Avenatti Docs Leak: Got $8 Million out of Thin Air When Stormy Arrived

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Lawyer and/or media gadabout Michael Avenatti has thus far provided a great deal of the comic relief in l’affaire Stormy Daniels, but there are a surprising number of serious questions about him that remain unanswered. . .

In spite of the fact that Avenatti’s appearances on cable news seem more frequent than takeoffs at LaGuardia, we don’t have any answers to these questions — nor indeed does anyone on CNN or MSNBC feel particularly inclined to ask them. They just assume that it’s none of their business and move along their merry way.

As humorously Biff Tanner-like as that terse statement may be, there are several problems with it. First, while he’s busy banging journalists’ heads against the wall so that they’ll read what he had to say, he probably should instruct his own client to read it, since her own statements in the matter directly contradict this. And second, it doesn’t explain why he seems to have come into $8 million as the Daniels case began to explode earlier this year . . .

Barnes looked up some tax information on Avenatti’s law firm and found he hadn’t paid any taxes for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, even though filings in a bankruptcy court said that during that period the firm earned a whopping $30 million.

“In January 2018, (Michael Avenatti) got an unidentified source of income that allowed him to pay $4.85M to his law firm employees he defrauded, close to $2M in back taxes for payroll taxes on his law firm, and near another $1M to other creditors,” Barnes tweeted.

(Read more from “Avenatti Docs Leak: Got $8 Million out of Thin Air When Stormy Arrived” HERE)

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Russian Business Entity Rips Mueller’s Charges as ‘Make-Believe’

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Lawyers for a business entity charged in the special counsel’s investigation of Russian interference in the presidential election on Monday derided the alleged crime as “make-believe” and said the prosecution has “absolutely nothing to do” with probing any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

The Russian business entity, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, represented by a Washington-area team from Reed Smith, suggested in a court filing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller III had overstepped his authority to investigate any conspiracy between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian actors who meddled in the presidential race. Concord Management and other Russian entities and individuals were charged in February in Washington federal district court for alleged roles in “sowing discord” in the presidential campaign.

Mueller’s team alleged Concord Management funded the Internet Research Agency, a Russian outfit also charged in the indictment. Prosecutors in charging documents identified the Internet Research Agency as the “organization.”

The reason for bringing the case, Reed Smith partners Eric Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly said in a court filing Monday, “is obvious, and is political: to justify his own existence the Special Counsel has to indict a Russian—any Russian.” The two lawyers describe Mueller’s case as based on allegations that Concord Management “engaged in the make-believe crime of conspiring to ‘interfere’ in a United States election.” . . .

Concord Management’s attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich to review the legal instructions prosecutors provided to the grand jury that charged the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management and other Russian entities and individuals.

(Story appeared at Yahoo.com but read more about it HERE)

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Famous “Humanitarian” Charged with Pedophilia, Raping Boy in Nepal

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. . .But over several years, Mr. Dalglish, a Canadian, endeared himself to many in the community, greeting villagers in Nepali, offering chocolates from Thailand to children playing in the forest and helping people rebuild their homes destroyed by devastating earthquakes in 2015.

The good will was shattered last month when the police swarmed around Mr. Dalglish’s home, placed a gun to his head and arrested him on charges of raping at least two boys, 12 and 14. . .

Mr. Dalglish’s downfall has been a shock partly because his work aiding street children around the world was so widely admired. In 2016, he was awarded the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors.

Nepal is one of Asia’s poorest countries, and thousands of nongovernmental organizations operate with limited government oversight. The absence of strict regulations means aid groups can be used as a cover for human traffickers and predatory behavior by humanitarian workers, said Pushkar Karki, the head of Nepal’s Chief Investigation Bureau, the agency overseeing the case against Mr. Dalglish. (Read more from “Famous “Humanitarian” Charged with Pedophilia, Raping Boy in Nepal” HERE)

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Why One-Third of American Working-Age Men Could Be Displaced by Robots

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One third of able-bodied American men between 25 and 54 could be out of job by 2050, contends the author of “The Future of Work: Robots, AI and Automation.”

“We’re already at 12% of prime-aged men without jobs,” said Darrell West, vice president of the Brookings Institution think tank, at a forum in Washington, D.C. on Monday. That number has grown steadily over the past 60 years, but it could triple in the next 30 years because of new technology such as artificial intelligence and automation. . .

Molly Kinder, senior adviser at progressive think tank New America, said the current state of manufacturing tells a story that will be seen see across many occupations. Jobs that don’t require advanced education will be replaced by automation, displacing low-wage, low-skilled workers. . .

Many are already hurt by the technology shift. Some 6% of all adults say they lost a job or had their pay or hours reduced because of automation, according to a Pew Research study published in October. And 65% of adults believe most stores will be fully automated in 20 years and require little human interaction.

West’s new book focused a lot of his attention on use of robotics in the service industry. In the book he quotes Andrew Puzder, former CEO of Hardee’s parent company CKE, as saying that digital devices are “always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case.” (Read more from “Why One-Third of American Working-Age Men Could Be Displaced by Robots” HERE)

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Police Returned a Missing Boy to His Parents’ Home – Then Arrested Them When They Looked Inside

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Police say that they returned a boy to his California home after he was reported missing, but then arrested the parents when they discovered the conditions he was living in . . .

