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5 of 7 defendants convicted of misusing Covid relief money meant to feed children
A Minnesota jury on Friday found five of seven defendants guilty of most of the crimes they faced related to a scheme in which they misused millions of dollars meant to feed children during the pandemic.
The federal fraud trial was the first in a $250 million Covid relief scheme that prosecutors say is the largest of its kind.
The verdict comes days after one juror said she had been offered nearly $120,000 in cash in exchange for voting to acquit. The juror was dismissed after reporting the alleged bribe attempt to the court and police.
A second juror was released Tuesday after a family member brought up the alleged bribe in a conversation.
Click on the link for the full article
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‘Whoa, that was gross,’ former NJ attorney general recalls after meeting with Menendez
New Jersey’s chief law enforcement officer and top aide looked at each other after they left a 2019 meeting with Sen. Bob Menendez.
“Whoa, that was gross,” the aide told then-New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.
That’s how Grewal on Thursday recalled a September 2019 meeting prosecutors say was Menendez’s attempt to disrupt the agency’s work in exchange for bribes. The testimony was some of the most vivid yet in Menendez’s ongoing corruption trial, offering a behind-the-scenes account of a senator seeming to leverage his influence with one of the state’s most powerful officials.
Click on the link for the full article
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Rudy’s Coffee Roastery Also Just Went Bankrupt
Rudy Giuliani needs a little coffee money—and so does the Miami-based roastery that’s scooping out the once-beloved mayor’s new line of signature java blends.
A very caffeinated-sounding Giuliani provoked online mockery on May 19 when he appeared on a computer-generated background to hawk Rudy Coffee, the latest in a steady drip-drip of odd products the suspended ex-Trump lawyer has promoted as his brewing legal and financial woes threaten to boil over. But it turns out that the famously unfiltered Republican isn’t the only party in the new venture going through bankruptcy proceedings and hoping to get back into the black.
It wasn’t long after Giuliani dropped the strange promo on Twitter, inviting viewers to visit the new coffee line’s website, that The Daily Beast research team sprang into action and identified Rudy Coffee as a partnership with Burke Brands and its Don Pablo coffee.
And the news soon percolated into the courtroom, as five days following the video posting, attorneys for the mayor’s creditors subpoenaed Burke Brands and demanded they spill the beans about the deal. Four days after that, the same lawyers filed a ream of documents that included the inked agreement between the ex-mayor and the roastery, which explicitly stated “Giuliani will be entitled to 80% of net profit of each sale of Rudy Coffee.” The money will pour into a Missouri-based bank account for Giuliani Communications LLC, according to the accord.
Further, the April 23 contract estimates that every 32-ounce bag of coffee will mean $5.039 in green, while a four-pound bag will grind out $10.285 in profit, and the biggest 76 ounce sack will net $14.284.
Meanwhile, The Daily Beast found that two days before Giuliani posted his surreal jamocha spiel, Burke Brands entered a new filing in its own bankruptcy case. The coffee maker first filed for Chapter 11 in December 2022, almost one year to the day before Giuliani, claiming between one and $10 million in assets and the same range in outstanding liabilities.
Giuliani’s press team didn’t answer repeated questions about how the kaffeklatsch came together. But a spokesman asserted that bags of the are already “flying off the shelves.” Asked about Burke Brands’ bankruptcy, the represented suggested that association with the abortive 2000 Senate candidate and failed 2008 presidential contender might perk up the company’s prospects.
Click on the link for the full story
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It's been a while since we heard about someone in Russia being defenestrated:
Judge known for punishing Kremlin foes mysteriously falls to her death from a window
A prominent Russian judge has died after mysteriously falling from a high-rise building in Moscow.
Natalia Larina, 50, was known for convicting enemies of the Kremlin as well as high profile criminal cases.
She was found dead close to her apartment block on 1st Mashinostroeniya Street.
An investigation into the death has been launched, with police checking claims she had lost a large sum of money to a ‘telephone scammer’, state media reports.
Click on the link for the full article
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35 minutes ago, Simmsy said:
The person who posted that comment refers to themselves as "a professional ****poster."
