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Middleboro Review 2

NEW CONTENT MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW 2

Toyota

Since the Dilly, Dally, Delay & Stall Law Firms are adding their billable hours, the Toyota U.S.A. and Route 44 Toyota posts have been separated here:

Route 44 Toyota Sold Me A Lemon



Showing posts with label conspiracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conspiracy. Show all posts

Sunday, November 17, 2019

FOCUS: Bess Levin | Rudy Is Screwed




Reader Supported News
16 November 19

Has RSN Sold You Out?
What organization do you deal with on a day-to-day basis that has not sold you out in some way large or small?
We set this organization up so that we would need you. In doing so we put your needs first. It’s fundamental and totally effective.
You have built a news agency that is 100% beholden to you.
In what condition do you want to see it?
Marc Ash
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16 November 19
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FOCUS: Bess Levin | Rudy Is Screwed
Rudy Giuliani. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "Last Saturday, Rudy Giuliani was spotted dining out at a Manhattan hotspot and loudly gabbing about his plans to start a podcast, like a man without a care in the world."

And in fairness, it’s possible that, thanks to the brain decay the ex-mayor has clearly suffered, he thinks he has nothing to worry about. Other people in his position, though, would likely be more than a bit concerned about their future, given that, based on a new report, the president’s lawyer is now the subject of three different investigations.
According to Bloomberg, Giuliani is being investigated by federal prosecutors for potential campaign-finance violations and failure to register as a foreign agent, as “part of an active investigation into his financial dealings, according to three U.S. officials.” (Giuliani, his lawyers, and the White House did not respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment.) The probe could also reportedly include possible charges for conspiracy or violating laws against bribing foreign officials.
Incidentally, that probe is on top of a counterintelligence investigation as well as a criminal investigation into Giuliani’s business relationship with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the two men who’ve been charged with conspiracy, falsification of records, and lying to the FEC about their political donations. (Parnas and Fruman have both pleaded not guilty.) Giuliani’s work with Parnas was reportedly related to a company called Fraud Guarantee, though in addition, Parnas and Fruman are said to have introduced Giuliani to “several current and former senior Ukrainian prosecutors to discuss” Joe Biden, and in July, Parnas accompanied Giuliani to a breakfast meeting with Kurt Volker, then the U.S. special representative for Ukraine, where Giuliani allegedly mentioned that he was looking into Biden and 2016 election interference, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the indictment of Parnas and Fruman, prosecutors claimed that Parnas sought the assistance of a U.S. congressman in “causing the U.S. Government to remove or recall the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.” That ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, was subsequently removed from her post after Giuliani told Donald Trump that she was undermining him and obstructing efforts to investigate Biden.
On Wednesday a pair of government officials told the House Intelligence Committee that Giuliani had been carrying out a shadow campaign in Ukraine at Trump’s direction. “I believe he was looking to dig up political dirt against a potential rival in the next election cycle,” said George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state in the European and Eurasian bureau. Bill Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said that there was an “irregular policy channel” with Ukraine that was being “guided” by Giuliani. But hey, at least the ex-mayor still has the support of the president, right? Wellll:
Top House Republican sources tell Axios that one impeachment survival strategy will be to try to distance President Trump from any Ukraine quid pro quo, with Rudy Giuliani potentially going under the bus.
On Thursday, Giuliani told a reporter that he is not worried about any sort of bus-throwing scenario, “but I do have very, very good insurance, so if [Trump] does, all my hospital bills will be paid.” (Giuliani‘s attorney Mark Costello immediately interjected to insist his client was just “joking.”)

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Sunday, October 13, 2019

FOCUS: Bob Bauer | The Cipollone Letter: Trouble in the White House Counsel's Office





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12 October 19

When did anyone come to believe that RSN could exist without funding? For the life of me I cannot understand how we can serve so many and get so little assistance. Cannot do this for free, impossible.
Help out please.
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12 October 19
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Pat Cipollone. (photo: Jabin Botsford/Klara Auerbach/WP/Shutterstock/The Atlantic)
Bob Bauer, Lawfare
Bauer writes: "White House Counsel Pat Cipollone's letter to the House leadership, declaring that the president will not cooperate in any impeachment inquiry, is an extraordinary document in more than one respect."

EXCERPT WELL WORTH READING IN ITS ENTIRETY:
As White House counsel, Cipollone would have been justified in advising the House generally of the president’s position that he neither violated the law nor committed an impeachable offense. Yet he does more, launching a defense on the merits based on a selective statement and treatment of the facts and presenting arguments that are either irrelevant (the Justice Department’s declination of the campaign finance charge) or bizarre (the view of the issue expressed by the president of Ukraine).
Cipollone does not leave things there. He takes the additional step of declaring that the House has initiated the impeachment inquiry in order to “overturn the results of the 2016 election” and to “influence the next election” (emphasis in the original). This is an appalling bit of political rhetoric for a communication from the White House counsel to the House leadership. It is not a constitutional argument, nor is it a legal argument. It is the stuff of Trump tweets and Republican National Committee press releases and talking points.
White House counsels are not generally immune to the president’s political imperatives, but their primary job is one of supporting the Office of the President with sound legal advice. That advice may well be situated in, and informed by, the intense politics of a particular matter. But the counsel, while mindful of those pressures, must remain in control of them. The Cipollone letter is not a controlled performance.

