Manafort, Cohen, and Individual 1 Are in Grave Danger

via aleksey godin “All three briefs show the Special Counsel and the Southern District closing in on President Trump and his administration. They’re looking into campaign contact with Russia, and campaign finance fraud in connection with paying off an adult actress, and participation in lying to Congress. A Democratic House of Representatives, just days away, strains at the leash to help. The game’s afoot. ”

Federal prosecutors filed three briefs late on Friday portending grave danger for three men:  former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, and President Donald J. Trump. In an age when Americans usually get mere squibs of breaking news from Twitter and Facebook and red-faced cable shouters, many started their weekends poring over complex legal filings and peering suspiciously at blacked-out paragraphs. The documents were stunning, even for 2018.   

In brief no. 1, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office argues that Paul Manafort breached his cooperation agreement with the government by lying to the FBI and the Special Counsel’s office in the course of 12 meetings. The brief oozes a level of confidence notable even among professionally hubristic prosecutors: Mueller says he’s ready to present witnesses and documents, and that he gave Manafort’s lawyers an opportunity to refute the evidence but they could not. Mueller is sure he has the receipts.

According to the brief, Manafort lied about his communications with reputed Russian intelligence agent Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Mueller has scrutinized as a possible conduit between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Although Mueller’s brief is heavily redacted, it’s clear that Manafort minimized the frequency, duration, and subject of his meetings with Kilimnik. Mueller has emails contradicting Manafort’s description of those meetings, which— we can infer from the unredacted snippets— related to the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian interests. Mueller also asserts that Manafort lied about some of the payments he received and about an investigation in another district – possibly, based on the context, the Southern District of New York investigation of Michael Cohen and the president. Finally, and of great concern to the White House, Mueller claims that Manafort lied about his contacts with the Trump administration before his guilty plea, and that text messages, documents, and witnesses prove that he was in contact with administration officials.

In brief no. 2, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York asks a federal judge to sentence former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to a “substantial term of imprisonment” – meaning between three and four years.  Last week, Cohen’s lawyers filed a brief lauding their client’s cooperation with the Special Counsel’s office, the Southern District of New York, and the New York Attorney General, downplaying the significance of his crimes, and asking the court to sentence Cohen to probation. Such gambits are tricky: defense lawyers must thread the needle between praising their client’s cooperation and seeking leniency enough to sway the judge, but not so effusively that they trigger a prosecutorial rebuttal.  Here, Cohen’s lawyers’ pirouette turned into a disastrous face-plant.

The prosecutors’ rebuttal of Cohen’s sentencing brief is one of the more livid denunciations I’ve seen in more than two decades of federal criminal practice. The Southern District concedes that Cohen provided some information to it, to the Special Counsel, and to the New York Attorney General. But Cohen refused to cooperate fully; he declined to engage in a full debriefing about everything he knew or commit to ongoing meetings, and he only spilled about the things he’d already admitted in his plea. That’s not how cooperation works. In this game, you either cooperate fully or you shut up; there is no middle ground.  It’s not surprising that Cohen’s stance angered the notoriously proud Southern District prosecutors.

The New York prosecutors blast Cohen’s “rose-colored view of the seriousness of his crimes,” accusing him of a “pattern of deception that permeated his professional life.” Prosecutors portray Cohen as stubbornly obstructing his own accountant to cheat at taxes, even refusing to pay for accounting work that raised inconvenient issues he wanted suppressed. When it comes to Cohen’s campaign finance violations, the prosecutors’ fury leaps off the page.  Cohen, they say, schemed to pay for two women’s stories (Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, we now know) in violation of campaign finance laws to influence the 2016 election, and did so “in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1” – that is, the president of the United States.  As the brief puts it:

While many Americans who desired a particular outcome to the election knocked on doors, toiled at phone banks, or found any number of other legal ways to make their voices heard, Cohen sought to influence the election from the shadows. He did so by orchestrating secret and illegal payments to silence two women who otherwise would have made public their alleged extramarital affairs with Individual-1. In the process, Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election.

If the Southern District’s fury at Cohen is notable, its explicit accusation that President Trump directed and coordinated campaign finance violations is simply stunning. The prosecutors’ openness suggests they are sure of their evidence and have mostly finished collecting it. It’s a sign of a fully-developed, late-game investigation of the president’s role, one that may soon make its way to Congress.

