February 4, 2023

Classified U.S. Report Highlighted Foreign Power Surveillance With Advanced Technology

Before a Chinese spy balloon was discovered in the United States, American officials said a rival power may have used advanced technology to surveil U.S. military sites.

The Chinese spy balloon floating over the continental United States generated deep concern on Capitol Hill in part because it came on the heels of a classified report to Congress that outlined incidents of American adversaries potentially using advanced technology to spy on the country.

The classified report to Congress last month discussed at least two incidents of a rival power conducting aerial surveillance with what appeared to be unknown cutting-edge technology, according to U.S. officials. While the report did not attribute the incidents to any country, two American officials familiar with the research said the surveillance probably was conducted by China.

The report on what the intelligence agencies call unidentified aerial phenomenon focused on several incidents believed to be surveillance. Some of those incidents have involved balloons, while others have involved quadcopter drones.

The Chinese government said on Friday the Chinese balloon discovered this week over the United States was mainly for weather research. However, American officials said they have assessed it to be a collection device, though not one that could gather the kind of sensitive information that advanced Chinese reconnaissance satellites already collect.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/politics/balloon-congress-surveillance-report.html?unlocked_article_code=phyz36_GUlDwDpFNKC0zDaI52usOd5pAYGgDlwZmO3ntLgly0WVbC7kkhVX8qo4voGa5ibLZmyvpSbSBfgyzXDudylDo3Yj6JZdmHaI0xio6VLfb_UlxTWbZJ7zF-_ykJyOoG1mmoHHWpefg__02gmythZGcdyUU0uplOPEgh-7pc_qZwgvSOGEWnHXIptrYRTxAGL5hb1QqvPu6r2pa-28SUypyoIHTmdgM-CcM79nxaZcC68SbOhgliRzP3wyZnZstThrBwhOdo7nQAh7Wz906eRvV7Id7YEdETZ9uX-Cu7k5ipLtnAmvvwjLyrmWLU2I7iFenbLbSjSUIIWu6-Vq6g_nebf0aAdnW2ULXr1BNHQ&smid=share-url

February 3, 2023

NYC Prosecutors Had to Prove 'Trump Was Not Legally Insane'

A new book reveals that the Manhattan District Attorney's office was worried they couldn't prove Trump had a sound mind.

As they prepared to potentially indict Donald Trump for relentlessly lying to banks about his wealth, Manhattan prosecutors were forced to consider whether the former American president was a criminal mastermind or had just lost his mind, according to a new tell-all memoir by a member of that team.

In his book about how that investigation fell apart, former special assistant district attorney Mark Pomerantz explained the kind of hurdles his team had to overcome to build a historic criminal case against the Teflon Don.

“To rebut the claim that Trump believed his own ‘hype’... we would have to show, and stress, that Donald Trump was not legally insane,” Pomerantz wrote.

“Was Donald Trump suffering from some sort of mental condition that made it impossible for him to distinguish between fact and fiction?” he asked, noting that a group of high-powered lawyers advising the DA’s office “discussed whether Trump had been spewing bullshit for so many years about so many things that he could no longer process the difference between bullshit and reality.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/manhattan-district-attorney-alvin-bragg-had-to-prove-trump-was-not-legally-insane

February 3, 2023

Paco Rabanne: Celebrated designer dies aged 88

Celebrated perfume and fashion designer Paco Rabanne has died aged 88 at his home in France.

His death was confirmed by Puig, the parent company of his brands, which said he had "marked generations with his radical vision of fashion and his legacy will live on".

Rabanne gained global fame for his eccentric clothing designs.

Puig's fashion president, José Manuel Albesa, hailed Rabanne's work, which he said "made transgression magnetic".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64515027

February 3, 2023

Meet the Contract Killer who Now Represents George Santos in Brazil

I’m not sure the George Santos stories keep getting worse. But they do get weirder, more bizarre.

As we learned way back at the beginning of the Santos saga, he remains a wanted man in Brazil for check fraud he committed back in 2008. After he became an international celebrity in December, Brazilian authorities decided to reinitiate the case which had stalled when they couldn’t locate him. After the case was reopened, Santos hired a Brazilian lawyer to represent him in the revived case. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, since it’s George Santos, that he managed to find a lawyer who’s a convicted murderer. In fact, he’s a convicted contract killer.

