The Treatment of Covid in Venezuela, Crimes Against Humanity

VP and presidential candidate Biden and Kamala Harris may need to get the memo on governance in Venezuela. Then they can invite blue state governors and mayors in the U.S. to a Zoom call about it….read on…

Note the U.S. is paying some salaries for medical workers.

The illegitimate Maduro regime wants Venezuelans to denounce their neighbors who are sick with COVID-19, calling them “bioterrorists.”

Nicolás Maduro’s National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela encouraged citizens to look for sick Venezuelans, saying a returning migrant “is a bioterrorist who puts everyone’s health at risk.” They also provided an email address and asked anyone with information to send them “the information of the person and their exact location” so the Maduro regime could detain them.

“They told us we’re contaminated, that we’re guilty of infecting the country,” Javier Aristizabal, a nurse from Caracas, told the New York Times. He said he spent 70 days in detention centers after he returned from Colombia in March.

Once these Venezuelans are detained, they are placed in unsafe containment conditions even if they do not display symptoms of COVID-19.

“In commandeered hotels, disused schools and cordoned-off bus stations, Venezuelans returning home from other countries in Latin America are being forced into crowded rooms with limited food, water or masks,” the New York Times reported.

Soldiers guarding people sitting in street (© Manaure Quintero/Reuters)
Venezuelans are placed in the middle of the street by security forces as punishment for disobeying social distancing measures August 5 in Caracas, Venezuela. (© Manaure Quintero/Reuters)

While the illegitimate regime continues to create more problems for Venezuelans during the pandemic, legitimate interim president Juan Guaidó and the legitimate government developed a program to help deliver better medical care to all.

The Héroes de la Salud program helps frontline health workers save lives by giving them the funds and resources they need to fight the virus, according to the National Assembly.

The interim Guaidó government recently accessed frozen funds with the support of the U.S. Treasury Department to pay the salaries of health care workers, providing close to $20 million for the program. Over 60,000 frontline doctors and nurses in Venezuela will receive $100 a month, considerably more than their pay under the Maduro regime.

The program is a recognition of the “men and women who save lives in the middle of an emergency, a pandemic and a dictatorship,” Guaidó said on Twitter, “so that we can continue fighting for the freedom of Venezuela. In the face of challenges, we are going to triumph.”

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Meanwhile:

(AP) — Independent experts commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body have alleged the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro committed crimes against humanity.

The experts issued a scathing, in-depth report on Wednesday that said the people responsible for crimes that include extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture must be held to account, in part to ensure they don’t happen again.

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The report was commissioned last year by the 47-member-state Human Rights Council, which has the backing of the United Nations,

The findings, based on nearly 3,000 cases that were investigated or examined, concluded that Maduro and his defense and interior ministers were aware of crimes committed by security forces and intelligence agencies. It further alleged that high-level authorities had both power and oversight over the forces and agencies, making the top officials responsible.

The report appeared likely to fan international and domestic criticism of Maduro’s government, which has overseen a country in tatters with runaway inflation, a violent crackdown and an exodus of millions of Venezuelans who have fled to neighboring countries to escape the turmoil since he took power in 2013.

Maduro’s government has come under increasing political pressure from the United States and dozens of other countries which consider politician Juan Guaidó the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Maduro has called this a plot to overthrow him so the U.S. can exploit Venezuela’s vast oil wealth.

Critics in other countries have already accused Maduro’s government of crimes against humanity. The 411-page report for the Human Rights Council represents an extensive look at rights violations in Venezuela and was based on interviews with victims, relatives, witnesses, police, government officials and judges, as well as videos, satellite imagery and social media content.

The authors said they did not receive responses from the government itself.

The experts — Marta Valinas of Portugal, Francisco Cox Vial of Chile, and Paul Seils of Britain — worked under a fact-finding mission the Geneva-based rights council set up last September to investigate alleged cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment and other human rights violations in Venezuela over the past five years

“These acts were committed pursuant to two state policies, one to quash opposition to the government and another to combat crime, including by eliminating individuals perceived as criminals,” Valinas told reporters. “We also consider that the documented crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population.”

