Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
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Trump’s Russian laundromat

The Trump administration has been using conservative outlets like Fox News to launder unverified Russian intelligence intended to denigrate Democratic officials and candidates. In the latest instance last week, DNI John Ratcliffe declassified handwritten notes from 2016 by then-CIA Director John Brennan stating that he had briefed President Obama on Russian activities, including a reference to Hillary Clinton’s campaign attempting to “vilify Donald Trump.” Fox News was the first to publish the notes.
Brennan accused Ratcliffe of selectively declassifying documents in order to "advance the political interests" of Trump ahead of the election:

"These were my notes from the 2016 period when I briefed President Obama and the rest of the national security council team about what the Russians were up to and I was giving examples of the type of access that the US intelligence community had to Russian information and what the Russians were talking about and alleging," he added.

Ratcliffe has approved the release of even more information meant to assist Trump, including “a large binder full of documents” he gave to the Justice Department. "At my direction, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has provided almost 1,000 pages of materials to the Department of Justice in response to Mr. Durham's document request,” Ratcliffe confirmed.
There is nothing illegal about the actions allegedly taken by the Clinton campaign, as detailed in the released documents. As Lawfare explains, the declassified memo originated from the CIA’s Counterintelligence Mission Center:

Importantly, it is not a crimes report. Rather, as the name suggests, the purpose of a CIOL is to pass operational leads to the FBI for counterintelligence purposes. In this case, the CIA had information indicating that a hostile foreign intelligence service may have spied on a U.S. presidential campaign. Even if the intelligence was questionable, it still presented a significant counterintelligence risk—which is why, as Ratcliffe’s letter says, it was reported to the FBI...

Meanwhile, Trump tweeted that he has authorized the release of every document related to the “Russian Hoax” and the “Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. Tweet. He then added:

All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our Country, people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our Country. Act!!!

In an interview on Fox News a couple of days later, Trump expressed displeasure that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had not yet released the emails deleted from Clinton's private server: "She said she had 33,000 e-mails...They're in the State Department, but Mike Pompeo has been unable to get them out, which is very sad actually. I'm -- I'm not happy about him for that, that reason. He was unable to get -- I don't know why. You're running the State Department and you get them out.” (clip)
The very next day, Pompeo appeared on Fox News to assert: "We've got the emails, we're getting them out." Asked if they would be released before the election, he said, "I certainly think there'll be more to see before the election." (clip)

Buzzfeed News took Trump’s tweets to a judge to gain the release of the entire unredacted Mueller report before Election Day. US District Judge Reggie Walton directed the Justice Department to “confer with the White House” and report back to the court the “official position regarding the declassification and release to the public of information related to the Russia investigation.”

Durham probe

For the second straight week, the media is reporting the Durham investigation will not produce a report prior to the election. Last week, AG Bill Barr reportedly told top Republicans that they should not expect any further indictments or a comprehensive report before Nov. 3.
Trump publicly attacked Barr for what he sees as the slow progress of the Durham probe. “I think it’s a terrible thing. And I’ll say it to [Barr’s] face...See, this is what I mean with the Republicans. They don’t play the tough game,” Trump told Rush Limbaugh on Friday.

Earlier in the week, Trump sent an all-caps tweet calling for the arrests of his political rivals: “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, THE BIGGEST OF ALL POLITICAL SCANDALS (IN HISTORY)!!! BIDEN, OBAMA AND CROOKED HILLARY LED THIS TREASONOUS PLOT!!! BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN - GOT CAUGHT!!!” Trump tweeted.

Court cases

A three-judge Appellate Court panel ruled that Manhattan D.A. Vance can enforce a subpoena seeking President Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns. The panel was made up of two Clinton-appointees and an Obama-appointee. Trump’s attorneys are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.

They concluded that the president did not show that Mr. Vance had been driven by politics. “None of the president’s allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass,” they wrote.

Prominent Trump and GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy was charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Prosecutors say Broidy accepted $6 million from a foreign client to lobby administration officials to end a federal investigation related to the looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund, known as 1MDB. The court filing also accuses Mr. Broidy of seeking the extradition of a Chinese citizen from the United States.

Note that Barr received a waiver to participate in the investigation of 1MDB despite his former law firm’s involvement in the case. Steve Bannon was arrested earlier this year on a yacht belonging to one of the individuals tied up in the case, as well.

Trump appeals order to continue Census count to the Supreme Court. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld a lower court order allowing the 2020 count to continue through October. The administration has asked SCOTUS to put an immediate hold on the injunction while it appeals.
The Supreme Court punted a decision on access to abortion, keeping open the option of revisiting the case at a later date. The Trump administration asked the high court to require women seeking the drugs for medication abortions to visit a doctor’s office or clinic. The order was unsigned but Justices Alito and Thomas declared their approval of the administration’s request in a separate filing.

“While COVID-19 has provided the ground for restrictions on First Amendment rights, the District Court saw the pandemic as a ground for expanding the abortion right recognized in Roe v. Wade,” wrote Alito and Thomas.

Other court cases to note:

Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll asked a judge to block the DOJ from intervening to represent Trump in her defamation lawsuit against the president. Her lawyers say the law in question, the Federal Tort Claims Act, does not apply to Trump — or to any other president. They also said that Trump, in any case, was not acting in his official role when he denied Carroll’s claims. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for Oct. 21.
The DOJ admitted to “inadvertently” producing altered versions of notes from former FBI officials McCabe and Strzok that were turned over to Michael Flynn’s defense team and filed to the court as potentially exculpatory evidence. As Marcy Wheeler explains, this explanation doesn’t match all the evidence.
Court-appointed adviser John Gleeson, a retired judge, urged District Judge Emmet Sullivan to take the president’s comments about the case into account when making a decision about whether or not to grant the Flynn-DOJ joint effort to permanently end the prosecution. Gleeson notes that Trump’s tweets provide evidence of political pressure to drop the case against Flynn: Trump successfully pressured the DOJ to “create a new set of rules that only apply to Michael Flynn and will never apply to anyone else.”
A federal judge in California has ordered that Twitter reveal the identity of an anonymous user who allegedly fabricated an FBI document to spread a conspiracy theory about the killing of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer who died in 2016.

Administration

Voice of America: Five suspended officials at the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) are suing the agency, its new CEO and several of his most senior aides, alleging they are breaking the law — routinely — in pursuing a pro-Trump agenda for the Voice of America news service.

David Kligerman, who has been suspended from his position as general counsel of the agency by Pack, told NPR that the case was necessary to get the courts to enforce the firewall. (He is not a party to the case, though he is cited in it as a whistleblower harmed by Pack's actions.) Kligerman and the five plaintiffs jointly filed a whistleblower complaint late last month, alleging Pack sought to oust them under a pretext of "security concerns" because they challenged his intrusion into journalistic decision-making.

Reminder: CEO Michael Pack, an ally of Steve Bannon, started his tenure by firing the heads of four organizations under USAGM. He then refused to renew the U.S. visas of more than 70 foreign journalists who work for VOA, vaguely accusing some of them of being spies. Pack tried to fire the board of the Open Technology Fund, an organization that supports Internet freedom initiatives, but a court blocked the terminations. Nevertheless, Pack succeeded in cutting off a large portion of its funding, forcing the non-profit to suspend over 80% of its projects. Finally, Pack ordered two political operatives he installed as his aides to investigate Steve Herman, the VOA White House bureau chief who reported on Pence’s disregard for masks, for anti-Trump bias.

Bureau of Land Management: William Perry Pendley, head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is refusing to leave his position after a judge ruled he is illegally serving as chief. “I have the support of the president,” he told the Wyoming Powell Tribune. “I have the support of the secretary of the interior and my job is to get out and get things done to accomplish what the president wants to do.”
CIA appointment: Bert Mizusawa, a retired major general who served as an advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign, was quietly installed in a senior advisory role at the CIA earlier this year. The move is spurring discussion among some former agency officials, who say the arrangement is highly unusual.

“An outsider with no internal sponsorship?” said one of the former officials. “That never happens.”
...Trump allies outside the administration have signaled frustration with Haspel in recent weeks, accusing the CIA chief of blocking the declassification of documents relevant to the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia that they view as exculpatory.

Trump has appointed Justin Peterson to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, sparking conflict of interest allegations. Peterson previously represented hedge fund bondholders pushing the board to pay them billions of dollars. Rep. Nydia Valazquez (D-NY): “As a member of the Board, Peterson would have a critical say in how to restructure the Island’s debt, but his coziness with bondholders is a serious red flag and a clear conflict of interest.”
A hate group employee is now leading diversity & inclusion efforts in the Department of Education. Weeks ago, Sarah Parshall Perry was defending J.K. Rowling on the Family Research Council podcasts. Now, Betsy Devos has bought Perry aboard to oversee inclusivity within the DOE.

Trump money

NYT revealed that Trump “engineered a sudden windfall” in 2016, moving over $21 million from a Vegas hotel Trump owns with billionaire Phil Ruffin, through other Trump companies, to his campaign.

“If Trump took out a bank loan in the LLC’s name for the purpose of financing his election, then the Trump campaign violated its legal reporting requirements by failing to disclose the loan, and failing to disclose that Trump’s Vegas property was used as collateral.”
The Times also reported that the LLC in question–Trump Las Vegas Sales and Marketing–claimed a deduction on the payment made to Trump in 2016. If the $30 million loan was, in fact, used to finance the president’s then-money-starved campaign, the potential criminality would be amplified.

In an apparent quid pro quo, Ruffin asked Trump for a favor after his inauguration: revive the high speed train project to bring gamblers from California to the Vegas strip. The Obama administration considered but turned down a $5.5 billion loan for the train. This past March, the Trump administration approved the project.

Among the train’s chief beneficiaries will be Mr. Ruffin and the other grandees of gambling who became a vital font of political money for Mr. Trump when he needed it most. And, of course, Donald Trump himself.

Another NYT report showed that Trump “reinvented” the swamp after he took office, setting up an extensive quid pro quo network with private businesses and special interests. Over 200 companies, special-interest groups, and foreign governments patronized Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.

Just 60 customers with interests at stake before the administration brought the Trump Organization nearly $12 million during the first two years of Mr. Trump’s presidency, The Times found. Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by the president or his government.
...During Mr. Trump’s campaign and the months leading up to his inauguration, the in-house magazine at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida announced nearly 100 new members, a number of whom had significant business interests in Washington. The tax records show that in 2016 alone, the club’s initiation fees delivered close to $6 million in revenue.
...More than 70 advocacy groups, businesses and foreign governments threw events at the properties that had previously been held elsewhere, or created new events that drove dollars into Mr. Trump’s business.
Donors also paid for the privilege of giving money to his campaign and super PAC. Mr. Trump attended 34 fund-raisers held at his hotels and resorts, events that brought them another $3 million in revenue. Sometimes, he lined up his donors to ask what they needed from the government.

