Drug Trafficker Maximilien de Hoop Cartier

Purported member of the Cartier family and five Colombian nationals charged for their roles in international money laundering and narcotics conspiracies.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “The charges brought today demonstrate this Office’s commitment to prosecuting international drug traffickers and piercing complicated money laundering networks seeking to exploit the U.S financial system. As alleged, Maximilien de Hoop Cartier, Leonardo de Jesus Zuluage Duque, Erica Milena Lopez Ortiz, and Felipe Estrada Echeverry were members of a network that laundered millions of dollars’ worth of drug trafficking proceeds using cryptocurrency and the U.S. financial system. Cartier is additionally alleged to have committed a series of financial offenses while working with this money laundering network that resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of unlawful transactions. I commend the efforts of our law enforcements partners and the career prosecutors from this Office who work tirelessly to investigate and disrupt these money laundering and drug trafficking networks. We will continue to relentlessly protect the U.S. financial system from exploitation.”

…. conspiring to commit money laundering based on their alleged participation in a network that laundered millions in Tether (a stablecoin connected to the U.S. dollar), which constituted the proceeds of drug trafficking, through the U.S. to Colombia.  CARTIER is also charged with money laundering, bank fraud, engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from bank fraud, and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business based on CARTIER’s system of U.S.-based shell companies and bank accounts that he used to operate an unlicensed over-the-counter cryptocurrency exchange.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/purported-member-cartier-family-and-five-colombian-nationals-charged-their-roles

The Cartier brand was family-owned until 1964, when grandson Pierre passed away and his heirs decided to sell the business.

The Cartier name is still making headlines today, but in a different medium. Instead of master jeweler, Maximilien de Hoop Cartier is producing fine beverages.

Leonard Leo controls SCOTUS

Well, there you have it folks! Leonard Leo in a 2017 lecture given at Acton Institute:

“Thank you Chris for your very very kind introduction. I’ve seen that comment about the third of the Supreme Court. I prefer controlling interests, but we haven’t quite been able to launch a hostile takeover yet.”

https://www.acton.org/video/leonard-leo-trump-administration-and-future-federal-judiciary

Definition of “controlling interests”

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/controllinginterest.asp

Mike Flynn claims hit by ‘8 subpoenas last night’ as he whines about ‘communist takeover’ – Raw Story

ECP NetHappenings Headines: Law, Crypto, Health, Technology

Bette Midler HUMILIATES Trump with New Jingle Exposing His Courtroom Secret

 

 

#LAW

Can’t say I ever thought I’d hear Todd Blanche say “Vonshitzinpants” (quoting Michael Cohen) in open court, but here we are.

HERE WE ARE AGAIN
Breaking: Trump just refused to commit to accepting the results of Wisconsin’s presidential election in November if he doesn’t win and again lied that he won the state in 2020. Trump also repeated similar language to what he said around Jan. 6: “If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

Matt Fleming, Florida Expert @Matt_Fleming321
I think the most underestimated thing Trump did, was he turned all the liars loose. No consequences for 30k+ lies, and people saw what they could get away with. So, here we are.

Ken Block researched election fraud for Trump at a cost of $750,000 of GOP funds! Block wrote in his book “Disproven” that he found only about 200 duplicate mail in ballots. No evidence of widespread fraud but Trump didn’t want to hear it. #TrumpIsALiar

Number of pro-Trump protesters at courthouse in NYC today: 2

“Irreparable breakdown”: Law firm abruptly quits defending Trump campaign in sex discrimination case

In 2024, a handful of very wealthy right wing men—Leonard Leo, Dick Uihlein, Charles Koch, & Jeff Yass—will target STATE judicial elections in an effort to “make their personal agendas into binding law.” (New report by True North, 4/24/24)

Arizona Can Repeal Abortion Ban After Shocking Defection
Two Republican state senators broke ranks to overturn the 160-year-old law.

Americans widely opposed to decision overturning Roe nearly 2 years later: Poll

Judge Aileen Cannon is presiding over Trump’s criminal trial for mishandling classified documents. Cannon attended two privately funded seminars at a luxury resort in Montana, but the disclosures weren’t posted online until NPR began making inquiries.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/01/1247512187/federal-judges-disclosures-luxury-trips

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy broke federal labor law with anti-union remarks
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law in comments he made to media outlets about unionization efforts at the company, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled Wednesday.