“For these reasons, the mission has reasonable grounds to believe that they amount to crimes against humanity,” she said, noting the alleged arbitrary killings and systematic use of torture, in particular. “Far from being isolated acts, these crimes were coordinated and committed pursuant to state policies, with the knowledge or direct support of commanding officers and senior government officials.”

In the report, the experts said the violations took place amid a breakdown of democratic institutions, rule of law and judicial independence in Venezuela. They said the great majority of unlawful killings by security forces have not resulted in prosecutions and “at no stage have officials with command responsibility been brought to justice,” according to a summary of the findings.

A report that the U.N.’s human rights chief, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, issued last year after a visit to Venezuela that included meeting Maduro said the government had registered nearly 5,300 killings in security operations linked to cases of “resistance to authority.” Bachelet also decried a “shockingly high” number of extrajudicial killings.

Under Article 7 of the U.N. treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, a crime against humanity is defined as an act committed as part of a “widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.”

 

Leaked DHS email Explains ANTIFA Portland is Organized

Primer: Rose City Antifa (RCA) was founded in Portland, Oregon in October of 2007. RCA was formed after a coalition of local people and organizations formed the ‘Ad-Hoc Coalition Against Racism and Fascism’.

Portland & Antifa: National Review Cover Story — Kevin ... photo

Source:

An internal email from the Department of Homeland Security leaked to CBS Catherine Herridge late Monday detailing that the violence in Portland was not “opportunistic,” but rather “organized”—confirming long-suspected details about the Antifa movement.

The email explains that Antifa is organized and runs contrary to reports in the mainstream media that Antifa was not responsible for anti-police violence, but an impromptu movement spurred on by anti-fascist sentiments held by most of the American public.

A recent article in the Washington Post by Mark Bray, author of Antifa: Anti-Fascist Handbook, attempted to dispel “myths” about Antifa, claims that the group is not an organization, but rather a “tradition of militant antifascism.” The article disputed claims that Antifa “masterminds violence at Black Lives Matter protests.”

An internal email from the Department of Homeland Security leaked to CBS Catherine Herridge late Monday detailing that the violence in Portland was not “opportunistic,” but rather “organized”—confirming long-suspected details about the Antifa movement.

The email explains that Antifa is organized and runs contrary to reports in the mainstream media that Antifa was not responsible for anti-police violence, but an impromptu movement spurred on by anti-fascist sentiments held by most of the American public.

A recent article in the Washington Post by Mark Bray, author of Antifa: Anti-Fascist Handbook, attempted to dispel “myths” about Antifa, claims that the group is not an organization, but rather a “tradition of militant antifascism.” The article disputed claims that Antifa “masterminds violence at Black Lives Matter protests.”

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“Threat actors who are motivated by Anarchist or ANTIFA (or a combination of both) ideologies to carry out acts of violence against State, Local, and Federal authorities and infrastructure they believe represent authority or represent political and social ideas they reject,” Murphy concluded.

Phrases like “Every city, every town. Burn the precincts to the ground” are a common refrain at Black Lives Matter rallies, and have been chanted during arson attacks on the Portland Police Bureau, the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse in Portland, and other facilities where Antifa and Black Lives Matter militants were present.

The intelligence provided by the DHS validates claims by conservative voices who have long identified Antifa as an organized movement, and flies in the face of claims that the group was not intent on committing violence or conducting an insurgency against the United States government.

Obtain a Ballot Just by Taking a Photo of a Signature

Ah what? A signature photo using your smart phone? Whose signature? How many signatures?

How This Solo Founder Got Into a Top Tech Accelerator ...

Meet Debra Cleaver, Founder & CEO, of Vote.org. February of 2017. The Institute of Politics as Harvard hosted a panel discussion, titled “Leaders of the Resistance’. The Panelists included Debra Cleaver, Founder & CEO of Vote.org; Leah Greenberg, Co-Founder of Indivisible; Andrea Hailey, Founder of Civic Engagement Fund; Amanda Litman, Founder of Run for Something; and Jess Morales Rocketto, Digital Community Organizer for OccupyAirports joined moderator Meighan Stone, a Spring 2017 Entrepreneurship Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and President of Malala Fund for a panel discussion on the women-led “Resistance” against the current White House. The panelists discussed recent events in voter and candidate outreach, especially on the local level, in achieving their efforts to advance Democratic causes in the upcoming 2018 and 2020 elections.