Trump claimed a $21 million tax break for leaving the woodland surrounding his New York mansion undeveloped, a figure inflated by what appears to be a fraudulent appraisal. The value of the 212-acre estate was based on the premise that Trump could build and sell 24 manions on the land. However, building anything on that property was impossible, due largely to objections by neighbors. Trump was paid by the government not to build mansions that he never could have built, in other words.

In addition to the conservation easement tax break, Trump in 2014 also classified Seven Springs as an investment property, rather than a personal residence, and wrote off $2.2 million in property taxes as a business expense, the New York Times recently reported.
Trump’s family members have described the home as a family retreat in the past, and the Trump Organization’s website still characterizes Seven Springs that way. “Today, Seven Springs is used as a retreat for the Trump family,” the website says.

Trump’s adult children have brough at least $238,000 of taxpayer money into the Trump Organization by traveling to their family properties with Secret Service. “The president’s company billed the U.S. government hundreds, or thousands, of dollars for rooms agents used on each trip, as the agency sometimes booked multiple rooms or a multiroom rental cottage on the property,” WaPo reports.

The records also show about $29,000 in federal payments to Trump properties that related to travel by Donald Trump Jr. Trump Jr. stayed repeatedly at the Trump hotel in Washington — just blocks from his father’s residence at the White House...
In the records obtained by The Post, travel by Ivanka Trump and her family accounted for more than $42,000 in federal payments to Trump properties. Much of that total came this spring, after Ivanka Trump had urged other Americans not to travel.

US taxpayers picked up the tab for billionaire US ambassador's stay at Donald Trump’s Scottish resort. The billionaire US ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, ran up a bill to US taxpayers totalling more than £1,000 in a single day while staying at Donald Trump’s flagship Scottish hotel and golf resort.

American Oversight, a non-partisan, non-profit ethics watchdog: “That Donald Trump uses his office and American tax dollars to prop up his failing businesses is widely known and shameful. That the US ambassador to the UK would use taxpayer money to play golf is simply embarrassing.”

Immigration

Border wall: The Ninth Circuit on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump’s allocation of military funds for construction of his border wall was illegal. In a 2-1 ruling, the three-judge panel lifted a stay on a lower court order, thus putting an immediate stop to all border wall construction. The one dissenting judge was Daniel Collins, a Trump appointee.
Family separation 1.0: Former AG Jeff Sessions and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein led the push to prosecute all undocumented immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents.

[Rosenstein told] the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.

Family separation 2.0: Customs and Border Protection touted agents’ “rescue” of a Honduran woman who just gave birth. What border officials didn’t mention was that, hours after their purported rescue, they separated the Honduran immigrant from her newborn and detained her pending possible removal.

“They told her she was going to be sent back to Mexico without her baby,” said Amy Maldonado, who is legally representing the mother.

Detention: Inside the US Marshals’ Secretive, Deadly Detention Empire: Due in large part to Trump’s aggressive immigration policies, the Marshals population is approaching historic highs. About two-thirds of all prosecutions between October 2018 and April 2019 were related to immigration crimes.
Deportation: ICE officials have started to implement a policy that allows officers to arrest and rapidly deport undocumented immigrants who have been in the US for less than two years - all without a hearing in front of a judge.

Why this post?

Despite the huge cryptocurrency market cap and all the talking on the news, I feel like getting started with cryptocurrency is still not very intuitive for most people. Don't get me wrong, getting started is extremely easy but, despite the simplicity involved, the numerous alternatives available for this kind of investment may often be overwhelming. This guide wants to guide any newcomer step-by-step.

Isn't it too late to buy cryptocurrency?

No, it’s not too late to invest in cryptocurrency. I know, it would have been great if you (and I) bought some Bitcoin back in 2011. However, this doesn’t mean it’s not worth it to buy some now, especially considering the likely economic recession that will follow the COVID-19 pandemic (and that is already going on for that matter). Consider that, at the time of writing, the cryptocurrency market is worth about 530 billion dollars. New cryptocurrencies are constantly being introduced on the market, each one with its own peculiarities: from faster transactions to higher security, from coins focused on anonymity to coins that aim to solve real-world problems.

What is so special about cryptocurrencies anyway?

A complete description of the advantages connected to cryptocurrency is out of scope, and I am sure you would find your answers in this subreddit and on the internet in general. From lower transaction fees and insant payments to the impossibility to reverse a transaction, the list is long. What I want to focus on here, however, are the two main reasons why I personally think cryptocurrency has the potential to revolutionize the economic world: blockchain technology and absence of a man-in-the-middle.

Blockchain 101

Despite the different peculiarities of each cryptocurrency, all of them have one thing in common: some sort of blockchain. A blockchain, as the name suggests, is a growing chain of blocks that are linked to each other. Every new block that gets added to the chain (usually in the form of a transaction) is permanently stored in the blockchain, and cannot be altered in any way.
Cryptocurrencies are just a small part of this extremely innovative technology, and other products such as video games or smart contracts can be built on top of a blockchain.
Think about the potential applications of this technology. Anything we currently use registers or lists to keep track of could virtually rely on a blockchain, and that would guarantee permanent storage of any information. From property registers (think about houses) to food supply chains, there are thousands of areas that would benefit - and are currently benefiting - from this technology.
What does all of this have to do with cryptocurrency? Whenever someone makes a blockchain, they need to create an incentive to make the whole system work and a way to reward its users (and miners). This is where cryptocurrency comes into play: blockchain needs some sort of token exchange in order to work.
While many cryptocurrencies' only job is to back a blockchain system, some of them are created with the clear goal of bringing being a better cryptocurrency for the market. Some reasons may include better anonymity, faster transactions, higher energy efficiency, and so on.

Absence of a man-in-the-middle

The absence of a third-party entity is by itself a great step forward. Think about some of the most successful services that were born in the last few years. Airbnb allows you to immediately get in touch with the property owner, no mediator. Uber allows you to directly contact a driver. When you send money in the form of cryptocurrency, you are letting the network do the job, not a bank. Everything is transparent and every transaction is kept track of.

Can cryptocurrency be used for payments?

Of course.
Unfortunately there is still a big misconception about this aspect, and many people believe that cryptocurrency is useless since it can't be spent. Wrong. First of all, even if it couldn’t be spent, it wouldn’t imply that Bitcoin has no value: crazy gains have been made in the past trading gold, but I’ve never seen anyone pretending to pay with gold at the grocery store.
Second of all, many businesses are accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, and the list just keeps growing. A few examples? * Overstock * Expedia * Microsoft * Wikipedia * AT&T * NewEgg * Shopify
The list could be as long as you want (Subway, Twitch, Playboy, KFC, Namecheap, you name it), just try to do a quick Google search.
And Amazon? While they don’t accept cryptocurrency payments directly (but hey, they don’t accept PayPal either), you can buy anything they sell by using Purse!

What if I want to go back to cash?

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be converted to cash at any time either at a Bitcoin ATM or through Bitcoin exchanges (I highly suggest Coinbase).

How to invest in Bitcoin and/or trade cryptocurrencies

Having covered the basics, let’s get down to business.
Please remember: you should only invest as much as you are willing to lose. Gains in the cryptocurrency world can be huge, but the opposite can hold as well if you don’t make informed decisions. You definitely don’t want to lose more than you can afford to.
I decided to split this part into three main points: 1. Education 2. Buying Bitcoin (or any other crypto you may want to buy) 3. Trading
Let's first take care of the most important step: education.

Educate yourself to make informed decisions

Make sure you educate yourself, you should learn the basics before starting to trade cryptocurrency. The good things about cryptocurrency is that you don’t need to start out with $10k in order to see some profits and anyone can get started with as little as a few hundred dollars. This, however, does not mean it’s a game, and you should never take cryptocurrency trading as a gambling session. Please, be prepared before trading your assets.

Best resources

There are many books and online resources out there covering trading, forex markets, technical analysis and more. The more you learn and the wider your knowledge of the subject is, the better. With that said, you don't have to read all the books I am suggesting. These are just some resources that I was impressed with and you can lookup if you want to.
Technical analysis: * Charting and Technical Analysis is a very good general book on technical analysis for beginners. * How to Day Trade for a Living is great if you are considering day trading, but you will likely find some useful tips even if you don’t intend to day trade. * How To Swing Trade is possibly one of my favorite books on the subject. If you are not going to day trade and prefer to keep your positions for days or weeks, this is the book for you. * School of Pipsology is a well-organized online course. Taking the whole course might take a while and be overwhelming, you most likely won’t need all of the information provided. * Advanced Techniques in Day Trading is a little more advanced but I found it very good. * Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets is a huge book and probably more academically-oriented, but very good and complete nonetheless.
Psychology (don't underestimate this aspect): * The Disciplined Trader * Trading in the Zone
These last two books don't need a description (just look at the reviews) and will take your trading game to another level. Trading is probably 90% psychology, do not underestimate this aspect if you want to be successful.
Whatever book/site/video you choose to rely upon for your education, the important thing is to get to a point where you can understand the basics of charting before you start dealing with money. At first, all the information may seem a little overwhelming but, after a while, you will get used to different types of candles, volume patterns, moving averages and even more.

Understand how you would like to invest

There are two main types of investors in the cryptocurrency world: * Those who buy a BTC (or ETH, or any cryptocurrency) and keep it, waiting for its value to grow over time. * Those who buy and sell crypto in order to boost their BTC holdings (this is what I suggest you look into if you can dedicate some time to crypto trading, but it's not for everyone).
In the first case, to keep everything simple, let’s say you are confident that BTC price will grow. So you buy 1 BTC at \$10,000 and sell it later for \$20,000: the price of BTC has doubled, you made a +100% profit. Easy as that.
In the second case let's say you buy the same BTC at \$10,000 and start trading BTC with other cryptocurrencies (Litecoin, Ripple, Stellar, there are thousands) that increase their value against BTC. After a while, having these altcoins increased in value against BTC, you don’t have 1 BTC anymore. In fact, you may end up having 1.5 BTC that you can still sell for \$20,000 each, for a total of \$30,000. You obviously made more money in this case.
The second strategy can be extremely profitable if you buy at the right time (partnerships announcements, technological advancements in the underlying technology, and so on), and spikes of 100% in a short time are not uncommon for smaller market cap cryptocurrencies. Of course, the opposite hold as well, so be extremely careful when buying and only trade if you think there is a underlying reason for doing so, not just because you feel like it. Again: education and discipline are key.

Focus on your BTC holdings, don’t reason in USD value

With reference to the example above, it should be clear how important it is to focus on how much Bitcoin you have, not how many USD it is currently worth. Focusing solely on USD is an error a lot of people make, but try to think about it this way. Just like above, you buy 1 BTC for \$10,000 and start investing in altcoins, you lose some of the BTC you had and end up having 0.8 BTC. Now you sell your BTC (again for $20,000 each) and get \$16,000. Obviously you made a \$6000 profit, which is still a nice 60% return, but you would have been better off just holding your initial 1 BTC.

