#lago michigan

[wgm-beautiful-world]

C h i c a g o

[dgalevisuals]

October Skies

[someday-dreamlands]

𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗲, 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻

[soaveintermezzo]

Faro di St. Joseph North Pier, sulla costa del lago Michigan.

Credit: Thomas Zakowski

[starseedpatriot]

What if I told you that the exact same former FBI agent that led the Governor Whitmer kidnapping hoax in Michigan was also the "assistant director in charge" in D.C. on January 6th and then later led the FBI's Washington Field Office at the time of the Trump Mar-a-Lago raid?

What if I told you that this man, Steven D'Antuono, abruptly decided to resign and join the private sector right as Congressional Republicans prepared to launch a probe into the Bureau?

https://x.com/dschlopesisback/status/1743810645487710430?s=46&t=G8osZoHuXTQhHbGFJD4WZg

@Dschlopes

[beardedmrbean]

Two brothers from Nigeria pleaded guilty Wednesday in connection with an international sextortion ring, in which they threatened to release a nude photo of a 17-year-old Michigan boy, driving him to commit suicide inside his home.

Samuel Ogoshi, 22, and Samson Ogoshi, 20, each pleaded guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys, US Attorney Mark Totten said in a statement.

The Lagos brothers face a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of 30 years behind bars, US Attorney for the Western District of Michigan Mark Totten said in a statement.

They were originally charged with conspiracy to sexually exploit minors, conspiracy to distribute child porn and conspiracy to commit stalking over the internet in a plot against dozens of young men and teen boys in the US.

In exchange for the plea agreement, the other charges will be dropped.

“Today’s guilty pleas represent an extraordinary success in the prosecution of international sextortion,” Totten said in the release. “These convictions will send a message to criminals in Nigeria and every corner of the globe: working with our partners both here and overseas, we can find you and we can bring you to justice.” 

He continued: “I hope these guilty pleas also bring a small measure of relief to the family of Jordan DeMay, who died as a result of this crime.  Of course, the job is not done. 

“The Ogoshi brothers await sentencing later this year, and we are still pursuing the extradition of the third defendant, Ezekiel Robert,” Totten added.

DeMay, 17, was  found dead in his home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound March 25, 2022, after an Instagram account officials said was run by the three Nigerian men threatened to release explicit photos of the teen if he did not pay $1,000.

For DeMay’s death, Samuel had faced a maximum penalty of life in prison after he was additionally charged with sexual exploitation and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor resulting in death.

The Marquette teen took his his own life after he was contacted by an Instagram account with the username “@dani.robertts,” officials have said.

“I can send this [sic] nudes to everyone and also send your nudes Until it goes viral,” Samuel messaged DeMay after the teen sent an explicit photo of himself, officials said.

Though the account appeared to be run by a woman, prosecutors said it was actually one of the several hacked profiles the sextorting trio used to entice and manipulate DeMay and others.

Despite being asked for $1,000, DeMay sent only $300, which prompted Samuel to threaten to forward the image to the high school football player’s family and friends.

The Ogoshis — who had previously been extradited from Nigeria to stand trial — were remanded to the custody of federal marshals after pleading guilty.

A Nigerian court recently ordered Robert, 19, the third defendant, to be extradited to the US, but he has appealed that decision and the matter is before the country’s High Court, officials said.

 “Financial sextortion is a rising and very serious threat targeting our minors nationwide and this case shook the very core of our Michigan community,” Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Michigan, said in a statement.

“We encourage the public to have open and honest conversations with their loved ones surrounding sextortion and to take heed of the warning signs,” Gibson said. “If you believe you or someone you know has become a victim of this crime, please contact the FBI by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI or submitting a tip at tips.fbi.gov.”

[ridenwithbiden]

Just a few months ago, it was hard to see the ingredients of a Joe Biden comeback—even while squinting at the recipe.

The president began the election year with his approval rating at historic lows. He was trailing Donald Trump in almost all of the key battleground states, as well as in national polling averages. Influential liberals were so concerned that the octogenarian incumbent did not have another campaign in him that some were openly calling for him to be replaced as the nominee.

