DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS

Killing of Mexican public workers reflects cartel brutality

Thu, September 8, 2022 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The killing of two utility workers in northern Mexico may be related to the scorched-earth tactics of warring drug cartels, Mexico's president said Thursday.

Drug cartels in Mexico have increasingly targeted civilian communities in their turf battles, isolating towns that don’t support them by cutting off roads and electricity, or forcing residents to leave.

On Tuesday, assailants opened fire on two trucks carrying workers from the state-owned electrical power company on a highway. Two workers escaped and two were killed.

On Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the area in the northern border state of Sonora was the scene of fighting between gangs, who had cut electricity to two villages as “reprisals.”

“There is fighting between groups there,” López Obrador said of the area around the village of Onavas, where the attack occurred.

While he said the attackers might have mistaken the utility trucks for those of a rival gang, López Obrador noted “there is another hypothesis that suggests they were performing their duties by going to reconnect electricity to two villages that had been cut off by one of the groups as reprisals.”

In the western state of Michoacan, warring drug cartels have periodically cut off villages that appear to support a rival gang, by downing power lines or digging trenches across roadways.

But the attack Tuesday was unusual, because up to now cartels have largely avoided going after public workers trying to reconnect roads or power lines. Moreover, resuscitating the debt-strapped state-owned utility, the Federal Electricity Commission, has been one of López Obrador's main policy initiatives.

Drug cartels — including the La Linea gang based in Ciudad Juarez and factions of the Sinaloa cartel — have been fighting over the lucrative drug-producing and shipping zones of Sonora state for years.

The cartel conflict may have played a role in the 2019 ambush slayings of nine U.S.-Mexican dual citizens in a rural area relatively near Onavas.

The three women and six children from the extended Langford, LeBaron and Miller families were ambushed and slain by suspected drug gang assassins on Nov. 4, 2019.

Initial investigations suggested a squad of gunmen from the La Linea gang had set up the ambush to kill members of the rival cartel. However, relatives of the victims say that at some point, the gunmen must have known who they were killing.

The Queen owned swans, dolphins, whales, and sturgeons. 

Here's who inherits them now.

Bethany Biron Sun, September 11, 2022 

Queen Elizabeth II smiles as she is being shown an orphaned cygnet at Oakley Court on the river bank during the Swan Upping census, the ancient ritual of her swans being counted on the River Thames near Windsor.Sang Tan/PA Images via Getty Images)

• King Charles III will inherit thousands of swans, dolphins, whales, and sturgeon belonging to the Crown.

• The reigning monarch was given symbolic ownership of these species in the 12th century to protect from poachers.

• The royal family oversees the annual "Swan Upping" event, a census of the swan population on the River Thames.

King Charles III is set to receive a vast inheritance from both the Crown and the private estate of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, after she died Thursday — but some of the assets are a bit surprising.

While his inheritance includes items and entities long synonymous with the royal family — including much of the Queen's expansive jewel collection and the $750 million Duchy of Lancaster estate — it also includes stranger assets such as 32,000 swans and an unidentified number of dolphins, whales, and sturgeons, El País reported.

According to El País, the species became the symbolic property of the Crown in the 12th century in order to protect them from poachers. As part of their ownership, the monarch oversees the annual "Swan Upping" event, a census of the swan population on the River Thames.

In the past, the process — which involves weighing, measuring, and assessing the health of the birds — has been conducted by the Queen's Swan Marker, David Barber, according to the Royal Family's official website. The last Swan Upping the Queen attended was in 2009, Metro UK reported.

Queen Elizabeth II (front left) accompanied by Swan Marker David Barber (front right) on the steam launch Alaska, as she watches a swan upper place a swan back into the River Thames near Windsor.Sang Tan/PA Images via Getty Images

The event also became an educational opportunity for school children, who attend to learn more about the biology of swans and the species's place in the ecosystem, according to Metro UK.

Whales and dolphins officially came under the ownership of the Crown in 1324, thanks to an obscure statute that states they are recognized as "fishes royal." This was later expanded to include sturgeon and porpoises, and under the law, the monarch can claim any that are captured or washed ashore within 3 miles of UK shores, according to Time.

The animals are among the many assets that are part of the Crown — or  items that belong to the institution and are not privately owned by the reigning monarch. Across all assets, both privately owned and those belonging to the Crown, El País estimates the Queen's total fortune at $16.2 billion. 