Buying Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency)

In order to send and receive cryptocurrencies, you need a wallet. I strongly suggest you use Coinbase to buy, since it is the most used and the safest website when it comes to buying cryptocurrencies. If you buy through this referral link, you get \$10 more if you buy at least \$100 within 180 days of opening your online account.
Beside BTC, you can choose to buy some other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) or Bitcoin Cash (BCH). They accept all kinds of cards and you can also link your bank account if you wish to do so, this allows you to convert your cryptocurrency holdings back to USD (or EUR and many other currencies) and have it deposited in your bank account directly.
The buying process is straightforward and the instructions on the website are very clear. Once you have verified your account, you only need to choose how much BTC to buy and that’s it.
The general advice in the cryptocurrency community is to start by investing about \$200-\$300 in order to be able to see some gains right away, but of course it is up to you to choose how much you want to invest. You can invest thousands of dollars as well as $20 or lower, your call.
Keep in mind that, if you invest too little, you may end up not reaching the minimum trading amount needed to buy other cryptocurrencies.
Once again: never risk more than you are willing to lose.

How to trade cryptocurrencies

In order to trade different cryptocurrencies, you need to move your funds to an exchange. I highly suggest Binance, which now has the highest trading volume among the cryptocurrency exchanges. If you sign up using this link, you will get a 5% back on every commission on the website, which really adds up over time.
Once you have your cryptocurrency on Coinbase and have an exchange account, you can transfer your holdings from one site to the other.
On Binance (the process is similar for other exchanges as well) navigate to Wallet -> Spot Wallet and find the cryptocurrency you bought on Coinbase. If you bought BTC on Coinbase, look for BTC and click on Deposit, otherwise choose the appropriate coin. You will be presented a Deposit Address which you need to copy.
Now move to Coinbase and click on Send, you only have to paste the address which you want to send money to (the one you copied on Binance): be very careful to paste the right address, or you may lose your money.
Done! Don’t worry if the transaction takes a while. BTC normally takes 10-30 minutes, but sometimes a few hours are needed due to the large amount of transactions. ETH and LTC transactions are usually faster, and you may want to buy one of them instead of BTC if you want your money on Binance quickly (or if you want to save on fees). Grab a cup of coffee and wait until your funds become available on Binance.
Now what? You have your money on Binance and can trade whatever cryptocurrency you wish. Just click on Markets and you will be presented with a huge selection of coins, from this page you can buy or sell each of them. Under the price chart of every pair you can see the Limit, Market and Stop-Limit tabs: * Limit: place a buy/sell order at the price you prefer (looking at the panes on the left – current sell and buy orders – may be helpful) * Market: you automatically buy/sell at the current most convenient market price * Stop-Limit: allows you to place conditional buy/sell orders
Ideally, you are looking for a low market cap coin which is still undervalued and you believe will become more successful in the future.
I suggest you always do your own research before choosing a coin to invest in, avoid buying impulsively or you will lose money. Also, don’t buy a cryptocurrency just because you read it or heard it somewhere. You may not lose money the first time but, eventually you will regret it. Don’t randomly pick a coin because its value is increasing. Again, it may work the first or the second time, but sooner or later you will regret it.
Finally, make sure to always place a stop loss. That way, even if the most unlikely and unexpected market change happens, an order will be placed for you even if you are sleeping. There’s really no reason not to place a stop loss.

Stay informed to be profitable

The following are some of the websites I personally use when looking for potentially profitable investments: * Coinmarketcap (all the alts you can possibly buy are listed here, along with market cap, volume, price and many other indicators) * Reddit * Bitcointalk * Trading View * Telegram channels * Twitter and some other dedicated forums
Be aware of people who try to make you invest in a particular cryptocurrency just because it may be advantageous for them. I can’t stress this point enough, make sure you do your own research.
When I am looking for a new potential cryptocurrency to invest in, I also like to visit the official website and check if the website looks professional or if it is just trying to create hype. Some questions you should look for answers to are: * What is the real value of the coin (why is it better than the other ones)? * What is the team behind the cryptocurrency? * What real problems does coin solve? * Is the supply limited? * Is there a whitepaper? * What about this project's roadmap? * ...and so on.
If I am confident about my research, and only at that point, I proceed with the trade.

Final considerations

Never risk more than you are willing to lose
Don’t be scared of the high volatility. If you are aware of what you are doing, you can get unbelievable gains.
Never buy solely based on the fact that the value of a cryptocurrency is going up.

I know I stressed these points way too many times, but you'd be surprised of how many people lose money in stupid ways.
This is my humble attempt at making cryptocurrency more accessible to everyone, hopefully someone will find it useful. Please let me know if I forgot anything, I'll be glad to credit your contribution.
Good luck and thanks for reading.

Lost in the Sauce: DHS hides intelligence that reveals Trump using Russia's playbook, again

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Housekeeping:

HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
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Trump’s playbook is Russia’s playbook

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in July withheld an intelligence bulletin warning of a Russian plot to spread misinformation regarding Joe Biden's mental health. The bulletin, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of U.S. Candidates to Influence 2020 Election,” was blocked by the office of acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf on July 9.

The bulletin states that analysts had “high confidence” in their conclusion. However, a DHS spokesperson tried to defend the “delay” in issuing the document by saying it did not meet the agency’s standards. This is curious because just a week later, on July 16, DHS circulated a bulletin on anarchists in Portland that officers admitted they had “low confidence” in. Why was the Russia memo held back but the Portland one released?
Trump has been pushing the same line of attack against Biden for months - yet another instance of Russia and Trump operating from the same playbook. For instance, in March Trump said there was “something going on” with Biden; in June Trump ran selectively edited ads asserting that Biden is “unfit to serve as Commander in Chief”; last month Trump ran a digital ad portraying Biden as perpetually confused and mentally unstable. Most recently, Trump said questions about his own health are only in the news because “they want to try and get me to be on Biden's physical level."

DHS is just the latest agency in the Trump administration to erode election security, following actions by the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) last month. DNI John Ratcliffe announced he was ending in-person congressional briefings on election security ahead of November and AG Bill Barr removed a leading career official at the Justice Department’s national security division, replacing him with an inexperienced political appointee.
The ODNI’s decision to halt congressional election briefs may have been influenced by top White House officials. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, among others, have repeatedly discussed in meetings with staff and with Trump “how to restrict and control the flow of information on such sensitive topics to Capitol Hill.”

One White House official told The Daily Beast that Meadows has for months been wary of the type of briefings on Capitol Hill that Democratic sources can potentially use to try to make Trump look bad through surreptitious leaks to media outlets.

Meanwhile, interim Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Marco Rubio (R-FL) said last week that his committee will be granted an exception to the ODNI’s new policy and continue to receive in-person briefings from top U.S. intelligence officials about election-security issues. This essentially means that only Democrat-led committees have been cut out of the process ensuring election security.
House Democrats wrote to Ratcliffe insinuating if his office does not provide the previously scheduled briefings this month they will issue subpoenas and/or defund the ODNI in the appropriations bill due by the end of the month. Read the letter here.
In addition to attacks on Biden’s health, DHS has determined that Russia is seeking to “amplify” concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections by promoting allegations that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud. Intelligence analysts say this strategy has been underway since at least March, coinciding with Trump’s own assaults on mail-in voting.

For instance, in March Trump said if he agreed to funding vote-by-mail expansions in the first coronavirus stimulus bill, the U.S. would see “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” (clip). Fact check: Neither party has historically benefited. On April 7, at the White House press briefing, Trump claimed: "Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters… They're fraudulent in many cases" (clip). Fact check: There is no evidence that mail ballots are dangerous or fraudulent.

At a White House press briefing on Friday, Trump denied there is any proof that Russia poisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Instead of backing the German government's analysis of Nalvany's illness, Trump then redirected the criticism from Russia to China (clip).

"I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's tragic. It's terrible; it shouldn't happen. We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look. It is interesting that everybody is always mentioning Russia - and I don't mind you mentioning Russia - but I think probably China, at this point, is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than Russia. Because the things that China's doing are far worse.”

Trump then went on to say he’s “taken stronger action against Russia than any other country in the world,” but added “I do get along with President Putin” (clip).

RELATED: Leaked notes obtained by the Telegraph say that when Theresa May asked for Trump to take a strong stand after Russia poisoned Sergei Skripal, Trump replied “I’d rather follow than lead.” He pushed May to “put together a coalition” first.

The Trump administration plans to deport a Russian national living in America, a move experts say is in response to a politically motivated request by Russia. Gregory Duralev was persecuted by the Russian state for exposing corruption. He fled to America and applied for asylum in 2015. While waiting for a decision on his application, he was arrested by ICE and jailed for nearly 18 months. His case is now in court.

“DHS has acted no better than the Russian authorities,” Duralev said. “They simply fabricated charges against me for violations I never committed — and if DHS can trump up charges against immigrants with impunity, nobody can guarantee they won’t start doing it” to regular Americans. “So that’s the main message I now hope to send.”

Michael Cohen & Peter Strzok

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok has a book coming out called “Compromised.” In it, he alleges that FBI investigators came to believe it was “conceivable, if unlikely” that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office:

“We certainly had evidence that this was the case: that Trump, while gleefully wreaking havoc on America’s political institutions and norms, was pulling his punches when it came to our historic adversary, Russia,” Strzok writes. “Given what we knew or had cause to suspect about Trump’s compromising behavior in the weeks, months, and years leading up to the election, moreover, it also seemed conceivable, if unlikely, that Moscow had indeed pulled off the most stunning intelligence achievement in human history: secretly controlling the president of the United States — a Manchurian candidate elected.”

He now says he doesn’t believe that Trump is literally a Russian spy: “I don’t think that Trump, when he meets with Putin, receives a task list for the next quarter,” Strzok said, referencing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. “But I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.”
In an interview with Politico, Strzok confirms that he and then-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, opened a counterintelligence case on the president, but that it likely was never pursued. Two weeks ago, NYT reported that Rosenstein secretly closed it.
As if there weren’t enough political books coming out this summefall, Michael Cohen is releasing his, called “Disloyal: A Memoir.” The following a couple of quick takeaways:
Cohen says that he, Trump, Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov, and others, watched a strip show in Las Vegas where one performer simulated peeing on another performer, who pretended to drink it. Trump reportedly reacted with “delight.” Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate mogul, is a trusted associate of Putin and reportedly served as a liaison between Trump and the Russian president during Trump’s trip to Moscow.
WaPo:

On Russia, Cohen writes that the cause behind Trump’s admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is simpler than many of his critics assume. Above all, he writes, Trump loves money — and he wrongly identified Putin as “the richest man in the world by a multiple.” Trump loved Putin, Cohen wrote, because the Russian leader had the ability “to take over an entire nation and run it like it was his personal company — like the Trump Organization, in fact.”
...According to Cohen, Trump’s sycophantic praise of the Russian leader during the 2016 campaign began as a way to suck up and ensure access to the oligarch’s money after he lost the election. But he claims Trump came to understand that Putin’s hatred of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, dating to her support for the 2011 protest movement in Russia, could also help Trump amass more power in the United States.