As the general election kicks off this spring, however, those calls have quieted—because Biden’s resurgence is coming into focus. While the president still faces serious obstacles to a second term, several important data points are lining up to demonstrate he is picking up badly needed momentum.

For the first time in a long time, there’s good news for Biden on the polling front. Gradual improvements in the battleground states along with an uptick in his approval rating led one Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, to declare “the Biden bump.”

The boost is at the very least correlated with Biden’s fiery State of the Union address on March 7, when he repeatedly went after his “predecessor” and made sure to mix it up with Republicans in the chamber on a few occasions.

Since then, Biden’s team has continued the punchy, combative tone on display that night, using press releases to cheekily slam their legally challenged opponent as “Broke Don.”

On top of that, the Biden campaign has continued to flex what has always been its core strength: fundraising.

With a $53 million haul in February, the Biden campaign built on their already impressive financial advantage over Trump, who brought in only $20 million over the same period. The Biden campaign has $71 million in cash on hand, compared to just $33.5 million for Trump.

The tide is turning, a Biden adviser argued to The Daily Beast, and although they aren’t putting too much stock into any recent polling upticks, the president’s team is ready to seize upon April and May as a crucial time to ambush a wounded Trump campaign.

“It’s aggressive,” a source within the Biden campaign said, requesting anonymity to speak candidly of the mood inside the re-election team. “There’s a lot of travel, there’s a lot of work. It’s all exciting. We’re heading into this final fundraiser of the month with the former presidents [Obama and Clinton], but it’s aggressive.”

Taking advantage of a substantial fundraising lead, the Biden campaign is focusing on two key areas: travel and organizing.

Since his State of the Union, Biden has visited every major battleground state—typically pairing official White House stops with separate private campaign events—in an effort to demonstrate his ability to keep an energetic schedule.

Trump, on the other hand, has only done a rally in Ohio and another in the battleground state of Georgia since Super Tuesday. Otherwise, he’s mostly been confined to his Mar-a-Lago estate as he prepares to spend the second half of April and most of May stuck in a Manhattan court four days a week for the upcoming Stormy Daniels hush money trial.

Second, the Biden campaign is going full steam ahead on hiring in the battleground states, approaching 100 field offices with more than 130 staffers spread across eight major battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, as well as North Carolina and New Hampshire.

Such investments mean that Biden can begin the crucial work of mobilizing voters early. The Trump campaign, by comparison, could not tell The Daily Beast whether they have made any additional hires or opened any field offices in the battleground states, beyond shifting over the same team focused on early primary and Super Tuesday states.

In an election which will likely be decided by less than tens of thousands of votes in a handful of battlegrounds, the Biden campaign is focusing on gaining as much as they can at the margins now to catch up to Trump.

Ramping up their field organizing, along with getting Biden on the road and in front of cameras to show he still has the energy to campaign at full throttle, is an opportunity they can’t afford to miss while Trump remains mired in legal and financial problems.

“I think the president is beginning to do the very important work that wins elections, which is travel the country, set the tone for what this election will be about, and build a coalition and build an operation that builds a winning coalition,” Kevin Munoz, Biden’s national campaign spokesperson, told The Daily Beast in a phone interview.

“At the same time that Donald Trump has very real infrastructure issues, has no interest in building a winning coalition and is actively attacking the voters that will decide this election, ultimately this will come down to those voters,” Munoz said.

Chris LaCivita—a top Trump campaign adviser who is also the chief operating officer of the Republican National Committee—rejected the idea that the former president’s team should disclose its organizing plans.

“By combining forces and operations, The Trump campaign and RNC are deploying operations that are fueled by passionate volunteers who care about saving America and firing Joe Biden. We do not feel obligated however to discuss the specifics of our strategy, timing and tactics with members of the News Media,” LaCivita told The Daily Beast.

“Democrats want to talk process because they don’t want to talk about Broken Braindead Biden and his absolute failure,” LaCivita argued. “The media should not do Democrats’ bidding and should focus on the issues the American people care about.”

Still, for a Trump operation obsessed with polls, the first cracks in the former president’s so-far dominant lead are beginning to appear.