According to The Sunday Times annual Rich List, the Queen's private net worth is $429 million, cumulatively amassed during her seven decades on the throne.

'I cannot mourn': Former colonies conflicted over the queen


1/17

Huge portraits of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah are displayed in Accra, Nov. 9, 1961, as the city prepares for the arrival of the British monarch on a state visit to Ghana. The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived in Accra by plane from London later that that day. 

(AP Photo, File)

CARA ANNA, DANICA COTO and RODNEY MUHUMUZA
Sun, September 11, 2022 

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empire's former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger.

Beyond official condolences praising the queen’s longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

In Kenya, where decades ago a young Elizabeth learned of her father’s death and her enormous new role as queen, a lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading document from 1956. It was issued four years into the queen’s reign, and well into Britain’s harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.

“Movement permit,” the document says. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim conditions, others, like Mugo’s grandmother, were forced to request British permission to go from place to place.

“Most of our grandparents were oppressed,” Mugo tweeted hours after the queen’s death Thursday. “I cannot mourn.”

But Kenya's outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was imprisoned during the queen's rule before becoming the country's first president in 1964, overlooked past troubles, as did other African heads of state. “The most iconic figure of the 20th and 21st centuries,” Uhuru Kenyatta called her.

Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible.

“This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something never shared in,” said Bert Samuels, a member of the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica.

Elizabeth’s reign saw the hard-won independence of African countries from Ghana to Zimbabwe, along with a string of Caribbean islands and nations along the edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

Some historians see her as a monarch who helped oversee the mostly peaceful transition from empire to the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 nations with historic and linguistic ties. But she was also the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it subjugated.

There were few signs of public grief or even interest in her death across the Middle East, where many still hold Britain responsible for colonial actions that drew much of the region’s borders and laid the groundwork for many of its modern conflicts. On Saturday, Gaza’s Hamas rulers called on King Charles III to “correct” British mandate decisions that they said oppressed Palestinians.

In ethnically divided Cyprus, many Greek Cypriots remembered the four-year guerrilla campaign waged in the late 1950s against colonial rule and the queen's perceived indifference over the plight of nine people whom British authorities executed by hanging.

Yiannis Spanos, president of the Association of National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, said the queen was “held by many as bearing responsibility” for the island’s tragedies.

Now, with her passing, there are new efforts to address the colonial past, or hide it.

India is renewing its efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove colonial names and symbols. The country has long moved on, even overtaking the British economy in size.

“I do not think we have any place for kings and queens in today’s world, because we are the world’s largest democratic country,” said Dhiren Singh, a 57-year-old entrepreneur in New Delhi.

There was some sympathy for the Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into.

In Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, resident Max Kahindi remembered the Mau Mau rebellion “with a lot of bitterness” and recalled how some elders were detained or killed. But he said the queen was “a very young lady” then, and he believes someone else likely was running British affairs.

“We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time,” Kahindi said.

Timothy Kalyegira, a political analyst in Uganda, said there is a lingering “spiritual connection” in some African countries, from the colonial experience to the Commonwealth. “It is a moment of pain, a moment of nostalgia," he said.

The queen’s dignified persona and age, and the centrality of the English language in global affairs, are powerful enough to temper some criticisms, Kalyegira added: “She’s seen more as the mother of the world.”

Mixed views were also found in the Caribbean, where some countries are removing the British monarch as their head of state.

“You have contradictory consciousness,” said Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer in development studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, whose prime minister announced during this year’s visit of Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, and Kate that the island intended to become fully independent.

The younger generation of royals seem to have greater sensitivity to colonialism’s implications, Thame said — during the visit, William expressed his “profound sorrow” for slavery.

Nadeen Spence, an activist, said appreciation for Elizabeth among older Jamaicans isn't surprising since she was presented by the British as “this benevolent queen who has always looked out for us,” but young people aren't awed by the royal family.

“The only thing I noted about the queen’s passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery,” Spence said. “She should’ve apologized.”

___

Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP stories on Queen Elizabeth II’s death and other stories about the British monarchy at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii

John Oliver Brutally Mocks Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, and Liz Truss

Marlow Stern
Sun, September 11, 2022

HBO

After laying into new U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss, whom he referred to as “Margaret Thatcher if she were high on glue,” Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver took on the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday night.

The British comic, who is also a U.S. citizen, was addressing comments Truss made about a proposed windfall tax on oil and gas companies in order to help offset skyrocketing energy bills in England.

