Bubba Wallace dismisses FBI findings: 'It's a straight-up noose'
“I’ve been racing all of my life,” Wallace, the racing circuit's only Black driver, told "CNN Tonight" anchor Don Lemon. “We've raced out of hundreds of garages that never had garage pulls like that. So people that want to call it a garage pull and put out all the videos and photos of knots being as their evidence, go ahead, but from the evidence that we have — and I have — it’s a straight-up noose.”
"The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week. The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019," the Tuesday FBI statement reads. "Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week."
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https://thehill.com/policy/technology/504260-twitter-account-behind-doctored-video-shared-by-trump-permanently-suspended
In a post on the platform Locals, the owner of the suspended Twitter account, Carpe Donktum, said that he was suspended for sharing a doctored video that President Trump also shared last week.
https://carpedonktum.locals.com/
The video, which was taken down by Twitter on Friday, shows two children running towards each other and embracing. The tweet shared by Trump and Donktum featured an edited video with menacing background music and a manipulated CNN headline and appeared to show the children running from each other.
Brendon Urie tells Trump campaign to stop using Panic! At The Disco songs at rallies
June 24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPXIgEAGe4U The song in question - High Hopes
AP-NORC poll: Nearly all in US back criminal justice reform
Americans are largely united behind the idea that action is required: 29% think the criminal justice system needs “a complete overhaul,” 40% say it needs “major changes” and 25% say it needs “minor changes.” Just 5% believe no changes are necessary.
Police officer involved in Breonna Taylor shooting fired
A termination letter sent to Officer Brett Hankison released by the city’s police department Tuesday said Hankinson violated procedures by showing “extreme indifference to the value of human life” when he “wantonly and blindly” shot 10 rounds of gunfire into Taylor’s apartment in March. The letter also said Hankison, who is white, violated the rule against using deadly force.
“I find your conduct a shock to the conscience,” interim Louisville Police Chief Robert Schroeder said in the letter. “Your actions have brought discredit upon yourself and the Department.”
Florida Democrats gain vote-by-mail advantage
Five months before Election Day, more than 1.46 million Democrats have signed up to vote by mail compared to 1.16 million Republicans, according to an analysis of state Division of Election data released Friday. By comparison, in 2016, Democrats held an advantage of about 8,800 in vote-by-mail enrollment.
Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, has led in every public poll in the state over the past two months by an average of 4.6 points, similar to Hillary Clinton’s margin over Trump in 2016 during the same period. Democrats have a 2-point lead over Republicans in the number of registered voters as of April 30, state data show.
Any registered voter in Florida can request a mail-in ballot up until 10 days before an election, a policy put in place nearly 20 years ago in the wake of the chaotic 2000 presidential recount.
Signing up for a mail-in ballot doesn’t guarantee that a voter will send it in. But more than 90 percent of Republicans who asked for a ballot in 2016 returned it, compared to 87 percent for Democrats, according to GOP pollster Ryan Tyson.
Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm
In what may be the first known case of its kind, a faulty facial recognition match led to a Michigan man’s arrest for a crime he did not commit.
Facebook creates fact-checking exemption for climate deniers
Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing
Eddie Bauer, Magnolia Pictures, Ben & Jerry’s and others have suspended campaigns over the platform’s content moderation practices.
Students for Trump co found pleads guilty to fraud scheme
https://www.foxnews.com/us/students-for-trump-co-founder-pleads-guilty-in-46000-fraud-scheme
Not sure how this got on Memeorandum, since it is from Aug 7 2019. It has recent comments, however, and they are scathing.
On August 6, 2019, John Lambert pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. [1] In July 2019, Charlie Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, became chairman of Students for Trump, with the goal of recruiting one million students at colleges across the US.[2]
Students for Trump Founder Faces Prison After Confessing to $46,000 Scam While Posing As Attorney With a Degree From an Elite Law School
August 2019, one of many stories
John Lambert, 23, from Knoxville, Tennessee, went by the name of Eric Pope in the swindle. he set up a fake law firm called Pope & Dunn between 2016 and 2018.
He claimed he was an NYU Law School graduate with a finance degree from the University of Pennsylvania with a decade and a half of corporate and patent law experience.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said that Lambert had represented himself to clients as a prominent New York attorney with a law degree from an elite law school.
