mxleader on 9/7/2019 at 02:51
I can get on board with that. It's nice to know there is still a safe space in the Interwebs where I can make political statements without being Zucked.
Renzatic on 9/7/2019 at 04:46
Politics are just as in play here as anywhere else on the internet. We're hardly exempt.
Just, you know, be considerate when consideration is called for, and try not to be annoying, and you'll do fine.
Starker on 9/7/2019 at 17:41
Follow-up on Epstein:
Quote:
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epstein-sex-case-heres-what-the-feds-found-in-his-manhattan-mansion)
Federal authorities revealed Monday that a raid on Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan mansion turned up hundreds of nude photos of girls and young women—and notes and messages that allegedly back up new sex-trafficking charges against him.
The details were disclosed in a memo filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan laying out its reasons for asking the court to hold the billionaire financier without bail until trial.
It said Epstein's vast wealth and international holdings make him an “extreme flight risk”—and noted that he is in serious jeopardy of spending the rest of his life behind bars because of the evidence against him.
To that end, prosecutors outlined some of the material it has gathered to corroborate allegations that Epstein paid underage girls for sex acts and then turned some of them into recruiters to bring him more victims.
A raid on his Upper East Side residence, which is said to be worth $77 million, yielded “an extraordinary volume of photographs of nude and partially-nude young women or girls,” the memo states.
It said Epstein, a registered sex offender had “hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of sexually suggestive photographs of fully- or partially- nude females,” and some of them appear to be of underage girls.
Some were in a locked safe that contained CDs labeled “Misc nudes 1,” and “Girl pics nude,” or even individual names, prosecutors said.
The evidence, however, is not limited to the photos.
“Such corroborating evidence also includes documents and other materials, such as contemporaneous notes, messages recovered from the defendant's residence that include names and contact information for certain victims, and call records that confirm the defendant and his agents were repeatedly in contact with various victims during the charged period.”
The prosecutors argued that evidence, along with the testimony of the alleged victims, “will be devastating evidence of guilt at any trial in this case and weighs heavily in favor of detention.”
Photos of nude girls were also found during a 2005 raid on Epstein's Palm Beach, Florida, mansion—but he never went to trial then. Instead, federal prosecutors in Miami allowed him to plead guilty to a state prostitution charge—a deal that is now under investigation.
[...]
One curious thing is that the case is handled by the Southern District of New York's public corruption unit, which has led people to speculate that maybe it will target some of Epstein's famous friends who took part in his crimes or perhaps the prosecutors and defense lawyers who mishandled his case in Florida (who are also public officials and therefore fall in the PCU's sphere of interest).
Also, more than a good chance of a superseding indictment:
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https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/why-its-really-bad-for-epstein-hes-being-prosecuted-by-sdnys-public-corruption-unit/)
A few things about this stuck out to criminal defense lawyer and Law&Crime trial analyst Gene Rossi. First and foremost, it's “extremely bad news” for Epstein that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York is involved.
“They don't play nice,” Rossi told Law&Crime in a phone interview Sunday.
Also, it means that other charges are possible. It could mean money laundering, public corruption, or tax-related charges.
“Who knows?” he said. “The sky's the limit.”
He said it would be a surprise if the case only involved the sex trafficking charges.
Starker on 9/7/2019 at 21:29
Speaking of Russia, Cristopher Steele was interviewed as part of the investigate the investigators campaign that's suddenly popular after the Justice Department got a new, overtly partisan leader:
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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/09/christopher-steele-trump-dossier-doj-1403318)
Christopher Steele, the former British spy behind the infamous “dossier” on President Donald Trump's ties to Russia, was interviewed for 16 hours in June by the Justice Department's internal watchdog, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The interview is part of an ongoing investigation that the Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, has been conducting for the past year. Specifically, Horowitz has been examining the FBI's efforts to surveil a one-time Trump campaign adviser based in part on information from Steele, an ex-British MI6 agent who had worked with the bureau as a confidential source since 2010.
Horowitz's team has been intensely focused on gauging Steele's credibility as a source for the bureau. But Steele was initially reluctant to speak with the American investigators because of the potential impropriety of his involvement in an internal DOJ probe as a foreign national and retired British intelligence agent.
Steele's allies have also repeatedly noted that the dossier was not the original basis for the FBI's probe into Trump and Russia.
The extensive, two-day interview took place in London while Trump was in Britain for a state visit, the sources said, and delved into Steele's extensive work on Russian interference efforts globally, his intelligence-collection methods and his findings about Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who the FBI ultimately surveilled. The FBI's decision to seek a surveillance warrant against Page — a warrant they applied for and obtained after Page had already left the campaign — is the chief focus of the probe by Horowitz.
The interview was contentious at first, the sources added, but investigators ultimately found Steele's testimony credible and even surprising. The takeaway has irked some U.S. officials interviewed as part of the probe — they argue that it shouldn't have taken a foreign national to convince the inspector general that the FBI acted properly in 2016. Steele's American lawyer was present for the conversation.
[...]
Page had been on the FBI's radar since 2013, when he interacted with undercover Russian intelligence agents in New York City. A trip to Moscow in the summer of 2016 further aroused the bureau's suspicions, according to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant the FBI got approved in October 2016, allowing the bureau to intercept his electronic communications.