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The Billionaires Have Captured Donald Trump
One of the most enduring—and ridiculous—#Resistance narratives of the Trump era was the idea that the president of the United States was a literal Manchurian Candidate, a man who had been compromised for years (perhaps even decades) by a foreign power, namely Russia.
Like most enduring conspiracy theories, this one was built on a kernel of truth. Donald Trump really was admiring of Vladimir Putin and had no apparent problem with the Russian dictator arresting dissidents or invading neighbors. In fact, Trump was far more conciliatory to Russia, a long-standing adversary, than he was to many of America’s closest allies.
When Trump’s troubling admiration of Putin was combined with other details—particularly salacious (and dubious) reports of Trump, as a private citizen, being videotaped in Moscow and salacious (and accurate) records of Trump doing business with shady Russian oligarchs—a conspiracy was born. Trump was compromised. Either through blackmail or bribery, America’s foreign policy was obviously being directed by Russia.
Nearly a decade into Trump’s political career, there is no evidence that he is compromised by Putin or any other foreign power. But as he runs for reelection, Trump is indeed compromised in a way he never has been before. Desperate to avoid prison—and needing cash to win reelection, so he can pardon himself—Trump is selling his administration’s domestic and foreign policy to the highest bidder. It’s hardly a conspiracy, either. As we speak, he is traveling from billionaire to billionaire with hat in hand, making explicit promises to sell his presidency.
Click on the link for the full article
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‘Is He Describing Himself?’ Biden Roasts Trump Calling Him ‘Weak and Pathetic’
President Joe Biden hit back at former President Donald Trump on Thursday after Trump described him as “weak and pathetic.”
During an interview with Biden on ABC World News Tonight, ABC News anchor David Muir said:
QuoteYou bring up your opponent, Donald Trump. He has said of your executive action, “He’s pretending to finally do something about the border, but it’s all about show.” He says, “We have a debate coming up. Biden’s executive order is weak and pathetic.”
Biden responded, “Is he describing himself? Weak and pathetic? Come on.”
The president continued, “Look, everybody knows what’s happened. We had a deal. It was much broader than this, much better, much more accepted across the board, and he got on the phone and told the Republicans, ‘Don’t support it, it will hurt me, it will help Biden.'”
Click on the link for the full article and video
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Does Donald Trump know where he is? Apparently not!
During a rally in Arizona on Thursday, June 6, the ex-president, 77, thought he was in a different state.
"...Here in Texas," he said in the speech.
Of course, people couldn't get over the gaffe. "My guy, you are in Arizona. His brain is cooked," one person replied to the clip, which was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, while another added, "His downfall had better be epic or I’m going to lose faith. In everything."
Click on the link for more
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A rich teenage influencer who menaced his neighbors in the Florida Keys had the tables turned on him when police filmed a damning video of his anti-social behavior.
Luis Barrios, 18, boasts 43,000 followers on Instagram where he documents his glamorous lifestyle of fast cars, fast boats, and international travel.
But he was brought down to earth by Florida cops who seized him on his father's yacht after he terrorized restaurant staff, boasted about his family's wealth and threatened to feed police officers to alligators.
'Nobody cares about your TikTok nobody cares,' one told him. 'You're a child, get off the boat.'
Police were called by staff at Sunset Grille in Marathon when a drunken Barrios and his young pals began swearing loudly and causing a disturbance.
Cops arrived to find the culprits had fled on Barrios's yacht but a manager scratching his head after allegedly being left a threatening message on his phone.
'It's so stupid,' he told officers. 'Why would you call with your actual number?'
Police headed to one of the family homes nearby on the archipelago to find no-one home but the teenager's neighbors unsurprised at his latest antics.
'Daddy took the car away so he stole the boat,' one told police. 'Something's got to be done about that kid.
'The dad's a decent hard-working guy who built what he built through hard work but the kid's a spoiled brat.'
'It sounds like he's doing it for attention,' another neighbor adds. 'Because he's not a very likable guy and it sounds like he's trying to buy their friendship.'
Officers tell them that Barrios has had a series of previous arrests, and that around 20 other neighbors have lodged complaints.
'He's been a thorn in our side over the last two months,' one says.