Biden’s approval rating has seen an uptick in the FiveThirtyEight rolling average—jumping up from under 38 percent on March 12 to over 40 percent approval just two weeks later—and pulling ahead in The Economist’s head-to-head polling average for the first time since September.

To add to the Biden campaign’s morale boost—even though his team tends to reject the value of polls this far out from an election—Biden led Trump in three polls last week alone.

While there remain undecided voters in key states, the Biden campaign will worry more about them later, given the abundant data on how undecided voters are very often late deciding voters as well.

The Biden campaign is eyeing the late spring and early summer to start focusing their messaging on persuading undecided voters, according to the senior aide, with the present focus continuing to be building out their door knocking infrastructure to make sure core voters show up to cast their ballot no matter what.

“That’s what matters at this point in the cycle,” Munoz said. “And I think we have a very good story to tell, not only on the operation we’re building, but also on the issues that we’re fighting for. These are the issues that when Americans go to the ballot box, they care most about, and Donald Trump is running on an agenda that people actively root against when they go to the ballot box.”

The Trump campaign has their own version of such an argument—one they believe will make Biden’s campaign hires irrelevant.

“The Trump campaign will raise the money, deploy the necessary assets, and win because President Trump will secure the border, make American families more prosperous, and make our nation respected on the world stage,” Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement to The Daily Beast.

Veterans of the presidential campaign trail, however, think these seemingly small moves in isolation can make quite a big difference when put together over the long haul.

Jim Messina, who served as Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, argued that Biden is in a stronger position to win than Trump given the cards they’ve been dealt.

“I like to play poker and I would simply much rather have Biden’s cards than Trump’s,” Messina said.

Biden’s two key advantages, according to Messina, are on the economy and the legal front.

“The economy is improving and people are feeling it, Biden has an affirmative message, and Trump will continue to remind independents why they voted against him in 2020 by campaigning from a courtroom,” he said.

Matt Grossman, a political scientist with Michigan State University, said it very well could be the case that March marks the nadir of Biden’s polling woes, but added a note of caution for the president’s campaign.

“My question has been what kind of message is likely to work this time,” Grossman said. “In 2020 we had strong evidence people had already made up their mind about Donald Trump, but not Joe Biden… Now we have two very well-known candidates, so it would make me expect the efficacy of any persuasion effort would be less.”

With two such well-known candidates and some 70 percent of the public weary of a 2020 rematch, the little things could count even more this time around.

“If it’s close to a 50-50 election, then minor things can still move the outcome. And certainly overall, there’s evidence that more contact is better, to deliver both turnout and persuasion messages more is better,” Grossman said.

“They’re just trying to get any small advantage they can.”

[foreverlogical]

The legal briefs are piling up in Florida. 

In the coming weeks, prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case against former President Donald Trump must provide more information to Judge Aileen Cannon in compliance with her latest orders. The judge has questioned the “legal propriety” of bringing charges into her courtroom using an out-of-state grand jury. 

In a separate setback for special counsel Jack Smith, Cannon struck two filings by prosecutors from the record. These unusual moves generated a torrent of criticism from legal scholars. 

Aside from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Judge Cannon — who of Cuban American descent — is the most prominent Latina judge in the country. She is overseeing a historic case yet is on track to harm the judiciary system, democracy and her own reputation. Her partisan conduct is an embarrassment. 

To understand why Cannon is unfit to hear Trump’s case, start with her ruling last week. In it, Cannon asked about the legality of using a Washington, D.C., grand jury in a Florida-based case. But this is normal procedure, as grand juries can be convened anywhere crimes may have occurred. As a federal judge, Cannon should know this. 

It’s no wonder that her orders have earned widespread scorn from legal experts. Former Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe called her approach “dopey and constitutionally dubious.” On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, a former assistant U.S. Attorney wrote that Cannon “clearly shows her ignorance (bias? both?).”  And these were some of the kinder reactions. 

This is not the first time Cannon has appeared to favor Trump. After the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago last year, the former president filed a civil lawsuit to stop the Department of Justice investigation. Cannon sided with him, in a decision that was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. In a scathing rebuke, the appellate court found multiple serious errors in Cannon’s initial ruling and decided that she didn’t even have jurisdiction in the first place. 

