DC Judge on the Trump Case Must Recuse

Tanya Chutkan recused herself previously and must again, perhaps she should also be put under investigations. Why you ask?

  1. You can click this link and see her involvement in previous RussiaGate cases.
  2. Partisan – According to the Washington Examiner, Chutkan was appointed to the US District Court by President Obama in 2014 after donating around $4,300 to his campaign and victory fund between the 2008 and 2012 elections.
  3. She previously worked at Boies, Schiller, & Flexner LLP, a law firm that once employed Hunter Biden. Chutkan is married to fellow Obama appointee Associate Judge Peter Krauthamer of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The former Democratic president picked him for the 15-year term in 2011. and worked closely with Ukrainian energy firm Burisma.
  4. Boies Schiller (the firm that hired Fusion GPS to attack Theranos whistleblowers) and then presided as judge in the U.S. House lawsuit against Fusion GPS. Hunter Biden worked for BSF in the same year he was appointed to Burisma’s board in April 2014. Hunter quickly brought BSF partners into the fold to assist Burisma with its efforts to influence U.S. officials, according to emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The Daily Caller also reports:

In April 2014, Hunter Biden and business associate Devon Archer spoke about how BSF could give them “protection” and work with government officials on Burisma’s behalf.

“BSF can actually have direct discussions at state, energy and NSC. They can devise a media plan and arrange for legal protections and mitigate US domestic negative press regarding the current leadership if need be,” Biden told Archer.

“The contract should begin now- not after the upcoming visit of my guy. That should include a retainer in the range of 25k p/m w/ additional fees where appropriate for more in depth work to go to BSF for our protection. Complete separate from our respective deals re board participation,” Biden added.

Shortly after his correspondence with Archer, Biden set up a call with BSF partners including Christopher Boies and Heather King, the emails show.

King communicated with the State Department on behalf of Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky and strategized with Burisma on how to handle the press and influence government officials, emails from May 2014 indicate. She suggested Burisma hire professional lobbyists, a PR firm and an investigative research firm to bolster its influence operation, per the emails.

5. Then this Judge seems to have a habit of selectively defining what and where violence really is.

Chutkan was indignant about comparisons between the riots that broke out in cities across the country after the May 2020 police-involved killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

She even invoked the “mostly peaceful” narrative for describing the riots by Black Lives Matter and Antifa militants.

“People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man. Some of those protesters became violent,” Chutkan said during an October 2021 court hearing. “But to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.” source

6. This is rather twisted too:

Obama-appointed judge hearing Trump's bid to block Jan 6 docs called  Capitol rioters a 'violent mob' | Daily Mail Online

In 2017, the first year of the Trump administration, Chutkan ruled that the Office of Refugee Resettlement must allow a juvenile illegal immigrant in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to have an abortion. That was in the case of Garza v. Hargan.

In 2019, Chutkan ruled that Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, illegally delayed the implementation of the “Equity in IDEA” (Individuals With Disabilities Education Act) regulations that update how states calculate racial disparities in special education. source

Lots of reasons to both recuse and actually to move to the case/trial outside of Washington DC completely.

Unlicensed Nefarious Chinese Biolab in Reedley, CA

The FBI was way behind on this one…sigh

In operation since 2022…

Code enforcement check uncovers illegal lab making COVID-19 and pregnancy test kits, bacterial and viral agents and 900 white miceUniversal MediTech and Prestige Biotech were using and storing reagents on site that were imported from outside the U.S.—using these foreign chemicals requires a federal permit that the business owners didn’t have, according to the document.

CG: Why would a COVID lab run by a shady Chinese company be operating in Reedley, CA in the central San Joaquin Valley? The lab, which was supposed to be an empty building, was discovered by Reedley city code enforcement officers when they saw a garden hose attached to the building and investigated.

Darren Fraser at the MidValley Times reported earlier this week that the building has been illegally operated since October 2022 by Wang Zhaolin of Prestige Biotech, and the lab was used to produce COVID-19 tests and pregnancy tests.Furniture, chemicals, and devices improperly stored.

City of Reedley officials called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the FBI, the State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the State Department of Health, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the Fresno County Department of Public Health (FCDPH).Warehouse location in Reedley, Calif.