Click on the link for the full article
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They couldn't find a more recent example than Mark Fuhrman?
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JUST IN: Biden Apologizes to Zelensky For Delays In Ukraine Aid and Blames GOP
President Joe Biden met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday while in Paris, France, and as the cameras rolled, Biden apologized for the weeks it took to get aid to Ukraine — and pointed the finger directly at some Republicans.
Biden was the first to speak, and he started off by addressing Zelensky:
QuoteYou know, as I said yesterday at the American cemetery, the Ukrainian people have been incredibly brave. Never given up, never staying… never even yielding. And it’s impressive. And you saw the reception you received when everyone’s stood and gave you a standing ovation. And you deserve it. And, you know, you haven’t bowed down. You haven’t yielded at all. You continue to fight in a way that is, is just remarkable. Just remarkable. And, I’m not going to walk away from you. I apologize for those weeks of not knowing was going to pass in terms of funding and because we had trouble getting the bill that we had to pass, had the money in it, some of our very conservative members who were holding it up. But we got it done finally. And, since then, including today, I’ve announced six packages of significant funding.
Click on the link for the full article
Russia could send weapons to adversaries of the West, Vladimir Putin has warned for a second time.
The Russian president repeated the warning from earlier this week during the St Petersburg Economic Forum.
He did not say what countries or entities he was referring to, and he stressed that Moscow is not doing it currently.
"If they supply (weapons) to the combat zone and call for using these weapons against our territory, why don't we have the right to do the same?" he told the crowds.
"But I'm not ready to say that we will be doing it tomorrow, either."
On Wednesday, Putin told international journalists that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets in response to NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory.
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Meanwhile...
Kremlin trying to 'invoke memory of Cuban missile crisis'
Russian naval vessels that will be making port in Cuba next week is an attempt to invoke the historical memory of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, according to a leading thinktank.
The Cuban ministry of the revolutionary armed forces announced yesterday that four Russian northern fleet vessels would make an official visit to the port of Havana between 12-17 June.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the move was "likely part of a larger effort to invoke the historical memory of the Cuban missile crisis as part of Russia's reflexive control campaign to encourage US self-deterrence".
Click on the link for the full article
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The Price America Pays For Ignorant Americans
Among the reactions to Donald Trump’s conviction in New York last month, I was struck by something Richard Thau said the other day.
Thau conducts focus groups for the public opinion research firm Engagious. He coordinated with NPR to share audio from two very small groups. Just six people per group, and not a sample of the electorate overall, but remarkable in the impression you get from their responses, or at least the impression I got.
As I listened to the group respond to Thau’s questions, I thought, “Do these people follow current events? Do they even understand the issues they’re being asked about?”
You can listen to the report yourself, but two things Thau said about the focus groups stood out. The first came when the host asked if some level of deception played a role in their responses.
“If they’re being deceived,” said Thau, “they don’t seem to realize that they’re being deceived.”
You know the old saying: The first step to solving a problem is to realize you have a problem.
I’m reluctant to say these people are just plain dumb (though I’ve posed that question before). But when the host asked if it was fair to see these people as “low information voters,” Thau said, “I would say that they are generally not paying close attention to what’s going on day-to-day politically.”
That unawareness, either due to incuriousness, obliviousness or laziness, seems a microcosm of who we are today, a society that, as it moved forward, became dumber — OK, less informed.
A scary thought here is that those folks may not even know how unaware they are. Instead of willfully ignorant, a choice, they’re unwittingly ignorant — ignorant of their ignorance. Or, ignorance is bliss. And again, not necessarily because they’re stupid.
Blaring headlines keep them generally aware, but not sufficiently so.
Click on the link for the full article
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Trump demands prosecutions for Cheney, Jan. 6 committee members
There’s no longer any question about whether Donald Trump would seek prosecutions against his perceived political enemies. Not only does he keep publicly acknowledging his intentions — including in a new interview aired late yesterday — he’s trailed by a record of already having made such attempts.
The question, rather, is who he’d go after first. There’s reason to believe members of the Jan. 6 committee would be high on the former president’s list.
After U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols ordered former White House strategist Steve Bannon to report to prison on July 1, Trump found it difficult to lash out at the justice system. After all, he’s the one who tapped Nichols for the federal bench.