When asked about the tax, Truss delivered a rambling response, saying in part, “I don’t think ‘profit’ is a dirty word. The fact it’s become a dirty word in our society is a massive problem.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” exclaimed Oliver. “Look, I’m just gonna say this, and you may not like it, but it doesn’t make it any less true: The nicest thing the Queen of England ever did for anyone was die the week that woman became prime minister. Because for at least a week, she’s not going to get justifiably destroyed for answers like that.”

He then continued: “Look, things are pretty fucking bleak in the U.K. right now. This fucking guy is about to be on all the money”—pointing to a photo of King Charles III—“and morning TV is now basically The Hunger Games,” alluding to a segment where hosts were spinning a wheel to pay for people’s energy bills.

“But don’t worry, Britain: Your future is now securely in the hands of dollar-store British Leslie Knope here. Everything is going to be fine!”

The Queen Represented Racist Violence As Much As She Did Glamour



Scaachi Koul

BUZZFEED NEWS
Fri, September 9, 2022

I don’t know why people get sad when someone famous, old, and comfortable finally dies. It just doesn’t strike me as that devastating; death is the ultimate retirement, and I’ve been trying to be idle since the minute I was born. But on Sept. 8 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, at 96, Queen Elizabeth II died. She had a long, well-documented, dutiful life: She was the eighth Queen of England, a thorn in the sides of several nonwhite countries for seven decades, and, of course, the reason why immigrant mothers like my own defended Princess Diana so fiercely. The internet appears deeply divided between people dunking on her (myself included) and people mourning someone whose best quality was how much she loved corgis. (Those tweets are also pretty funny but clearly not intentionally so.)

I don’t care that the Queen is dead. She had a good run and I didn’t know her, so why should I waste the six tears I am allotted per year on a stranger? The only reason I’m here is because I delight in upsetting Europeans, a long-held tradition for nonwhite Canadians for at least a century and a half. (Have you ever confused a shepherd’s pie and a chicken pot pie in front of a white person? You should. It turns into a whole thing.) But I struggle with the fact that so many people are actively devastated about her death. We are sure to enter at least a week of celebrations of her very long life, but…why?

Her wealth and influence persisted entirely because of colonialism.

Queen Elizabeth’s death, unlike those of other famous older women, signals almost nothing at all for the day-to-day lives of people around the world; it might mean some changes for how we view the monarchy, but politically, her death is a nonevent. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death meant that Roe v. Wade would certainly be overturned (and boy were we right). Queer activist Urvashi Vaid died earlier this spring, a loss to several civil rights movements, from healthcare justice to anti-war efforts. When activist and writer Barbara Ehrenreich died at the beginning of the month, it meant one fewer voice of reason in the public discourse of socialism, feminism, and community.

Queen Elizabeth’s death, conversely, means nothing other than that she opted not to be cryogenically frozen in order to be brought back during the next fall of civilization so she can take more jewels that never belonged to her or her family in the first place.

Do I sound bitter? I do not care. There’s something uniquely pitiful about mourning a woman who has been running an organization notorious for its genocidal tendencies. In the short time since her death, some people have argued that you can mourn the individual without mourning the empire. This, as far as I, a brown person, am concerned, is impossible, because Queen Elizabeth didn’t just profit from the pillaging and racial evisceration her lineage propagated since the beginning of British civilization; she was an active participant. Ultimately, her entire existence was buoyed by the atrocities of her family’s past; her wealth and influence persisted entirely because of colonialism.

I know it’s nice to rewrite history, to present Queen Elizabeth as a softer member of the monarchy. But it’s not like she wasn’t alive during colonialism guided by British exceptionalism or the political unrest it caused (and continues to cause). People who were children when the British ruled their countries are still alive; it was just under a year ago that Barbados removed her as its head of state. Countries like India and Pakistan continue to wrestle with the economic, geographic, and cultural impacts of British colonialism, while others, like Saint Kitts and Nevis, have only recently gained true independence after centuries of meddling from the royals.

There are many photos and videos of the Queen visiting her former colonies, with locals fawning over her as if her legacy isn’t a part of what hurled their countries into upheaval in the first place. I find that coverage creepy, like photos of a prison warden walking the grounds, the inmates grateful to be in the presence of such disproportionate wealth and ambivalence. Why did she keep coming back to India, to Canada, to Ghana? To remind everyone that she still could, that her reach would always extend to their shores?

