SaintsInDome2006

Agree. Halligan has to prove a motive to profit by secretly using the property for investment, but if the grandniece is down on her luck & in need of help then James’ motive is assisting her & familial devotion.

It really cracks me up how Fetterman for the GOP was demented, physically decrepit & a disgraceful dresser who should be forced out the Senate. But now he’s the new Manchin & he’s just great.

The briefs will be interesting. Let the NC AUSAs tell the judge all about it. For the purposes of the 1st motion to dismiss none of this will matter.

Thanks for the response. What happened with Seth Rich - like Coristine, a staffer, but robbed & murdered in nearly the same area - was far right conspiracy mongers created a myth that the Clintons had murdered him, as a way to cover for the Russian hack & dissemination of DNC data. Back then the crime was far worse. Since then crime in the US’s major cities has been precipitously declining to levels not seen since the 60s & 70s. There are different theories for that - better policing methods, better technology, Biden funding of police forces, the death of retail, the shift towards digital payments, gentrification, the strong economy - vary, take your pick. The GOP reaction to the crime against Coristine is just as cynical as its reaction to the crime against Rich.

Joe Biden and Netanyahu were offered Gaza deal a year ago, says negotiator Gershon Baskin says he got the plan on to the president’s desk but then learnt the Israelis were waiting for a change of administration in Washington >> Israelis and Palestinians may have danced in the streets when news broke overnight that a deal had been reached between Hamas and Israel over the first phase of a peace deal for Gaza. But the terms of the deal were in place more than a year ago, according to an independent Israeli negotiator, and could have been agreed months ago. Gershon Baskin, the architect of the negotiations that freed the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, revealed on Thursday that Hamas had agreed the exact same terms of the deal in September 2024, in the last months of the Biden administration, but that Biden officials had disregarded it while Binyamin Netanyahu had refused point blank. “This deal could have been done a long time ago,” Baskin wrote in an essay revealing his involvement. “Hamas agreed to all of the same terms in September 2024 in what became known as the ‘Three Weeks Deal’ that I had received in writing and voice message in Arabic and in English. But at that point the response of the Israeli negotiators was that ‘the prime minister did not agree to end the war’.” … Baskin would soon learn that the Israelis had no intention of striking any agreement before a change of administration in Washington. On December 26, 2024, Baskin met Ronen Bar, then head of the Shin Bet agency, where he “was requested not to use my back channels, because ‘in three weeks there will be a ceasefire deal’”. “From that moment, it was clear to me that the only way that the war would come to an end is when President Trump makes the decision that it has to end,” he said. He set about establishing a back channel to Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, “knowing that the negotiation did not have to be directly with the Israeli side. The Israeli side would accept whatever Trump forced them to accept.” Baskin heard Witkoff would be at a bitcoin conference in Abu Dhabi and caught a flight there. The encounter led to swift negotiations resulting in a ceasefire on January 19, allowing Trump to boast that he had brought peace to the Middle East before he even returned to office the next day. The ceasefire had three stages, the first of which saw 33 Israeli hostages released in exchange for 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, while Israeli troops were to withdraw from populated areas and humanitarian aid flooded in. The second and third stages were designed to achieve a permanent ceasefire with the release of additional hostages and prisoners while Israel completely withdrew and reconstruction began. The deal collapsed when Israel refused to progress past the first stage, stranding the remaining hostages. Israel put Gaza under siege and launched a fresh offensive. Each side traded blame over the coming months as famine gripped parts of Gaza. On September 8, Baskin was with American negotiators as the Qatari government presented Hamas with effectively the same deal from a year earlier. With only 20 living hostages remaining, they were all on the table at the same time. The negotiations collapsed a day later when Israel bombed the home of the Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya, killing his son. …. Arab leaders infuriated by the Doha strike went to the White House where Baskin’s plan formed the basis of what would become Trump’s 20-point plan. Trump called Netanyahu personally to tell him they were close to a deal. Netanyahu tried to resist. “Why are you so negative?” Trump is reported to have fumed. When Netanyahu tried to tweak the plan, Qatari mediators, who had refused to leave, did their best to pull him back. Hamas signalled their agreement, despite silence on key issues such as disarmament, and Trump enthusiastically accepted. …<< - Times of London

Contribute enough money & you can have your name or company logo etched into the White House. Trump goes on to explain that he has gutted the bathroom adjoining the Lincoln Bedroom & remodeled it in his style.

Any of mine? The electric chair & the wino can pull the lever. I was just talking about the DEI thing. As to Justice, like HT pointed about above there are 150 kids walking around with ankle monitors in DC even though they’ve committed violent crimes. Seth Rich was murdered in a robbery pretty near the same neighborhood, & he is one of many, many unsolved murders in DC, but I don’t recall demands to solve the DC justice system or demands to send in troops in response. This has been going on a long time in almost every state. Drugs, guns, lack of jail space, culture, etc etc etc. I’m certainly familiar with it in my city.