These controversies matter to the Latino legal community because it is rare for a Latino judge to be in the national spotlight. In fact, Latino judges are rare. Though Latinos account for about 19 percent of the U.S. population, only 8 percent of federal judges are Latino. Of these, roughly one third are Latinas.  

Cannon is part of a long tradition of Latino jurists, from Alonso Perales, who founded the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929, to civil rights pioneer Gus Garcia, who argued before the Supreme Court in 1954 to Justice Sotomayor. Cannon’s role in a hugely consequential legal matter could have been a source of pride for Latinos. Instead, calls are mounting for her recusal.  

As she tanks her own credibility, Cannon is likewise letting the Latino community down. According to a June Quinnipiac poll, 60 percent of Latinos are following the documents case closely, and 66 percent believe that Trump handled the classified papers in an inappropriate manner. Like other Americans, Latinos want to see the rule of law applied with impartiality. That hasn’t been the case so far, due to Cannon’s emerging pattern of bias.  

Cannon’s apparent fealty to the former president is as troubling as it is unfortunate. Look how that worked out for Alberto Gonzales, whose misplaced loyalty to George W. Bush led the nation's first Latino attorney general to resign. 

Yes, Cannon is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School who previously worked in a D.C. law firm and as a federal prosecutor in Florida. But in her current role, she is a legal time bomb who could blow up a case with immense implications for national security and democracy. 

Consider that she had no judicial experience before her lifetime appointment to the federal bench by Trump in 2020. Or that as a prosecutor, she worked on only four criminal cases that resulted in trials, for a total of 14 trial days. 

Reuters reports that Cannon made rookie mistakes in a trial in June, such as forgetting to swear in the jury, while the New York Times describes her as a judge “who will be essentially learning on the job.”   

To borrow a catchphrase associated with Justice Sotomayor, Judge Cannon is no “Wise Latina.” She must recuse herself from the documents case, or prosecutors should seek to have her replaced. She is too problematic and inexperienced to preside over a criminal trial of Donald Trump.  

Raul A. Reyes is an attorney and contributor to NBC Latino and CNN Opinion. Follow him on Twitter @RaulAReyes, Instagram @raulareyes1.

[wgm-beautiful-world]

C H I C A G O

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Former President Donald Trump, who is charged with stashing national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them, relied on advice from the leader of the conservative organization Judicial Watch, who convinced Trump that he had the legal right to retain the documents and encouraged him to fight against the Justice Department, The Washington Post reported.

Trump's lawyers repeatedly urged him to return the document remaining at his residence but the former president instead turned to Tom Fitton, who doesn't have a law degree but has remained vocal about Trump having the right to keep the documents he took with him at the end of his presidency.

"If Trump had simply given these documents back, when he was first asked, there would have been no jury subpoena, there would have been no search warrant, and there would have been no criminal charges," former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, told Salon. "In fact, in each of those steps of the investigation, if Trump had returned the documents, there likely would not have been a criminal prosecution."

Fitton reportedly argued that the records belonged to Trump, pointing to a 2012 court case involving his organization which he claimed granted the former President the authority to exercise control over the records from his own term in office.

Trump has echoed his claims referring to a ruling in which the judge said it was okay for President Bill Clinton to keep audiotapes of his conversations with historian Taylor Branch during Clinton's White House tenure.

"Under the Presidential Records Act — which is civil, not criminal — I had every right to have these documents," Trump said in a speech Tuesday night. "The crucial legal precedent is laid out in the most important case ever on this subject, known as the Clinton socks case."

But the key difference between the two comparisons is that Clinton's recordings were from his own interviews with a journalist and not presidential records like Trump's, legal experts say.

"The Presidential Records Act distinguishes between 'presidential records' and 'personal records' and required President Trump to preserve White House documents because those are the property of the U.S government," Temidayo Aganga-Williams, partner at Selendy Gay Elsberg and former senior investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 committee, told Salon.