So the Republican did the next best thing: As NBC News reported, he lashed out at the members whose subpoena Bannon ignored.
QuoteThe unAmerican Weaponization of our Law Enforcement has reached levels of Illegality never thought possible before.”
Trump concluded, “INDICT THE UNSELECT J6 COMMITTEE FOR ILLEGALLY DELETING AND DESTROYING ALL OF THEIR ‘FINDINGS!’”
Click on the link for the full article
It's amazing how Trump doesn't see the irony and hypocrisy in the above statements.
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On 3/7/2024 at 5:46 PM, China said:
More winning for Trump:
Trump is ordered to pay legal fees after failed lawsuit over the Steele dossier
Former U.S. President Donald Trump has been ordered to pay a six-figure legal bill to a company founded by a former British spy that he unsuccessfully sued for making what his lawyer called “shocking and scandalous” false claims that harmed his reputation.
A London judge, who threw out the case against Orbis Business Intelligence last month saying it was “bound to fail,” ordered Trump to pay legal fees of 300,000 pounds ($382,000), according to court documents released Thursday.
Click on the link for the full article
Donald Trump 'Faces Enforcement' for Failing to Pay Legal Costs
Donald Trump will be forced to pay over $380,000 in legal fees if he reappears in the United Kingdom, according to Christopher Steele.
Trump unsuccessfully tried to sue Steele for the Steele Dossier investigation into the former president, which was commissioned by the Democratic National Convention and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
The largely discredited dossier consists of opposition research that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign commissioned from former British intelligence officer Steele in 2016. It contained unverified intelligence reports about Trump's relationship with Russia and has been dismissed by some Russian experts.
Trump sued Steele for the report and lost the London case earlier this year. The court ordered that Trump pay an initial £300,000 ($381,000) in legal fees.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday, Steele vowed to recover the money if Trump ever returns to the U.K.
"Earlier this year, when he lost his English High Court case against us, the judge ordered Donald Trump to pay Orbis an initial £300k in costs. Trump, who claims to respect the UK, has now been in breach of this order for two months and faces enforcement if he travels here again," he wrote.
Click on the link for the full article
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Besides not being reported in a timely manner as is required, I imagine he may have some tax liabilities that he failed to report.
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4 hours ago, DCSaints_fan said:
I'm wondering why he didn't incorporate to insulate himself from civil damages, maybe he was just that dumb
Or maybe it doesn't always work.
It's not like he wasn't trying to hide his assets.
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A couple of recent events:
Starliner Sets Off on 1st Flight With NASA Astronauts Aboard
After two trips to the launchpad that did not end up going to space, two NASA astronauts finally headed to orbit on Wednesday in a vehicle built by Boeing, the aerospace giant. The 15-foot-wide capsule, Starliner, provides NASA with an additional option for flying crews to and from the International Space Station, more than a decade after the space shuttles were retired. The launch is the latest step in NASA’s efforts to rely more heavily on the private sector for its human spaceflight program.
Starliner’s first trip with astronauts on board comes four years and six days after SpaceX, the other company that NASA has hired to provide astronaut rides, launched its first mission with astronauts aboard. A series of costly delays repeatedly kept astronauts from flying on the Boeing vehicle, while SpaceX, once seen as an upstart, has since flown 13 crews to orbit.
Click on the link for the full article
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SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Successfully Completes 1st Return From Space
SpaceX’s launch of its mammoth Starship rocket on Thursday accomplished a set of ambitious goals that Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, had set out before the test flight, the fourth.
Lifting off from SpaceX’s launchpad at 7:50 a.m. in South Texas, near Brownsville, Starship rumbled into the sky.
After it dropped away from the upper stage, the booster was able to gently set down in the Gulf of Mexico while the second-stage spacecraft traveled halfway around the world, survived the searing temperatures of re-entering the atmosphere and also made a controlled splashdown, in the Indian Ocean.
The flight was not flawless, and tough technical hurdles remain. The successes, surpassing what was accomplished during the previous test flight in March, offered optimism that Mr. Musk can pull off his vision of a rocket that is the biggest and most powerful ever and yet entirely reusable.