“Reedley officials and personnel from CDPH and FCDPH executed a warrant on March 16 to inspect the warehouse at 850 I Street,” MidValley Times reported. “According to a declaration from Humero Prado, Assistant Director of Fresno County Public Health, which was filed in superior court, investigators discovered that one room of the warehouse was used to produce COVID-19 and pregnancy tests. In other rooms, investigators found blood, tissue and other bodily fluid samples. They also found thousands of vials that contained unlabeled fluids.”

And they found 900 genetically engineered mice, engineered to catch and carry COVID-19, living in “inhumane” conditions. 773 of the mice had to be euthanized, and officials found another 178 mice already dead.

Mid Valley Times further reports:

“From May 2 through May 4, the CDC’s Division of Select Agents and Toxins inspected 850 I Street. Court documents confirm the CDC found potentially infectious agents at the location. These included both bacterial and viral agents, including: chlamydia, E. Coli, streptococcus pneumonia, hepatitis B and C, herpes 1 and 5 and rubella. The CDC also found samples of malaria.”

“Court documents identify Xiuquin Yao as the alleged president of Prestige. Neither Reedley nor FCDPH was able to obtain from Yao any substantive information regarding Prestige or why infectious agents and mice were being stored at 850 I Street other than to say that the company was developing diagnostic testing kits.”

“Court documents include copies of an email exchange Prado conducted with David He, who identified himself as a representative of Prestige, beginning May 31 and continuing through June 13. Over the course of numerous emails, Prado repeatedly asks He to provide documentation regarding licensed medical waste disposal, Prestige’s reasons for storing infectious agents and how the company will respond to the biological abatement orders handed down by FCDPH.”

“They (Prestige) completely avoided the questions,” Prado said. “This individual (He) was either unaware or was intentionally trying to mislead us.”

***

Officials were unable to get any California-based address for either company except for the previous Fresno location from which UMI had been evicted.

“The other addresses provided for identified authorized agents were either empty offices or addresses in China that could not be verified,” court documents said.

Prestige BioTech is accused of failing to comply with orders, including providing a plan for biological abatement and disposal of the materials. Emails sent to Yao and Prestige BioTech requesting comment were not immediately answered Thursday.

Prado told NBC affiliate KSEE of Fresno that those associated with Prestige BioTech were not forthcoming with information. Court documents say they failed to provide any licensing or permit that allows experimentation or other laboratory activity.

Two Tech Companies Report Chinese Malware in the Power Grids

No worries America, President Biden is on vacation again, this time for a week. Meanwhile, it was back in May that Microsoft and Mandiant (0wned by Google) reported Volt Typhoon was in a few power systems either for espionage or worse for later capability to disrupt. Presently, there is no immediate threat however, experts outside of the Federal government are studying the cyber language and issuing warnings.

Volt Typhoon's Cyberattack: Key Concerns and Implications for the Industry  | TXOne Networks source

Experts say it’s one of the largest known cyber espionage campaigns against the US.

A key US military outpost, Guam’s ports and air bases would be crucial to any Western response to a conflict in Asia. Together with the Five Eyes alliance – comprising the intelligence agencies of the US, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Canada – Microsoft published details of the malware.

A cyberattack on Guam is equivalent to an attack on Silicon Valley. Guam, with a population of nearly 154,000, is indistinguishable from the 50 states for the purposes of defense under international and domestic law. It would also be vital to US military operations in any conflict over Taiwan. The Guam Defense System, the defense architecture surrounding Guam and the Mariana Island Chain, is the top homeland defense priority of the current commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino. Guam contains the United States’ largest refueling and armament stations in the first and second island chains that provide lines of defense against China. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act also announced $1.4 billion for defense projects in Guam, and the U.S. Marine Corps is building its first new base in 72 years there. Guam has among the highest military recruitment levels in the United States. In recognition of Guam’s military importance, China calls its DF-26 intermediate ballistic missile, which has a 2500-mile firing range, “the Guam Killer.” Source

The U.S. has 3 military bases (installations in Guam)

Q&A: What does the US military do on the island of Guam? source

***

China’s “peacetime” targeting of critical infrastructure that is used by both civilians and the US military erodes the principles of the law of war. The principle of distinction ordinarily forbids targeting civilian objects, such as civilian property and infrastructure. However, many computer networks are used for both civilian and military purposes. Such “dual use” objects may be targetable based on their nature, purpose, and use. However, combatants must still comply with the other principles of the law of war: military necessity, proportionality, and avoiding unnecessary suffering.

