Clown Car VII: Or "Gulliver's Travels 2: The Witch Hunt Continues"

Businessman Pleads Guilty and Agrees To Cooperate in Case Against Menendez

BY CORINNE RAMEY AND JAMES FANELLI

Sen. Bob Menendez’s defense against public-corruption charges suffered a blow Friday when a businessman pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe the New Jersey Democrat and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

Jose Uribe, who operated an insurance business, pleaded guilty to seven criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, honest-services fraud and obstruction of justice, according to court documents filed Friday. Uribe admitted to making payments toward a Mercedes-Benz convertible for Menendez and his wife, in exchange for the senator’s assistance in resolving a pair of criminal matters in the state.

Uribe’s cooperation bolsters prosecutors’ case against Menendez, since the businessman could testify against the senator at trial, set to begin on May 6, and offer an insider’s account to jurors of the alleged scheme. Adam Fee, a lawyer for Menendez, said the senator looked forward to proving his innocence in court. “Today’s news of Mr. Uribe’s change of plea does not change the core truth: Sen. Menendez is innocent and the prosecutors have got it wrong,” Fee said.

A lawyer for Uribe declined to comment. A judge scheduled Uribe’s sentencing for June 14. Uribe was indicted last year alongside Menendez, the senator’s wife, Nadine Menendez, and two other New Jersey businessmen for an alleged scheme in which prosecutors say the senator and his spouse received hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and other gifts in exchange for favors. Prosecutors have accused Menendez of using his office to help the Egyptian and Qatari governments while enriching the businessmen.

Menendez, his wife and the other two businessmen have pleaded not guilty. Menendez, who previously served as a chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, beat a prior set of public- corruption charges, which prosecutors dropped after an earlier trial ended in a mistrial.

Uribe admitted to helping to pay for a car for Nadine Menendez in exchange for the senator’s help in obtaining a favorable outcome in an associate’s criminal case in New Jersey state court. Uribe also admitted to seeking the senator’s intervention in a state criminal investigation into one of his employees. Prosecutors allege that Menendez spoke to senior officials in the New Jersey attorney general’s office to push them to resolve the matter. No one in the office intervened as the senator requested, prosecutors said.

Uribe also admitted to causing his then-lawyer to make false statements about the car payments to the office of the Manhattan U.S. attorney, which brought the charges. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion for failing to report some income to the government, from 2016 through 2021.

While Uribe’s total maximum sentence is 95 years in prison, according to his plea agreement, his cooperation is likely to earn him a much more lenient sentence. If Uribe holds up his end of the bargain and provides substantial assistance to prosecutors, they agree to write him a letter requesting leniency from the judge.





Jose Uribe, left, pleaded guilty to seven counts and could testify at the May trial of Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.). FROM LEFT: BING GUAN/ BLOOMBERG NEWS, AL DRAGO/ BLOOMBERG NEWS
 
[party] For myself, I try to keep Super Tuesday in my heart all year long.
 
SAD!:sad:

Nikki Haley ends White House bid, clearing path for a Trump-Biden rematch​

Nikki Haley ended her long-shot challenge to Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Wednesday, ensuring the former president will be the party's candidate in a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November's election.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, bowed out a day after Super Tuesday, opens new tab, when Trump beat her soundly in 14 of 15 Republican nominating contests.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ni...can-presidential-race-wsj-reports-2024-03-06/
 
Lexicus said:
McConnell endorses Trump. Even more pathetic than Ted Cruz?
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Nah. I think Lindsey Graham is the worst, because of all the shameless flip flopping, Ted Cruz is next because at least he only shamelessly and cowardly flipped once. McConnell is after that, because he doesn't really flip-flop, he never pretends to take any actual principled stance and always just acts blatantly strategically partisan.
 
2005...I believe that Bush was president then.

Anecdote from Sen. Katie Britt’s criticism of Biden’s border policies appears to be from before he was president​

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt graphically described a woman’s story of being “sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12,” during the Republican response to the State of the Union address on Thursday, using the story as an anecdote of, what she called, President Joe Biden’s failed immigration policies. But the story she seemed to describe didn’t take place during Biden’s time as president or vice president, nor did it happen in the United States.

“When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped,” Britt said from her Alabama home.

She then described in detail how “the cartels put her on a mattress in a shoebox of a room, and they sent men through that door, over and over again, for hours and hours on end.” “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country,” Britt said. “This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace. It’s despicable. And it’s almost entirely preventable.”