And that brings us to brief no. 3: Special Counsel Mueller separate sentencing brief in Cohen’s lying-to-Congress case. He does not recommend a sentence but informs the court about the nature of his assistance to his office.  Mueller discloses that Cohen has “taken significant steps to mitigate his criminal conduct” by pleading guilty to lying to Congress and meeting with the Special Counsel seven times to discuss his own conduct and other “core topics under investigation.” That includes information about multiple contacts between other Trump campaign officials and the Russian government, and about Cohen’s contact with the White House in 2017 and 2018, suggesting an ongoing inquiry into obstruction of justice. Most significant, the Special Counsel indicates Cohen “described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries, while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements within it.”  That statement suggests that the Special Counsel believes that someone in the Trump administration knew of, and approved in advance, Cohen’s lies to Congress. That’s explosive, and potentially impeachable if Trump himself is implicated.            

The president said on Twitter that Friday’s news “totally clears the President. Thank you!” It does not. Manafort and Cohen are in trouble, and so is Trump. The Special Counsel’s confidence in his ability to prove Manafort a liar appears justified, which leaves Manafort facing what amounts to a life sentence without any cooperation credit. The Southern District’s brief suggests that Cohen’s dreams of probation are not likely to come true. All three briefs show the Special Counsel and the Southern District closing in on President Trump and his administration.  They’re looking into campaign contact with Russia, and campaign finance fraud in connection with paying off an adult actress, and participation in lying to Congress. A Democratic House of Representatives, just days away, strains at the leash to help.  The game’s afoot.     

Tania Bruguera and Other Cuban Artists Released from Jail, Government Curtails Law Censoring the Arts

via Sophia, NOT Loren! Cuban artists and activists organizing in opposition to the decree (image courtesy Yanelyz Nuñez Leyva)

Earlier this week, about a dozen Cuban artists were arrested in anticipation of their organized sit-in opposing the impending Decree 349, strictly regulating the production of arts in the Republic. The artist-activists opposed to the regulation hosted frequent protests, performances, and events since the law was revealed in July, resulting in multiple arrests, the majority of which culminated on Saturday, December 3 ahead of the sit-in. Tania Bruguera, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, and Yanelyz Nuñez Leyva were detained, among numerous others.

Tania Bruguera (image courtesy Tate Modern)

The decree, signed by newly instated President Miguel Díaz-Canel in April, grants the Cuban Republic stringent control over independent artistic production. To host artistic events or sell work, artists must gain approval from the Ministry of Culture and oblige to a strict set of guidelines.

Following international attention — including a protest at Tate Modern and public disapproval of the decree by Amnesty International — all of the artists arrested this week were released last night, December 6, as the government announced the decree would no longer take effect as planned on December 7.

Vice Minister of Culture Fernando Rojas told Associated Press that the government had insufficiently explained their motivations and goals for Decree 349, which they say was a response to public complaints about the misuse of patriotic symbols and vulgarity in pop culture.

“There wasn’t an advance explanation of the law and that’s one of the reasons for the controversy that it unleashed,” Rojas told AP, explaining that more exact regulations will be published in the near future, but that “artistic creation is not the target.”

“We would apply the decree in very clear situations,” Rojas says. While open to redefining the decree’s parameters, the Culture Ministry official says he believes some protests belong to a foreign-backed plan to destabilize the Republic by undermining the reputation of its cultural institutions. “For them, 349 is a pretext for a more aggressive project against institutional order in Cuba,” he concludes.

The post Tania Bruguera and Other Cuban Artists Released from Jail, Government Curtails Law Censoring the Arts appeared first on Hyperallergic.

hyperallergic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA hyperallergic?i=JmA-31db7pQ:cZj0cx6nGp4: hyperallergic?d=qj6IDK7rITs

Israeli gov’t is trying to defund +972 Magazine, report says

Israel asked the German government to pressure two left-leaning political foundations to stop funding +972 Magazine, according to a report in the German media Thursday. +972 was able to independently verify the report.

The total contributions from the two foundations, Heinrich Böll Stiftung and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, comprise only 9 percent of +972’s overall 2018 budget as of September. In the past two years, 40 percent of our budget has come from the support of our readers.

Both foundations have pledged to continue supporting +972 despite the political pressure.

Israel has been working to curtail critical voices in recent years, often by portraying them as foreign agents and seeking to dry up their funding.