But Lambert's de facto career was one of a grifter: he had never been to law school and certainly wasn't an attorney. Today, Lambert admitted to his crimes and faces time in prison for his misdeeds," he told the Manhattan Federal Court, the New York Daily News reported.
Berman described Lambert as " just a wolf in sheep's clothing, swindling his victims of their hard-earned money. Now, Lambert is in need of a real attorney as he must answer for his alleged crimes."
content echos New York PDaily News from August 6, 2019
A Softball Team’s Tweet to Trump Leads Players to Quit Mid-Series
The players said they did not want a photo of them standing during the national anthem to be used for political purposes.
Instead, the first day of the series ended with all 18 players for Scrap Yard Fast Pitch cleaning out their lockers and pledging to never play again for the organization, after its general manager bragged to President Trump on Twitter during the game that the team was standing during the national anthem.
The tweet, sent from the team’s official account by Connie May, the team’s general manager, said: “Hey @realDonaldTrump Pro Fastpitch being played live … Everyone standing for the FLAG!”
https://twitter.com/theconniemay Living my dream. Get to do what I'm passionate about everyday. KARMA!! It’s REAL!!
The Houston-based independent softball team started a seven-game series against the USSSA Pride on Monday at Space Coast Stadium in Florida. During the game, a tweet was sent out from the team's official account with a photo of Scrap Yard players standing during the national anthem. The now-deleted tweet included the message "Everyone respecting the FLAG!" and tagged President Donald Trump's twitter handle.
Other countries are used to loathing America, admiring America, and fearing America (sometimes all at once). But pitying America? That one is new.
I thought of this as I watched the scenes of protest and violence over the killing of George Floyd spread across the United States and then here in Europe and beyond. The whole thing looked so ugly at first—so full of hate, and violence, and raw, undiluted prejudice against the protesters. The beauty of America seemed to have gone, the optimism and charm and easy informality that entrances so many of us from abroad.
Le Carré’s reflection on the motivations of anti-Americanism—bound up, as they are, with his own ambivalent feelings about the United States—are as relevant today as they were in 1974, when the novel was first published. Where there was then Richard Nixon, there is now Donald Trump, a caricature of what the Haydons of this world already despise: brash, grasping, rich, and in charge. In the president and first lady, the burning cities and race divides, the police brutality and poverty, an image of America is beamed out, confirming the prejudices that much of the world already have—while also serving as a useful device to obscure its own injustices, hypocrisies, racism, and ugliness.
As the Virus Surges in South Florida, a Trump Resort Joins the Rush to Reopen
June 23
Miami-Dade County has been hit with about a quarter of the state’s cases. The Doral hotel and golf club there is taking steps to prevent infection, even as many visitors and some workers do not wear masks.
Burned Home Had 27 Police Service Calls
Police visited alleged sex trafficking house, burned last night, 27 times in four years.
The property, according to city assessment records, is owned by 40Street 2120 LLC, which lists Michael Bartsch as its registered agent. The home, built in 1903, and its 0.14 acre lot are assessed at $26,900 and listed for sale through Shorewest Realtors for $42,900. As of Tuesday afternoon the listing is no longer listed online. Bartsch owns at least one other rental property in Milwaukee, according to city assessment records.
Stephen Colbert Hammers John Bolton About Support Of Donald Trump On ‘The Late Show’: “I Couldn’t Believe It Was That Bad”
"In the many cases I have been privileged to work on in my career, I have never seen political influence play any role in prosecutorial decision making. With one exception: United States v. Roger Stone." — Former DOJ prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky's opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee.
As coronavirus infections and hospitalizations go vertical again in Texas, Arizona, and other states, the magnitude of the Trump Administration's failure becomes ever more clear. The US response to the coronavirus remains one of the worst in the world. Americans will be paying the price for this ineptitude for years.
Despite widespread fears, the Black Lives Matter protests did not lead to increased coronavirus infections, a new study concludes. This is yet more evidence that outside activities — even those that are crowded, with shouting — are not particularly risky. — HB
https://www.nber.org/papers/w27408.pdf
The Protests Are Already Changing Elections
The past few weeks of activism have directly fueled the wins of a handful of black progressive candidates.
