Kaplan, a computer scientist at Canada's Waterloo University, told AFP that it was "an amusing and almost ridiculous story -- but wonderful".He said that Smith, a retired print technician who lives in Yorkshire's East Riding, emailed him "out of the blue" in November.Smith had found something "which did not play by his normal expectations for how shapes behave", Kaplan said.If you slotted a bunch of these cardboard shapes together on a table, you could keep building outwards without them ever settling into a regular pattern.Using computer programs, Kaplan and two other mathematicians showed that the shape continued to do this across an infinite plane, making it the first einstein, or "aperiodic monotile".When they published their first preprint in March, among those inspired was Yoshiaki Araki. The Japanese tiling enthusiast made art using the hat and another aperiodic shape created by the team called "the turtle", sometimes using flipped versions.Smith was inspired back, and started playing around with ways to avoid needing to flip his hat.Less than a week after their first paper came out, Smith emailed Kaplan a new shape.Kaplan refused to believe it at first. "There's no way it can be that easy," he said.But analysis confirmed that Tile (1,1) was a "non-reflective einstein", Kaplan said.Something still bugged them -- while this tile could go on forever without repeating a pattern, this required an "artificial prohibition" against using a flipped shape, he said.So they added little notches or curves to the edges, ensuring that only the non-flipped version could be used, creating "the spectre".'Hatfest'Kaplan said both their papers had been submitted to peer-reviewed journals. But the world of mathematics did not wait to express its astonishment.Marjorie Senechal, a mathematician at Smith College in the United States, told AFP the discoveries were "exciting, surprising and amazing".She said she expects the spectre and its relatives "will lead to a deeper understanding of order in nature and the nature of order."Doris Schattschneider, a mathematician at Moravian College in the US, said both shapes were "stunning".Even Nobel-winning mathematician Roger Penrose, whose previous best effort had narrowed the number of aperiodic tiles down to two in the 1970s, had not been sure such a thing was possible, Schattschneider said.Penrose, 91, will be among those celebrating the new shapes during the two-day "Hatfest" event at Oxford University next month.All involved expressed amazement that the breakthrough was achieved by someone without training in maths."The answer fell out of the sky and into the hands of an amateur -- and I mean that in the best possible way, a lover of the subject who explores it outside of professional practice," Kaplan said."This is the kind of thing that ought not to happen, but very happily for the history of science does happen occasionally, where a flash brings us the answer all at once."© 2023 AFP
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[l] at 6/10/23 5:36am
As of Wednesday afternoon air quality in New York was clocking in as the worst in the world, according to an international monitor, as levels of pollution hung at hazardous levels well into the night.Even as the apocalyptic skies gave residents the illusion of living in a sepia filter, festival organizers took a wait-and-see approach in consultation with local officials."We are a go," they announced by Thursday evening, as the smoke began to dissipate due to the shifting direction of the winds over the Canadian province of Quebec, where the fires are raging.It was welcome news for thousands of revelers planning to attend the festival in New York's Queens borough, among them Simrya Anand who traveled from Boston to see artists including headliners Lizzo, Odesza and Kendrick Lamar."I was really worried about the weather," the 20-year-old told AFP. "I was thinking about, like, wearing a mask here but thankfully it looks like things have cleared up.""But I wasn't considering not coming," she added with a smile.Hamza Hussein, 25, just wrapped a graduate degree at New York University and was looking forward to attending his first Gov Ball ever, in particular the set of famed rapper Pusha T.He and his friend were concerned about the potentially "poisonous" air -- but "we predicted it was going to go on because it's really hard to rebook all these artists."Breathing easyBy Friday evening as Diplo took the stage, the air quality level had dropped to a refreshing 38 on the 500-point scale -- earlier in the week it had jumped past a dangerous 400 -- and festival-goers along with artists were able to breathe easy once more.It was a relief for New Yorkers Andy and Bonnie Goolcharan, both in their early 50s, who said they had been ready to skip."We weren't going to come," Andy Goolcharan told AFP. "We thought it would be canceled... but it worked out."And unlike many of their fellow attendees in their 20s, the couple said if both the smog and the festival had persisted, they would have stayed home.More than 111 million people in the United States had been under air quality alerts as of Thursday due to the fires. The wildfire smoke from Canada was also detected several thousand miles away in Norway.The mayors of New York, Montreal, Toronto, Washington and Philadelphia issued a joint statement Friday saying "this alarming episode serves as a stark reminder of the harmful impacts that the climate crisis is having on cities around the world.New York's Governors Ball kicked off Friday under clearer skies after days of wildfire-induced noxious smog blanketed the city and threatened to derail the annual music festival © ANGELA WEISS / AFPThe three-day Governors Ball music festival is set to continue through Sunday, and along with the headliners will feature Lil Nas X, Haim, Lil Uzi Vert, Rina Sawayama, Omar Apollo and Ice Spice.© 2023 AFP
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[l] at 6/10/23 5:34am
The Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, barely hours after the U.S. Dept. of Justice unsealed a 49-page, 37-felony count criminal indictment charging Donald Trump with violations of seven federal laws, decided to double-down on his defense of the ex-president by threatening to target the Attorney General of the United States and declaring House Republicans "are not going to stand for" the criminal prosecution of the ex-president.McCarthy went on Fox News Friday afternoon, saying "this judgment is wrong by this DOJ. That they treated President Trump differently than they treat others. And it didn't have to be this way. This is going to disrupt this nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all – which is not being seen today and we are not going to stand for it."McCarthy, a California Republican who cobbled together a tenuous pact with far-right extremists to win his speakership on the 15th try, is incorrect on the facts.The Dept. of Justice does not pass judgment, the courts – in this case a jury, does. The Dept. of Justice did not treat Trump "differently," except to give him multiple opportunities over an approximately two-year period to return national secrets he allegedly unlawfully removed, retained, and refused to return, even after being served with a subpoena and a search warrant.What McCarthy does not do is claim Trump's actions were legal or reasonable, because the damning indictment makes clear they are not.Later, McCarthy took to Twitter to effectively declare he would target the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, who – for nearly a quarter century – served as a federal appeals court judge and chief judge before being nominated to serve at Main Justice.