By +972 Magazine Staff

Handout photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, June 4, 2018. (Haim Zach/GPO)

Handout photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, June 4, 2018. (Haim Zach/GPO)

Israel asked the German government to pressure two left-leaning political foundations to stop funding +972 Magazine, according to a report in the German media Thursday. +972 was able to independently verify the report.

The total contributions from the two foundations, Heinrich Böll Stiftung and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, comprise only 9 percent of +972’s overall 2018 budget as of September. In the past two years, 40 percent of our budget has come from the support of our readers.

Both foundations have pledged to continue supporting +972 despite the political pressure.

Show your support for +972 Magazine: Make a donation today!

According to Die Tageszeitung, the progressive German newspaper that broke the story, Israel sent a letter to the German government requesting that it “fundamentally rethink” its support for dozens of human rights organizations in Israel.

[tmwinpost]

The seven-page letter accused the non-governmental organizations of intervening in Israel’s internal affairs and promoting anti-Israel activities. It specifically mentioned +972 Magazine, claiming that the platform goes against Israel’s interests because “the authors regularly accuse Israel of apartheid.”

The Heinrich Böll Stiftung described the allegations as absurd. “Unfortunately, we have been seeing for some time that the pressure on NGOs critical of certain policies of the Israeli government is increasing,” a spokesperson for the foundation, associated with the German Green Party, told Die Tageszeitung. “[An attack on a] critical magazine like +972, which reflects Israel’s diversity of opinion, is also an attack on the well-known journalists of Israel.”

Other organizations targeted by the letter, and supported by other German foundations, include Coalition of Women for Peace, Breaking the Silence, and B’Tselem.

The German government would not confirm or deny whether the letter was drafted and sent directly by the Israeli government. Contacted by the paper for comment, though, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs denied sending the letter.

+972 Magazine is an independent publication created and owned by a group of Israeli and Palestinian writers committed to ending the occupation, and advancing democratic values and freedom of information.

The magazine is published by the nonprofit “972 — Advancement of Citizen Journalism.” The nonprofit also publishes the Hebrew-language news site Local Call together with Just Vision.

The current Israeli government has been working to curtail and eliminate critical voices within Israeli society in recent years, particularly those fighting to end the occupation and expose human rights violations against Palestinians and marginalized communities. One of the main tactics for doing so has been to portray anti-occupation and human rights groups as agents implementing the agendas of foreign, anti-Semitic, European governments. Much of those times those campaigns have been carried out such as NGO Monitor and Im Tirzu.

We at +972 Magazine have never believed that the Israeli government was a supporter of our work, and we will continue to conduct fierce, independent journalism determined to end the occupation and advance human rights and democratic values in Israel-Palestine.

Knowing once and for all that the Israeli government would rather we not exist only makes us more determined to carry out that mission.

We are currently running a crowdfunding campaign to ensure our work can continue. If you believe in our mission, please make a donation today.

Crowdfund banner 600px

The post Israeli gov’t is trying to defund +972 Magazine, report says appeared first on +972 Magazine.

Agency Nixes Fracking Leases on Pawnee Tribal Land

Agency Nixes Fracking Leases on Pawnee Tribal Land

The government admits it failed to follow its own rules when approving new oil and gas leases on Pawnee land, part of a broader pattern of agency misconduct.




Walter Echo-Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, discovered in 2015 that the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management had approved oil and gas leases on Pawnee land without telling the tribe.

Walter Echo-Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, discovered in 2015 that government agencies had approved oil and gas leases on Pawnee land without telling the tribe.

Photo by Stuart Isett

It was a typical summer day in 2015 when Walter Echo-Hawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, discovered fracking operations near his home on Pawnee lands about 55 miles west of Tulsa.

After stumbling upon a work crew surveying for a proposed pipeline, Echo-Hawk called the oil company responsible to find out more information. The company stonewalled him. He then contacted several government agencies. Eventually, Echo-Hawk learned the truth: Two years prior, regulators had approved 17 oil and gas leases on Pawnee lands. They didn’t bother to notify the tribe.

Echo-Hawk immediately began mobilizing fellow tribal members to fight the leases. But regulators at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management said it was too late. The leases had already been approved. The agencies also claimed the Pawnee couldn’t take them to court because the tribe had failed to ask for reconsideration of those decisions when they were made.