In a detailed video posted on TikTok on Friday, freelance journalist Jonathan Katz tracks down what appears to be the story Britt references and finds that it happened in Mexico in the mid-2000s, not while Biden was president or vice president. Katz cites a 2023 press release from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who, along with Sens. Britt and Cindy Hyde-Smith, went to Eagle Pass, Texas, in January 2023 – shortly after Britt took office – to hear from Karla Jacinto Romero, a human trafficking survivor, among others. “The Senators learned about cartel activity in Mexico and the work being done to rescue victims of human trafficking,” the press release said.

Jacinto Romero has shared her story publicly, including in a 2015 hearing on sex trafficking held by the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Human Rights. Through a translator, she said that for four years, starting from the age of 12, she was “emotionally and sexually violated time and time again.” She explained at how, at age 16, she was able to escape to a shelter and “grow into the activist” she became. In the testimony, Jacinto Romero noted that she was 22 years old – meaning the sexual abuse began around 10 years earlier.

Britt has previously referenced the story she gave Thursday – including on Capitol Hill on September 27, 2023, according to her social media account.

In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for Britt’s office neither confirmed nor denied Britt was sharing Jacinto Romero’s account, but said the story the senator told “was 100% correct.”

“The Biden Administration’s policies — the policies in this country that the President falsely claims are humane — have empowered the cartels and acted as a magnet to a historic level of migrants making the dangerous journey to our border. Along that journey, children, women, and men are being subjected to gut-wrenching, heartbreaking horrors in our own backyard,” spokesperson Sean Ross said.

 
Birdjaguar said:
2005...I believe that Bush was president then.

Anecdote from Sen. Katie Britt’s criticism of Biden’s border policies appears to be from before he was president​

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt graphically described a woman’s story of being “sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12,” during the Republican response to the State of the Union address on Thursday, using the story as an anecdote of, what she called, President Joe Biden’s failed immigration policies. But the story she seemed to describe didn’t take place during Biden’s time as president or vice president, nor did it happen in the United States.

“When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped,” Britt said from her Alabama home.

She then described in detail how “the cartels put her on a mattress in a shoebox of a room, and they sent men through that door, over and over again, for hours and hours on end.” “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country,” Britt said. “This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace. It’s despicable. And it’s almost entirely preventable.”

In a detailed video posted on TikTok on Friday, freelance journalist Jonathan Katz tracks down what appears to be the story Britt references and finds that it happened in Mexico in the mid-2000s, not while Biden was president or vice president. Katz cites a 2023 press release from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who, along with Sens. Britt and Cindy Hyde-Smith, went to Eagle Pass, Texas, in January 2023 – shortly after Britt took office – to hear from Karla Jacinto Romero, a human trafficking survivor, among others. “The Senators learned about cartel activity in Mexico and the work being done to rescue victims of human trafficking,” the press release said.

Jacinto Romero has shared her story publicly, including in a 2015 hearing on sex trafficking held by the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Human Rights. Through a translator, she said that for four years, starting from the age of 12, she was “emotionally and sexually violated time and time again.” She explained at how, at age 16, she was able to escape to a shelter and “grow into the activist” she became. In the testimony, Jacinto Romero noted that she was 22 years old – meaning the sexual abuse began around 10 years earlier.

Britt has previously referenced the story she gave Thursday – including on Capitol Hill on September 27, 2023, according to her social media account.

In a statement to CNN, a spokesperson for Britt’s office neither confirmed nor denied Britt was sharing Jacinto Romero’s account, but said the story the senator told “was 100% correct.”

“The Biden Administration’s policies — the policies in this country that the President falsely claims are humane — have empowered the cartels and acted as a magnet to a historic level of migrants making the dangerous journey to our border. Along that journey, children, women, and men are being subjected to gut-wrenching, heartbreaking horrors in our own backyard,” spokesperson Sean Ross said.

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So Britt got caught lying... on top of everything else wrong with her SOU response speech
 
Not lies, alternative narratives.

Oh, @Sommerswerd, I think I have a baseline explanation for the particular way Britt's speech went off the rails, and it puts me in mind of a charming story you told a couple of months back, about how you read to your kids How the Grinch Stole Christmas like an old-timey dad.

I think all the weird shifts in vocal tone are the kind of dramatic over-emphasis that parents put on particular speeches and narrative passages when they tell stories, so that younglings, who aren't yet accustomed to subtle cues for emotion, will pick up on the story. When she had to describe evil rape-enabling Joe Biden, she dropped into villain voice. Other times it was buoyant optimism voice or stern lecturey voice.

She was reading the speech at us like we were ten year olds.
 
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GOP nominee to run North Carolina public schools called for violence against Democrats, including executing Obama and Biden​

The Republican nominee for superintendent overseeing North Carolina’s public schools and its $11 billion budget has a history marked by extreme and controversial comments, including sharing baseless conspiracy theories and frequent calls for the execution of prominent Democrats.

Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.

In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.