ELAINE GODFREY
“Democrats are more mobilized, more likely to give, and more energized” than they have been in a while, Daniel Gillion, a political-science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of The Loud Minority: Why Protests Matter in American Democracy, told me. The protests “have pushed a sense of investment in politics,” Steve Israel, the former New York congressman and the onetime chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told me. They represent the continuation of an “entrepreneurial social-activist movement” that started after Donald Trump’s inauguration and will spill over into the general election, he says.
In New York’s 17th district, which includes Rockland County and parts of Westchester, the black attorney and activist Mondaire Jones won his six-way primary race to replace longtime Representative Nita Lowey, the chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee. Over in New York’s 15th district, Ritchie Torres, the Bronx’s first openly gay public official, defeated Rubén Díaz Sr., a pro-Trump Democrat and a Pentecostal minister with a long history of making homophobic remarks.
The past month of activism has increased the competitiveness of primaries far from New York too—galvanizing voters who might not otherwise have engaged in races, and stirring up funds for candidates who might not previously have enjoyed them. In a Virginia congressional race yesterday, Cameron Webb, a 37-year-old black physician, handily defeated his three primary opponents, including the race’s top fundraiser—a female combat veteran backed by EMILY’s List. The demonstrations also injected a massive jolt of energy into the Democratic Senate primary yesterday in Kentucky.
Roger Stone Prosecutor Says “We Were Told That We Could Be Fired” Over Case
Democrats bashed Barr for corruption at a hearing Wednesday.
Zelinsky named J.P. Cooney, the acting head of DOJ’s Fraud and Public Corruption unit, and Cooney’s former deputy Alessio Evangelista, as officials who passed on Shea’s push to reduce the recommended sentence for Stone.
Zelinksy and his colleagues refused and filed a motion recommending that Stone receive more than seven years in prison. But after news coverage of that recommendation, Trump, in a 1:48 am tweet on Feb. 11, called Stone’s treatment “horrible and very unfair.” Zelinsky says he learned the next day that the Justice Department would issue a new memo recommending a lighter sentence. The four prosecutors who had worked on the case promptly withdrew in protest. Barr has said his actions were not prompted by Trump’s tweet.
“What’s happening now is much worse than what happening in Watergate,” Ayer said, arguing Barr is systemically undoing safeguards against corruption. “This guy has got to go.”
What We Know About the Killing of Elijah McClain
Last August, police officers in Aurora, Colorado, approached 23-year-old Elijah McClain as he walked home from a convenience store. The Aurora Police Department later said that a 911 caller had reported a “suspicious person” in a ski mask, and that when officers confronted McClain — who was not armed and had not committed any kind of crime — he “resisted arrest.” In the 15 minutes that followed, the officers tackled McClain to the ground, put him in a carotid hold, and called first responders, who injected him with ketamine. He had a heart attack on the way to the hospital, and died days later, after he was declared brain dead.
Madison Cawthorn won the GOP primary for the NC seat vacated by Mark Meadows.
A constitutional conservative, Madison is committed to defending the values of faith, family and freedom that have made America great.
Trump did not endorse Cawthorn.
What's next: Cawthorn faces Democrat Moe Davis in November. If Cawthorn wins, he will be the youngest member of Congress.
@LyndaBennettNC
has my Complete & Total Endorsement. She is a great fighter & ally in North Carolina. Lynda is Strong on Crime, Borders, Military, our Great Vets & 2A. She will be a great help to me in DC. We need Lynda to help DRAIN THE SWAMP! VOTE EARLY!
If you want to turn on President Trump, now is the moment to do it.
So if you have something to say, you've got 10 days till July 4 to say it. — DP
‘Crush This Lady.’ Inside eBay’s Bizarre Campaign Against a Blog Critic.
Security employees allegedly orchestrated deliveries of live cockroaches, pornographic videos and a mask of a bloody pig’s head
The box of live cockroaches delivered to their door was the last straw for David and Ina Steiner.
For more than two decades, the professional collectors ran a niche e-commerce blog out of their home in the Boston suburbs, with a focus on Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc.
Then, last August, the couple started receiving threatening emails and tweets. Not long after, according to federal investigators, a package arrived with a mask of a bloody pig’s head. Next, they received a funeral wreath. Neighbors were sent pornographic videos addressed to one of the Steiners. Strange cars seemed to follow them around their small town of Natick, Mass.