Congress lets broadband funding run out, ending $30 low-income discounts
ACP gave out last $30 discounts in April; only partial discounts available in May.

Traditional wife influencers are quietly spreading far-right conspiracy theories

This week the #PAHouse passed legislation by @RepLPowell that would make using a tracking device to track another person part of Pennsylvania’s laws against stalking.

School Vouchers Have A Transparency Problem

BREAKING  @columbia AAUP calls for a vote of no confidence in Pres. Shafik and the whole university administration.

#CRYPTO

Justin Sun falsely claimed diplomatic immunity in lawsuit
https://protos.com/scoop-justin-sun-falsely-claimed-diplomatic-immunity-in-lawsuit/
Justin Sun was not entitled to use diplomatic immunity to avoid liability concerning his actions while running the BitTorrent buyer.
This is despite long-term claims from the Tron founder’s legal team that his ambassadorial roles handed him this loophole.
A Web3 of lies

cz (worth 33 billion) snitched on someone to get a lighter sentence.
SBF refused to rat, got 25 years.
CZ ratted, got 4 months. Now who did he rat out? Must be someone big.

Bloomberg ETF analyst @EricBalchunas: Hong Kong’s BTC and ETH ETFs raised over roughly HK$11.2 million on its first day, offsetting net outflows in the US market

Tesla slashes its summer internship program to cut costs, as Elon Musk fights to save his $45 billion pay plan

What Mark Zuckerberg has decided to sell now that he has rid the site of politics. Facebook’s AI Spam Isn’t the ‘Dead Internet’: It’s the Zombie Internet

#HEALTH

Robert George—a Leonard Leo confidante & Princeton professor—claims that embryos are “persons” under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, giving them equal protection under the law. Translation: abortion = murder, and states have NO right to allow abortion access. 1/

STOP  children using smartphones until they are 13, says French report
Children should be banned from most social media until 18 amid attempts to ‘monetise’ them, says Macron-commissioned study

Thanks to the “pro-life” Republicans, young women are expressing fear of ever having children, because, god forbid their jobs or travels find themselves in states where the fascist government controls their bodies, where guns have more rights than women. #VoteBlueToProtectWomen

Novo Nordisk cut the price of Ozempic in Denmark by a third from $188 to $125.

How much do they charge Americans for this drug? $969.

How much does it cost to make? $5.

If Novo can substantially reduce the price of Ozempic in Denmark, it must do the same in the US.

UnitedHealth says hackers potentially stole a third of Americans’ data
The breach has caused widespread disruptions in claims processing, impacting patients and providers across the country.

Until today UnitedHealth only said “a substantial proportion of people in America” were affected by the Change Healthcare cyberattack.
In a hearing today, UnitedHealth CEO estimated that “maybe a third” of Americans had their health data stolen. This raises a serious question about cybersecurity standards in healthcare.
Shouldn’t they mandate multi-factor authentication to protect sensitive information?
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/01/united-healthcare-ceo-says-maybe-a-third-of-u-s-citizens-were-affected-by-recent-hack/

“Authorities have expanded an investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans to include senior church officials suspected of shielding predatory priests for decades and failing to report their crimes to law enforcement.”

New mRNA cancer vaccine triggers fierce immune response to fight malignant brain tumor

Bacterial enzyme strips away blood types to create universal donor blood

#TECHNOLOGY

1970AM radio law opposed by tech and auto industries is close to passing
A recent test of the emergency alert system found only 1 percent got it via AM.

Exclusive: Two of Israel’s leading weapons manufacturers, whose missiles and drones are currently being used on Gaza, are required to purchase cloud services from Amazon and/or Google via Project Nimbus, according to government procurement documents

The Breach of a Face Recognition Firm Reveals a Hidden Danger of Biometrics https://www.wired.com/story/outabox-facial-recognition-breach

NOT A DRAG QUEEN: 90-year-old Florida city commissioner faces 3,196 felony counts of child pornography https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2024/05/01/90-year-old-florida-city-commissioner-faces-over-3196-felony-counts-of-child-pornography/

Police’s ability to ID protestors with face recognition tech makes people “vulnerable to retaliation for their political speech” & could “chill people’s willingness to engage in constitutionally protected activities,” EFF’s @MGuariglia told @FastCompany. https://www.fastcompany.com/91116791/facial-recognition-technology-campus-protests-police-surveillance-gaza

———//————-

Trump Finally HUMILIATED

Trump Finally HUMILIATED By Crushing Ad on Fox News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y4NKkV7iW8

Rapist thanks Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade.