Nations impacted by the British Empire struggle to own their histories; they’re simply stopovers in the long march of imperialism. The empire didn’t grow organically. Their riches were stolen in the form of labor from enslaved people, pilfered bijous, and of course, tea. Elizabeth could have given any of the wealth back. She could have cemented herself as the royal who redistributed what was taken. She didn’t, though, and that wasn’t by mistake.

What global value do you have if your relevancy is tied entirely to what your family has stolen?

Don’t get me wrong; the Queen was certainly historically significant. The royals have always thought they knew how to run countries better than the native populations did; she followed in these footsteps. She had parties where people showed up wearing blackface brooches. She was a walking, living piece of undeniable history. It’s not like anyone was going to, or will, cancel the Queen; she was too fundamental to England and the Commonwealth. Even Canada is still obsessed with her, and we formally cut ourselves off from the royal teat in the late ’70s. We still have a representative of the monarchy in the federal government! She’s still featured on our comically green $20 bills! No wonder everyone else in the UN makes fun of us.

Yet by the end of her life, the Queen had almost no tangible political power. As colonialism became less popular, her influence waned as well. Are you actually powerful if that power comes only through destruction? What global value do you have if your relevancy is tied entirely to what your family has stolen?

Most of us can agree symbols are important. That doesn’t mean we need to mourn when those historical figures take their last gasps. Swastikas are an indisputable part of European history, but most of us agree we don’t need to keep them around in order to remember the Holocaust. (Another thing white people took from Hindus, but, whatever, one enormous trespass at a time I guess.) You can go to all the Jubilees and celebrate all the sesquicentennials you want (a fun word that the Canadian government made all of us learn in 2017 that has never been useful since), but the British Empire has a long, well-documented history of racist violence. The Queen, ultimately, is a symbol of destruction in the same way she’s a symbol of glamour and wealth and history. That’s an unforgettable reality for most of us, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to celebrate it, either.

And frankly, the empire’s history of racism isn’t even that far back in the past. Even the treatment of Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, within both the family and the firm made it clear the monarchy learned very little. British tabloids are brutal, but they would’ve easily bent at the knee had the Queen told them to stop ritualistically harassing the only nonwhite member of her entire lineage. Instead, she toed the party line. Timid in your 90s? What’s the point?

If you’re sad about the Queen, no matter your nationality, it requires some deep introspection. What are you sad about?

And yet, celebrities like Liz Phair and Paris Hilton (what??) are out here praising her for being the “original girl boss” icon, for not taking shit from men while, let’s say, British soldiers tortured and killed thousands of Kenyans in the ’50s. We’re only just beginning to understand the abuses coming from the British Empire; documents that were thought to be “lost” but resurfaced in 2011 reveal so much barbarity. While she was alive, the Queen never apologized for these crimes done in her name. As the head of the firm, she never even acknowledged England’s grisly history.

I’ve been visiting family in Canada for the last two weeks, perfect timing to be visiting the Commonwealth. My parents are from India; they’re native Kashmiris, a community still reeling from the effects of Partition. My dad was born three years after the British decided to leave, and as such, the Queen hasn’t exactly been held in high esteem by my family. When my dad found out that she died, he barely reacted — if anyone should care, it should perhaps be an Indian Canadian with a Napoleon complex who likes gilded chairs and unyielding allegiance to a cause. Instead, he grumbled how she should posthumously return the Koh-i-Noor diamond to India. “I know she won’t,” he admitted, resigned, while sucking down some falooda. He’s right — apparently, the diamond will go to Camilla, because I guess the royals want my dad to have a heart attack and for my mom to scream at me for a fortnight about why white women don’t even look good in flashy jewelry in the first place.

If you’re sad about the Queen, no matter your nationality, it requires some deep introspection. What are you sad about? What do you feel like we lost? A piece of history already so thoroughly documented? A reminder of what imperialism looked like back when whiteness, wealth, and European domination were even more pronounced than it currently is? Is it nostalgia for a time when things were easier — for you? The monarchy is defunct, its members are institutionally powerless, and now the Queen is dead. The world is moving on past what the monarchy gave us or, rather, what the monarchy took. Diana’s gone, Meghan’s making podcasts in Palo Alto, and you want me to feel sad that the Queen died? Pass. Save your tears for something that matters. ●

Former Obama official calls out US networks over Queen Elizabeth coverage, zeroing in on her connection to British colonialism

John Haltiwanger
Fri, September 9, 2022 

Queen Elizabeth in Cape Town, South Africa in March 1995.Getty Images

Richard Stengel, an ex-Obama official, called out US networks for their heavy coverage of Queen Elizabeth's death.