The Federal Reserve Chairman Speaks.

Just general ongoing incompetence.

Trump Watch scam not going as smoothly as usual.

Wait isn’t that the story Trump tells on the campaign trail about himself?

Yes, criminalizing foreign policy & national security reporting is a hallmark of authoritarianism.

Here’s Bret Baier.

It follows a joint statement that included Fox. Fox has also lost its credentials.

Yes, hence the word “guess_ing.”

The Defebse Department has seized the press credentials of all major news organizations reporting on its activities.

Sure. In DC, don’t you think black on black crime is prevalent? Seth Rich is a notable exception I’ve heard of. But I don’t live in the area.

This sounds a lot like the Coristine case, but I’m guessing most of the victims are black not white.

I was quoting NY Post. You probably have a point about all that. In my area stories of people escaping ankle monitors are pretty frequent.

13 years as an assistant US Attorney. She received a majority of GOP votes on her confirmation committee & was confirmed by voice vote, which means overwhelmingly. Seems qualified. The Trump appointee at EDVA as US Attorney, Lindsey Halligan, is a former model & beauty pageant participant with 8 years as a real estate insurance law attorney followed by 3 years as a personal attorney for a country club manager. And she’s never faced a confirmation hearing. That sounds more like DEI.

>>One of the victims was in the courtroom via web conference on Tuesday. In a statement, he thanked the courts and DC Police, and said to the teens, "I hope you can figure things out and be ready for the consequences."<< - Obviously this is Coristine as he was with a woman.

The boy got 12 months of strict house arrest.

>>U.S. Attorney Was Forced Out After Clashes Over How to Handle Russia Inquiry The departures of Todd Gilbert and his deputy in the Western District of Virginia show the pressure being brought on prosecutors to pursue the president’s perceived foes. Career prosecutors at the Justice Department do not believe criminal charges are warranted from an investigation seeking to discredit an earlier F.B.I. inquiry into Russia’s attempt to tilt the 2016 election in President Trump’s favor, according to people familiar with the matter. It leaves unclear what political appointees at the Justice Department might do, given the breadth of Mr. Trump’s demands that it pursue people he perceives as enemies. Already, the U.S. attorney in the Western District of Virginia overseeing the case, Todd Gilbert, was forced to resign in August because he refused to sideline a high-ranking career prosecutor who found the evidence flimsy, the people familiar with the matter said. Senior Justice Department officials had ordered Mr. Gilbert to open a grand jury investigation into whether anyone at F.B.I. headquarters during and after the Biden administration had mishandled classified documents related to the Russia investigation that Mr. Trump has long decried as a “witch hunt” against him. Even as news of Mr. Gilbert’s departure over the summer raised concerns about turmoil inside the Justice Department, the events leading up to it have remained unclear until now. The new details highlight how Mr. Trump’s push for criminal prosecutions of those he sees as enemies has led to crises inside multiple U.S. attorneys’ offices, in this instance dooming a top prosecutor in the Western District of Virginia, based in Roanoke. Similar disputes consumed Mr. Gilbert’s counterpart in eastern Virginia, Erik S. Siebert, in recent weeks. Mr. Gilbert was a longtime Republican legislator in Virginia until he was sworn in as the top prosecutor in July. He was quickly ordered to take up a case championed by the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, and his deputy, Dan Bongino, after they learned that classified documents had been found inside “burn bags” at F.B.I. headquarters. … << >> After reviewing the evidence, Mr. Gilbert told his superiors that he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to justify a grand jury investigation, these people said. Frustrated by that answer, aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, blamed a senior career attorney in the office who they believed had swayed Mr. Gilbert: Zachary Lee, a veteran prosecutor with more than two decades of experience involving public corruption and narcotics, among other issues. Justice Department officials ordered Mr. Gilbert to replace Mr. Lee with Robert Tracci as his deputy, these people said. After Mr. Lee was demoted, senior department officials suspected Mr. Gilbert was still primarily consulting Mr. Lee, whom they came to view as a holdover from the Biden administration, though he had been hired during the George W. Bush administration and promoted during the first Trump administration, these people added. At one point, Mr. Blanche spoke directly to Mr. Gilbert and offered him more resources to pursue the case, according to one person familiar with the events. Pressed to further sideline or remove Mr. Lee, Mr. Gilbert refused, these people said. Department officials then informed Mr. Gilbert that he would be fired, and he resigned shortly afterward, posting a GIF on social media with a joke from the movie “Anchorman,” in which the lead character exclaims, “Boy, that escalated quickly!” Mr. Tracci has since stepped in as the acting U.S. attorney. Mr. Lee, who left the office this month, declined to comment. …<< NYT

The IRAN-Pakistani War, narrowly avoided by swift use of the VAT Tax.

I have to confess, I’m torn on this one.