The outcome also helps validate the company’s break-it-then-fix-it approach to engineering, with steady progress since the first test launch in April last year when the rocket had to be deliberately destroyed when it flew off course.
Click on the link for the full article
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Militarized Cybertruck cop cars are coming
A California company is advertising ‘tactical response’ Tesla Cybertruck upgrades for police cruisers, including shotgun racks and sirens.
Militarized Cybertrucks driven by cops and private security forces may soon cruise US streets—a scenario repeatedly endorsed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk himself. And while fans of the chunky, soap-phobic, recall-prone EV previously teased similar projects, at least one California-based Tesla alterations company is officially advertising Cybertruck “upfitting” packages to police and other “tactical response” customers.
Click on the link for the full article
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Who knew the US even had a cricket team?
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Bike Share Toronto urges riders to ‘wipe down seats’ if renting bike for naked ride
There’s no ifs, ands, or butts about it: If you rent a bike for this weekend’s World Naked Bike Ride in Toronto, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.
That’s the advice Bike Share Toronto is sharing ahead of the event’s 20th anniversary ride on Saturday.
When asked if naked riding was permitted, Bike Share Toronto Director Justin Hanna noted that it’s a “publicly available system,” open to all riders, clothed or otherwise.
“Though we don’t encourage it, we understand that some riders will use the system in this manner on June 8,” Hanna wrote.
“As a matter of common courtesy and hygiene we strongly ask and encourage those riders to wipe down the seats and handlebars after their ride so that they are sanitized for the next rider.”
Click on the link for the full article
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2 hours ago, Cooked Crack said:
Still waiting on SCOTUS for their presidential immunity ruling so we can start to move forward with the Trump Jan. 6th case.
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Agreeing to demands? I don't think he has much choice. He owe's a buttload of money that he can't simply dismiss through bankruptcy. He should be sleeping in a van down by the river while all his assests are auctioned off to pay his debts.
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Earth marks 12 straight months of record heat, a bewildering climate change milestone
Another month, another climate record: May 2024 was the twelfth straight month of record-warm temperatures for the planet, European scientists announced Wednesday.
That's the second-longest such streak on record, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
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“It is shocking but not surprising that we have reached this 12-month streak," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, in a statement. "While this sequence of record-breaking months will eventually be interrupted, the overall signature of climate change remains and there is no sign in sight of a change in such a trend.”
The new milestone is even more worrisome than the one reached in January, which marked 2023 as the hottest year on record. That meant the calendar year was the hottest overall, with many – but not all – months setting records. Now every month for a year straight has been the hottest ever recorded.
Unfortunately, Earth being hot is nothing new: Our planet has seen over 550 consecutive months with temperatures above the 20th-century average. But this uninterrupted run of all-time temperature records starting in June 2023 is unusual, perplexing and worrying.
Click on the link for the full article
Florida....? oh yeah, Florida.
in The Tailgate
Posted
Woman accused of leaving boyfriend to die in suitcase to go on trial in October
A Central Florida woman accused of leaving her boyfriend to die while trapped in a suitcase is now set to go on trial in October.
A judge set Oct. 7 for the start of Sarah Boone’s trial for second-degree murder. Boone, 46, came to the hearing with a 58-page letter for the judge laying out a series of complaints against her lawyer.
“I don’t understand what it is that she has against me,” Boone told the judge. “I have told her from day one that her snotty attitude was inappropriate.”
Boone has gone through seven other attorneys since her arrest in 2020, often complaining about how they handle her case.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office says Boone left her boyfriend, Jorge Torres, Jr., zipped up inside a suitcase. Investigators say Torres got into the luggage voluntarily after a game of hide-and-seek, but Boone did not let him out even after he begged for help. They allegedly found video on her phone showing Boone mocking Torres while he asked her to let him out. Instead, she’s accused of going to bed, and then finding Torres dead inside the suitcase in the morning.
Her trial has been pushed back repeatedly, in part because Boone has cycled through so many attorneys. Her current lawyer, Patricia Cashman, told the judge on Friday that Boone wants her to focus on elements of the case that she doesn’t believe are important.
Click on the link for the full article