This account is based on an article published yesterday in the Brazilian daily Folha and some limited additional reporting of my own.

In 2004 Jonymar Vasconcelos, then a low-ranking sailor in the Brazilian navy, was part of what the Folha termed a “death squad” behind a mob execution. This was more organized crime than anything backed by the state per se, involving criminal gangs run by rogue elements in the military police. Vasconcelos was sentenced to 18 years in prison but ended up serving only five. He was released to house arrest and supervised release in 2009. Two years later the judge who sentenced him, Patrícia Acioli, was herself murdered.

The 2004 murder was, needless to say, an ugly affair. As described by Folha, it was a standard gangland killing. An auto mechanic got on the wrong side of the organized crime syndicate that ran what amounted to an alternative transport system in Rio de Janeiro. Four guys drive up to his house on two motorcycles. They shoot him in front of his family. Vasconcelos himself stayed with the motorcycles waiting for the killing to be done. Then they all drove off.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/meet-the-contract-killer-who-now-represents-george-santos-in-brazil/sharetoken/FHtAFUivpX7K

February 3, 2023

Trump Is Still a Putin Stooge and a Traitor to His Country

The ex-president this week reiterated that he trusts the Russian tyrant more than U.S. law enforcement and intelligence. No “patriotic” American should still support him.

As the late great poet Maya Angelou might have said had she thought it was necessary, “When someone shows you over and over and over again that they are a traitor, believe them.”

For further, completely appropriate emphasis, she might have elaborated: “When someone shows you over and over and over again, for their entire lives, in business and in government, that they are not only traitors, but corrupt, ignorant, pathologically dishonest, coup-plotting, racist, misogynist traitors, then seriously, I’m not kidding about this, believe them!”

But, of course, as we have all witnessed during the past half-century of Donald Trump’s life (unless we were among the few who got to witness him bully his classmates at school, bullshit his way into college, and cheat his way out of the military), this menace to society has managed to slither his way from scandal to scandal—and yet somehow always remain center stage.

Indeed, here we are in 2023, two years after his attempted coup and his second impeachment, and he is still, according to recent polls, the Republican frontrunner to occupy an office he defiled more than any other of its previous occupants in our two-and-a-half-century history.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-still-a-putin-stooge-and-a-traitor-to-his-country

February 3, 2023

Ron DeSantis and the GOP fight 'woke' because hating a word is easier than hating people

'Woke' is only applied to things that make straight, white people uncomfortable. I’ve never heard someone on Fox News bemoan the wokeness of a novel featuring the wedding of a white man and woman.

Like many Americans in this age of stupid things, I face an existential question: Am I woke?

I assume not, because Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hasn’t tried to ban me, as he recently did an AP high school course on African-American studies.

But who knows? Maybe I’m stealth-woke. Maybe my very presence in society indoctrinates America’s youth with…well, I guess I don’t really know the specific content of woke indoctrination, since nobody stoking fear about it has ever explained what the heck they’re talking about.

In giving his reasons for blocking the AP course, DeSantis whined that it contained a section on “queer theory.” As he spoke those two words he sounded like someone was holding a cat turd under his nose. Apparently, anything “queer” is woke, because it might suggest to impressionable youth that queer people exist. I guess.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/01/29/desantis-republicans-woke-ban-african-american-studies-queer-theory/11120694002/

February 3, 2023

Newsmax Claims DirecTV Pays 22 'Liberal News' Channels--That's Not True

Newsmax has flooded the zone with spurious and outright false claims that DirecTV is paying for 22 “low-rated” liberal news networks while refusing to give them a cent.

In the span of days, Newsmax has successfully turned a standard fee dispute with a pay-TV provider into a political football, convincing Congress to threaten DirecTV with hearings for dropping the pro-Trump network.

Since the satellite carrier pulled Newsmax from its lineup last week, the channel has flooded its airwaves with anti-DirecTV rants accusing the company and its corporate partner AT&T of “political discrimination” against conservatives while urging viewers to cancel the companies’ products.