USPS & mail voting

According to a Washington Post report yesterday, Postmaster Louis DeJoy engaged in campaign money laundering, also called a straw-donor scheme, at his former logistics business. Five of his former employees told WaPo that they were “urged” to donate to politicians in North Carolina and would be paid back through bonuses from DeJoy. Such a plan would allow DeJoy to illegally circumvent campaign donation limits.

“Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party. He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses,” said David Young, DeJoy’s longtime director of human resources, who had access to payroll records at New Breed from the late 1990s to 2013 and is now retired.
“He would ask employees to make contributions at the same time that he would say, ‘I’ll get it back to you down the road,’ ” said [another] former employee.
...A Washington Post analysis of federal and state campaign finance records found a pattern of extensive donations by New Breed employees to Republican candidates, with the same amount often given by multiple people on the same day. Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates. Many had not previously made political donations, and have not made any since leaving the company, public records show.

More than one million mail-in ballots were sent late to voters during the 2020 primary elections, an audit by the USPS IG’s office determined. Most of the ballots were late, the USPS says, because local election boards sent the ballots to voters at the last minute. Official press release.

[The audit] found the problems during primaries had been most pronounced in Kentucky and New York, where a combined 628,000 ballots were sent out late. In 17 states, the audit found, more than 589,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters after the state’s ballot mailing deadline. In 11 states, more than 44,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters the day of or the day before the state’s primary election.
One particularly troubling situation, auditors found, unfolded in Pennsylvania, where 500 ballots were sent to voters the day after the election.

Furthermore, only 13% of the ballots were mailed with the recommended bar code tracking technology.
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) was blocked from attending two scheduled tours of USPS facilities last week. Local Postal Service officials informed her and union leaders waiting to accompany her into the building that national USPS leadership had directed them to bar the group from the building. A Postal Service spokeswoman said they simply needed more notice for a tour.
Many states, including important battleground states, are not legally permitted to process mail-in/absentee ballots until Election Day, leading to concern that results will be delayed by days or weeks. For instance, in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan election officials cannot even begin processing ballots until Election Day. Processing involves opening envelopes, flattening ballots to run through the scanning machine, and prepping for the scanning.

"When voters have to wait so long for results, it erodes trust in the process and leaves room for partisan bad actors to dispute the will of the people," said Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, a nonprofit organization.

AG Bill Barr made three stunning false claims about mail voting during an interview with Wolf Blitzer last week. First, Barr wouldn’t even acknowledge that voting twice is a crime - because just hours earlier, Trump encouraged his North Carolina supporters to vote twice to “test” the state’s mail-in voting system (clip).

BLITZER: It sounds like he’s encouraging people to break the law and try to vote twice.
BARR: It seems to me what he’s saying is, he’s trying to make the point that the ability to monitor this system is not good. And it was so good, if you tried to vote a second time you would be caught if you voted in person.
BLITZER: That would be illegal if they did that. If somebody mailed in a ballot and then actually showed up to vote in person, that would be illegal.
BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.”
BLITZER: You can’t vote twice.
BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.”

Then, Barr tried to assert that foreign countries could fake ballots, but when challenged he admitted he had no evidence (clip).

BLITZER: You’ve said you were worried that a foreign country could send thousands of fake ballots, thousands of fake ballots to people that it might be impossible to detect. What are you basing that on?
BARR: I’m basing — as I’ve said repeatedly, I’m basing that on logic.
BLITZER: Pardon?
BARR: Logic.

Finally, Barr cited a supposed incident of mail-in voting fraud in Texas. Too bad it doesn’t exist.

The payroll

Charles Rettig, the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner who has refused to release President Trump’s tax returns, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars renting out Trump properties while in office. Rettig makes $100,000 - $200,000 a year from two units at Trump International Waikiki. When first nominated, Rettig failed to disclose his financial ties to Trump Waikiki. When questioned by Congress, he did not directly answer concerns about the properties.

CREW: With Trump’s name removed from some buildings as it began to hurt property values, we can only imagine how toxic it would become if a bombshell in his tax returns were released. Which means the IRS Commissioner has a vested interest in the success of the Trump brand—and of preventing anything that could damage it.

Voice of America staffers say Trump appointee Michael Pack is threatening to wash away legal protections intended to insulate their news reports from political meddling. Since arriving, Pack has fired the network's leaders, pushed out agency executives, refused to approve allotted budgets, and refused to renew visas for foreign employees.

Further reading: “Deleted Biden video sets off a crisis at Voice of America,” Politico.

Pack suggested the staff he fired and foreign journalists he essentially kicked out may have been foreign spies, without offering any evidence to support his claim. A group of 14 senior VOA journalists are openly disputing his explanation:

“Mr. Pack has made a thin excuse that his actions are meant to protect national security, but just as was the case with the McCarthy ‘Red Scare,’ which targeted VOA and other government organizations in the mid-1950s, there has not been a single demonstrable case of any individual working for VOA — as the USAGM CEO puts it — ‘posing as a spy,’ ” they wrote.

The White House is searching for a replacement for Federal Trade Commission Chair Joe Simons, a Republican who has publicly resisted President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on social media companies. Simons, a veteran antitrust lawyer, cannot legally be removed by the president except in cases of gross negligence. But the White House has already interviewed at least one candidate for the post.

RELATED: The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William P. Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case.

Richard Grenell, formerly the highest-ranking out gay official in the Trump administration, has joined a law firm founded by Pat Robertson that has a history of opposing LGBTQ+ rights. Grenell also recently joined the Republican National Committee to do outreach to LGBTQ+ voters.
The Trump administration has quietly named a new acting State Department inspector general. Matthew Klimow, the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan since mid-2019, is the third acting IG since Trump and Pompeo ousted Senate-confirmed IG Steve Linick in May.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s current special envoy to Northern Ireland, former Chief of Staff, and former acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is starting a hedge fund focused on financial services regulation. Ethics experts say Mulvaney explicitly using his knowledge of CFPB to place bets for and against companies gives him an unfair and perhaps illegal advantage.

Court and DOJ matters

Court cases
The Trump administration must, for now, stop winding down in-person counting efforts for the 2020 census, a federal judge in California ordered.
The three-judge panel hearing a challenge to Trump’s new anti-immigrant census policy seemed hostile to the government’s arguments in a hearing last week.
A federal judge has stopped the Trump administration from enforcing a rule change that would let health care providers deny medical services to LGBTQ patients on the grounds of religion.
Justice Department
Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests. Broidy helped raise millions for Donald Trump’s election and the Republican Party.
Barr ordered another round of changes to FISA rules, tightening the use of government surveillance on political candidates or their staffers — a move conservatives will likely cheer, as they have long criticized how the FBI investigated the Trump campaign in 2016.

Before conducting physical searches or wiretaps of a federal election official, members of the official's staff, candidates for federal office, or their staff or advisers, the FBI must now consider giving them a "defensive briefing," to tell them that they could be the target of foreign influence.

Great read!

"Once upon a time in a land far, far away Dear Reader, there were Sensible Dog People. These SDPs owned dogs for various reasons. Sometimes the dogs herded cattle and generations of good herding dogs were bred for their ability to be brave and clever and learn quickly from their herding elders and human handlers. Some barked warnings at the heels of sheep, big ones chest-banged cattle. Farmers respected their herding dogs. No dog that attacked livestock or the family was tolerated because of course, the whole family depended on that livestock and each other to survive. Many farmers, when the good old herding dog retired, would let it lay by the fire and feed it, even though it couldn't contribute anymore until it finally passed away. Then the neighborhood farmers would wax poetically about that dog's greatness and how half the county's best dogs were its descendants. Thus, the dog was a blessing to the whole community. Sometimes there were sled dogs that slugged supplies and people from one place to the next through the deepest snow. Brave, resilient dogs, their lot in life was full of hardship. Without them, life would have been impossible in the arctic areas where their owners were forced to reside and learned to adapt. These dogs were admired for their life-preserving skills and if they shed more than their own weight weekly, well, everyone deserved a good winter coat. Sometimes the dogs were bred for generations to retrieve game, to bring back dinner without a single tooth-mark upon it. Other dogs were bred to chase game or large, dangerous animals and some to bugle deafeningly to hunters or point to their next meal. Sometimes there were cruel men who bred powerful pit dogs for sport. They pitted these game dogs against bulls and bears then as civilization moved away from blood sports -- fought the dogs against each other because it was cheap to breed and pen these hefty dogs, far harder to keep a bear or bull loose in the back garden. These gambling men of low countenance kept a tight reign on these unpredictable dogs because they didn't want their illicit activities to come to light. Never did these practical men consider these dogs as "pets". Sometimes, Evil Men used their dogs to hunt other humans. Sometimes there were even companion dogs. These were dogs that people kept around just because well...dogs are companionable. Many were free mongrels, procured from a neighbor whose friendly boy dog jumped the fence and paired with another neighbor's friendly girl dog and well...if you're over the age of 12 you probably have a good idea of how the puppies were made. Sometimes, dog fanciers bred elite dogs they called "purebred" to have specific physical and temperamental traits as guarding companions, lap dogs or helpers and charged top dollar for the ones that looked flashy at dog shows. Dangerous dogs that failed at being sociable companions were culled out for the public good with no second chances, which strictly speaking, wasn't always a fair system, as some people noticed. And with that, Dear Reader, the whole world of dogdom went Barking Mad. Because you see -- there was Big Money to be made off marketing to the sentimentality of companion dog owners. "AHA!" thought the profiteers. "Why should we only make a reasonable profit off dog kibble, retriever dumbbells, leashes, simple leather collars and check chains? We could make BILLIONS if we could just milk all these sentimental saps!" Next there were walls of expensive dog toys, thousands of brands of designer treats to appeal to an animal that would be just as happy to mow down on a plop of cat poop, shelves of fancified duck-with-peas-and-sweet-potato dog foods that cost more than the family groceries, racks of dog pajamas, glorious handcrafted dog leashes with matching rhinestone collars and wardrobes that would put the Kardashians to shame. Pee pads became the new Persian carpets as celebrities flashed their puppies' photos on the internet without the understanding that puppies have bladders the size of peanuts and need to potty 127 times a day rather than sit still for cameras. Suddenly, dog trainers didn't just teach obedience classes for a few extra dollars to feed their obedience trial habit -- televised dog gurus, including some that didn't even own a dog -- materialised overnight. Buckets of cash could be teased from gullible owners who bought dogs based on looks, or without breed knowledge, or who'd never laid eyes on a working dog or even knew how to leash train a dog or command it to "sit" with any regularity. Of course, doing a brisk business depended on gushing all over said dog and promising that training would be a "wholly positive interactive relationship experience" for both dog and owner which, you would think -- if any of them ever raised children -- should have caused them all to laugh, outright. I suspect, Dear Reader, that telling people that training a dog was repetition, repetition and more repetition regardless of methodology wasn't a strong selling point. In an effort to avoid that inevitable truth, hobble harnesses and head halters were devised to fleece clueless dog owners who couldn't fathom why a dog wearing a halter originally designed for an animal with eyes on the side of its head was "having behavioral problems" or why feeling its front legs restricted against its will, caused a predator to lash out. With that, along came the "behaviorists" and "dog whisperers" who promised to fix ill-bred dogs that had no business being in the average household but whose softhearted owners had overpaid the local rescue after being swindled about the dog's unproven "horrifying history of abuse" alleged by "dog adoption agents" whose conning skills would be the envy of any religious cult leader. Then some enterprising carpetbaggers announced the idea that a dog living for 10 miserable years alone in a cage was preferable to humane euthanasia for an animal that was purpose-bred to live with humans, even those dogs that were too vicious to manage it. Between taxpayers and donors -- there were now massive dog gulags to be funded. All of this included well-paid executive management teams, of course. Woe betide the poor sod who publicly proclaimed that the sensible answer to vicious dogs was to euthanize them for public safety and to save the donation funds for the betterment of gentle dogs. Let the public stoning, begin! More and more dogs were also re-sold -- excuse me Dear Reader -- "re-homed" numerous times only to attack the unwitting because someone took home a temperamentally unsound or unsuitable dog. The direct result of paying for all these unwanted, temperamentally unsound canines, was that mongrels and unwanted dogs that used to cost $50-80 at the local pound ten years ago now cost $200-500 from a "rescue". Purebreds became a rarity at local pounds -- breed rescues snatched them up. Dogs were gobbled up by owners with one ill-behaved dog who decided that bringing in another untrained dog would hopefully, mitigate their training failures from the first one and the holy trinity of the third one could be the charm. Rescues, to fill the demand, began importing dogs and purchased from puppy mills. As a result of all these practices prices skyrocketed, purebred dogs from a registered breeder cost more than a second-hand car. So where, Dear Reader, have all the Sensible Dog People with their Sensible Dogs, gone? Relegated to the dustbin of history by those whose agenda is neither dogs nor people, but profit, perhaps?