"There's a weakness in the American character that still yearns for that era of hereditary privilege," he said.

Stengel also zeroed in on Queen Elizabeth's ties to British colonialism.

Richard Stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2016, in an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday called out US networks over extensive coverage of Queen Elizabeth II's death.

"I have to say to your earlier question, why why are news American news networks dedicating all of this time to Queen Elizabeth's funeral? I think it's a good question," Stengel said. "There's a weakness in the American character that still yearns for that era of hereditary privilege, which is the very thing that we escaped from."

Stengel underscored that it was Queen Elizabeth's "great-great-great-great-grandfather George III who we rebelled from to start the United States of America."




Though the former Obama official said he pays "tribute to Queen Elizabeth for her unrivaled service," he also critiqued her connection to British colonialism.

"You played a clip of her speaking in Cape Town in 1947 in South Africa. That's the year apartheid took effect in South Africa. That was something that British colonialism ushered in. British colonialism, which she presided over for all these years, had a terrible effect on much of the world. It's something that people revolt from," he said.
—The Recount (@therecount) September 8, 2022

Apartheid was an institutionalized system of white supremacy involving racial segregation and discrimination against South Africa's non-white inhabitants. "Although many of the segregationist policies dated back to the early decades of the twentieth century, it was the election of the Nationalist Party in 1948 that marked the beginning of legalized racism's harshest features called Apartheid," per the State Department.

South Africa was colonized by both the Dutch and British, and apartheid was firmly rooted in that history.

Queen Elizabeth was head of state to 32 countries over the course of her 70-year reign, which is intrinsically linked to Britain's long history of imperialism. Seventeen of those countries — including South Africa in 1961 — ultimately cut ties with the British monarchy during the same period. The most recent country to do so, Barbados, removed Queen Elizabeth as head of state and became a republic in late 2021.

Reactions to Queen Elizabeth's death in South Africa highlight how the legacy of British colonialism has bred mixed feelings about the British royal family.

"We do not mourn the death of Elizabeth," South Africa's Marxist opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, said, per Reuters. "Our interaction with Britain has been one of pain...death and dispossession, and of the dehumanization of the African people.

That said, Queen Elizabeth had an amicable relationship with Nelson Mandela, who was the first Black president of South Africa following the end of apartheid.

"By his own admission, Nelson Mandela was an anglophile, and in the years after his release from prison cultivated a close relationship with the Queen," the Nelson Mandela Foundation wrote in a statement on Queen Elizabeth's death, adding, "They also talked on the phone frequently, using their first names with each other as a sign of mutual respect as well as affection."

"For Madiba it was important that the former colonial power in southern Africa should be drawn into cordial and productive relations with the newly democratic republic of South Africa," the statement went on to say, employing Mandela's clan name. "In later life Madiba would often take pleasure in reminding interlocutors from Britain that South Africa had thrown off the colonial yoke."

ARGENTINA
Judge indicts 19 in yoga sect that used sex to lure powerful


Police escort Juan Percowicz to serve pre-trial detention at his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 30, 2022. Authorities have identified Percowicz, 84, as the leader of the sect-like Buenos Aires Yoga School, which did not offer yoga classes and is under investigation for alleged sex trafficking, money laundering, extortion and other crimes. 

(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

DANIEL POLITI
Thu, September 8, 2022 at 5:21 PM·2 min read

BUENOS AIRES (AP) — A judge in Argentina indicted 19 people on Thursday for their alleged involvement in a yoga school in Buenos Aires that operated like a sect and coerced female members to have sex with rich and powerful men in order to obtain money and other benefits.

Judge Ariel Lijo formally charged 19 people on crimes including criminal conspiracy, human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation, money laundering and smuggling.

The Buenos Aires Yoga School, which operated for more than 30 years in Argentina’s capital under the leadership of 84-year-old Juan Percowicz, did not actually offer yoga classes. Instead, it lured in people with promises of eternal happiness before it exploited them sexually and financially, prosecutors say.

The investigation into the group revealed that opera star Placido Domingo had contact with the organization’s leaders for more than two decades.