Even as Trump's advisers urged him to cooperate with investigators in their efforts to retrieve the classified documents he had taken when he departed from the White House, Trump brought up Fitton's name whenever he refused to comply with their advice, sources told The Post.

"Trump all but dared DOJ to indict him," McQuade said. "In order to be even-handed in applying the law to offenders who willfully abuse their power to handle classified information, DOJ really had no choice but to indict Trump."

Despite multiple opportunities to avoid criminal charges, Trump consistently refused to return the presidential documents requested by the National Archives since February 2021, sources familiar with the case told The Post. Trump was not charged for the documents he did return voluntarily.

"The national security documents that President Trump is criminally charged with keeping at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to return were always government records and could not be considered personal records in any reasonable reading of federal law," Aganga-Williams said.

Even as Trump publicly maintained that he was fully cooperating with government officials, his behind-the-scenes communication with Fitton reveals a different story.

In February, after the National Archives acknowledged retrieving 15 boxes of presidential records from Trump, he began receiving calls from Fitton telling him it was a mistake to give the records to the Archives, CNN reported.

One source told CNN that Trump requested Fitton brief his attorneys on the legal argument.

Fitton reportedly told Trump's team that they should never have let the Archives "strong-arm" him into returning them. He then suggested to Trump that if the Archives came back, he should not give up any additional records.

Contrary to Fitton's advice to "completely stonewall the government," Trump did hand over some material in June after a meeting between his lawyers and federal investigators at Mar-a-Lago, according to CNN.

However, investigators later found evidence suggesting that not all classified material had been returned, despite the former president being issued a subpoena. The FBI eventually carried out a search of Mar-a-Lago last August and found over 100 documents with classified markings at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump intentionally deceived his own advisers regarding the contents of the boxes, telling them they only contained newspaper clippings and clothes, seven Trump advisers told The Post. He consistently refused to return the documents even after receiving warnings from some of his most loyal advisers about the potential risks involved.

His actions have mirrored the advice of Fitton – a staunch election denier who promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic after the 2020 election, according to Media Matters.

Fitton entered Trump's inner circle after he caught the former president's attention, who viewed him as one of the most effective critics of the Mueller probe from his frequent appearances on Fox News, Politico reported.

His media appearances are also similar to Trump's.

In one interview with Politico, Fitton discussed what he perceived as "abuses" of power by the Justice Department and the FBI, labeled the Mueller investigation as "unconstitutional" and asserted that there was sufficient evidence to arrest and prosecute Hillary Clinton. He has built a following by appearing on right-wing networks and filing lawsuits against the federal government alleging bureaucratic corruption.

During one Fox interview, Fitton himself corrected host Jeanine Pirro after she referred to him as a lawyer, and then responded: "You should be, you get more out of courts than anyone I know." But Fitton's limited legal expertise hasn't stopped the former president from seeking advice from him. It's only complicated the role Trump's attorneys play in representing him. It's also left Trump scrambling to find legal representation a day before his court appearance after two of his top lawyers stepped down just hours after a Florida grand jury voted to charge him.

Most recently though, Fitton's advice appears to have led Trump to being charged with 37 counts including alleged violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction and false statements.

[donde-quedo-mi-corazon]

Chicago es un lugar importante en la historia del libro, un sitio que abre sus puertas a muchos inmigrantes y culturas. Cualquiera se impresiona con el Lago Michigan y los edificios altos y hermosos.

Chicago is an important place for the book’s story, it’s a city that opened its doors to many immigrants and cultures. Anyone can be impressed with Lake Michigan and its tall and beautiful buildings.

[longwindedbore]

‘Biden, through his campaign committees and at least two joint fundraising committees, finished the second quarter raising over $70 million.

‘The pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again, Inc., which raised about $14 million over the same time period, also appears to have its own spending troubles coming into the second half of 2023. It spent over $37 million on a wide variety of items, including over $20,000 earlier this year at Trump's private club in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.’