The Pawnee, however, hadn’t been aware of the decisions because the agencies — in violation of their own rules — neglected to notify the tribe in any way.

A Confederate flag hangs from a Crown Oil fracking operation upstream from Echo-Hawk’s home.

A Confederate flag hangs from a Crown Oil fracking operation upstream from Echo-Hawk’s home.
Courtesy of Walter Echo-Hawk

Echo-Hawk was furious that federal agencies were treating Pawnee lands like “an oil and gas fiefdom.” After all, it was hardly the first time the U.S. government had run roughshod over tribal rights. In addition, the Pawnee were already gravely familiar with the threats posed by oil and gas drilling. Over the years, previous operations had left a legacy of contaminated groundwater and illegal wastewater dumping on tribal land.

“We aren’t against oil and gas production, but we are certainly against methods [that] hurt our land base, minerals and water,” wrote W. Bruce Pratt, president of the Pawnee Nation, in a press release.

In addition to water contamination, geologists have linked fracking to a surge in earthquakes, both in Oklahoma and across the country. In 2014, Oklahoma surpassed California as the most seismically active state in the lower 48. Oklahomans historically had felt an average of one or two sizable rumbles per year, but in the last few years, that number jumped to two or three per day.

A man takes photos of damage to a building in downtown Pawnee, Okla., following a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in 2016. Geologists have linked fracking to an uptick in earthquakes.

A man takes photos of damage to a building in downtown Pawnee, Okla., following a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in 2016. Geologists have linked an uptick in earthquakes to fracking.
David Bitton / AP

Despite this threat, government regulators didn’t bother to address the earthquake risk when approving the leases. Nor did they address the impacts of drilling near the Cimarron River, a 698-mile cinnamon- and paprika-colored ribbon of water that supports a native fishery protected under Pawnee tribal law. The government authorized the oil and gas company to suck millions of gallons of water from the Cimarron for fracking. Regulators also approved drilling operations on the river’s floodplain, where a spill of oil or fracking chemicals could contaminate the Cimarron, which tribal members like Echo-Hawk rely on to recharge their domestic water wells.

In 2015, the tribe requested that the agencies issue a moratorium on all new oil and gas approvals on tribal land while concerns about earthquakes and water contamination were addressed. Despite the Nation’s request, and the ongoing earthquakes, regulators continued approving new operations like water withdrawals for drilling on the leases.

“It became apparent that the agencies were not inclined to be accountable to tribal or U.S. law,” says Echo-Hawk. So the Pawnee decided to contact Earthjustice.

In early September 2016, the tribe’s fears about fracking were realized after the most powerful earthquake recorded in Oklahoma history struck the Pawnee area. The jolt was also felt by six neighboring states.

Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman

Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman represents the Pawnee in their lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management.
Matt Nager for Earthjustice

“My house is made of brick and stone, and it shook as though it were made of straw,” says Echo-Hawk, whose home was among the many houses and administrative buildings badly damaged in the quake. Since then, several studies, including one from the U.S. Geological Survey, have found evidence linking fracking wastewater injections to earthquakes across the country.

Shortly after, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management on behalf of the Pawnee Nation, as well as Echo-Hawk and other individual Pawnee members. Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman says the Pawnee situation illustrates a larger pattern where the federal government violates the law by approving oil and gas projects on tribal lands without telling the affected tribes. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, for example, has used a similar maneuver in recent years in New Mexico, Maine, and on tribal lands in Oklahoma

“Our government has run roughshod over the rights of Native Americans when approving oil and gas development,” Freeman said. “But the law requires federal agencies to respect tribal laws and sovereignty.”

In addition to the federal court lawsuit, Earthjustice asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to reconsider its leasing decision through a legal mechanism known as an administrative appeal. In May, the agency’s internal review agreed with the tribe’s argument, determining that the Bureau of Indian Affairs violated the law by approving the oil and gas leases without informing tribal members and without examining fracking’s environmental impacts. The agency’s review invalidated three of the leases and declared another 10 expired and therefore no longer in effect.

Only four leases now remain, and the tribe, represented by Earthjustice, is elevating the issue to the national level by bringing the case to the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, a federal review body. At the same time, Earthjustice’s challenge against the Bureau of Land Management’s drilling permit approvals is moving forward in district court.

While some drilling has been approved on the four remaining leases, Freeman said they have the same legal defect as the leases that were already invalidated.  As a result, he is hopeful the federal review board will strike down those four leases as well.