Lijo ruled that 14 of the 19 people indicted will be remanded in custody and an embargo has been placed on their assets. Prosecutors had requested indictments of 20 people.

Law enforcement officials continue to search for six suspects believed to be in the United States, where the school had offices in New York, Las Vegas and Chicago

In his resolution, Lijo says the school tricked vulnerable people to join, noting leaders preyed particularly on those who were underage or had serious health problems, including addictions. People were wooed to join with promises of healing and support, but were later exploited, often sexually, for the benefit of the organization’s leaders.

The group operated by cutting students off from the outside world by giving them living quarters, work within the organization and making sure they started socializing exclusively with people who were part of the organization.

Students were used and exploited, both sexually and financially, to obtain economic benefit for Percowicz and other top leaders of the organization, Lijo said. Members were often forced to have sex with wealthy or powerful men in order to build a commercial relationship with the men deemed their “boyfriends.”

Female students were forced to determine what they could get from each person and they had to do everything possible to obtain it, Lijo said.

Percowicz claimed to have great wisdom and even “divine powers” as a way to indoctrinate students and explained his beliefs on a mixture of classic literature as well as religious and spiritual texts.

It was up to Percowicz to decide how students moved up the seven levels of the school’s strict hierarchy that had the leader at the top, a system that amounts to psychological coercion, according to Lijo.

Even though the leaders of the group promised students they would receive teachings in philosophy and they would be healed, the only goal of the group’s leaders was to make money, Lijo said.

Jailed Kremlin critic: Government has ‘failed to shut me up’

  

 

Russian opposition activist and municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district Ilya Yashin, top, steps down from a police truck to attend a hearing on his detention, at the Basmanny district court in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. Yashin, 39, is one of the few prominent opposition figures that refused to leave Russia despite the unprecedented pressure the authorities have mounted on dissent in recent years. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)More

DASHA LITVINOVA
Fri, September 9, 2022

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin may be in jail, but he refuses to be silenced.

His social media accounts are regularly updated with anecdotes about his life in detention or video commentary criticizing President Vladimir Putin’s rule. He gives interviews to media outlets by providing written answers to questions through his lawyers from behind bars.

He uses court appearances as an opportunity to speak out against the Kremlin’s devastating war in Ukraine — which is exactly what he is being prosecuted for.

“So far the authorities have failed to shut me up,” Yashin told The Associated Press in a lengthy handwritten letter from a pre-trial detention center in Moscow, passed on via his lawyers and associates last week.


“The opposition should speak the truth and stimulate a peaceful anti-war resistance … It is very important to help people overcome their fear. But one can only truly motivate people with their own personal example,” the politician added.

Yashin, 39, is one of the few prominent opposition figures who has refused to leave Russia despite the unprecedented pressure the authorities have mounted on dissent in recent years. He says leaving Russia would have affected his authority and value as a politician.

A sharp critic of the Kremlin, a vocal ally of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and an uncompromising member of a Moscow municipal council, Yashin was arrested in June. The authorities charged him with spreading false information about the Russian military — a new criminal offense for which he faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The charges against Yashin reportedly relate to a YouTube livestream video in which he talked about Ukrainians being killed in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. He rejects the charges as politically motivated.

On Friday, a court in Moscow extended Yashin's detention for two more months, until Nov. 12. "Don’t worry, everything’s fine. Russia will be free,” the politician said as he was being escorted out of the courtroom by police.

Yashin wrote answers to the AP’s questions in his small cell in Moscow’s notorious Butyrskaya prison that he shares with several other people.

His day there starts at 6 a.m. and ends at 10 p.m., he wrote, and consists of a walk, three meals, a couple of inspections and lots of free time. So he writes and reads a lot to make use of it.

Last week, his parents visited him in detention. His mother, Tatyana, told the AP in a phone interview that he was “holding up well and not regretting anything.”

She said the risk of her son getting arrested has been there for years — since 2012, when arrests followed mass protests in Moscow over reports of widespread rigging at a parliamentary election. “But you know how it is: You always hope for the best,” Tatyana Yashina said. “Nevertheless, we were, of course, prepared.”

Yashin said he, too, was ready for the arrest.

After the authorities adopted a law that criminalized the spread of false information about the military, effectively outlawing all criticism of what the Kremlin calls “a special military operation" in Ukraine, “it became obvious: The security forces will come after all public opponents of Putin who refuse to emigrate,” Yashin said.