In other news State GOP organizations are out of cash in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota

[banji-effect]

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump was indicted Tuesday in an unprecedented criminal case accusing the former president of trying to subvert the will of American voters through his attempts to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. The indictment by a federal grand jury in Washington charges Trump with four crimes, including conspiring to defraud the U.S., obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiring against the rights of voters for his actions that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol. The indictment charges Trump alone, but describes six co-conspirators working with him, including people identifiable as Rudy Giuliani and several other lawyers who worked with him to contest the 2020 election results. Many of the details referenced in the case have been previously revealed, including from a House panel that investigated the attack. But the 45-page document paints a detailed portrait of Trump’s alleged efforts to press claims that the election had been marred by fraud, even though he had been told repeatedly they had no merit, and how he leaned on officials in battleground states he had lost including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan to support his efforts. After those initial efforts failed, the indictment alleges, Trump pushed his own Justice Department to falsely claim election fraud, and pressed Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results, telling Pence at one point: “You’re too honest.” He then called his supporters to Washington and urged them to “fight like hell” just before they marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6. Brought by special counsel Jack Smith, the indictment opens a second federal criminal case against Trump under the administration led by President Biden, who beat him in the 2020 race for the White House and is now his potential opponent next year, with Trump the GOP front-runner for 2024. Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington on Thursday.

In a brief appearance where he took no questions, Smith called the Capitol attack “an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies.”

Despite losing, Trump spread lies that there had been fraud in the election, and that he had actually won, the indictment alleges. “Each of these conspiracies…targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” prosecutors assert in the indictment.

In a social media post, Trump said the case was a “pathetic attempt” by the Justice Department to “interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Within minutes, the Trump campaign sent a fundraising email, portraying him as a victim of political persecution. “It’s not just my freedom on the line, but yours as well—and I will NEVER let them take it from you,” it read.

In the indictment, prosecutors acknowledged that Trump had a right to challenge the election results and even falsely claim fraud. But they said what he did went far beyond such rights and involved discounting legitimate votes.

The indictment adds to the cloud of legal challenges. Smith’s office also is prosecuting Trump on separate charges that he improperly retained classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., also has been investigating Trump for election interference. He awaits trial on 34 felony charges brought by local prosecutors in New York in a business-records case stemming from a hush-money payment made to a porn star in the final stretch of the 2016 election.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in the federal, New York and Georgia matters, and accused prosecutors of pursuing him for political reasons.

Prosecutors have charged more than 1,000 people in connection with the riot, for crimes ranging from trespassing to assault and obstructing the Congressional proceeding, almost all of whom were at the Capitol during the violence. More than 500 have pleaded guilty, and several who were convicted of playing a leading role in the violence have been sentenced to years in prison. Trump is among the first who didn’t directly participate in the riot to face federal charges in connection with the attack.

The Jan. 6 Capitol attack led to Trump’s unpredecented second impeachment, with the Democratic House alleging that Trump, who by then was out of office, incited an insurrection. Trump was acquitted in the Senate.

The probe has advanced for months on several tracks, with prosecutors examining efforts that included assembling fake slates of electors to send to Congress; pressuring former Vice President Mike Pence to thwart the congressional certification of Biden’s win; pressing state officials to undo their results; fundraising with false claims of election fraud; and rallying his supporters to march to the Capitol.

Federal grand jurors in Washington have heard from witnesses including election officials from several states, White House lawyers and a list of Trump’s closest aides. Pence, Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and other senior officials in Trump’s closest circles also testified after Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully tried to block their appearances, citing executive privilege. Prosecutors interviewed Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani for eight hours.

The co-conspirators are unnamed, though the descriptions in the document indicate that they are Giuliani, Trump lawyers John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. A sixth is described as a political consultant, whose identity is unclear.

The six, while unindicted, could potentially face charges as Smith’s investigation is ongoing.

“Every fact Mayor Rudy Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good faith basis President Donald Trump had for the actions he took during the two-month period charged in the indictment,” his political adviser, Ted Goodman, said.

Clark and lawyers for Eastman and Chesebro didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment. A lawyer for Powell declined to comment.

In Smith’s separate probe of Trump’s handling of government documents, prosecutors recently added three new counts, alleging Trump and his aides sought to have surveillance footage from the club deleted so that it couldn’t be turned over to a grand jury. A federal judge has scheduled the trial in that case to begin on May 20, 2024.