Instead the letter is further evidence of the deterioration of norms in the conduct of senior government positions. The president and the White House officials around Cipollone may be convinced that the president is the target of a political conspiracy concocted by adversaries within the “deep state.” They may believe that they should not be shackled by norms that those supposedly determined to bring down this presidency are not observing. Yet it is up to the White House counsel to keep cool and maintain some distance from the political free-for-all, defending at least the norms relevant to the discharge of his duties. If the president demanded that an aggressive letter be sent to Congress, there were others to whom the task could have been delegated and who could have served as signatories.







Friday, April 12, 2019

FOCUS: Barbara McQuade | Barr Sounds More and More Like Trump's Roy Cohn






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11 April 19
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FOCUS: Barbara McQuade | Barr Sounds More and More Like Trump's Roy Cohn 
Attorney General William Barr. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
Barbara McQuade, The Daily Beast
McQuade writes: "Attorney General William Barr's testimony before Congress on Wednesday highlighted the inherent contradiction in his letter about Robert Mueller's investigation. The problem is not that Mueller did not make a charging decision about obstruction. The real problem is that Mueller did make a charging decision about conspiracy."
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Monday, March 25, 2019

FOCUS: Charles Pierce | William Barr Did What He Was Hired to Do




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25 March 19

An All Out Effort to Finish This Fundraiser
We cannot let this fundraiser drag on any longer. We must pull out all the stops to end this now. The vast majority of you have not donated. If you are going to stay, please chip in.
Very important now.
Marc Ash
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25 March 19
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FOCUS: Charles Pierce | William Barr Did What He Was Hired to Do 
William Barr. (photo: Chris Kleponis/Bloomberg)
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "William Barr on Sunday did what he was hired to do. He summarized Robert Mueller's report in the most favorable light possible to the administration* and, where he couldn't do that - specifically, on the crime of obstruction of justice - he just decided to turn Mueller's own conclusion completely upside down."
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Friday, November 2, 2018

FOCUS: Matt Taibbi | Will QAnon Go Down as the Dumbest Story of the Year?





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01 November 18
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FOCUS: Matt Taibbi | Will QAnon Go Down as the Dumbest Story of the Year? 
A Make America Great Again rally in Pennsylvania in August 2018. (photo: Rick Loomis/Getty)
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
Taibbi writes: "Were it a government plot - a dazzling scheme to keep the public stupid - QAnon would be a great achievement in the otherwise relatively undistinguished history of the CIA. Alas, it is not."
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Saturday, August 11, 2018

FOCUS: Barbara McQuade and Mimi Rocah | Trump's Tweet About Donald Jr. and the Russians Is a Gift to Mueller




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11 August 18
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FOCUS: Barbara McQuade and Mimi Rocah | Trump's Tweet About Donald Jr. and the Russians Is a Gift to Mueller 
Robert Mueller. (photo: James Berglie/TNS)
Barbara McQuade and Mimi Rocah, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump's weekend tweet regarding the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians may seem like just one more of many he has posted that tend to incriminate himself, but this time it contained an explicit admission about a fact that he has vehemently denied and this time he might also have implicated his son, Donald Trump Jr."
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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Spying, Journalism, Tyranny and the Failure of MSM

The video below is well worth watching for whether we continue to behave like sheep or whether we speak out to protect our Republic.

Blocking access to the Guardian???? Fearing information and the TRUTH?

If you're not angered by the direction of our nation, maybe you don't 'get it.'


Glenn Greenwald. (photo: Vincent Yu/AP)
Glenn Greenwald. (photo: Vincent Yu/AP)

On NSA Stories, Snowden and Journalism

By Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK
01 July 13

Discussing the implications of the last four week's of articles, revelations and debates.

ast night, I gave my first speech on the NSA stories, Edward Snowden and related issues of journalism, delivered to the Socialism 2013 Conference in Chicago. Because it was my first speech since the episode began, it was the first time I was able to pause a moment and reflect on everything that has taken place and what the ramifications are. I was originally scheduled to speak live but was unable to travel there and thus spoke via an (incredibly crisp) Skype video connection. I was introduced by Jeremy Scahill, whose own speech is well worth watching. Those interested can view the entire speech in this recorder; below it are a few articles worth reading:





(1) The New York Times has an Op-Ed from Thursday by law professors Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman entitled "The Criminal NSA". It argues, citing recent revelations, that "it's time to call the NSA's mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."
 
(2) The New York Times' excellent public editor, Margaret Sullivan, examines recent debates over who is and is not a "journalist" and provides one of the best working definitions yet. Matt Taibbi addresses the same question here. Meanwhile, former New York Times columnist Frank Rich argues that whatever "journalist" means, David Gregory doesn't qualify.
 