Meanwhile……

With November looming, the scramble to protect the 2020 U.S. election from coronavirus chaos is on.

To that end, a small, skilled cluster of voting rights advocates are launching a new voter mobilization project. Called VoteAmerica, the new non-profit shares DNA with Vote.org, the esteemed nonpartisan voter mobilization site VoteAmerica founder Debra Cleaver first launched in 2008.

VoteAmerica’s goal is to boost voter turnout by helping people vote by mail. In a normal year that might mean striving to drive record turnout. But in the midst of the pandemic, the team is working to ensure that 2020’s presidential election turnout doesn’t slump like it would in a midterm election year.

“It seems at this point that Americans are either going to be unable or unwilling to vote in person in the November election, which could lead to catastrophically low turnout,” Cleaver said in an interview with TechCrunch . “But if we have our way, there will be no perceivable dip in turnout in November.”

While Vote.org is still around, the organization severed ties with Cleaver last summer in a drawn out battle with the group’s board. As Recode reported last month, some key Vote.org partners and donors walked out the door with Cleaver—a major concern for an organization with valuable ties in Silicon Valley and a more dire mission than ever in 2020.

With VoteAmerica, they might be back in the picture. Some of Cleaver’s previous Silicon Valley backers include Y Combinator’s Sam Altman (Cleaver is a YC alum), LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and angel investor Ron Conway. In a conversation with TechCrunch, Cleaver noted that at least Conway is back on board, pitching in with the $5 million in initial funding—a mix of grants and early contributions—to get the fledgling organization off the ground.

“We have the expertise, the team, the experience, and the plan,” Cleaver wrote in a Facebook post last month, adding that a “generous donor” had already stepped up to cover the nascent organization’s payroll costs.

Cleaver describes VoteAmerica as a lean team with deep experience—and one ready to hit the ground running. The project’s new website VoteAmerica.com fittingly displays an election day countdown clock in stark white-on-red lettering to convey the urgency of its task.

In the announcement for the new project, Cleaver said she believes that the 2020 elections “will be the most chaotic in American history”—a prediction that unfortunately is very difficult to argue with.

“Chaos driven by a global pandemic, foreign interference, threats of political violence, a radicalized electorate, a virulent campaign of disinformation, and fragile election administration technology all combine to make voting in person more difficult and less secure than ever before,” Cleaver said.

Because states conduct elections in the United States, her group’s core mission is to shepherd voters through the national patchwork of voting registration systems. On the simple site, visitors can register to vote, check their registration status, find a polling place, request an absentee ballot or sign up to vote-by-mail.

While many states in the U.S. already administer a large chunk of their voting through absentee vote-by-mail, It looks likely that the urgent public health threat posed by the coronavirus will mean that mass public gatherings in crowded polling places remain unwise. In light of that threat, states are looking to dramatically scale up those systems now to get them ready in time for November.

Old systems, new solutions

For VoteAmerica, navigating the quirks of American election systems can look like lending voters a fax machine.

“You can only sign up [for a mail-in ballot] online in 15 states, which is not actually a significant number, but there’s another 15 more where you can fax in your form, which doesn’t seem relevant because it’s 2020 and who uses a fax machine?”

But using fax APIs, VoteAmerica is building out a system that allows voters to request a vote-by-mail application just by taking a photo of their signature. VoteAmerica’s tool then uses code to put the signature in the right spot on the form and then programmatically faxes it to the relevant local election official.

“This is kind of wonky because we’re using truly antiquated technology to modernize the vote-by-mail process,” Cleaver said. “But if you have a mobile device—and 87% of Americans have a smartphone—we’re building technology that lets you sign up directly from your mobile device without printing and mailing.”

It’s just one way that VoteAmerica plans to employ technology solutions to civic problems—like the outdated government systems that still haunt American life. The solution sounds small, but at scale it can mobilize a huge amount of voters who otherwise could have been tangled up in the bureaucratic process. Naturally, that kind of elegant workaround to inefficient systems attracts interest from the tech community.

“We definitely do get a lot of tech money, and I think it’s because tech people both appreciate and trust using technology to clear antiquated hurdles,” Cleaver said.