Microsoft has tracked a group of what it believes to be Chinese state-sponsored hackers who have since 2021 carried out a broad hacking campaign that has targeted critical infrastructure systems in US states and Guam, including communications, manufacturing, utilities, construction, and transportation.

Microsoft’s blog post offered technical details of the hackers’ intrusions that may help network defenders spot and evict them: The group, for instance, uses hacked routers, firewalls, and other network “edge” devices as proxies to launch its hacking—targeting devices that include those sold by hardware makers ASUS, Cisco, D-Link, Netgear, and Zyxel. The group also often exploits the access provided from compromised accounts of legitimate users rather than its own malware to make its activity harder to detect by appearing to be benign.

Blending in with a target’s regular network traffic in an attempt to evade detection is a hallmark of Volt Typhoon and other Chinese actors’ approach in recent years, says Marc Burnard, a senior consultant of information security research at Secureworks. Like Microsoft and Mandiant, Secureworks has been tracking the group and observing its campaigns. He added that the group has demonstrated a “relentless focus on adaption” to pursue its espionage.

US government agencies, including the National Security Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Justice Department published a joint advisory about Volt Typhoon’s activity today alongside Canadian, UK, and Australian intelligence. “Private sector partners have identified that this activity affects networks across US critical infrastructure sectors, and the authoring agencies believe the actor could apply the same techniques against these and other sectors worldwide,” the agencies wrote. As early as 2009, US intelligence officials warned that Chinese cyberspies had penetrated the US power grid to “map” the country’s infrastructure in preparation for a potential conflict. Two years ago, CISA and the FBI also issued an advisory that China had penetrated US oil and gas pipelines between 2011 and 2013. China’s Ministry of State Security hackers have gone much further in cyberattacks against the country’s Asian neighbors, actually crossing the line of carrying out data-destroying attacks disguised as ransomware, including against Taiwan’s state-owned oil firm CPC. Source

It was not until the New York Times reported this condition that anyone took it seriously. What is worse are the facts reported by CyberScoop in part:

The largely unknown amount of Chinese-made equipment within the North American grid is a threat to national security, experts warned during a Thursday congressional hearing that explored cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the electric sector.

Witnesses from the Department of Energy and private sector testifying during the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee echoed a sentiment increasingly heard in Washington that a longstanding dependence on Chinese technologies and cheap components is now an alarming national security issues for U.S. critical infrastructure.

 

 

 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is Now Complaining about the Policies

Reposting in full:

As the Biden administration continues to expand ways for immigrants to legally enter and remain in the United States, the agency tasked with overseeing and implementing those efforts is suffering under the strain of its ever-growing workload. U.S. Immigration Courts' Backlog Exceeds One Million Cases - WSJ

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is struggling to keep pace with its new and growing responsibilities, according to watchdogs and agency employees, and some of its backlogs have grown to unprecedented heights. The 842,000 pending asylum cases are at an all-time high and the number is expected to exceed 1 million in 2024. The higher-than-usual number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, coupled with global events such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan following the U.S. military’s withdrawal there, has created dueling priorities that have exacerbated longstanding capacity concerns.

President Biden has expanded the use of “humanitarian parole,” which allows various groups temporarily enter the country, to Central and South Americans fleeing persecution, Ukrainians escaping the dangers of war, Afghanis evacuated out of their home nation and others. He has offered Temporary Protected Status to 700,000 people from 16 countries. The administration has ramped up efforts to slash the wait time for those seeking naturalization or employment status. Most recently, it deployed employees overseas to conduct asylum screenings abroad and created new opportunities for family members of U.S. residents to enter the country.

Despite successes in some areas, the agency is not meeting its targets.

Many USCIS employees are also taking on new responsibilities, as they are more heavily involved in determining up front whether newly arriving migrants can remain in the country and regularly face deployments to the border to help process and screen those individuals.

“2022 brought with it significant new tasks for the agency that would create their own processing and operational challenges—challenges that the agency continues to grapple with in 2023 and which will impact future workloads,” according to a recent report from the USCIS ombudsman.