📷 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND September 29, 2020
Further information: $87 billion per year spent on pets in the USA $139.80 per month is spent per dog in the USA Dog rescues importing dogs
📷
A vintage sheep dog illustration from Cassell's Illustrated Book of the Dog (1881).
Related articles: 03/18/16: Guest Post: Dog Trainer Shares Dog Attack Story & Professional Opinion 01/09/12: Guest Post: Saving Man's Best Friend by Branwyne Finch
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26 thoughts on “Are Sensible Dog People A Dying Breed?”

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KaD on September 30, 2020 at 10:44 am said:Yes yes and yes. Dog owners seem to HATE responsibility anymore. They don’t do the BREED research before they get one to figure out what the chances are it will fit into their lifestyle, don’t consider if their lifestyle is conducive to having a dog at all, refuse to be responsible for training their dog to behave properly so it isn’t a menace to society, refuse to exercise their dog properly and provide enough mental stimulation so it’s not a barking lawn ornament, refuse to properly contain their mutt so it isn’t a neighborhood menace, refuse to deal with their dogs aggression and territorial issues. They want the animal but they don’t want the work or responsibility of having the animal.Reply ↓
Bailey on September 30, 2020 at 11:43 am said:I strongly feel that the crazy pet industry is all that is wrong with dog people/culture these days. And just as this article states, it’s been clear to me for a while that this is all about money. They are humanizing dogs, and allowing them to attack and kill because “they didn’t mean it” or “it was provoked” or “it had a bad owner”. These people want everyone to think “the dog is like a child, you can’t put the good boi down” or “have some sympathy for the poor doggo”. They are doing everything in their power to encourage people to keep viscous dogs alive and in their homes, (or to tell people to go out and buy a vicious dog from some pitbull infested shelter) because if the beast gets put down, the owner won’t be spending money on it. Can’t buy expensive collars, expensive food, expensive training, expensive toys, and expensive anything else, if you put your aggressive dog down. These people don’t care about the innocent people being mauled and killed by aggressive dogs. They don’t care about anything other than making sure more and more people (many of which aren’t fit to even own a goldfish), have a dog in their home to keep spending money on.Reply ↓
Boni on September 30, 2020 at 12:02 pm said:Half of that 87B per year would put a huge dent in homelessness if not outright eradicate it. Then again, I guess, De-housed people don’t look as cute in flower crowns, tutus and pajamas?Reply ↓

Your Quiet Neighbor on October 3, 2020 at 8:06 am said:Not to mention the fact that a lot of them are mentally ill and are, shall we say, a challenge to deal with. But that $87 billion would go a long way to giving our de-housed brothers and sisters the help they need.Reply ↓

Richard Buffalin on September 30, 2020 at 12:05 pm said:Thank you, Boni, for illuminating how a symbiotic relationship turned malignant. The modern pet dog industry causes massive harm and suffering to both people and animals. People who love dogs do not bear harm to anyone or anything. Visualize a pile of 5,000 boxes with dead pet animals inside. That is just one tiny instance that shows how the pet animal industry is the cause of excruciating suffering of its victims.Reply ↓
Christy on September 30, 2020 at 12:45 pm said:Where did the sensible dog people go? I’ll tell you where we went, we went to cats. Decades ago we saw the transformation coming and saw that our views were being looked down on and becoming outdated. We got pulled into discussions that we wanted no part of when the new breed of owner tried to make up see that their way was the “right way” to raise a dog. We got tired of being called “backyard breeders” with distain when we were occassionally breeding bird dogs for their intelligence and for hunting. We got tired of the neighbor calling animal control because our epileptic hunting dog in its kennel had a seizure when they stood at the side of the kennel and sprayed it with water guns. See, their whole complaint was that a dog should not live outside but since that is legal (with shelter, food, and water, and no tether) it was easier to cause trouble this way by creating evidence (seizure) that the dog was not being cared for (bold faced lie backed up by the vet). We left dogs and will never come back to them because now it is dangerous to own any dog. Here is the one time that “any dog” comes into play. Taking the dog for a walk or having it in your own fenced yard is enough to provoke an attack by any pit that comes by. We all know they are everywhere. My block alone has somewhere between 6-8 or more living on it at any time in the last decade plus. No, I do not care for dogs anymore. Don’t think I ever will again.Reply ↓

Boni on September 30, 2020 at 3:45 pm said:Christy, I get ya, I really do. The dog nutters here have made all training collars (prong, starmarks, check chains, ecollars and slip leads outside the show ring) illegal. Many a great dog came out of someone’s backyard bred for purpose. It became impossible to have a civilised conversation on dog training sites because every nutter with an ill-behaved poodle they waved a few treats at to jump an agility hurdle…thought their opinion carried the same weight as people who worked with and trained obedience, hunting and protection dogs. They were rabid. Even Dogstra had to shut down their forums to stop the chronic bullying. Then there were the pitidiots. The worst part is, I was no fan of pits but I thought serious, doghandlers *should* be given the opportunity to work with them. But after seeing *where* pitbulls are being placed? No more chances. This will be my last dog because I just don’t have the energy to devote to training another one to my satisfaction. I’m sorry you can’t have a dog anymore. I wish yours was the only story I knew of people that were abused by nutters, but you’re not. You’re not alone, if that’s any consolation.Reply ↓
- Christy on September 30, 2020 at 4:05 pm said:One of our pups (sold to a hunter for the low cost of $200) became the top field dog in the entire US and was featured in a Purina commercial. We did our best to only sell the dogs to people who hunted since that is what they were for.Reply ↓
  - Boni on September 30, 2020 at 4:47 pm said:Wow, $200 wouldn’t get you decrepit old dog on its last legs from a shelter, nowadays. My ex mother in law picked up a runt Springer spaniel from a backyard breeder that wasn’t hunt worthy (gun shy) and looked a bit odd. However, as he grew he had star quality, she called him Dazzle because he could dazzle the judges and she got more dog show and obedience awards for him than for all her other dogs combined. Even “not hunt worthy” hunting dogs (or especially) can make great pets because of their trainability. Why in the EverLovingFark someone would pick a pitbull for a family pet over a spaniel or spaniel mix, boggles my mind. Ah yes, Good old cheap but healthy Purina Dog Chow. Hard to even find the 50lb bags of that are here, any more. Not yuppified enough, I guess! When I was growing up, there weren’t any pet stores. We picked up kibble or dog chow from the feed shop LOLReply ↓
- Boni on September 30, 2020 at 4:33 pm said:*Dogster (not Dogstra, that’s an ecollar lol)Reply ↓
Sue Myles on October 3, 2020 at 9:19 am said:I am now an ‘ex’ dog person although I still make my living as a pet dog trainer. Christy, this really struck home. My former world that I loved so much, many areas in the dog world, are now closed to me. I am strictly a cat owner now and am sick of dogs. I’ll never own one again. I join you in waving good by to a world in which we once thrived.Reply ↓

Terry Murphy on September 30, 2020 at 1:53 pm said:Thanks, Boni, excellent reflection. Yes, it seems the world has gone mad when it comes to dogs. I think I found the term “dog worship” here. People are brainwashed into thinking EVERYONE should get a dog. Often, these are folks who work 12 hours a day (before covid) outside their home. They post “funny” pictures about how Muffy tore up the couch and they’re going to get dog tranquillizers. They have no clue that isolation and no training can make good dogs psychotic. Owners are often convinced by some unethical vets that even though Muffy has incurable cancer, they ought to still spend thousands of dollars to keep the poor mutt alive. Several years ago, we had a couple in the paper who spent $40,000 on chemo and had a glass dog installed at the vet’s office so their dog could see the waiting room. Of course, the dog died shortly after treatment. So, in the end…it does come down to money. It fuels the pit plague and the false narrative that keeps people rescuing maulers and killers. As someone who has worked in media for years, I’m appalled that NO major national investigative outlet will cover it. They’d have everything they’d need to find on this website…pictures, videos and tragic victim stories. In fact, Colleen is not only a great interview, she has enough here to write a book.Reply ↓
MARY bushey on September 30, 2020 at 2:43 pm said:A great article, our society has guilt tripped citizens into the mindset that everyone needs to have a dog.The title Rescue is used everywhere to shame people into taking on ownership of a dog when they might not be able to be a good solid owner. The idea that the issue of unwanted dogs will disappear if only one more is placed! There will always be a over poulation of pets. This is nothing new. Now a very different type of popular breeds are everywhere . Like every 15 year old kid needs a dog regardless of circumstances at home.Reply ↓
Kristin Goltra on September 30, 2020 at 4:06 pm said:We had a German Shorthair birddog as a family pet who also was trained to point birds in season. Two pit bulls loose in the neighborhood viscously attacked and almost ripped his front legs off while he was playing in our yard. My husband fought them off but it was too late. The owners were not charged with any crime.Terrible tragic loss for us and our grandchildren.Thank god they did not attack my husband while he fought them off trying to save our poor dog. And what if it had been our grandchildren playing in the yard that day. We had to move, it was not safe.Reply ↓

