Please note that my spell/phrase check updated and would not allow me to make changes tonight and I am too tired to play with this any longer. I think that you will understand what I am trying to say.
Judges and lawyers are much in the news these days. Trials, court hearings, appeals, and rulings seem to dominate the news recently.
Last week we saw a 21-year-old airman in court charged with violations of the espionage act for taking, keeping, and disseminating classified documents he worked with in his job as a cyber security technician for the Air National Guard. He copied or photographed these documents and uploaded them to a group he managed on an internet site called Discord. His group was comprised of young men mostly like him, people interested in weapons, and gaming and who were libertarian-leaning. He had been sharing these documents over several months before they appeared on a wider set of internet sites. His motivation, although unclear to most people, was said to be more aimed at showing and telling to brag about his access, rather than spying or espionage. He mistakenly thought that he could keep the documents contained in his small group of followers. Unfortunately for the Pentagon and our Allies, especially Ukraine, this was not the case and some of his followers leaked further; this situation has caused embarrassment for the US. The release also made clear that our intelligence services know a lot about the Russian military. Other spying efforts with some of our allies were also in the internet papers. I have no idea what makes young men with access to cyber secure data think that they somehow must download, copy or otherwise share this data to which they have been entrusted, but we have seen several instances, the most severe being Chelsea Manning and James Snowden in recent years.
Several media/print commentators discussed the situation and advised the military to find better ways to secure the data for the tech support staff. The younger staff are more tech-savvy, but at the same time can be less invested in the military mission, and unworried about the consequences of misusing the wide access they are given to the backgrounds of the data, such as daily briefings, that they work with. One suggestion was to initially encrypt the data so that while they could “see” the files, they could not read them but could move them around as necessary for wider use. One security expert noted that private industry has better security of their data than the Pentagon seems to have. They track who goes into files and can find those who try to access data they do not need to have. I know when I worked with HIPAA-protected patient data in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) files, every time I logged on and every medical record I accessed was tracked and tabbed. So, it would seem logical if, in the military, every click was tracked and the users knew that, there would be fewer people trying to see what they could explore.
Of course, the apologists for the former president are out in force, defending this young airman, for if his transgressions can be excused, then the actions of keeping certain secret and classified documents at Mar-a-Lago should also be excused. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who has defended him (who is angling for a VP spot on DJT’s ticket, it seems), appeared in an interview on 60 Minutes with Leslie Stahl. The interview has been widely panned in the media. Here is a quote from the media news publication Variety on the interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which aired on Sunday evening.
“In the interview, Greene asserted that Democrats are the “party of pedophiles,” saying, “They support grooming children… Even Joe Biden himself supports children being sexualized and having transgender surgeries.”
The Republican representative doubled down on her comments in a Tweet, writing, “I will always fight to protect kids!”
Greene, who was elected to a House seat representing Georgia in 2020, has been a primary subject of fervent criticism from Democratic figures for several years. During her campaign, she voiced support for a range of conspiracy theories promoted by the QAnon movement, which the FBI has deemed a domestic terror group. She has also promoted misinformation regarding COVID-19 vaccines.”
Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger called it “insane” that the program would air an interview with a figure like Greene. The Atlantic contributor Jemele Hill criticized the framing of the social media promotion as “s***” and stated that “60 Minutes” was “platforming stupid.” Many other journalists, political figures, and celebrities chimed in with their own criticism, responding to the tweet by “60 Minutes.”
Meanwhile, Congressman Jim Jordan is trying to sue prosecutor Alvin Bragg, demanding all of his pre-trial documents, disregarding the reality that he has no jurisdiction over state courts and the department of justice.
Jordan is bringing his House Justice committee to New York City to hold hearings on crime in that city that he claims the District Attorney is avoiding. Jordan has not done his homework as others have pointed out that the crime rate in his Congressional District in Ohio is higher than that in Manhattan. As reported by Yahoo News & Business Insider:
“An aide to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan would better serve the public by investigating homicides in his own backyard than road-tripping to New York City for a field hearing on violent crime.