The Media’s Coverage of Trump’s Immunity Case Has Been Appalling
By covering the Supreme Court’s hearing of Trump’s immunity claim as if the court were impartial and nonpartisan, the media has done the American people a serious disservice.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/media-supreme-court-trump-immunity/

The Rule of Law Finally Comes for Donald Trump
No president has ever been held in criminal contempt before.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/trump-criminal-contempt-of-court-historic.html
On Tuesday, a court of law held a former president of the United States, Donald Trump, in criminal contempt. In 235 years of American presidents, this has never happened before. Sadly, it’s probably going to happen again, and soon—further contempt sanctions may be necessary to actually restrain Trump’s actions during his Manhattan criminal trial. Nonetheless, with today’s contempt order, we are all witnesses to judicial and presidential history.

In January 1776, Tom Paine wrote those words in Common Sense:
For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.

New York Judge Juan Merchan found Trump guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” on nine occasions for violating his March 26 order restricting Trump’s extrajudicial speech.

When Trump’s lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that the president should be immune from prosecution for ordering murders in the White House, it may not have been a hypothetical situation.

The President has NEVER had immunity from criminal prosecution for crimes committed before, during, or after their term of office. No President has ever expected to be immune, nor asked to be.

According to Bob Woodward book Shadow, Nixon was considering pardoning himself. A few years out of office, he said to David Frost something like “it’s not illegal when the president does it.”

‘Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal’
Quote from disgraced ex-president Nixon

You can’t accept a pardon while maintaining that you are innocence. Nixon took the pardon.
Ford knew Nixon was guilty, would be found guilty & decided to kill the case by way of presidential pardon. Ford lost his election because of it. And we wonder how we got here.

Nixon should never have been pardoned. President Biden won’t pardon Trump.
The republicans, led by Goldwater, forced Nixon to resign. Ford’s pardon has given us trump.

From Ford’s pardon of Nixon: “As a result of certain acts or omissions occurring before his resignation from the Office of President, Richard Nixon has become liable to possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States. Whether or not he shall be so prosecuted depends on findings of the appropriate grand jury and on the discretion of the authorized prosecutor.”
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/kavanaugh-draws-wrong-lesson-fords-1974-nixon-pardon-rcna149807

GOP SCOTUS wants to invent a new process to protect the imperial presidency.
This is BIG TIME CRIME, on a scale like “nobody has ever seen before”!

Moving on “for the good of the country” has actually been disastrous for the country.

Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas and Kavanaugh, conveniently forgets that only guilty people receive pardons.

THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY PUSHED BY NIXON IMPLOYEE ROGER STONE IS DEAD
Ford pardoning Nixon has led us inexorably to where we find ourselves today. Without the Nixon pardon there is no Trump presidency.

One thing that flew under the radar last week is the revelation that Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Hope Hicks apparently discussed extending Karen McDougal’s hush money agreement when they worked in the White House.

In 2024, a handful of very wealthy right wing men

@JasonLeopold
7 yrs ago today. Perhaps my favorite #FOIA story
“When Donald Trump’s casino business went bankrupt in 2009, a lawyer whose clients stood to lose more than a billion dollars told police and the FBI that he got a menacing phone call from a man with a thick New York accent who threatened his family”
What made this my favorite FOIA story was how I figured out how to unredact the documents. I really learned about the power of the FOIA through this reporting.

—Leonard Leo, Dick Uihlein, Charles Koch, & Jeff Yass—will target STATE judicial elections in an effort to “make their personal agendas into binding law.” (New report by True North, 4/24/24
https://truenorthresearch.org/2024/04/report-who-is-targeting-state-courts-to-limit-our-freedoms/

New investigation:
Dozens of federal judges attended week-long seminars at luxury retreats – receiving free rooms, free meals and free money for travel worth thousands – and failed to fully disclose as required.
The judges with disclosure issues included some big names.

Last week, for the first time ever, the FEC fined a Trump aligned entity. The super PAC Make America Great Again, Again! Inc. failed to disclose over $150,000 in contributions.
So the FEC fined the group $6,075.
https://eqs.fec.gov/eqsdocsADR/1152_07.pdf