The original June indictment in the documents case charged Trump with 37 counts on seven different charges, including willful retention of national-defense information, withholding a record, false statements and conspiracy to obstruct.

Despite his compounding legal problems, Trump has remained the clear front-runner for the GOP nomination as he has portrayed himself as the victim of a broad effort to keep him out of office. He has seen fundraising spikes surrounding his two previous indictments, and most of his Republican rivals for the nomination have joined in criticizing his prosecution.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has denied that the Justice Department’s investigations are politically motivated—he wasn’t in Washington on Tuesday but was roughly 175 miles away in Philadelphia, attending an anticrime event. He appointed Smith, whom he called a “veteran career prosecutor,” in November 2022 as special counsel to insulate the probe and give it a degree of independence from the agency’s political appointees.

[y0nain]

🥀+🤝 de lugares favoritos en el mundo

Nain: "difícil, difícil. primer lugar: quebec, en canadá. mi estadía en el sitio fue tranquila y lejos, lejos, la más cómoda. segundo lugar: tokio, japón, por las mismas razones. es primera vez que viajo a este lado del globo y, aún si me han hecho relacionarme más con mi especie, no es tan trágico como creí que sería. y tercer lugar: oslo, noruega. sin embargo, más que oslo, todo noruega. su paisaje era muy bello de noche"

Elijah: "¿No pueden ser todos? ¿No? Triste, muy triste. A ver, veamos. ¿Mi top tres? Chicago, en Estados Unidos se lleva mi primer lugar. La vida nocturna alderedor del lago Michigan es algo que no he apreciado en otros sitios. Segundo lugar es Dubai, así simplemente. Y el tercer lugar, pero no menos pintoresco a mi parecer: Sydney, Australia. Como verás, tengo una cierta debilidad por el mar"

[claudiosuenaga]

Pentágono desclassifica uma selfie do "balão OVNI" chinês

Por Cláudio Tsuyoshi Suenaga

Sim meus caros, este simples balão chinês foi o motivo de todo aquele estardalhaço da falsa invasão alienígena alardeada pelo governo norte-americano e ecoada por toda a imprensa, a distrair o gado do descarrilamento dos trens em Ohio e subsequente vazamento de material tóxico que contaminou a região, que por sua vez pode não ter passado de uma outra cortina de fumaça, literalmente, para encobrir algo muito mais grave e sinistro, tal como foi mostrado no filme Super 8 (2011, produzido por Steven Spielberg), que nós ainda não sabemos e talvez nunca viremos a saber. Um detalhe curioso: o descarrilamento do trem de carga em Super 8 também se passa em Ohio! 

O Departamento de Defesa divulgou na quarta-feira passada, 22 de fevereiro, esta imagem tirada por um piloto de um avião espião U-2 do balão espião chinês abatido na costa da Carolina do Sul no início deste mês, e que as autoridades estimam ter cerca de 60 metros de altura e carregar uma carga do comprimento de um jato.

Piloto da USAF olha para o balão chinês enquanto ele pairava sobre a área central dos Estados Unidos em 3 de fevereiro de 2023. Foto do Departamento de Defesa.

Os aviões espiões U-2, em uso desde os anos 1950, podem voar por horas acima de 20 quilômetros, o que permitiu aos pilotos ficarem acima do balão. 

As fotos foram tiradas em 3 de fevereiro, um dia antes de dois caças F-22 da Força Aérea dos Estados Unidos derrubarem o balão em Myrtle Beach, Carolina do Sul. A foto do piloto do U-2 olhando para o balão foi publicada na última terça-feira no blog Dragon Lady Today, dirigido pelo jornalista aeroespacial britânico Chris Pocock. A porta-voz do Pentágono, Sabrina Singh, confirmou a autenticidade da imagem na quarta-feira. 

As fotos foram tiradas por um segundo piloto dentro da aeronave, informou a ABC News na quarta-feira. Enquanto os aviões espiões U-2 normalmente têm apenas um assento, o usado para monitorar o balão chinês possuía dois lugares.