Boni on September 30, 2020 at 4:51 pm said:Kristin, that is horrifying. You had a dog that was bred to purpose that was killed by a dog that was bred to purpose–the pitbull’s purpose being to kill other dogs. The sooner the pitbull nutter acknowledge that fact and BSL happens everywhere, the sooner families like yours, won’t have to deal with such a tragedy.Reply ↓
Christy on September 30, 2020 at 7:22 pm said:This breaks my heart. The German shorthair was our breed of choice. Smartest, nicest dogs.Reply ↓
- Boni on October 1, 2020 at 1:25 pm said:Christy, they *are* lovely. Met a fair few and trained a couple for pets. Great with kids as far as I can tell. Used to recommend them for families with active children, who asked.Reply ↓

Boni on September 30, 2020 at 4:24 pm said:Terry, check out Terrierman’s blog on vets. He’s done some scathing articles on vets charging ridiculous prices for things like flea and heartworm medication (unnecessary in cold climates). The vet tried to charge me one year $100 for flea repellent and my two words were not, “Happy Birthday”. Picked the same drops up for $15 a tube (lasts 3 years) at a Sensible pet shop. For *each* major problem a dog has, an owner has to be willing to add *one hour* per day of training/conditioning time to the minimum of one hour training and walking they do with a dog 7 days a week…for up to the lifetime of the dog. Throw in a pitbull that eats cats, attacks dogs, snarls at people, guards its food/toys, knows zero obedience, knocks over granny and the children, chews the furniture, crashes through fences/doors and ain’t nobody got time for that. There’s this weird juxtaposition of guilt, sentimentality, ignorance, arrogance and I-don’t-know-what-else going on with dog owners but whatever it is, there’s an idea that if they throw enough money around, everything with a dog can be fixed. It can’t. Which also leaves economically distressed people in quagmire of guilt when they can’t afford what the pet profiteers are selling. Yet, some of them can be far more sensible owners."

11/22 Weekly Watch NEW FORMAT

11/22 WEEKLY WATCHLIST
[P.S. Only enter positions you feel the most comfortable with. Your money is your soldier only send him into the battle you think you'll win. Some of these I have taken positions. Some I am looking to take positions. I've posted how many shares I own of what multiple times]
⭐ Higher up on list more eye on it⭐
$SPY Predictions: M -, T - or ~, W +, Th +, F ~ or + [~ sideways]
🔑KEY🔑
[💎-Long time gold][⁉️-Could go both ways][🚀-I think this is gonna shoot up][🔥-This is picking up momenteum/Has reason to pick up][⚠️-Already ran a bit be careful][👀-Watching this one closely][⭐- Huge Catalyst or info]
🚀💸PENNYS💸🚀
$GRIL - ⭐Indoor dinning closures. Nano Float. News makes this fly. This is easily a $5+ Ticker. Daily MACD: 🐮 4hr MACD: Neutral Daily RSI: 64 4hr RSI: 68 Support: $1.70/ $1.78/$1.88 Resistance: $2.10🔥🚀👀💎
$WTRH - ⭐Indoor dinning closures. Daily MACD: 🐮 4hr MACD: 🐮Daily RSI: 58 4hr RSI: 78⚠️ Support: $2.55/$2.85/$3.10/$3.25 Resistance: $3.90/$4.25⚠️🔥🚀👀
$RAVE - ⭐Indoor dinning closures. Daily MACD: 🐮4hr MACD: 🐮Daily RSI: 68 ⚠️4hr RSI: 75⚠️ Support: $0.77/$0.82/$0.86 Resistance: $1/$1.07⚠️🔥🚀👀
$TANH - ⭐Another EV hype stock. $1.65 DIRECT OFFERING. This price is currently a STEAL in my eyes. Daily MACD: 🐮4hr MACD: 🐮 Daily RSI:28 OVERSOLD 4hr RSI: 18 OVERSOLD. Support: $1.15/$1.30 Resistance: $1.48??? Should see a HEAVY Gap Up to: $1.50/$1.70/ $1.85/ $2
$IDEX - Super risky play IMO. Tons of bagholders but they are super behind on the EV PUMP. Daily MACD: 🐮4hr MACD:🐮 Daily RSI:79 ⚠️4hr RSI: 69⚠️ Support: $1/$1.15/ $1.30 Resistance: $1.55⚠️🔥🚀👀
$VTVT - ⭐Huge News about their trial in December. This very well could be a 100-200% runner. Daily MACD: 🐮 4hr MACD:BREACHING 🐮Daily RSI: 61 4hr RSI: 63 Support: $1.67 Resistance: $1.90 Gap Up to: $2.16🔥🚀👀💎
$FCEL - I smell FOMO coming here! EV Battery Pump. Running covered calls on this to go long. Daily MACD: 🐮 Daily RSI: 86⚠️ 4hr RSI: 64⚠️ Support: $3.83/$5 Resistance: $5.80 ⚠️🔥🚀👀💎
$BNTC - ⭐4th Q Big trial news expected. Offering Play $3.10. Daily MACD: 🐮 4hr MACD:🐮 Daily RSI: 42 4hr RSI: 54 Support: $2.72 Resistance: $3 Gap Up to: $3.50/$4.50🔥🚀👀💎
💰Honorable Mentions💰
$RIOT/$MARA - ONLY while bitcoin moves upward
$NBEV/$BBW - Both tickers I ran calls. Expecting some nice upward movements here shortly
$RETO - ⭐200k BLOCK BUY! Reported meeting compliance but keeps pushing back ER which brings fear. Daily MACD: Turning 🐮4hr MACD: 🐮4hr Daily RSI:42 4hr RSI:51 Support: $0.51 Resistance:$0.62 Gap Up to: $.69/$.74/$.78/$.81⁉️
💰Non-Pennys💰
EIGR - ⭐FDA Drug approved AH Friday. I dont think this has had nearly enough attention yet. Daily MACD: 🐻 4hr MACD: BREACING🐮 Daily RSI: 51 4hr RSI: 59 Support: $8.70 /$10 Resistance: $11.50/$12/ $12.50
$LCA - ⭐Merger coming anyday with Golden Nugget Gambling⭐ While in person gambling was banned they still ran due to online. CHACHINNNNNG. Daily MACD:🐮 4hr MACD:🐻 Daily RSI: 59 4hr RSI:41🔥🚀💎
$MP - ⭐SPAC. They provide raw materials for EV. Follow the hype. Daily MACD: 🐮 4hr MACD: 🐮 Daily RSI: 77⚠️4hr RSI: 66 Support: $13.33/$ 14.90 Resistance: ?? ⚠️🔥🚀👀💎
$YSG - ⭐New IPO. China makeup. Revenue is pretty great. This could see $40-$50. MACD/RSI Unknown 🔥🚀👀💎
$BABA - ⭐Severely devalued because Orange man drama. Amazon of CHAAAAANA. When ANT IPO comes out this is gonna gap up to planet Neptune. Not to mention the amount of near term growth on this is INSANE! Daily MACD: BREACHING 🐮 4hr MACD: 🐮 Daily RSI: 44 4hr RSI: 65 ⭐Support: $249/ $253/ $256 Resistance: $272 Gap Up to: $282🔥🚀👀💎
$KIRK - ⭐Dec 3rd PM Earning. Expect a blowout. Wouldnt be surprised to see $15-17 by earnings Daily MACD:🐮 4hr MACD:🐮 Daily RSI:68⚠️ 4hr RSI: 73⚠️ Support:$7.69/$8.47/ $9.53 Resistance: $12.39🔥🚀👀💎
$DKNG - ⭐New PT $100. Daily MACD: 🐮4hr MACD: 🐻 Daily RSI: 60 4hr RSI: 58 Support $41/$43.70 /$46.50 Resistance: $50 🔥🚀👀💎
$SDC - ⭐Earnings beat expectations but where amazing.. Honestly Long term this is super undervalued in my eyes. Daily MACD: 🐮4hr MACD: 🐻Daily RSI: 55 4hr RSI:55 Support:$8.70/$8.90/ $9.20 /$9.40 Resistance: $11.50/ $12🔥🚀👀💎
$CRSR - I personally think this is fair evalution at $45-50. Makes Gaming equipment. Based on their market cap vs Logitech this has a 50% upside. Also massive sponsors on sites like twitch.tv. I'm long on this. Daily MACD:🐮 4hr MACD: 🐮 Daily RSI:86 OVERBOUGHT⚠️ 4hr RSI: 83 ⚠️Support:$24.21/ $26.93 Resistance: RECORD HIGHS 🔥🚀👀💎
$MGM - Honestly, think this is a MASSIVE over reaction play. Expect a gap DOWN. Vegas has good odds of being closed for a few weeks in the near future. Daily MACD: Turning 🐻 4hr GRAVESTONE DOJI⚰ Daily RSI: 62 4hr RSI: 47 Support: $23.24/ $24.33/$25.55[Weak] Resistance: $27.89⚠️💎
$OSTK - Beaten down like a dying dog. This can very easily run up. Daily MACD:🐮 4hr MACD:🐻 Daily RSI: 48 4hr RSI: 70⚠️ Support: $27.23/$41.72/ $50.84 Resistance: $60.32 Gap Up to: $69.04/$78.05/ $85.28🔥🚀👀💎
$CLSK - Sabby, sadly is in this but I do see potential. Daily MACD: 🐮4hr MACD:🐻4hr GRAVESTONE DOJI⚰ Daily RSI: 56 4hr RSI: 56 Support: $7.12/$7.76/$8.52 Resistance: $11⁉️💎
$FUBO - ⭐Could pull a ROKU and race up to $50+ Daily MACD: 🐮4hr MACD:❓ Daily RSI: 84 OVERBOUGHT⚠️ 4hr RSI: 71⚠️ Support: $13.26/$14.33 Resistance: ❓⚠️🔥🚀💎
$PLUG - ⭐OFFERING PLAY $22.50! Catch the knife for the rerun?If you're going super long buy. Otherwise expect a gap down. Daily MACD: Nuetral Daily RSI: 72 ⚠️4 hr RSI: 62 Support: $16.18/$17.55 /$18.65 /$19.85/$22.01 [Weak] Resistance: $24.65 All time highs!⚠️👀💎
$SWBI - ⭐Earnings Dec 5th. Bolingr Bands squeezing looking for a big movement shortly. stocks should rise on fear of regulations. 4hr MACD: 🐮Daily RSI: 47 4hr RSI: 55 Support: $13.72/$15.23/$15.88 Resistance: $16.69/$17.08/$17.94/ $18.92 Gap Up to: $21.30🔥🚀👀
🤑Notable Earnings🤑
🍗🦃NOVEMBER🦃🍗
$URBN - 23rd AH [Calls]
$GES - 24th [Calls]
$HPQ - 24th [Calls]
$MOMO - 24th PM [Calls]
$BBY - 24th PM [Condors]
$CBRL - 24th PM [Puts]
$BURL - 24th PM [Puts?]
$ANF - 24th PM [Calls]
$DKS - 24th PM [Condors/Calls]
$DLTR - 24th PM [Condors]
$AEO - 24th AH [Calls]
$DE - 25th PM [Calls]
❄DECEMBER❄
$HRB - 2nd[Calls?]
$CPB - 2nd PM [Condors]
$FIVE - 2nd AH [Condors/Puts]
$ULTA - 3rd [Condors/Calls]
$ZUMZ - 3rd [Puts?]
$KIRK - 3rd PM⭐[Calls!]
$TIF - 3rd PM [Puts?]
$KR - 3rd PM[Condors]
$DG - 3rd PM⭐[Calls]
$BBW - 3rd PM⭐ [Calls]
$DOCU - 3rd AH [Condors?]
$CRWD - 3rd AH [Calls?]
$BIG - 4th PM ⭐[Calls]
$ZM - 4th AH [CondoPuts]
🔥🚀🌾Gold/Silver🌾🚀🔥
$AGC - 2x silver. Aka silver -1% AGC -2%. This is a day or swing trade. Depreciates
$SLV - Long term silver hold
$JNUG - 2x Gold. Same as AGC but for gold
$NUGT/$GLD - Long term gold holds
🔮BET AGAINST THE MARKET🔮
$SPXS - 3X Inverse of SPY [The overall market] Spy +1% SPXS -3%. Spy -3% SPXS +9% [top 500 companies]🐻🐻
$SQQQ - Same as SPXS except top 100 companies🐻🐻
$UVXY - Fear index/Volatility Index. This goes up with market feaunsurity. USUALLY inverses $SPY
⚖UPCOMING FDA INFO⚖
$EIGR - APPROVED
$LQDA - Nov 24th
$RVNC - Nov 25th
$RYTM - Nov 27th
$YMAB - Nov 30th
$VNDA - Dec 1st
$BCRX - Dec 3rd
$MGNX - Dec 18th
$FGEN - Dec 20th
$UROV - Dec 26th
$MYL - Dec 27th
$OSMT - Dec 29th
$SCPH - Dec 30th
$ATNX - Dec 30th
🙏 I would like to just thank all the supporters once again. Between your constant generosity and the overall communities kind words none of this would be possible. If you decide to donate please shoot me a PM so I can thank you! I dont care if its $1 or $1000 I'd still like to give you a thanks!🙏
❤🖤💙💚🤎💛🧡💜🤍
My Links:
⭐Cashapp: $Hamstackz⭐
⭐Venmo: $JDH3703 ⭐
⭐Paypal: http://paypal.me/PhillyDiamondhands ⭐
Again! Thank you all for being apart of this great journey!