Steele's defenders have noted that the information he provided which made it into the FISA warrant application to monitor Page was not far off. According to Steele's sources, Page met with high-level Russian officials while in Moscow in July 2016, including the CEO of Russia's state-owned oil giant Rosneft.
Page denied the claim publicly until pressed under oath by lawmakers in 2017, when he acknowledged meeting “senior members of the presidential administration” during his trip, as well as the head of investor relations at Rosneft. Page had originally claimed only that he went to Moscow to give the commencement address at the New Economic School.
Starker on 10/7/2019 at 03:15
Lord Dampnut apparently feels very badly... for the man who helped Epstein get off and in the process broke the law by keeping the deal secret from the victims:
I'm glad that I still live in a country where a minister like that not only would have stepped down voluntarily, but would face the equivalent of impeachment proceedings otherwise. Seriously, how spineless can the Democrats get?
Quote:
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, tweeted that Trump had all the information he needed to make a decision about Acosta.
“Secretary Acosta must step down,” she wrote. “As US attorney, he engaged in an unconscionable agreement with Jeffrey Epstein kept secret from courageous, young victims preventing them from seeking justice. This was known by [Trump] when he appointed him to the cabinet.”
But Pelosi stopped short of calling for a congressional investigation.
“It's up to the president, it's his cabinet,” she told reporters. “We have a great deal of work to do here for the good of the American people and we have to focus on that.”
Starker on 11/7/2019 at 01:36
As if Brexit wasn't enough, the UK now faces an even greater task:
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https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/uk-unable-to-find-replacement-ambassador-who-does-not-think-trump-is-an-idiot)
LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—Following the resignation of its Ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, the government of the United Kingdom has disclosed that it has been unable to find a replacement for Darroch who does not also think that Donald J. Trump is a blithering idiot.
At a press conference at 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, revealed that the search for a new ambassador who does not believe that Trump is an imbecile has thus far come up empty.
“We did not want a repeat of the unfortunate Kim Darroch incident, so we made the first question on the job application, ‘Do you think Donald Trump is a moron?' ” May said. “So far, none of the applicants has checked the ‘no' box.”
May acknowledged that the government might have to expand its search for applicants beyond those with diplomatic experience in order to find a replacement for Darroch who does not consider Trump a dolt.
“We will search high and low until we find someone in this country who doesn't think Donald Trump is a nitwit,” she said. “We're starting by interviewing people who don't think Boris Johnson is a nitwit.”
While affirming her government's determination to find someone in the U.K. who does not think Trump is an unmitigated bonehead, May warned that the difficulty of the task must not be underestimated. “This is turning out to be harder than Brexit,” she said.
Medlar on 11/7/2019 at 19:34
Has to he Farage
Send in the clowns, to late by far.
demagogue on 12/7/2019 at 09:23
Some group got Mark Bowden, the guy that wrote Black Hawk Down & Killing Pablo, to re-write the Mueller Report in a more narrative & readable form. And then they got the art director for Archer to illustrate it.
It's definitely a ton more readable than the original report. The story always had lot of inherent drama from the start. This form actually draws on that to tell a good story, even aside from the fact that this should be essential reading for everyone wanting to talk about the fate of the Republic & all. So if you ever wanted to read it & get all the gory details, but didn't want to swim through all of its jargon, here's your chance. It's also worth sharing with people you think need to read it but need it in this kind of form to do so.
Anyway, here it is: (
https://www.insider.com/mueller-report-rewritten-trump-russia-mark-bowden-archer-2019-7)
Starker on 12/7/2019 at 15:47
Even as Epstein is finally facing justice, another one of Lord Dampnut's pedophile friends seems to think now is the right time for a comeback:
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https://floridapolitics.com/archives/300649-zombie-campaign-coming-back-to-life-mark-foley-tells-fec-hes-ready-for-comeback)
Mark Foley is ready to return to Congress, and the only things standing in his way may be reapportionment ... and reputation.
Responding to a May 29 Federal Election Commission inquiry as to why he was still spending 13-year-old campaign contributions, a representative for Foley indicated the West Palm Beach Republican kept his campaign account active because he is plotting another run for office and he “anticipates making a final decision sometime following the reapportionment resulting from the upcoming decennial census.”
Foley, 64, resigned in disgrace in 2006 after he was caught sending lewd messages to underage boys who served as Congressional pages. He never faced any criminal charges related to the incident, and it took two years for him to apologize publicly.
[...]
Foley's visibility has grown in South Florida in recent years, appearing at multiple events for Donald Trump, who also happens to be his friend and a frequent campaign donor. According to federal records, then-businessman Trump made a series of 10 contributions to Foley's campaign between 1997 and 2006, totaling $9,500.
It's not clear if reputation or reapportionment are the biggest hurdles standing in the way of a Foley comeback; it could depend on how the Florida Legislature draws congressional districts ahead of the 2022 election.
[...]
Foley has declined recent requests for comment, but said in 2017, before the release of the “Zombie Campaign” investigation: “There's a slim likelihood I could run for office again ... the world's changed, so I may one day want to run for a seat.”
Polls show the nation's opinions on same-sex relationships have evolved, but there's not much polling when it comes to tolerance for adults who send inappropriate messages to underage teens.
In other disturbing news, child abuse at the US Southern border is still continuing:
[video=youtube;qGU0j3SCdSM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGU0j3SCdSM[/video]