“The things that we do, people in Silicon Valley are very receptive to it, whereas people outside the Valley might take a little more time to warm up to it.” More here.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Partner with Netflix to Produce BLM

Anyone think this documentary would be comprehensive and honest? Anyone?

Source: As a part of her and Prince Harry’s mega-deal with Netflix, Meghan Markle is reportedly pitching a documentary about a Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder, The Sun reports.

Patrisse Cullors, who is one of the three individuals who founded the BLM movement, would be the subject of the documentary that Meghan Markle would apparently like to produce with Netflix.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as Meghan, 39, and Harry, 35, are also known, have inked a deal with the streaming giant estimated (by some prognosticators) to score them $100 million to $150 million over perhaps five years. These are desperately needed funds considering the couple’s lavish lifestyle, sky-high security costs, debt to the British taxpayers for the renovation of their English home, (now reimbursed) and the reported lack of financial support they are now receiving from the Windsor purse.

The Mirror heard from a source who said that Meghan Markle pitched the documentary to Netflix because she’s been “blown away by the incredible work Patrisse has done” in spearheading the BLM movement.

“She thinks her story needs to be told – and she would love to be the one to make it.”

Meghan Markle pitches movie idea to Netflix about Black Lives Matter co-founder

Patrisse, 36, was driven into action by the acquittal of George Zimmerman for shooting young Trayvon Martin to death in Florida.

She, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi founded Black Lives Matter in 2013. And if Meghan Markle has anything to do with it, Patrisse will soon star in a Netflix documentary.

Meghan Markle is a historic first for the British royal family: an African-American spouse of a senior royal. So perhaps it is a natural fit she should seek to produce a Black Lives Matter documentary with Netflix.

Meanwhile, outspoken British TV host Piers Morgan has lashed out at the Sussexes for being such greedy gobble gannets where money is concerned, according to the Daily Star. Sure, they’ve reported paid back the millions of dollars in British taxpayer funds used to renovate their English home, Frogmore Cottage. But the great wealth that the couple has sought out rubs the ever stuffy and huffy TV personality quite the wrong way.

Taking a jibe a Meghan, 39, and Harry, 35, Piers exclaimed: “It’s great they’ve paid back the Frogmore money, it’s great they’re not taking any more of Charles’s money, but they’ve kept the titles – and if you really want to find freedom, and you really want to divorce the country, why would you keep the titles ‘Duke and Duchess of Sussex’?

Meghan Markle ‘has pitched Black Lives Matter movie to Netflix’ amid £112m deal

In a lamentation evocative of Welsh complaints that ever-English Prince Charles was undeserving of the Prince of Wales title he received at his 1969 investiture, Morgan continued in his verbal thrashing of Meghan and Harry: “I’m from Sussex and I bet I’ve spent more time there over the past week than they have in their entire lives, and yet they want to trade off their royal names to get all this money.”

Oh, but Morgan wasn’t done. As the duchess reportedly plans for a Black Lives Matter documentary, he said, “The only reason Netflix is paying them all this money is because of their royal titles – you think Meghan Markle would have got £1.50 out of them without it?

Co-founder of Black Lives Matter Movement Patrisse Cullors


When Meghan Markle and Harry announced their Netflix mega-deal earlier this month — one that may spawn the Black Lives Matter documentary — they said, “Our focus will be on creating content that informs but also gives hope. As new parents, making inspirational family programming is also important to us.”

Other royal commentators, according to the Express, have recently reflected that Harry and Meghan have apparently severed the last cord tying them to their past lives as working senior royals in the British royal family.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have repaid their £2.4 million taxpayer-funded renovation of Frogmore Cottage, their UK residence. The New York Times also reports that the Sussexes are no longer receiving any income from Prince Charles’ Duchy of Cornwall. ITV Royal Rota podcast hosts Chris Ship and Lizzie Robinson discussed how the couple’s financial independence is sending a stark message.

‘They are done’ – Meghan and Harry issue ‘clear warning’ as they cut final royal ties

According to Ship, Harry and Meghan cut these financial ties to the Windsor fortune to serve as a justification for blocking the media from their lives.

Which is ironic, since media interest in Meghan and Harry has only grown since they announced in January that they were bolting from their positions as senior royals.

Now, eight months later, they’re firmly ensconced in the Los Angeles area, having purchased a $14.7 estate in Montecito, California. And of course they have landed the deal with Netflix. Apparently to come: the Black Lives Matter documentary.

