DL Open Thread: Thursday, December 8, 2022
Brittany Griner Released! In exchange for an arms dealer:
The deal, the second such exchange in eight months with Russia, procured the release of the most prominent American detained abroad. Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medalist whose monthslong imprisonment on drug charges brought unprecedented attention to the population of wrongful detainees.
Biden’s authorization to release a Russian felon once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death” underscored the escalating pressure that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony.
Germany Arrests Right-Wing Coup Plotters. Including one Prince Heinrich XIII:
The 71-year-old aristocrat, who was arrested in Frankfurt’s West End district on Wednesday morning, has been described by prosecutors as the ringleader of the terrorist group plotting to overthrow the government. If their plan had succeeded, he had envisioned installing himself as the leader of a revolutionary government.
A descendant of the House of Reuß that ruled parts of Thuringia, in eastern Germany, for about 800 years, Heinrich in 2019 delivered a 16-minute speech at a digital business summit in Zurich infused with far-right conspiracy theories.
“After thousands of years of rule”, he complained, his dynasty had been “dispossessed” after the first world war, a conflict brought about by “foreign powers”. He claimed the dark driving forces behind the 20th century’s great wars were the Rothschild dynasty and Freemasons.
Florida Rethug ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Sponsor Indicted For Stealing Covid Funds.
A Republican lawmaker in Florida who sponsored the state’s controversial legislation known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was indicted Wednesday on charges of defrauding the government of coronavirus relief loans.
Federal prosecutors allege state Rep. Joe Harding illegally obtained or tried to obtain more than $150,000 in federal loans meant for small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Harding, who was elected in 2020, was charged with using two dormant corporate entities to apply for the funds, filling out fraudulent applications.
In his application, prosecutors said Harding claimed one of his businesses had more than $400,000 in revenue and four employees in the months prior to the pandemic. The company has actually been dormant for three years, with no revenue or no employees.
The indictment also alleges Harding created false bank statements to support his applications.
Speaking Of Corrupt Florida Rethug Politicos:
Once again, there are a series of tricky questions headed for Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) about his relationship with former Republican congressman David Rivera.
On Monday, Rivera, a “longtime pal” of Rubio, was arrested on charges of illegally lobbying for Venezuela. Rivera faces eight federal charges that include conspiracy to commit money laundering, failure to register as a foreign agent, and conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States. Documents from the case reveal that an unnamed US Senator met with Rivera in 2017 to discuss a possible deal to normalize relations between the United States and the oil-rich South American country. Rubio is not accused of any wrongdoing. But Politico reported Tuesday that a spokesperson for Rubio confirmed that he was the unnamed legislator—they added Rubio did not know Rivera was working on behalf of Nicolás Maduro.
According to NPR, Rivera allegedly signed a secret $50 million contract with Venezuela’s state-run oil company in early 2017, promising to lobby US politicians. This includes resolving a legal dispute between an unnamed oil company and Venezuela as well as preventing the US from imposing any more sanctions against the Venezuelan president and his regime.
The Case That Upended America’s Drug War. Yep, a Trump Attorney General was right in the thick of it:
For years, U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies had been watching Cienfuegos as he rose through the Mexican army to become defense minister in 2012. Since late 2015, the DEA had been investigating what it believed were Cienfuegos’ corrupt dealings with a second-tier drug gang based in the small Pacific Coast state Nayarit. In 2019, he had been secretly indicted on drug-conspiracy charges by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn.
“I have worked with your CIA,” Cienfuegos protested. “I have been honored by your Department of Defense!”
“I understand,” the DEA agent said. “But you have still been charged.”
For more than a decade, the United States and Mexico resolved such tensions within the framework of the Mérida Initiative, a landmark 2007 agreement to combat the criminal violence then convulsing Mexico. The plan has funneled more than $3.5 billion in U.S. aid to Mexico, helping the military and the police take on criminal gangs while working toward ambitious long-term reforms of the justice system. But López Obrador had always been skeptical of the partnership. An old-school nationalist, he saw the DEA as a symbol of gringo arrogance. What the Mérida deal brought Mexico, he argued, was more weapons, and those weapons brought more violence.
Yet even with tensions rising sharply, U.S. prosecutors and agents were stunned by what happened next. Barely two weeks after Cienfuegos’ arrest, Attorney General William P. Barr told the Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, that he would drop the charges and send the general home. Barr later suggested that Cienfuegos wasn’t such an important target and that Mexican officials promised to investigate his case themselves. Barr was acting to protect “the United States’ relationship with Mexico and cooperative law-enforcement efforts” related to “narcotics trafficking and public corruption,” the chief prosecutor in the case said.
In fact, the episode led to a near-collapse of law-enforcement cooperation between the two countries. Emboldened by what Mexicans saw as the DEA’s humiliation, López Obrador accused the agency of “fabricating” its charges against the general. At the president’s behest, the Legislature imposed crippling new restrictions on U.S. agents’ ability to operate in Mexico. A Mexican police drug unit that worked with U.S. officials on sensitive cases was disbanded. For months, Mexico refused even to grant visas to dozens of DEA agents assigned there.
Read the entire article. Award-worthy journalism.
Is Manufactured Home Landlord Trying To Contaminate Residents In Order To Drive Them Out? The landlord is Blue Beach Bungalows, DE, LLC. The community is Pine Haven in Lincoln, DE:
Workers shut off the water for the dozens of homes in Lulu Lucido’s community in Lincoln around noon on Friday. The reason for doing so was not clear; none of the dozen or so residents who spoke to the Delaware State News on Monday received advanced notice of the shutoff.
But when the water was turned back on in Pine Haven around five hours later, Ms. Lucido quickly noticed something had gone wrong. The water coming out of her faucets had a “rancid, metallic smell,” she said in a phone interview. “When I looked down in it, my eyes burned.”
Within a few days, the water had created streaks of rusty orange down the sides of her bathtub and sink of her camper. In an interview in her home on Monday, Ms. Lucido used a bottle of water she’d purchased to wash her hands, then filled it from the tap. Particles of an unknown substance floated around inside the discolored water.
Multiple residents said that they feel like they are being harassed by the owner in an attempt to drive them out. The lawyer for Blue Beach Bungalows, Nicole Faries, did not respond to several requests for comment in time for publication.
Paging the Attorney General…
What do you want to talk about?
“But WhA1 aB0uT the WhITe gUY! ” is something we’ll be hearting for a while. I wonder if Coons will put out one of those “While I’m happy, I’m also sad” statements that let everyone know the TV in his office can only play Fox News?
Also – This made me chuckle.
Yes, coon said this give other “bad actors” the opportunity to snatch americans for leverage.
IMHO, for me it isnt about black or white, its the emphasis our society puts on athletes and entertainers as a higher priority. this is why trump won, why walker and oz almost won and why if a kardashian ran they would win.
Yes. That odd cognitive bias (celebrity = smart = hardworking) is ubiquitous in this country.