At the same time, Newsmax has relentlessly aired a series of spurious claims about the remaining content on DirecTV’s lineup, repeatedly insisting that the provider is paying “22 liberal news channels” while refusing to offer any license fees to Newsmax. Asserting that it’s the “fourth highest-rated cable news network” in America, the channel has also groused that its viewership dwarfs “most” of these nearly two dozen left-leaning stations—yet DirecTV will not fairly compensate the right-wing news channel.

Much of what’s been said by Newsmax about the failed DirecTV deal, which has been parroted by Republicans on Capitol Hill, ranges from misleading to outright false.

The full-court press has worked with the GOP, who had already promised to hold investigations into anti-conservative bias in media and Big Tech even before winning a slim majority in the House last year. Days after House Republicans pressured DirecTV to pay Newsmax “fair and equitable” fees while accusing the company of “colluding” with Democrats to censor conservative speech, their colleagues in the Senate followed suit.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/newsmax-falsely-claims-directv-pays-22-liberal-news-channels

February 2, 2023

New England braces for 'epic, generational arctic outbreak'

Source: Washington Post

Wind chills in northern Maine could approach minus-60, the lowest in decades. The worst of the cold is expected Friday night.

Wind chill warnings are in effect for most of New England and New York ahead of what the National Weather Service is describing as a “epic, generational arctic outbreak.”

“Life-threatening” cold, according to the Weather Service, will pour into the Northeast Thursday night into Friday — with the most extreme conditions expected Friday night into Saturday morning.

Wind chills will plunge to minus-30 to minus-45 by early Saturday throughout much of New England, while northern and western Maine could see wind chills down to minus-60 and even as low as minus-80 to minus-90 at high elevations.

“The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 5 minutes,” cautioned the Weather Service office in Caribou, serving northern and western Maine.

Read more: https://wapo.st/3Rvm30W

February 2, 2023

Judge Gives Trump Lawyers Second Chance in New York Trial Showdown

Though Trump's legal team has been exceedingly evasive, a New York judge is giving them more time to cooperate ahead of the crucial trial involving his businesses.

After exhausting a New York judge with incessant lying and legal delay games, the Trump family will get a second chance to answer a lawsuit from the New York Attorney General that threatens to bankrupt the real estate empire that bears the ex-president’s name.

“Whatever we do today, I am determined to start the trial on October 2, 2023, come hell or high water. And pardon my French,” Justice Arthur F. Engoron said in a Manhattan court on Wednesday.

After filing reality-defying court documents to defend the Trumps against Attorney General Letitia James’ bank fraud lawsuit, the increasingly large cadre of lawyers representing former President Donald Trump, his real estate empire, and the adult children he made executives there now have until mid-February to come up with better answers.

For example, that process could start with lawyers admitting that the Trump Organization actually exists—something Trump denied in a sworn, signed statement last week as part of his defense.

"In my 35 years practicing law, I have never, never... seen a pleading with such excess verbiage as the 300-page-or-so answers of the 15-or-so answers to the complaint," the judge remarked.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-gives-trump-lawyers-second-chance-in-new-york-trial-showdown-with-attorney-general-letitia-james

February 2, 2023

The 'revolution' has begun at New College - and so have the nagging questions

For all of the high passion on display during the New College of Florida Board of Trustees' pivotal meeting – from the emotionally charged appeals of audience members opposing the new majority’s intent to overhaul the liberal arts school’s mission to the tears of ousted President Patricia Okker – the first formal steps of the insurgence were a study in dispassionate choreography.

As expected, the board – fueled by the presence of six conservative members recently appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis – unceremoniously fired Okker and ended her tenure as New College’s leader after a mere 19 months.

As expected, the board promptly hired former Florida House Speaker and onetime Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, a close political ally of DeSantis, as New College's incoming interim president.

As expected, the board moved swiftly to name one of the fresh appointees as the panel's new chair – and also dispensed with the services of the school's general counsel, with an eye toward giving that legal position to yet another DeSantis crony, former Senate President Bill Galvano.

And, as expected, the board made clear its desire to totally dismantle all of New College's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives – though it grudgingly agreed to go through the motions of first studying what "DEI" programs now actually exist on campus (and then instantly wiping them out and firing the four employees who oversee them).

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/opinion/editorials/2023/02/01/the-revolution-at-new-college-has-begun-so-have-the-tough-questions-desantis-corcoran/69861193007/