For Harry’s, a considerable downside to the split, the Mirror reports, has been the loss of the duke’s treasured military titles.

Prince Harry was “emotional and demoralised” after being stripped of his military titles when he stepped down from the royal duties, a biography has claimed. The Duke of Sussex was forced to relinquish his cherished roles in the British Army after moving to California with Meghan earlier this year. Harry vowed to maintain links with servicemen and women after leaving the forces in 2015, reports the Daily Star. It is this aspect of ‘Megxit’ that he found most “demoralising”, according to Finding Freedom authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand.

Prince Harry ’emotional and demoralised’ after being stripped of military titles

Assigned Mueller Team Cell Phones Wiped Clean of all Data

It is a pattern. It is Weismann…. It is Strzok….It is a cover-up…..now what?

NR: More than two dozen phones belonging to members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team were wiped clean of data before the Justice Department’s inspector general could comb them for records, the DOJ said in records released Thursday.

At least 27 cell phones were wiped of data before the DOJ inspector general could review them, some reset to factory settings and some wiped “accidentally” after the wrong password was entered too many times, according to 87 pages of DOJ records regarding the phones issued to members of the special counsel’s office. Including mobile phones that were “reassigned,” the Special Counsel’s office wiped a total of 31 phones.

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A phone belong to assistant special counsel James Quarles “wiped itself without intervention from him,” the DOJ’s records state.

Andrew Weismann, a top prosecutor on Mueller’s team, “accidentally wiped” his cell phone, causing the data to be lost. Other members of the team also accidentally wiped their phones, the DOJ said.

Additionally, the cell phone of FBI lawyer Lisa Page was misplaced by the special counsel’s office. While it was eventually obtained by the DOJ inspector general, by that point the phone had been restored to its factory settings, wiping it of all data. The phone of FBI agent Peter Strzok was also obtained by the inspector general’s office, which found “no substantive texts, notes or reminders” on it.

Strzok and Page texted each other about their aversion to Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election cycle. In their messages to each other, Strzok and Page, who were carrying on an extramarital affair at the time, both called then-candidate Trump an “idiot” and made vague mention of an “insurance policy” to ensure he would not be elected. Critics have speculated that the “insurance policy” referred to the investigation of potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, but the two former FBI officials have denied that suggestion.

In March of last year, Mueller submitted his final report to Attorney General William Barr on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The report, a redacted version of which was released to Congress and the public the next month, concluded that the Trump campaign did not conspire with Russians to influence the election, but said investigators could not reach a conclusion on whether President Trump committed obstruction of justice.

Facing the Justice Department’s frustration that he left the question of obstruction open in his final report, Mueller said in May of last year that charging Trump with a crime was “not an option” since, per guidance issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, a sitting president cannot be indicted.

Phones issued to at least three other Mueller prosecutors, Kyle Freeny, Rush Atkinson, and senior prosecutor Greg Andres were also wiped of data.

*** Politipage | Conservative News Aggregator and Curator

During Rosenstein’s May 23, 2017, interview with Mueller’s team, FBI notes indicate Rosenstein considered appointing a special counsel on May 10, the day after Comey was fired, and that Rosenstein’s “first conversation with Mueller for the position of special counsel” was that day. Rosenstein met with Mueller in person on May 12, and Hunt called Mueller that evening. Rosenstein and Sessions spoke with Mueller the next day, and “Mueller informed them he did not want to be interviewed for FBI director.” Rosenstein told the FBI that “the first candidate to be interviewed at the White House was Mueller,” but that section is redacted.

“Rosenstein and Sessions spoke with Mueller on Saturday, May 13. Mueller informed them he did not want to be interviewed for the FBI director position. Rosenstein instead convinced Mueller to share with Sessions Mueller’s views about ‘what should be done with the FBI.’ Sessions thought Mueller’s comments were ‘brilliant.’ Rosenstein did not want to interview Mueller and then reject him, so they made it clear they only sought his opinion,” the FBI interview with Rosenstein states. “Nevertheless, Mueller was placed on the White House’s list of potential candidates for FBI director … Mueller was interviewed for the position of FBI director, but later decided to withdraw from consideration.” More here.