Secret Slots Casino 25 free spins no deposit bonus code

Dark web? I'm gonna dig it.

This happened last year. Nothing major happened but thinking about it still gets chills down my spine. Also, it's too long and I'm not a good writer so bear with me. Sorry for any mistakes.
During college final year, a friend of mine(Rakesh) suggested to check out Dark Web, and a French website where we can earn by betting. I know what you’re thinking, and I thought that too:
A French gambling website? Sounds trustworthy.
However, Rakesh swore to me that the site was legit and it only used PayPal as the payment method, so my mind was somewhat put at ease.
So on a Sunday, I was bored and decided to finally give it a shot. I was put off by bad English used on the welcome page but shit. Registration was painless and it took only a few minutes before I was in the roulette lobby. I had around $100 in my Paypal account which I had earned online, so I bought $100 worth of virtual chips.
The site offered three rooms where I could play, but they were all full. I kept refreshing the page but spaces weren’t opening. I was losing patience. I decided I’d refresh one more time and if it was still full, I’d peace out. Shit, if they don’t want my money, someone else would gladly take it. I hit the refresh button and something changed. The whole layout of the page was suddenly completely different. The original, unappealing brown-ish page was now all black, but more notably, there was only one link on it. A link to a virtual room named “Erreur.”
I found this really strange. I thought that I might have clicked on one of those annoying banner ads (that got pass AdBlock somehow) so I clicked the “back” button, but nothing changed. Whatever man, I already said goodbye to that $100, so let’s try this shit. I clicked on the lobby and after the page asking me if I was sure I wanted to enter (which I found strange, almost as if they didn’t want my money), I got inside the damn thing finally.
I am not sure if you guys ever played online roulette, but this is how it works (at least the ones I played in). You are connected through a live webcam to some shithole casino. You choose your numbers and place your bets and then watch the dealer spin the wheel in real-time and see what you won (or lost most likely). It’s almost like being there. So the webcam loads and the first thing I notice is this girl, I swear she couldn’t have been older than 15-16. She was short, skinny, and blonde. I immediately noticed that she looked tired. They’re probably overworking her like a mule I thought to myself. It seemed like her table was on some sort of a platform because I could see the rest of the room behind her. There were approximately 5 card tables, all full. The place seemed awfully quiet. Then, my desire to lose money kicked in and I decided to place my first bet.
$5 on odd numbers.
All bets are in!
The girl said quietly as she spun the wheel. Usually, dealers yell out that line as a part of the show. I guess these guys were all business.
16.
Shit. $95 left. I wrote down the number in my notebook because that was part of my system. Writing all the numbers down so I can predict the future. Brilliant, right? (not really)
$10 on odd numbers.
All bets are in!
The little asshole ball stopped at 12. God damn it. Oh well, I still got $85 left.
$20 on odd numbers.
As she spun the wheel I started noticing something strange in the room. It almost seemed like nobody…
5.
Hell fucking yes. Won $40. Up to $125. Maybe this place isn’t so bad. $10 on odd again. Yeah, I know, my system is strange.
All bets are in!
she said again. As the ball was slowing down, I looked more over the background of the room. I was right a minute ago when I felt something strange. Nobody in the fucking room was moving. At all.
While I was excited about my account balance going up, I couldn’t help but feel weird about this situation. I mean, nobody was doing even so much as moving a finger. 5 tables, 6 people plus a dealer at each of them. Even the waitress in the back, holding a tray with drinks on it. And they all stood and sat still. I tried rationalizing it by assuming that the website had added a still picture background behind the dealer for the effect of a real casino, but man, this place seemed way too realistic to only be a picture. My timer started beeping and I had to make another bet.
$20 on odd.
As the girl spun the thing, I kept studying her background. I became intrigued by the strange situation that was going on behind her. I mean, there was no way this was a photoshopped picture. They just weren’t moving.
19.
Yes sir, won another $40. Hey, if I can keep winning, these dudes don’t even have to move as far as I’m concerned.
$20 on odd.
I decided to start paying attention to the girl a little bit more. What else was there to do? It’s not like anyone else was moving. As I said, she was young. She seemed tired and perhaps a little worried. At times, it seemed like she was looking directly at me, but I was sure I was just imagining things.
I won't give you play by play now, but I placed 4 more bets, winning two of them. I was sitting at nearly $200 at that point. But then, the curiosity started kicking in. These damn people still weren’t moving. And it wasn’t a damn added photoshopped image, either. Something wasn’t right. I decided to keep playing just so I can watch these strange individuals.
$40 on odd.
I noticed a chat feature to the left of the webcam feed. I decided to type a quick “Hi” to see if I’d get a response. As I started typing, a saw a man walk through the room. I told you it wasn’t a picture. He was dressed in a black coat with the collar popped up, so I couldn’t make much out of him. He was moving very slowly between the tables. He stopped by one of them. Then he bent down and started looking at one of the men who sat there. Like right in front of his face, an inch from it. Just stared at him, and the seated dude didn’t even so much as flinch. Weird shit man.
13.
My balance was now nearly $230 but I didn’t care. I wanted to know what was going on here. I zoomed in on the man. The webcam feed wasn’t HD so I couldn’t make details of the man’s face, but I could tell one thing that disturbed me. The man was all in black and white. His skin color was visibly different than the still people around him, I could tell that even though the few pixels French camera offered. What the fuck?, I thought. The timer started beeping again.
Fuck it, $20 on odd.
I zoomed in again. The black and white man stood up from staring at the motionless card player and walked over to the wall of the room. He started licking the fucking wall, I shit you not. He stood in front of a wall and just started licking it. His tongue seemed unnaturally long even over the low res camera. Not sure if it was his colorlessness, but the damn tongue appeared black. The wall had bright red wallpaper, which just enhanced this man’s unnatural lack of color. Just as I was about to let out an audible What in the fuck is going on here?, the dealer girl interrupted me, almost as if she knew that I was about to break the silent atmosphere of the French casino from the Twilight Zone.
Five! She yelled.
I got startled a little and zoomed back out. I won again, but I didn’t care. I was more focused on a man who appeared to be in black and white and licking a fucking casino wall.
Now, take a second and imagine being in this weird situation. You’re sitting alone in your darkroom, it’s 2 am, and you’re casually gambling when you notice that nobody besides your dealer is moving in the casino. Then, a man who appears to be colorless starts walking through the place, staring at people and licking walls.
I had to keep placing bets to stay in the lobby.
$100 on odd.
The man had stopped licking the wall and started moving again. He walked over to one of the dealers at the other table. He placed his arm on the dealer’s shoulder. Then I heard him say something. It sounded like “Say Tua” if that makes any sense. As he said that, the dealer turned around. That was the first time someone had moved other than my dealer girl and the colorless person.
One! yelled the girl. I swear it seemed like she knew I wasn’t paying attention to her and she wanted me to. I won again, but at that point, I didn’t give a fuck.
The other dealer stared at the man with the utter horror on his face. He didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
$200 on odd.
The staring lasted for about 30 seconds. I started typing a message in the chatbox to the right. I wrote, “Hey, what’s happening over there?” The dealer girl didn’t seem to react when I pressed “send”. Perhaps the chat option was there just for aesthetics, I don’t know.
Eleven!
Somehow, I kept winning. But money was secondary at that point. I needed to know what was going on.
$200 on Even.
The dealer next to the man started shaking uncontrollably. Then he muttered something like “None” to the man and collapsed. Like just fell in front of him. The man didn’t move, just looked down at the motionless body of dealers. Nobody else in the room moved, not even my girl. I yelled “What the fuck!” at the computer and that’s when it all changed. Every man and woman in the room turned and looked at me. I swear to you, every single person looked straight at me. They didn’t move, just looked towards me. The dealer girl seemed terrified beyond belief. She quickly pressed some kind of a button next to her table. The man without color slowly turned in my direction. He started walking towards my table. I got the message in the chatbox.
Run
I had shivers go down my spine a few times before, but never like this. I mean, I knew they couldn’t get to me through the screen, but the overall creepiness of the situation got the best of me.
The man walked up to the webcam and started staring at me. There was no doubt: he was in black and white. Now, I don’t know how to rationalize that shit. A glitch? Poor camera? Video editing? I don’t know, but I do know that he was the only colorless on the screen. The rest of the people were still looking towards me as well.
The man’s eyes were open as wide as humanly possible. He seemed to be studying me. I was scared shitless, man, but I was mesmerized, unable to quit the game. He got closer to the camera and all I could see now were his eyes, looking into me. Could he see me? I don’t think so. I hope not. But those eyes, man, those eyes. They seemed absolutely cruel and terrifyingly cold. They were also black and white, like the rest of the man. When he moved back, I nearly fell out of my chair. All of the people from the casino were now standing behind the man. 30+ still people were staring at me, with their eyes open way too wide. They weren’t moving. I have no idea how they got there so fast; the man took up the screen for only a few seconds.
The only one who didn’t seem like she belonged there was the dealer girl. She seemed absolutely petrified. The man turned towards her, then looked back at me. It was almost as if he noticed that she was out of place in that twilight room. He walked over and stopped behind her. She was shivering. *O..o…one” she muttered, obviously terrified by the man behind her. He started putting his arms around her shoulders. I yelled. I screamed at the screen.
What the fuck are you people doing!”I yelled.
The man started smiling. I can’t begin to explain to you how strange and surreal this experience was. A colorless man was looking at me, smiling, while wrapping his arm around the girl.
She looked at me. I could tell she knew I was still watching. She seemed at peace. Like she knew this was it.
She finally said, with little energy in her voice:
“Thank… thank you for playing with us today… And don’t forget your numbers!”
As she said that, the man’s arms went up to her neck with unnatural and inhuman speed. At that moment, the lobby closed.
I was back at the original, brown roulette page. My account balance was $520.
I sat there, stunned. I was sure I hallucinated, dreamt, something along those lines. This couldn’t have been real. I mean, come on, man. Colorless dude walking through the motionless casino, doing weird shit, and finally looking at me through the camera? Come on. Still, I like to believe that I am a sane person, and I know I wasn’t imagining. That shit did happen. I went to bed and although I had trouble forgetting this impossible incident, I fell asleep. When I woke up yesterday morning, the casino was the first thing on my mind. My initial thought was to try and get back into that lobby.
Fuck that. I decided that it was some sort of a prank. I went on with my day. But, you know what, that damn thing stuck with me the whole time. What the fuck was it? I kept analyzing. I tried talking to Rakesh about it, but he just laughed at me. I told him the whole story. At the end of me trying to convince him that I wasn’t lying, I remembered the girl’s last words.
And don’t forget your numbers!
That wasn’t something dealers say to you at the end of the game. I went back to my notebook and looked at the numbers I got that night. At least I’ve written down most of the numbers from the night before.
16 12 5 1 19 5 8 5 12 16 13 5
And the last three numbers I didn’t write down because I was too focused on the damn horror on my screen. I spent a good few hours analyzing, trying to figure out a pattern. I had no luck. Once again, I decided that someone was just fucking with me. I let the whole thing go. Actually, no I didn’t. I went back on the website and withdrew all of the money back to my PayPal account, just in case. Then I went on with my day.
By this morning, I have all but forgotten about the freaky night at the French online casino. I had two classes today. In the second class, Lecturer was talking about some game where you have to decipher a puzzle. He gave it to the class to solve it. I’ll be honest, I didn’t do shit. So, finally, he called for someone to come out in front of the class and demonstrate how they solved it. A guy came out and started explaining all these principles he used. Again, I wasn’t paying much attention, but one thing he said did catch my ear. He mentioned numbers. Numbers corresponding to letters.
I knew that this was the solution. I went back home after college and opened my notebook.
16 is P.
12 is L.
5 is E.
1 is A.
19 is S.
5 is E.
Please.
8 is H.
5 is E.
12 is L.
16 is P.
Help.
13 is M.
5 is E.
Me.
Please help me. Young girl, trapped inside the horror casino was begging for help and I was too stupid to pay attention. Was this a prank? I don’t know. A coincidence? Hardly.
I didn’t know what to do. I tried logging into the website again, but it was completely normal. There was no “Hata” lobby. I was, and still am, helpless.
I spent hours leading up to me writing this thinking, thinking, and overanalyzing what could have happened. I googled every phrase I could think of but to no luck.
And then, just as I started writing this, I remembered the last 3 numbers.
1, 11, and 1.
A, K, and A.
The first three letters of my name. I would’ve probably gotten the other two letters/numbers if the situation didn’t escalate. I felt sick. My knees suddenly became weak.
This wasn’t a coincidence.
What was worse, they know my name