30-year-old Ina Rogers called the police in March after she discovered that her 12-year-old son was missing. She and 29-year-old Jonathan Allen, live in the city of Fairfield, just north of San Francisco.

After police found the child and returned them to his parents’ home, they discovered that the couple were forcing their ten children to live in horrible conditions.

Ina Rogers was arrested and charged with neglect, while Jonathan Allen was arrested and charged with nine counts of felony torture and six counts of child abuse . . .

“The children described incidents of intentional abuse resulting in puncture wounds, burns, bruising, and injuries consistent with being shot with a pellet gun or BB gun,” said Lieutenant Greg Hurlbut of the Fairfield Police.

(Read more from “Police Returned a Missing Boy to His Parents’ Home – Then Arrested Them When They Looked Inside” HERE)

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Who Lives in a ‘Constitution-Free’ Zone? Well over Half the U.S. Population

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Arivaca is a small, unincorporated community in Pima County, Arizona, around 11 miles north of the Mexican border. The closest big city is Tucson, 60 miles northeast. The town itself is barebones—a smattering of old buildings, some dating back to the 1800s. It is surrounded by swathes of yellow grassland.

To get groceries or cash a check at the bank, residents often have to drive north to Green Valley, or even further, to Tucson. And to do that, they have to pass by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoint, where they’re inevitably asked if they’re U.S. citizens. . .

While the weight of border patrol’s operations is felt heaviest along the southwest border of the U.S., the “no man’s land” Ragan is talking about actually extends much further into the country. In the “border zone,” different legal standards apply. Agents can enter private property, set up highway checkpoints, have wide discretion to stop, question, and detain individuals they suspect to have committed immigration violations—and can even use race and ethnicity as factors to do so.

That’s striking because the border zone is home to 65.3 percent of the entire U.S. population, and around 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population, according to a CityLab analysis based on data from location intelligence company ESRI. This zone, which hugs the entire edge of the United States and runs 100 air miles inside, includes some of the densest cities—New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. It also includes all of Michigan and Florida, and half of Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a prior rough analysis by Will Lowe, a data scientist at MIT.

“It really is kind of a constitution-free zone,”says Patrick Eddington, a policy analyst who has been compiling data on border patrol’s internal checkpoints at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank. “I guess the best way to phrase it is that in this area, [border patrol agents] are being allowed to nullify people’s rights.” (Read more from “Who Lives in a ‘Constitution-Free’ Zone? Well over Half the U.S. Population” HERE)

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Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

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It’s been nearly three months since many Google employees—and the public—learned about the company’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program known as Project Maven, which aims to speed up analysis of drone footage by automatically classifying images of objects and people. Now, about a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company’s continued involvement in Maven.

The resigning employees’ frustrations range from particular ethical concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in drone warfare to broader worries about Google’s political decisions—and the erosion of user trust that could result from these actions. Many of them have written accounts of their decisions to leave the company, and their stories have been gathered and shared in an internal document, the contents of which multiple sources have described to Gizmodo.

The employees who are resigning in protest, several of whom discussed their decision to leave with Gizmodo, say that executives have become less transparent with their workforce about controversial business decisions and seem less interested in listening to workers’ objections than they once did. In the case of Maven, Google is helping the Defense Department implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones. But some employees believe humans, not algorithms, should be responsible for this sensitive and potentially lethal work—and that Google shouldn’t be involved in military work at all.

Historically, Google has promoted an open culture that encourages employees to challenge and debate product decisions. But some employees feel that their leadership no longer as attentive to their concerns, leaving them to face the fallout. “Over the last couple of months, I’ve been less and less impressed with the response and the way people’s concerns are being treated and listened to,” one employee who resigned said.

There’s precedent for employee pushback resulting in product changes—in 2015, employees and users successfully challenged Google’s ban on sexually explicit content posted to Blogger. But these are the first known mass resignations at Google in protest against one of the company’s business decisions, and they speak to the strongly felt ethical concerns of the employees who are departing. (Read more from “Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract” HERE)

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The Cheesecake Factory Responds to Attack on Black Man Who Wore MAGA Hat

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By Daily Wire. Late on Monday night, The Cheesecake Factory responded to an alleged attack on a black Trump supporter that happened at one of their restaurants in Miami, Florida, by announcing that they have launched an investigation into the incident.

In a statement to The Daily Wire, Alethea Rowe, Senior Director of Public Relations at The Cheesecake Factory, wrote:

No guest should ever feel unwelcomed in one of our restaurants and we are taking this matter very seriously. Upon learning of this incident, we immediately apologized to the guests in person. We are conducting an investigation and will take the appropriate corrective action.