(Garland was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 but then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to allow the confirmation to move process forward.)"Many officials, from Secretary Hillary Clinton to then-Senator Joe Biden, handled classified info after their time in office & were never charged," tweeted the Speaker, not just wrongly, but grossly and dishonestly characterizing the allegations against Trump."Now Biden's leading political opponent is indicted—a double standard that must be investigated," he again dishonestly declared.President Joe Biden had nothing to do with the decision of the Special Counsel to ask a Florida grand jury for an indictment. Nor was the President even told before Trump was indicted – like every American, President Biden learned of the Trump indictment through news reports. Attorney General Garland did not sign off on the decision to ask a grand jury for an indictment.McCarthy, meanwhile, vowed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and the House Republicans "will get answers.""Merrick Garland: the American people elected us to conduct oversight of you. We will fulfill that obligation," he declared.McCarthy made those remarks atop a Friday letter from Jordan to Garland that begins: "The Biden Department of Justice is reportedly about to indict a former president and President Biden's chief rival in the upcoming presidential election.""According to reports, the Department will indict President Donald Trump, despite declining to indict former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information and failing to indict President Biden for his mishandling of classified information." (The letter does not mention former Vice President Mike Pence, who is not being charged for his mishandling of classified information."On Thursday a defiant and angry McCarthy, after Trump was indicted, wrote: "Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America.""It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him," he said, which is egregiously false – Biden did not indict Trump, nor did his Attorney General or even Special Counsel; a grand jury of Florida citizens did."Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades," McCarthy charged, which is a legitimate claim and there is a current federal investigation underway. The difference is Biden did not take the documents, did not know they were among his papers, and immediately upon learning they were, contacted the National Archives to arrange their return.Donald Trump, we now know, according to the indictment, packed some of the boxes himself, not only refused to return the documents but hid them from the Dept. of Justice and National Archives, lied about them, and kept them at times in public areas of his Florida resort and residence."I, and every American who believes in the rule of law," McCarthy wrong declared, "stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable."In response to McCarthy's remarks, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) posted a photo from the DOJ's indictment of Trump."These are the secrets that protect our troops. And Kevin McCarthy thinks it’s perfectly OK that Donald Trump stole and stored them like this," he charged.Watch the video and see Rep. Swalwell's tweet above or at this link.
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[l] at 6/10/23 2:32am
As the smoke continues to waft down from Canada and linger, I am reminded of loneliness. The US surgeon general declared last month that loneliness is now an American epidemic. Vivek Murthy said that it “takes as deadly a toll as smoking upon the population of the United States.” “Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows,” he said, “and that’s not right.”While I’m sympathetic to feelings of loneliness, I’m pretty sure no one is truly alone. I’m pretty sure because, this week anyway, the evidence is right there for everyone to see. Every one of us is part “the interdependent web of all existence.” Smoke wafting down from Canada is affirmation of that truth.“The devastating impacts of climate change”READ MORE: 'No end in sight' to wildfires choking Eastern US with smoke: reportThe smoke is “a thick, hazardous haze that’s disrupting daily life for millions of people across the US and Canada, blotting out skylines and turning skies orange,” the Associated Press reported. It’s “billowing from wildfires in Quebec and Nova Scotia and sending plumes of fine particulate matter as far away as North Carolina and northern Europe,” It could persist through the weekend.The smoke, according to the Associated Press, “chased baseball players from ballfields, actors from Broadway stages, delayed thousands of flights and sparked a resurgence in mask wearing and remote work — all while raising concerns about the health effects of prolonged exposure to such bad air.”The smoke is so bad the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the president Wednesday. His office said both leaders “acknowledged the need to work together to address the devastating impacts of climate change.”We are part of something biggerREAD MORE: 'People didn’t listen': Arctic summer sea ice disappearance now 'inevitable' as soon as the 2030s“The interdependent web of all existence” is one of the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism, of which I am a card-carrying member. It specifically addresses climate change. It’s not only about that and the fate of our planet, though. It is about the relationship between individuals and communities.“We make a profound mistake when we limit [the seventh principle] to merely an environmental idea,” Rev. Forrest Gilmore has said. “It is so much more. It is our response to the great dangers of both individualism and oppression. It is our solution to the seeming conflict between the individual and the group.”The smoke wafting down from Canada and lingering is, to be sure, a reminder of climate change and the dangers we face. But it’s also a reminder that none of us is truly alone – that we are part of something bigger and more profound.As Rev. Gilmore said: “Our seventh principle may be our Unitarian Universalist way of coming to fully embrace something greater than ourselves. The interdependent web — expressed as the spirit of life, the ground of all being, the oneness of all existence, the community-forming power, the process of life, the creative force, even God — can help us develop that social understanding of ourselves that we and our culture so desperately need.”The smoke is the proofWe deny that. We instead insist on being a country of individualists. After the US surgeon general declared loneliness an American epidemic, the Associated Press’s Ted Anthony dove deep into the social history of individualism to explain “how the American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal.”In May, Anthony wrote that, “as far back as the early 19th century, when the word ‘loneliness’ began to be used in its current context in American life, some were already asking the question: Do the contours of American society — that emphasis on individualism, that spreading out with impunity over a vast, sometimes outsized landscape — encourage isolation and alienation? Or is that, like other chunks of the American story, a premise built on myths?”It’s a myth. No one is truly alone. The smoke is proof.Will the smoke trigger a systemic response to climate change?Maybe. But if a once-a-century plague did not smash the myth of the rugged individualist – if the covid did not prove that no one is truly alone and that we’re all in this together – neither will a few days of hazy skies over Gotham.In any case, it’s important to remember that a systemic response to climate change does not depend on most people most of the time coming around to believing that no one is truly alone and that we’re all in this together. Some people will come around. Most won’t. Denial is the American superpower.A systemic response to climate change depends on the iron will of small and highly organized groups of people, like the Unitarian Universalists, who have set out to bravely declare, against the political grain, that every person, whether lonely or not, is part of “the interdependent web of all existence.”It depends on some people telling all people that they are not alone.READ MORE: Why 'we cannot return to ignorance' when it comes to 'our air': professor
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[l] at 6/9/23 9:47pm
Donald Trump acted like "the most bumbling mafia don in the history of mafia dons" when he coordinated the obstruction alleged in the confidential documents case, national security attorney Brad Moss said Friday night.Moss, who said on Thursday that Trump is facing the legal challenge of his life with a legal team that isn't up for the job, was part of a panel discussing the case on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Moss accused Trump of "showing off documents" and being carless in other ways."He's talking about it to a staffer from the political action committee. He's talking about it to the ghost writers of Mark Meadows," Moss said. "He's getting these subpoenas and acting like the most mafia don in the history of mafia dons. He was joking and talking to his lawyer like, can we say that we don't have anything?"No, Moss said, you either "comply with the subpoena or move to quash it.""You don't say, how do I lie? That is what is so dangerously concerning with this indictment," he added.Moss further noted that Trump is presumed innocent, but added that, "if we do get the trial, I don't see much of a reason to believe that they won't be able to make their case.""I don't see a lot of substantive defense that Donald Trump will make at trial," according to Moss.Watch the video below or click the following link.