“So yes, I tried to prepare for prison as much as it was possible. I got my health in order, completed my dental treatments. Explained the situation, explained the risks to my family and loved ones. Prepared my home for a raid, gathered a team of lawyers in advance. And most importantly — I mentally prepared to take the heat.”

What did surprise him, Yashin said, was how much respect law enforcement officers treated him with —

In detention, both the inmates and the guards are genuinely puzzled to hear that the politician is facing 10 years in prison “for a few words against the war,” Yashin wrote: “In Russia, courts hand down shorter sentences for theft, assaults, rapes and sometimes even murders.”

With all protests suppressed by a brutal crackdown and most opposition leaders leaving the country, spreading the word has become the main effort for many.

Even though Navalny is in jail, his team continues to post video exposes of corruption and regular livestreams on the politician’s YouTube channels. The three most popular channels combined currently have more than 10 million subscribers.

Yashin’s own YouTube channel, regularly updated even after his arrest with news analysis and political commentary, has nearly 1.4 million subscribers. Most of his videos over the past six months have been dedicated to the war and criticizing the Kremlin for it.

“Demand for an alternative point of view has appeared in society,” Yashin told the AP.

Denis Volkov, director of Russia's top independent pollster Levada center, told the AP that the influence of independent sources of information in Russia has grown in recent years thanks to popular video blogs on YouTube as an alternative to state television.

“People read little, but watch a lot,” Volkov said.

Yashin urged ordinary Russians to help spread the word.

“Show your grandmother, who is used to watching TV, a couple of interesting channels on YouTube. Teach your relative from a small town to use VPN so that he can read the news on a blocked independent news site. Create a chat with friends and neighbors, share links, anti-corruption investigations and opinions there.”

Yashin said that both before his arrest and in detention, he has seen very little support for the war in Ukraine, despite the authorities' vast effort to control the narrative and weed out any criticisms or dissenting voices.

The Kremlin has insisted for months that there is overwhelming support for the invasion. Just this week, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated once again that “the absolute majority” of Russians were behind the decision to send troops into Ukraine.

Behind bars, the war is widely and actively discussed, Yashin said, but there is either an understanding among those discussing it that Russia has been drawn into a major crisis, or disappointment at Moscow’s modest successes on the battlefield.

“I’m convinced that by getting involved in the war, Putin has started the countdown of his time in power. He went all in, but miscalculated…”

The final lines of his letter from prison offer his hope for the future. “I am convinced that my country, after all, will become part of a free and civilized world,” he says. “But no one will win this battle for us. It is only our responsibility.”

 

Eric Trump comes under fire for claiming his father has done more for Christianity than anyone

Sarah K. Burris
September 11, 2022

Eric Trump on Facebook.

Eric Trump, the middle son of a former president, Donald Trump, made a curious claim that is sending some Christians to turn their heads.

“There’s no one who’s done more for Christianity than Donald Trump. No one," said the younger Trump.

Former Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, noted that the video left out that Eric Trump was talking about "religious freedom" when he said that no one had done more for Christianity. Those viewed as the biggest fighters for religious freedom tend to be the founding fathers, who wrote into the Constitution that Americans could think and believe what they want. The right seems to believe that religious freedom means that churches can do whatever they want and that right-wing Christianity is more powerful than the government and "religious freedom" only applies to Christianity to the right-wing.

It's a claim that many dispute, as Jesus Christ is generally considered to have done the most for Christianity since it's named after him.

"No one has done more for Christian nationalism, not for Christianity. That Eric Trump doesn’t know the difference is the problem," tweeted Baptist Pastor George Mason.

Brian Tyler Cohen's podcast account noted that he could think of at least "one or two people" who did more than Trump.

Actor Ken Olin also found the claim absurd, noting that even Eric Trump's "ignorance is ignorant."

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (IL) is a frequent foe of the Trump family. He also suggested Jesus might be a better choice, if not him, Billy Graham was his other suggestion.

"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves," Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, some of those commenting on Trump recalled.

Others were quick to suggest people like Mother Teresa, who was declared a saint by the Catholic Church in 2003. Another mentioned Pope Francis, who leads the Catholic church, and is said to have "divine institution, supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls," according to the Catechism.

There were many other options from those online and they all appeared to be people who dedicated their lives to charity, service and God.