They repeatedly called the local police, who say they initially thought the incidents might be pranks. The Steiners photographed one of the suspicious vehicles tailing them. With the photo, the local police tracked the license plate to a rental car checked out to a Veronica Zea, staying at Boston’s Ritz-Carlton hotel along with a man named David Harville, according to an affidavit from a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent working the case.
Then the police discovered something really curious: Both Ms. Zea and Mr. Harville worked for eBay, the $34 billion online marketplace based more than 3,000 miles away in San Jose, Calif. The once dominant site was a frequent target of the Steiners’ blog posts on their site, called ECommerceBytes.
Justice Department Charges Former eBay Staff With ‘Cyberstalking Campaign’
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged six former workers at eBay Inc. with leading a cyberstalking campaign against a Massachusetts couple who publish an e-commerce blog, EcommerceBytes, that criticized the company.
AG Ellison sues ExxonMobil, Koch Industries & American Petroleum Institute for deceiving, defrauding Minnesotans about climate change
June 24, 2020 (SAINT PAUL)—Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit this morning in Ramsey County on behalf of the State and its residents to stop deceptive practices related to climate change and to hold ExxonMobil Corp., the American Petroleum Institute, and three Koch Industries entities accountable for perpetuating fraud against Minnesotans.
KENTUCKY: THE DAY AFTER
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=1202813203397395&ref=watch_permalink
The Secretary of State, among others, has estimated that this election will exceed in turnout the 2008 Democratic primary, the previous record-holder with about 900000 votes. Roughly 130000 people voted yesterday, and 450000 mail-in ballots had been received by Monday. Ballots could still be mailed yesterday, and based on prior experience the state seems to be expecting about 1.1 million votes total. Of course, that depends a lot on predictions of voter behavior where we don’t necessarily have strong grounds for our expectations.
Vice Urges Advertisers to Stop Blocking ‘Black Lives Matter’ and Related Keywords
June 24
In one instance, an ad agency “representing a large entertainment corporation” sent Vice a blocklist that included “Black people” and “Black Lives Matter,” according to Cooke. She didn’t identify the company but said “it was sent the very same week that the corporation issued a statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.”
She also cited Vice research that found from February-March 2020, topics about the COVID-19 pandemic were 137% more likely to end up on blocklists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBXCpbo3QXA BTC on Berman firing, and the House hearings today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjO9kwX-0Rc 'Danger To Democracy': AG Barr Blasted For 'Perverting' DOJ, Trump 'Went Nuts' | MSNBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc4qgvXgLkc Anger erupts over new mask rule while experts say they are key to contain coronavirus
Trump Brother Was in ICU Just Before Filing Suit Over Tell-All
In court papers, Denson and her lawyers argue that the agreements that Team Trump forced on them were unlawful and failed to allow staffers to make claims regarding workplace discrimination.
“President Trump is clearly NDA-happy,” David Bowles, one of Denson’s attorneys, said on Wednesday evening. “He has used NDAs to suppress his supporters and former supporters, and invalidating those NDAs is the point of our current class action. Now he’s trying to suppress his own family members using an NDA. All of this is intended to quash the criticism that is at the heart of a vibrant democracy.”
Denson added, “I am not willing to be one of the many who Trump has abused, or to be used as a tool for him to abuse the American people and presidency, and that is why I am fighting to invalidate his dastardly NDAs.”
Why Did the Washington Post Get This Woman Fired?
June 24
In 2018, Schafer attended a Halloween party at the home of Tom Toles, the Post’s Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist. The basis for Schafer’s costume was topical. NBC had recently fired Megyn Kelly after she said, on the air, that she didn’t understand why it was necessarily considered racist for people to wear blackface as part of a Halloween costume. Schafer, who is white, decided to lampoon the anchor by dressing as Megyn Kelly–in–blackface.
This is a mortifying tale about one woman’s cluelessness, but why did it end up in a major national newspaper? The Post’s editorial standards declare that “fairness includes relevance.” The non-recent, non-criminal bad acts of non-public figures are not ordinarily considered news, and before June 17, Schafer was a graphic designer with no public profile and no apparent power or ambitions to obtain it. What was the point of publishing this story — at considerable length, accompanied by original photography from an acclaimed staff photographer, on the front page of the paper’s “Style” section — besides causing Schafer to lose her job?
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