[Category: Mafia, Donald trump]

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[l] at 6/9/23 9:16pm
The fact that the government was able to pierce the barrier of attorney-client privilege and obtain Donald Trump's lawyer's notes tells you "all you need to know" about the strength of the prosecution's case, a former DOJ official said Friday evening.In a wide-ranging interview on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal suggested that the prosecution's ability to work within the courts to get access to traditionally barred materials says a lot about how the trial will unfold.Katyal echoed the sentiments of Andrew Weissman, a veteran federal prosecutor who worked on the special counsel investigation into Trump's ties to Russia, who said earlier on the same panel that the "gold" in the indictment "was revealed by having pierced the attorney-client privilege" and that it "relates to the obstruction charges.""The basic rule is, attorney-client privilege is sacrosanct until and unless you as the client are trying to solicit a crime that your lawyer is participating in," Weissman said. "So that is not something that is privileged and you obviously need to go to a judge, and the judge has to agree that you established that."Following Weissman's comments, Katyal elaborated even further, saying the key point was the overriding of attorney-client privilege."I think Andrew makes the very important point," Katyal said, adding that "what ultimately was litigated and brought to this very respected judge in Washington, D.C., and then ultimately to our nation's second highest court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, should attorney-client privilege in the current notes be given over to prosecutors?" He further said the courts "took the radical step, really unique, of saying that this is so serious, this crime, and Trump was using his attorney to try to commit it," that it warranted the departure."They basically pierced attorney-client privilege," he added. "That to me, Lawrence, says that all you need to know about this case."Katyal further noted that, because "this is such a serious matter, and Trump's actions were so lawless," that attorney-client privilege ultimately had to be pierced. "We have to pierce attorney-client privilege, the most sacred privilege in Anglo Americana law going back centuries upon centuries. That to me is why I listened to Jack Smith's press conference today, and the most important words he said were to all Americans: read the indictment."Watch the video below or click the following link.