See the clip from Eric Trump's speech in the video below or at the link here:

 

YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT ERIC WOULD HAVE BEEN AWARE OF THIS

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Nikola Founder Milton Faces New York Jury in His Toughest Sales Job

Trevor Milton sold investors on the idea his company was building the truck of the future. Now, he’ll have to persuade a jury his alleged lies weren’t material.


Bloomberg News
Chris Dolmetsch
Publishing date:Sep 12, 2022 

A Nikola Tre battery-electric heavy duty truck at the Nikola Corp.-Iveco SpA joint venture electric truck plant in Ulm, Germany, on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. Nikola Iveco Europe GmbH hosted an event where its partner Iveco -- the commercial-vehicle unit of CNH Industrial NV -- is preparing to start series production of Nikola Tre heavy-duty trucks by year-end.

 PHOTO BY ANDREAS GEBERT /Bloomberg


(Bloomberg) — Trevor Milton sold investors on the idea his company was building the truck of the future. Now, he’ll have to persuade a jury his alleged lies weren’t material.

Two years after he abruptly resigned from the board of Nikola Corp. — the company he started — Milton is set to go on trial in New York on securities fraud and wire fraud charges, facing a maximum prison term of 25 years if convicted of the most serious charge.

Milton, who founded Nikola in 2014, built the startup into a company that in June of 2020 was valued at $34 billion, more than Ford Motor Co. at one point. The meteoric rise — despite having no revenue at the time — was buoyed by investors in the height of the SPAC craze seeking the next Tesla Inc.

US prosecutors plan to argue that the Utah man induced retail investors to buy Nikola shares by making false statements about the company’s products and capabilities. Milton’s lawyers will likely make one focus of his defense the advice he relied on from the company’s lawyers and executives, saying that’s what determined what he told shareholders and he had no intent to defraud anyone.

“They shared responsibility with Mr. Milton for the accuracy of the investor communications,” Kenneth Caruso, a lawyer for Milton, said at a pretrial conference last week.

US District Judge Edgardo Ramos last week denied Milton’s request to use in the trial advice that Nikola General Counsel Britton Worthen gave other employees, which was intended to bolster his defense. But he will be able to use communications between himself and Worthen to rebut prosecutors’ claims that he made public statements he knew were false.

Milton’s attorneys have pointed to evidence to support that argument, including a series of emails between Nikola executives and the founder about a podcast in which he allegedly misled investors — which they say show his statements were approved by the company’s legal team.

The Phoenix-based Nikola kickstarted the SPAC trend among electric-vehicle makers in June 2020, three months before Milton stepped down as chairman, by combining with the blank-check acquisition vehicle VectoIQ.

Milton’s resignation followed a report from short seller Hindenburg Research that claimed Nikola deceived investors by making non-working products appear fully functional and staging misleading videos. Nikola shares plummeted on the report, which also spurred probes by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Nikola shares closed at $5.42 Friday, valuing the company at $2.3 billion.

Milton called the report a “hit job,” and Nikola pushed back on Hindenburg’s allegations that it had overstated the capabilities of some of its earliest test trucks, saying the report underestimated its ability to produce hydrogen for its fuel-cell-powered trucks. Milton resigned saying the “focus should be on the company.”

Even if prosecutors can convince jurors that Milton lied to shareholders, to show he committed securities fraud they will also have to prove that the alleged misrepresentations were material to a reasonable investor, or central to their decision to invest.

Nikola sees itself as a leader in clean-energy heavy vehicles in a high-potential field for zero emissions trucks that includes other aspirants such as Tesla Inc. and legacy players like Volvo AB. The company built 50 battery-electric semis in the second quarter, delivering 48 to dealers and missing its own forecast.

The trial before Ramos is scheduled to begin with jury selection Monday and opening arguments likely as early as Tuesday. The trial is expected to last four to five weeks and is to feature testimony from experts from both sides as well as Nikola employees, including engineers who worked on prototypes, and company shareholders.

Milton’s relationship with the company he founded has been strained since he stepped down. They have fought over whether documents are privileged and Milton — Nikola’s largest shareholder, with more than 12% of the stock — opposed a company measure this year to issue new shares. The measure was approved by shareholders.

Nikola started making payments on a $125 million civil settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February. The company has said it will seek reimbursement from Milton for those costs, even though it continues to cover his legal fees.

The case is US v Milton, 21-cr-478, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan.)