“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to a user sharing a conspiracy theory who suggested sending Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

In another post in May 2020, she responded to a fake Time Magazine cover that featured art of Obama in an electric chair asking if he should be executed. “Death to ALL traitors!!” Morrow responded. In yet another comment, Morrow suggested in December 2020 killing Biden, who at that time was president-elect, and has said he would ask Americans to wear a mask for 100 days. “Never. We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!! #JusticeforAmerica,” she wrote.

CNN reached out to Morrow and her campaign multiple times but did not receive a response.

From activist to candidate​

Last Tuesday, Morrow defeated Catherine Truitt, the incumbent North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, in the Republican primary. Morrow, a registered nurse and grassroots activist who homeschooled her children, ran on a platform of supporting parental rights and opposing critical race theory.

As superintendent, Morrow would oversee the state’s public school system and help set educational priorities, manage the school system’s budgets, and work with the state’s Board of Education to set and implement curriculum standards. Her website lists endorsements by “conservative school boards” but remains light on changes she’d make if elected.

Morrow has in the past called public schools “socialism centers” and “indoctrination centers.”

In a campaign speech in February, Morrow advocated for a constitutional amendment to abolish the state Board of Education, which sets policies and procedures for public schools in the state. Doing away with the board would put direct control over the state’s education agenda under the superintendent and the state legislature, which is currently controlled by Republicans.

“I’d like to see a constitutional amendment to get rid of the state Board of Education,”she said. “If the superintendent is elected and works under the legislature - knowing that they’re accountable to the legislature to oversee the DPI and to oversee and have impact into the superintendents in the 115 districts, I think we would be so much better off because you don’t have all these extra people right in mix.”

Morrow has espoused a wide range of extreme views on social media in recent years. Many of her past extreme comments were made on her now-dormant personal Twitter account — which is separate from her campaign account.

Morrow also promoted QAnon slogans and tweeted that the actor Jim Carrey was “… likely searching for adrenochrome” – a reference to a conspiracy theory shared by QAnon believers that celebrities harvest and drink the blood of children to prolong their own lives. Media Matters, a left-leaning publication, was first to report the QAnon tweets.

All together, Morrow tweeted “WWG1WGA” – the slogan that stands for “where we go one, we go all” and is commonly associated with the QAnon conspiracy – more than seven times in 2020. Central to QAnon lore is the notion of the “Storm,” a belief there will be a day when thousands will purportedly be arrested, subjected to military tribunals, and face mass executions for their alleged crimes, with Donald Trump leading efforts to dismantle them alongside other QAnon “patriots.”

Violent fantasies about executing Democrats​

Morrow’s post about publicly executing Obama was just one of numerous she has made espousing carrying out violent fantasies against Democrats.

On Twitter, the platform now known as X, and on the now-defunct conservative Twitter alternative, Parler, Morrow used the hashtag “#DeathtoTraitors” a combined 12 times – usually in relation to prominent Democrats.

“Obama did it. Hillary did it. Schiff did it. Comey did it. Yates did it. Holder did it. Clapper did it. Gates did it. Fauci did it. Time for #WeThePeople to DO IT and #DrainTheSwamp!!!!! #NoJusticeNoCountry #DeathToTraitors #ProsecuteThemNow #TakeBackAmerica .@dbongino #KAG,” she wrote in one tweet from May 2020, referring to “sedition.”

In another post from July 2019, Morrow targeted Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar and other Democrats, suggesting their impending death for unspecified “treason.” “@IlhanMN and her other law-hating Dems must be getting a little nervous. Are they just realizing the punishment for treason is death?!?” Morrow wrote.

In a post on Parler, Morrow used the hashtag #deathtotraitors in discussing the Democratic governors of North Carolina and New York, Cooper and Cuomo. Morrow publicized her Parler handle in a tweet and CNN found the deleted Parler posts on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. “Our Communist sympathizer, Comrade Cooper, has the same plans for NC!Expose them NOW!Can we we see the CCP list, @SecPompeo??? #PrisonTimeforFederalCrimes #DeathToTraitors #FreeOurCitizens,” Morrow wrote in 2020, discussing restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In other posts on Parler, Morrow shared posts from other users and a QAnon account about locking up Democrats at Guantanamo Bay and prisons. Morrow’s ire also went beyond Democrats, including one post in December 2020 calling for putting Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia in prison after he certified Georgia’s results for Joe Biden in that year’s presidential election.

Shared conspiracies and made anti-Muslim comments​

In other comments, Morrow repeatedly shared the false claim that Obama was Muslim, called Islam evil, and expressed belief in a conspiracy theory that tens of thousands of Chinese troops were stationed in Canada to invade the United States to help Joe Biden become president. “Tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers are already in Canada and probably Mexico waiting for orders to invade,” she wrote on January 8, 2021.