Jordan, one of the many House Republicans outraged by Bragg's indictment of embattled former President Donald Trump, has decided to take the brewing fight to Bragg's home turf by interviewing unspecified witnesses at a just-announced hearing in Manhattan on April 17.
A Bragg spokesman called the pending congressional visit a political stunt, telling Bloomberg News that murders in New York City were three times lower than the murder rate in Columbus, Ohio.
"If Chairman Jordan truly cared about public safety, he could take a short drive to Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Akron, or Toledo, in his home state, instead of using taxpayer dollars to travel hundreds of miles of his way," the Bragg aide said.
Columbus, which has a population of approximately 907,000 people, closed out 2022 with 140 murders, according to The Columbus Dispatch, or 15.4 murders per 100,000 citizens.
New York City, which has a population of roughly 8.4 million, closed out 2022 with 433 murders, the Wall Street Journal reported, for a murder rate of 5.2 murders per 100,000 citizens.”
The former president described his appearance at the recent arraignment by claiming that the staff in the courthouse was in tears, telling him that this indictment was a miscarriage of justice. Video from that day shows police officers and others with poker faces, showing no emotions and certainly no tears. So, once again the master manipulator lies. We should not be surprised.
This last week DJT was again in a New York proceeding where depositions were being recorded in the civil fraud lawsuit against him and his company led by the New York State Attorney. Since one can be compromised by claiming the protections of the Fifth Amendment in a civil trial, he answered questions on this appearance, a departure from his position on the previous criminal trial about his company. He is also trying to delay the upcoming rape and defamation trial by writer E. Jean Carroll,but the judge did not agree. He protested that the publicity of the indictment would prejudice the jury.
The judge directly noted that it was his pronouncements and requests for defenders in the streets that brought the notoriety and denied his request. Delay, deflect, and deny are his usual tactics, but the judicial system is on to him and no longer willing to genuflect to his every request.
Another trial of note is to start next week. That is the long-awaited lawsuit by Dominion Systems against the Fox News Corporation and TV Network for malicious defamation and deliberate attempts to claim their voting machines flipped votes from the former president over to Joe Biden. Press Protections are pretty high n the US, but many observers think that the revelations in the subpoenaed Fox emails demonstrated that the truth did not sell and actually lost network viewers so there was a conscious decision to switch over to the “stop the steal” campaign being led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. They made many appearances on the network touting their bogus claims and citing instances (never proven) where Dominion machines switched votes. When Fox News reporters reported that these claims were never borne out, their bosses told them to get in line with the program that was touted by the opinion hosts. This is all already in the discovery documents. However, this past week it was learned that a multitude of documents from a former producer, including tape recordings of communications were not released in the discovery process. This led the Fox lawyers to be censured by the judge for not properly sharing requested documents. So the trial which was initially considered as one to be settled before the jury trial started, is going before a jury, it seems. There has been a one-day delay in the proceedings which were due to start tomorrow, so we shall soon see, one way or the other.
There is so much more in the news this week – but further exploration will have to be at a future date:
The expanded news about Justice Clarence Thomas and his hidden financial dealings. When will he be held to account?
The rulings and counter-rulings about the use of Mifepristone which is awaiting a mid-week decision by the Supreme Court. When will these extreme judges be curtailed and women’s rights be restored?
The stockpiling of abortion drug supplies by health departments in Blue states. When will this war on women end? Can they only be safe in Blue states? With the latest ruling in Florida for a six-week abortion ban, basically, the entire deep South holds no hope for women in this area.
The continued mass killings of Americans across this country by people with powerful weapons. Last week there were a total of 131 incidents, today there are 146. As someone noted, more than one incident per day; more incidents than there are days in 2023. This has to stop.
The uproar in Tennessee over the expulsion of two young black legislators pushing for common-sense gun laws has started a movement. Let’s hope they succeed, now that they have been reappointed. Certainly, no one else has; we thought the same after Sandy Hook and after Parkland and…
“Til next week-Peace!
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