The watchdog predicted the various emergency responses by the Biden administration will “continue to present operational challenges to USCIS in the coming years.” Even before much of the new programs went into effect, the agency was experiencing a surge of new work. According to a 2021 Government Accountability Office report, USCIS’ caseload increased by 85% between 2015 and 2020. Now, the impacts of the agency’s efforts are compounding and many processing times have grown significantly.

“We’ve dealt with backlogs before but not like this, and not with some many other competing priorities,” said Michael Knowles, a long-time asylum officer who represents his colleagues in the Washington, D.C. area as part of the American Federation of Government Employees.

‘Came at a price’ 

USCIS’ successes have come with a heavy toll. It doubled the normal number of completed employment-based visas in fiscal 2022, which the ombudsman said was not without a cost.

“By prioritizing this adjudication, others were further delayed, at a time when backlogs have never been more severe,” the watchdog said.

The agency reduced the naturalization backlog by 62% in fiscal 2022, but led to “lesser priorities” being worked at a slower pace, with fewer completed adjudications and backlogs growing.

“These decisions, however necessary, came at a price,” the ombudsman said. “USCIS is a fee-based agency with finite resources. The determinations to prioritize certain applications and petitions meant that other workloads could not be addressed as robustly as the priority programs.”

Biden issued or extended Temporary Protected Status for 11 countries in 2022 alone. The ombudsman called processing work authorization for those populations “a never-ending task for the agency.”

Shev Dalal-Dheini, the government relations director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said USCIS employees are being pulled from their normal workloads to address the new humanitarian pathways.

“Obviously it has an impact on adjudications across the board because there’s only a certain amount of staff and only a certain amount of funding from their fees,” Dalal-Sheini said. “When something is prioritized, that necessarily means other things are deprioritized.”

Knowles noted those being paroled into the country are only being provided residency in the U.S. for one or two years, after which time they, too, will be seeking alternative status. In other words, they will all be added to various backlogs. The administration, through Operation Allies Welcome, Uniting for Ukraine and programs modeled after it aimed at Venezuelans, Haitians, “Cubans, Nicaraguans and others, has paroled 500,000 individuals into the country.

“Even a streamlined adjudication of thousands of applications each month has added considerably to USCIS workloads,” the ombudsman said.

Competing priorities

Meanwhile, nearly 1 million immigrants already in the country are awaiting resolution on their “affirmative asylum cases,” which require lengthy investigations. The nation’s immigration courts, housed within the Justice Department, has a backlog of more than 2 million cases and individuals are waiting years to get before a judge. Dalal-Dheini noted wait times on applications for new Green Cards, lawful permanent residence, residence for those making investments in the U.S. and to petition for non-resident relatives have all spiked compared to historic averages.

The administration is simultaneously pursuing an “all hands on deck” strategy at the border, meaning most asylum officers have deployed at various points to conduct “credible fear” screenings of migrants. A federal court this week struck down Biden’s new rule that severely restricted migrants who cross the border from requesting asylum, potentially creating a new wave of arrivals that USCIS employees will have to help screen. USCIS simply does not have enough staff to complete the work, Knowles lamented.

Blas Nuñez-Neto, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Homeland Security Department, acknowledged the problem at a recent panel hosted by the Migration Policy Institute.

“Every time there’s a debate about what’s happening at the border, we see increases for [Customs and Border Protection], and they, to be clear, they need those resources,” Nuñez-Neto said. “But we also need to resource the rest of the system to keep pace with what we’re seeing at the border and we just simply haven’t over the last many, many years.”

He said that was starting to change as the Biden administration has attempted to dramatically increase resources for USCIS, but noted hiring in government is “a long and painful process.” The assistant secretary said the Biden administration will continue pushing for more asylum officers, Executive Office of Immigration Review personnel, U.S. Marshals and others to “help with the rest of the system.”

Dalal-Dheini said in order to sustain backlog reduction, Congress must similarly sustain a guaranteed appropriation for the agency that has historically been largely fee-funded. Doing so, she said, would enable USCIS to “shift resources without harming other folks who are in line.” She added, however, that there is “no appetite” in Congress for providing those resources this year.