The statement from The Cheesecake Factory comes in response to an exclusive report from The Daily Wire about an alleged event that happened on Mother’s Day at their restaurant located inside Dadeland Mall. (Read more from “The Cheesecake Factory Responds to Attack on Black Man Who Wore MAGA Hat” HERE)

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Black Trump Supporter with MAGA Hat Attacked by Cheesecake Factory Employees

By International Business Times. Employees at a Cheesecake Factory in Miami allegedly made threatening gestures and verbally attacked a black man for wearing a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hat. The attack took place Sunday at the Cheesecake Factory outlet inside Dadeland Mall when 22-year-old Eugenior Joseph was dining with his girlfriend’s family.

According to the victim’s account, a woman employee of the outlet walked up to him, pointed at his MAGA hat and signaled the other employees to come over.

A witness said they had no clue of what was happening, and the employee’s finger was literally on top of the victim’s head.

“She was pointing at him, calling her other co-workers, telling them to look at this guy wearing a Make America Great Again hat,” the witness said, the Daily Wire reported in an exclusive.

A dozen or so employees joined her at the table and started making statements about the hat. Some even said they wanted to punch Joseph in the face, the witness recalled. (Read more from “Black Trump Supporter with MAGA Hat Attacked by Cheesecake Factory Employees” HERE)

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Watch: Woman Accuses Cop of Racism, Then the Body Cam Footage Comes Out

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A South Carolina woman named Dawn Hilton-Williams posted a video to Facebook Live on April 27 in which she accuses a Virginia cop who pulled her over for a speeding violation of being a “racist.” In the tearful rant, which soon went viral, Hilton-Williams describes the interaction as a lynching and invokes the name of Sandra Bland, a black woman who killed herself in her jail cell after a traffic stop . . .

After the video was posted, many concerned citizens called the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office with questions and outrage. This prompted the sheriff’s office to release the full video of the traffic stop, which paints a very different picture than what Hilton-Williams’ describes. Contrary to the woman’s claim, the deputy never threatened to “pull” her out of her car when she refused to sign the summons and there are no references or innuendos to race or racial antipathy . . .

Upon reviewing the footage, though, Roberts said he concluded that the stop was routine and his deputy did nothing wrong. He noted that such accusations of unfounded racism are what fan the flames of cop-hatred, which in the past has resulted in the execution of innocent officers eating lunch in their cruisers.

“I don’t know what she has been through and I don’t know her life history, what I worry about is this kind of thing will inflame situations where you see cops in other states have been executed while they were just eating lunch,” he explained. “We’ve had dash cams for 10 years and body cams on our persons for about three or four. It’s to protect the public and our agency. This is a fine example. This entire incident was recorded on a body camera and it’s all lies.”

After the video was released, Hilton-Williams said she had a different recollection of the interaction. “Get or pull. All he had to do was say step out of the car ma’am. I felt that it was threatening and I didn’t feel safe because he’s got the gun and he’s got the badge,” she said.

(Read more from “Watch: Woman Accuses Cop of Racism, Then the Body Cam Footage Comes Out” HERE)

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Porn Star Makes Damaging Allegations Against Stormy Daniels

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By Daily Wire. On Monday, a newly-released report from The Daily Beast outlined damaging allegations made by porn star Tasha Reign, who claims that Stormy Daniels did nothing when Reign was sexually assaulted by one of Daniels’ crew members.

The context of the interview was in relation to an interview Daniels gave in April on ABC’s “The View.” The Daily Beast reports:

During the interview, Daniels claimed that, shortly after she first told her story to In Touch magazine back in 2011, a man approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot and threatened her life, urging her to “leave Trump alone” and “forget the story.” The duo then released a composite sketch of the purported parking-lot assailant, with Daniels explaining that she didn’t go to the authorities seven years ago because she both feared for her safety and, as a newly-minted mother, didn’t want her husband at the time to learn about the supposed Trump tryst. She did, however, concede that, “I always feel like you should stand up for yourself and you should report it.”

(Read more from “Porn Star Makes Damaging Allegations Against Stormy Daniels” HERE)

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Tasha Reign: I Was Assaulted on a Stormy Daniels Porn Set. and She Did Nothing.

By The Daily Beast. On the other side of the country in sunny Los Angeles, Tasha Reign was tuning in to Daniels’ sit-down and couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“It’s very upsetting to see her speak like that and then I think, but I know the real you,” says Reign. “I was there. I saw what you did.” . . .

“It’s tricky…” she says, her voice cracking with emotion, “because I don’t even like Stormy. I don’t like her at all.”

Reign says she has a “horrible story” to tell me about herself and Daniels.

“I was sexually assaulted by one of her crewmembers. He groped and grabbed me from behind,” she says, wiping away tears. “I spoke up immediately because I was in the moment, and I was so proud of myself. She was the director that day, I went straight to her and straight to the man that did it, we had a conversation about it, I went to the owner of Wicked Pictures, I did all the right things. And she did not handle the situation appropriately, respectfully, or professionally. So it’s a little bit outrageous when I hear her say things about how she is standing up for women and wants to be a voice for other women to be able to come forward when I was assaulted on her set and she didn’t give me any care or attention, and didn’t even send that man home.” (Read more from “Tasha Reign: I Was Assaulted on a Stormy Daniels Porn Set. and She Did Nothing.” HERE)

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