A sombra do U-2 pode ser vista no balão branco ondulante, que foi anexado a uma carga de equipamentos de vigilância alimentados por painéis solares.

A sombra do avião no balão chinês visto mais de perto. Foto do Departamento de Defesa.

A comunidade de inteligência agora está inspecionando o balão e sua enorme carga no Laboratório do FBI em Quantico, Virgínia, depois que a Marinha terminou de recuperar seus destroços do fundo do oceano em 16 de fevereiro.

Por que tanto aparato e de altíssimo custo foi usado para derrubar simples e inofensivos balões? E por que tanto alarde? Lembremos que apenas a operação para abater o balão “octogonal” na tarde de domingo, 12 de fevereiro, no Lago Huron, em Michigan, na região dos Grandes Lagos, fronteira com o Canadá, custou a bagatela de quase US$ 1 milhão aos contribuintes, isso porque o piloto de um dos dois caças F-16 Fighting Falcon errou o primeiro tiro e teve de disparar um segundo míssel ar-ar (AAM) AIM-9X Sidewinder guiado por calor, que custa US$ 485.000. Ainda bem que a América é rica demais para seu próprio bem, não é mesmo?

Pior ainda, já se sabe que o “OVNI do Alasca” abatido por um caça F-22 no dia 11 sobre o território canadense de Yukon, no noroeste do Canadá, a cerca de 160 km da fronteira entre os dois países, com o aval do premiê canadense Justin Trudeau, não passava de um balão recreativo de US$ 12 pertencente a Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB), um clube de entusiastas do Norte de Illinois formado por dez amigos há dois anos. Esses balões têm apenas cerca de um metro de diâmetro e carregam eletrônicos leves alimentados por painéis solares.

Os membros da Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade. Foto: Daily Mail.

Na quarta-feira, dia 15, a NIBBB anunciou que um de seus balões “pico”, o K9YO, estava desaparecido desde o dia 10, mesmo dia em que a USAF abateu um objeto identificado no noroeste do Alasca. Segundo o NIBBB, o dirigível fez sua última comunicação no dia 10 de fevereiro. Projeções indicavam que no dia seguinte o balão estaria flutuando alto no território de Yukon, no Canadá, quando foi interceptado pelo F-22.

O grupo perdeu contato com seu balão pouco antes de os governos canadense e norte-americano anunciarem o abate de um "OVNI". Imagem: Daily Mail.

Os balões Pico são minúsculos (é isso que significa pico), têm cerca de 1 metro de diâmetro e podem expandir até três vezes o seu tamanho à medida que sobem, até atingirem uma altitude em que flutuam de forma neutra, sendo empurrados pela corrente do vento. A trajetória desses balões é rastreada por rádios HF/VHF/UHF e GPS, carregados em um pequeno dispositivo amarrado ao balão. Alguns instrumentos como esse chegam a dar a volta ao mundo. Eles não podem causar danos a aeronaves e nem ferir pessoas, mesmo que caiam sobre elas. De acordo com a mídia americana, "as descrições de todos os três objetos não identificados derrubados em 10 e 12 de fevereiro correspondem às formas, altitudes e cargas dos pequenos balões Pico, que geralmente podem ser adquiridos por US$ 12 a US$ 180 cada, dependendo do tipo." 

Balões Pico como este são semelhante aos balões de festa, mas mesmo assim foram confundidos com OVNIs por experimentados pilotos.

Ante todo esse espetáculo acintoso e deplorável, deixo mais algumas perguntinhas inocentes: se as autoridades desconfiaram que não se tratavam de simples balões, mas de naves extraterrestres, por que não os abateram imediatamente e em vez disso os deixaram voando impunemente sobre as instalações militares? Será que seus poderosos, sofisticados e caríssimos instrumentos não são capazes de distinguir objetos tão ordinários e comuns de OVNIs reais? E se sabiam desde o início que eram balões, por que promover tanto estrépito na mídia? E por que a mídia, sem nada questionar, seguiu o coro e deixou de lado o descarrilamento em Ohio? Aqui, precisamente, chegamos ao ponto inicial e crucial da questão.