(3) Edward Snowden isn't the first NSA whistleblower of this decade. He was preceded by senior official Thomas Drake, who was unsuccessfully prosecuted by the Obama DOJ under espionage statutes and previously wrote that he saw the same things at the NSA that Snowden says prompted him to come forward. Another was William Binney, the long-time NSA mathematician who resigned in the wake of 9/11 over the NSA's domestic spying; as this article notes, the last set of documents we published regarding bulk collection of email metadata vindicates many of Binney's central warnings.
 
(4) A bipartisan group of 26 Senators just wrote a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper demanding answers to some fairly probing questions about the administration's collection of bulk communication records on Americans, the "secret law" on which they relied, and their clearly misleading claims to Congress.
 
(5) It's well worth finding 9 minutes to watch this Chris Hayes discussion of how establishment journalists love leaks that serve the interests of political officials, but hate leaks that disclose what those officials want to keep suppressed. This is the heart and soul of establishment journalism - its true purpose - revealed:


Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy





Berlin accuses Washington of cold war tactics over snooping

Reports of NSA snooping on Europe go well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying

in Brussels
  • The Guardian,

  • Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger
    Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger: 'If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war'. Photograph: Ole Spata/Corbis
     
    Transatlantic relations plunged at the weekend as Berlin, Brussels and Paris all demanded that Washington account promptly and fully for new disclosures on the scale of the US National Security Agency's spying on its European allies.

    As further details emerged of the huge reach of US electronic snooping on Europe, Berlin accused Washington of treating it like the Soviet Union, "like a cold war enemy".

    The European commission called on the US to clarify allegations that the NSA, operating from Nato headquarters a few miles away in Brussels, had infiltrated secure telephone and computer networks at the venue for EU summits in the Belgian capital. The fresh revelations in the Guardian and allegations in the German publication Der Spiegel triggered outrage in Germany and in the European parliament and threatened to overshadow negotiations on an ambitious transatlantic

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/30/berlin-washington-cold-war



    NSA collected US email records in bulk for more than two years under Obama --Secret program launched by Bush continued 'until 2011' --Fisa court renewed collection order every 90 days --Current NSA programs still mine US internet metadata 27 Jun 2013 The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian. The documents indicate that under the program, launched in 2001, a federal judge sitting on the secret surveillance panel called the Fisa court would approve a bulk collection order for internet metadata "every 90 days". A senior administration official confirmed the program, stating that it ended in 2011. The collection of these records began under the Bush regime's wide-ranging warrantless surveillance program, collectively known by the NSA codename Stellar Wind. According to a top-secret draft report by the NSA's inspector general - published for the first time today by the Guardian - the agency began "collection of bulk internet metadata" involving "communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States".
    Former NSA, CIA director: 'The United States does conduct espionage' 30 Jun 2013 "The United States does conduct espionage," and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protecting the privacy of American citizens "is not an international treaty," former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden said Sunday on "Face the Nation," after a German magazine cited secret intelligence documents to charge U.S. spies of bugging European Union offices. Earlier Sunday, top German official Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger accused the United States of using "Cold War" methods against its allies. Her statement came in response to a report in the German news weekly Der Spiegel, which, citing some of the top-secret documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden, claimed the NSA had eavesdropped on EU offices in Washington, New York and Brussels.
    Secret-court judges upset at portrayal of 'collaboration' with government 30 Jun 2013 Recent leaks of classified documents have pointed to the role of a special court in enabling the government's secret surveillance programs, but members of the court are chafing at the suggestion that they were collaborating with the executive branch. A classified 2009 draft report by the National Security Agency's inspector general relayed some details about the interaction between the court's judges and the NSA, which sought approval for the Bush regime's top-secret domestic surveillance programs. The report was described in The Washington Post on June 16 and released in full Thursday by The Post and The Guardian. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the former chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, took the highly unusual step Friday of voicing open frustration at the account in the report and court's inability to explain its decisions.
    E.U. fury on allegations of U.S. spying 30 Jun 2013 European leaders reacted with fury on Sunday to allegations in a German magazine that the United States had conducted a wide-ranging effort to monitor European Union diplomatic offices and computer networks, with some saying that they expected such surveillance from enemies, not their closest economic partner. It was the latest fallout from National Security Agency information apparently leaked by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor whose detailing of classified information on the agency’s programs has shined a rare light on U.S. surveillance efforts that range far wider than previously understood.
    U.S. bugged EU offices, computer networks: Der Spiegel 29 Jun 2013 The United States has bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, according to secret documents cited in a German magazine on Saturday, the latest in a series of exposures of alleged U.S. spy programs. Der Spiegel quoted from a September 2010 "top secret" U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) document that it said fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had taken with him, and the weekly's journalists had seen in part. The document outlines how the NSA bugged offices and spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the United Nations, not only listening to conversations and phone calls but also gaining access to documents and emails. The document explicitly called the EU a "target".
    Inner workings of a top-secret spy program 29 Jun 2013 The National Security Agency’s PRISM program, which collects intelligence from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Apple and other tech giants, is "targeted" at foreigners. But it also collects the e-mail, voice, text and video chats of an unknown number of Americans -- "inadvertently," "incidentally" or deliberately if an American is conversing with a foreign target overseas. Here are new details on how the program works, from top-secret documents and interviews.