[Category: Documents, Donald trump]

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[l] at 6/9/23 8:08pm
An serial arson has roiled a small Los Angeles community, and authorities are asking for the public’s help identifying the suspect, KTLA reports. The arsonist torched vehicles, garbage cans, and discarded furniture among other property in the Fairfax District, a community of around 13,000 sandwiched between La Brea and West Hollywood.The Los Angeles Fire Department is investigating the incidents, which were reported June 7 between 3 and 5:30 a.m., the report said.A classic Ford pickup truck on South Orange Drive was among the casualties of the arsonist, according to the report.Evan Townsley, who owned the 1991 Ford F-150 truck, told the television station that he planned to pass it down to his son.“You guys spent a lot of years back here as children, riding around, bouncing around,” Townsley told the television station. “We had a lot of good years in this truck.”Crews were already putting out the fire by the time Townsley noticed his truck was ablaze. He told the television station that crews were already in the area responding to other fires. “This is gone,” Townsley said. “There’s nothing left, it’s not salvageable. It’s a mess. It’s disgusting, it’s sad and I don’t know why somebody would have it in their heart to do this to somebody else for no reason.”The arsonist torched another car about a block away, according to the report.“Wednesday morning, we woke up. My husband came outside to go to work and he said, ‘Oh, our side-view mirror is burnt off. I don’t know what happened,’” the victim, who asked not to be identified, told the television station. “We couldn’t figure it out. Then I got an alert that the neighbor’s truck was torched, so I put things together and realized that we also were targeted.”Anyone with information about this case is asked to call the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Arson Investigation Unit at 213-485-6095.

[Category: Los angeles, Arson]

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[l] at 6/9/23 7:51pm
Former President Donald Trump's disrespect for the security of classified information really amounts to a disrespect for the men and women behind that classified information who put their lives on the line for the country, argued former Bill Clinton Secretary of Defense William Cohen on CNN Friday.This came after the release of the 37-count indictment against the former president secured by special counsel Jack Smith."When you read the transcript of the former president saying to a room full of just people who were there to hear from him and suck up to him, none of whom had security clearances, saying, you know, this is highly confidential, it's secret. This is secret information. Look. Look at this, and showing them a document," said anchor Anderson Cooper. "I mean, did you ever imagine a president, or somebody who had been president, would do that?""Well, Anderson, I felt that he was unfit to be president, unfit to be commander in chief, from the very beginning," said Cohen. "I felt that initially and I didn't vote for him, and I spoke out against him because I saw his character shining through, how he criticized John McCain not being a hero, how he embarrassed a reporter who had a disability, how he actually criticized a Gold Star family during a convention."Trump's behavior throughout the 2016 campaign, Cohen continued, "told me that the care he was lacking in character and was morally bankrupt.""And as far as dealing with our men and women who serve us, he's in Arlington National Cemetery looking over the gravesites with John Kelly, General John Kelly, whose son is buried there and said, what was in it for all these people?" added Cohen. "What was in it was the fight for democracy, which is something he apparently doesn't really understand."Watch below or click the link. William Cohen on Trump's disrespect for national security www.youtube.com

[Category: William cohen, Donald trump]

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