‘Losing people constantly’ 

The ombudsman praised USCIS for prioritizing hiring, as it has looked to reverse the impacts of a longstanding hiring freeze. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, USCIS threatened to furlough most of its workers as normal funds collected through fees dried up. Congress eventually intervened, but not before a longstanding hiring freeze depleted the agency.

Still, Knowles noted the pressure, pace and unending nature of the growing workload—coupled with the uneasiness many employees feel about their new responsibilities—has led to high rates of burnout.

“We are hiring constantly, but we are losing people constantly,” Knowles said. A recent GAO report confirmed USCIS is experiencing unusually high levels of turnover.

The ombudsman also praised USCIS for taking steps to mitigate processing inefficiencies, digitizing some of its offerings and adjusting the frequency of employment forms so individuals had to reconfirm their status less often, though it suggested the agency still has a long way to go.

“While these steps addressed necessary issues to give the agency workforce sufficient breathing space to take on its backlogs, the majority of these actions address only the symptoms and not the root causes of backlogs themselves,” the watchdog said. “Prioritization steps are necessary, but the larger stumbling blocks of the underlying adjudications remain.”

The agency can expand the ways in which it eases the burdens for applicants looking to extend their stays, the ombudsman said, such as by reducing the number of instances in which they must provide biometric information. USCIS should further leverage new technologies and ask Congress for “some continuing form of appropriated funds” to support its vastly increased parole efforts.

Until the lawmakers and the agency find ways to fundamentally change the system, the situation may only worsen. Knowles noted backlogs have not grown due to laziness, as asylum and other USCIS workers have a “strong work ethic” and “take tremendous pride in their work.” He likened the work environment his colleagues face—regularly speaking with migrants who are “tired, hungry, scared and bewildered”—to first responders who absorb the trauma they constantly see.

“What happens when you can’t get them out of the burning building?” Knowles asked, pointing to the growing backlogs. “You gave it your best effort, but you lost them?”

 Post is for information and educational purposes

Hat Tip to MasterCard

It is a fact that the United States has a drug/narcotics epidemic. The problem is so bad that it can no longer be estimated how many people across the country abuse the various types of drugs even at work or while driving cars. Furthermore, it is so bad state governments and the Federal government is actually admitting failure and funding programs that encourage drug use…imagine that.

Dispensaries have popped up all over the country and in fact, China is behind many of them.

The Pennsylvania Cannabis Movement, by the Numbers

How about Oklahoma for example?

At least $500 million of black market marijuana was seized during a multi-agency operation led by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics this week, after a yearlong investigation of nine Oklahoma farms.

“It’s much like we see with groups that are trafficking methamphetamine, cartels moving heroin; it is simply people involved in the criminal movement of marijuana on a commercial scale to the illicit market around the United States, and moving money — millions of dollars of money — worldwide,” said Woodward. Read more here.

At least Mastercard appears to take a stand…

PM: Mastercard has told financial institutions to stop allowing the purchase of marijuana with their debit cards.

The move to ban card purchases of the drug comes because of legal ramifications under federal law. Marijuana is illegal nationwide despite having been legalized on the state level in places like Colorado and Oregon.A spokesman for Mastercard said, “The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems.”

“As we were made aware of this matter, we quickly investigated it. In accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that offer payment services to cannabis merchants and connects them to Mastercard to terminate the activity,” the spokesman said on Wednesday.

Bradey Cobb, the CEO of Sunburn Cannabis, said in a statement about the ban, “this move is another blow to the state-legal cannabis industry and patients/consumers who want to access this budding category.”

The subject of legalizing cannabis has been recently fought over in the federal legislature. Earlier in July, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released a letter calling for “bipartisan bills” that could be passed in the July work period.

These included “safeguard[ing] cannabis banking.”

 

 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) reacted to Schumer’s desire to pass a marijuana bill during the July summer months by calling it part of a “wish list.”

In addition, Cornyn added, “it is only wishful thinking to believe that in the U.S. Senate you are going to be able to get all of these necessary items addressed in the next ten working days.”

Skepticism about the legalization and use of cannabis has been raised since some data has recently shown that an increase in overdoses “may be correlated” to its legalization with the rise in such illicit drugs as fentanyl.