In another post from September 2019, Morrow said that Barack Obama (referred to as B.O.) was a puppet for the “Deep State” and the “Muslim movement” and suggested he pay the highest penalty for his alleged crimes. “B.O. was a puppet for the Deep State and the Muslim movement to destroy our Constitutional Republic. We cannot give up until ALL the guilty pay the highest penalty for their crimes. We will lose our country #SAVEOURNATION #JusticeForAll #TraitorsMustPay “The DEEP STATE globalists and Muslim extremists, intent on destroying America, placed Omar and MANY others into our govt. #WakeUpAmerica #IslamIsEvil #ToleranceIsDeadly,” she wrote in January 2020.

In one post, Morrow said Muslims should be banned from elected office in the United States and said Rep. Omar, who came to the United States as a refugee, should, “head back to Somalia.”


 
So what.. IIRc you have an entire Homeland departmnt and a Secret Service..to deal with people trying to kill your POTUS and there is always Gitmo.
 
The states in blue each have a smaller population than LA County (red).


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Gretchen Whitmer won the internet on Sunday with:
“As governor, I’ve been able to get a lot done by extending my hand across the aisle — and not in a LAUREN BOEBERT kind of way.”
 

Trump accused of antisemitism for saying Jewish Democrats hate their religion and Israel​

White House slams Trump for 'spreading toxic, false stereotypes'​

Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats "hate Israel" and hate "their religion," igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.

Trump, in an interview, had been asked about Democrats' growing criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza as the civilian death toll continues to mount.

"I actually think they hate Israel," Trump responded to his former aide, Sebastian Gorka. "I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat party hates Israel."

Trump, who last week became the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, went on to charge: "Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed."

The comments sparked immediate backlash from the White House, President Joe Biden's campaign and Jewish leaders. The vast majority of Jewish Americans identify as Democrats, but Trump has often accused them of disloyalty, perpetuating what critics say is an antisemitic trope.

At the White House, spokesperson Andrew Bates cast the comments as "vile and unhinged antisemitic rhetoric" without mentioning Trump by name.

"As antisemitic crimes and acts of hate have increased across the world — among them the deadliest attack committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust — leaders have an obligation to call hate what it is and bring Americans together against it," he said. "There is no justification for spreading toxic, false stereotypes that threaten fellow citizens. None."

Biden's campaign said, "The only person who should be ashamed here is Donald Trump."

"Trump is going to lose again this November because Americans are sick of his hateful resentment, personal attacks, and extreme agenda," said spokesperson James Singer.

Jonathan Greenblatt, who heads the Anti-Defamation League, said, "Accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory & patently false."

"Serious leaders who care about the historic US-Israel alliance should focus on strengthening, rather than unraveling, bipartisan support for the State of Israel," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Few specific comments about the war​

Trump's comments come as Biden has been facing mounting pressure from the progressive wing of his party over his administration's support for Israel in its retaliatory offensive in Gaza. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

While Biden continues to back Israel's right to defend itself, he has increasingly criticized Netanyahu. After his state of the union speech, he said he needed to have a "come to Jesus" conversation with the Israeli leader. He has also accused Netanyahu of "hurting Israel more than helping Israel," saying, "he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken."

As with the ongoing war in Ukraine, Trump has communicated a generalized desire to see an end to hostilities while offering few substantive comments since announcing another campaign for the White House as to what approach he would take as president in bringing about that result.

"I think you have to finish it up, and do it quickly and get back to the world of peace," Trump said in an interview the past weekend with Fox News, when asked what advice he would give Netanyahu.

Trump took particular issue with recent comments from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country's highest-ranking Jewish official. In a speech last week, Schumer sharply criticized Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza, warning that the civilian toll was damaging Israel's standing around the world. Schumer also called for Israel to hold new elections.

The Pew Research Center reported in 2021 that Jews are "among the most consistently liberal and Democratic groups in the U.S.," with 7 in 10 Jewish adults identifying with or leaning toward the Democratic Party.

In 2020, it found that nearly three-quarters of American Jews disapproved of Trump's performance as president, with just 27 per cent rating him positively.

Trump as president was a boisterous supporter of Israel, with his administration reversing decades of U.S. policy concerning Israel's claims to land in the West Bank. The Trump administration also championed pacts between Israel and four Arab states that helped normalize realizations.

But his statements and associations have raised questions before. In late 2022, he professed ignorance concerning the background of Nick Fuentes — a far-right activist who has spread antisemitic content online — after hosting Fuentes and Kanye West for a dinner at his Florida resort.

Trump also engendered criticism last September after posting on his Truth Social account during Rosh Hashanah, "Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let's hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-israel-democrats-1.7148147
 
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