“The bureau has already admitted it violated the law in approving these four leases,” says Freeman. “They can’t now just turn a blind eye to those mistakes.”  

Walter Echo-Hawk

Walter Echo-Hawk
Photo Courtesy of Walter Echo-Hawk
Tags: 

Fracking, Gas, Oil
Drupal user Author (Staff members): 

Cache of long-lost photos found in abandoned bathroom reveal secrets of Frida Kahlo’s life – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

They are images that shed new light on the private life of the world’s most famous female artist. But hundreds of photographs belonging to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, on show at the Bendigo Art Gallery from this week, almost never saw the light of day.

Source: Cache of long-lost photos found in abandoned bathroom reveal secrets of Frida Kahlo’s life – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Second Look Behind the Headlines – News you can use…

Baldacchino di Perla

"Luce di parole, ombra di sogni."

Northern Desert Photography

Living on the Edge of the Sagebrush Ocean

Susana Cabaço

Spiritual Insights & Personal Empowerment

Barbara Picci

Artist & Art Blogger

craft journey

Furnicraft, woodwork, and art

musings corner

reveries and rants

Japão para Românticos

Bem Vindos a este espaço onde compartilhamos um pouco da realidade do Japão à todos aqueles que desejam visitar ou morar no Japão. Aqui neste espaço, mostramos a realidade do Japão e dos imigrantes. O nosso compromisso é com a realidade. Fique por dentro do noticiário dos principais jornais japoneses, tutoriais de Faça você mesmo no Japão e acompanhe a Série Histórias de Imigrantes no Japão. Esperamos que goste de nossos conteúdos, deixe seu like, seu comentário, compartilhe e nos ajudar você e à outras pessoas. Grande abraço, gratidão e volte sempre!

Leben als Mensch

Willkommen auf Elke´s Glücks-Blog

Sharpshot Nature .Com

- Specializing in the great outdoors, capturing nature at its finest!

Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss education and democracy

Expansão e Percepção

Seu Guia de Inspirações e Reflexões Diárias

noga noga.

my-health-and-beauty.com/

Uğurcan'ın Ütopyası

Benim Gezegenime Hoş geldiniz !!!

AKILS

Blog de viajes y lugares

Ed Mooney Photography

The official blog of Ed Mooney Photography. Dad of 3, Photographer, Blogger, Powerlifter. Exploring the historical sites of Ireland.

everything Explored on the earth

It has new aidias,news, about education , motivation, social, historical, culture, marketing creation new aidias education of language science culture and history

Born to die

L'unico modo sensato di vivere è senza regole

Early Morning Memories

by Anuran (A) & Sayoni (S)

My thoughts

Fun for the Brain

Neo Vision College

An exemplary learning community.

Anthony’s Crazy Love and Life Lessons in Empathy

Loves, lamentation, and life through prose, stories, passions, and essays.

Episodic Squalid Rants

public tantrums by a non-two-year-old

The Street Art Directory

Public, street and urban art worldwide

Artie & Stu

all the rules of free form

Everyone read that they fell in love first

<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-2937106805202763" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

davidscottmoyer

Lapsed Painter, Occasional Photographer, Compulsive Writer

Health & Fitness

Health Blogs

Buildings Tell Tales

Exploring the hidden architectural heritage of Budapest

Divit kalem

Yaşamdan

Roy's Weblog

The third incarnation...

Thought Pukes

More than a thought less than a question

"بوصلة الحياة"

"بوصلة الحياة: مدونة متعددة المجالات، من السياسة إلى الرومانسية، ومن تطوير الذات إلى الأدب وأكثر!" بقلم مشاعر بنت عبدالرحمن

parallax

The view from here ... Or here!

ClearingSpace4Joy

Bringer and seeker of joy

Belladonna’s Flashlight

The One Where She Stumbled Through Her 40's and Faced Her Demons

~ Trivial Music Silliness ~

Baw wit da baw. Just sayin'.

mo mnsoor blog

Website storys

Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Welcome to the Anglo Swiss World

gnaddrig ad libitum

Querbeet und ohne Gewähr

Peace & Truth

KINDNESS IS FREE, sprinkle it all over the world, and 😁 smile

Ética de la vida diaria

Nuestra ética de todos los días...

Elizabeth Gauffreau

Fiction Writer in Poet's Clothing