Lost in the Sauce: March 22 - 28

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Figuring out how to divide the COVID-19 content from the “regular” news has been difficult because the pandemic is influencing all aspects of life. Some of the stories below involve the virus, but I chose to include them when it fits into one of the pre-established categories (like congress or immigration). The coronavirus-central post will be made again this Thursday-Friday; the sign up form now has an option to choose to receive an email when the coronavirus-focused roundup is posted.
House-keeping:

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Let’s dig in!

MAIN COURSE

Congress passes stimulus

Last week started out with a Republican-crafted stimulus bill that was twice-blocked by Senate Democrats, who objected to the lax conditions of aid to corporations, too little funding for hospitals, and a $500 billion “slush fund” for big companies to be doled out by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin with no oversight.
Conservative-Democrat Joe Manchin (WV) even criticized the GOP bill:

“It fails our first responders, nurses, private physicians and all healthcare professionals. ... It fails our workers. It fails our small businesses… Instead, it is focused on providing billions of dollars to Wall Street and misses the mark on helping the West Virginians that have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”

Through negotiations, Democrats shifted the bill in a more-worker friendly direction. The version that passed includes the following Democrat-added provisions: expanded unemployment benefits, $100 billion for hospitals, $150 billion for state and local governments, direct payments to Americans without a phase-in (ensuring low-income workers get the full amount), a ban on Trump and his children from receiving aid, and oversight on the “slush fund” (see next section for more info). Senate Democrats also managed to remove a provision that would have excluded nonprofits that receive Medicaid funding from the small-business grants.

Further reading: After Senate Democrats blocked the Republican-crafted bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the House Democrats in releasing their own version, a best-case scenario of their dream coronavirus stimulus bill. It is interesting to contrast what the Democrats prioritized to what the Republicans focused on: “How the House Democrats' stimulus plan compares to the Senate's”

Echoing sentiments expressed during debate on the previous coronavirus bill (the second, for those keeping track), Republican senators derided the $600 a week increase in unemployment payments as “incentivizing” workers to quit their jobs. Sens. Ben Sasse (Neb.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) delayed passage of the bill in order to force a vote on an amendment removing the extra unemployment funding. "This bill pays you more not to work than if you were working," Graham said. Fortunately for American workers, the amendment failed and the improved bill passed the Senate and the House.

Note: In 2009 only three Republicans helped Obama pass his stimulus bill in his first month in office.

The giveaways in the bill

While Senate Democrats were able to add worker-friendly provisions, the bill still required bipartisan support to pass the chamber and some corporate giveaways remained in the final version.

NYT: “Senate Republicans inserted an easy-to-overlook provision on page 203 of the 880-page bill that would permit wealthy investors to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. The estimated cost of the change over 10 years is $170 billion.”
NYT: “...if a company owns multiple hotels, even if the overall hotel or restaurant chain has more than 500 employees — the limit to qualify for treatment as a small business — it will still be able to take advantage of the small-business benefits offered in the rescue package. ...The provision could benefit the Trump Organization, which operates a relatively small chain, with six hotels in the United States in cities including New York, Washington and Chicago.”

Politico:

“A provision for the FDA to approve ‘innovative’ sunscreens—which would benefit L’Oreal, which has operations in Kentucky—appeared in the bill, which was steered in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.”
“The $25 billion allocated in loans and loan guarantees for the airlines will also benefit eligible businesses "approved to perform inspection, repair, replace, or overhaul services, and ticket agents.” The last two words — ‘ticket agents’ — mean that travel agents who book flights will also be able to apply for a piece of the $25 billion.”
“The credit reporting industry got a win by defeating a total ban on negative credit reports during the crisis. Instead, a watered down version made it into the final bill: Consumers wouldn't get a negative credit report if they have an agreement with a lender to delay payments or make partial payments.”

Trump’s signing statement

While signing the latest coronavirus relief bill, the president also issued a signing statement undercutting the congressional oversight provision creating an inspector general to track how the administration distributes the $500 billion “slush fund” money.
The newly-created inspector general is legally required to audit loans and investments made through the fund and report to Congress his/her findings, including any refusal by the executive office to cooperate. In his signing statement, Trump wrote that his understanding of constitutional powers allows him to gag the special IG:

"I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [inspector general] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required" by Article II of the Constitution.

The signing statement further suggests that Trump does not have to comply with a provision requiring that agencies consult with Congress before it spends or reallocates certain funds: "These provisions are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement with respect to the execution of the laws," the statement reads.
While some have said that Congress fell short in this instance, one Democratic Senate aide told Politico that Congress built in multiple layers of oversight, including “a review of other inspectors general and a congressional review committee charged with overseeing Treasury and the Federal Reserve's efforts to implement the law.”
Legal experts have pointed out that a signing statement is “without legal effect.” But that ignores the fact that oversight is not equal to enforcement. The problem, in my opinion, isn’t that Congress won’t be notified of any abuses of power by Trump. The problem is that congressional Republicans and the judiciary have largely failed to hold him accountable and enforce our laws even after learning of his abuses.

Concerns about the IG

Another potential weakness in the oversight structure is the inspector general position itself. The special inspector general for pandemic recovery, known by the acronym S.I.G.P.R., is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. As we’ve seen from Trump’s previous nominees, particularly judicial, many unqualified individuals have been confirmed. The Democrats will not have the power to stop the president and Mitch McConnell from jamming through a loyalist to fill the SIGPR role.

Former inspector general at the Justice Department Michael Bromwich: “The signing statement threatens to undermine the authority and independence of this new IG. The Senate should extract a commitment from the nominee that Congress will be promptly notified of any Presidential/Administration interference or obstruction.”

You may recall that Trump has already proven that he’s willing to interfere with the legally-mandated work of an inspector general. When the Ukraine whistleblower filed a complaint last year, the IG of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, investigated and determined the complaint to be “urgent” and “credible.” Atkinson wrote a report and gave it to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to hand over to Congress. However, the White House and DOJ interfered and instructed Maguire not to transmit the report to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Chairman Adam Schiff had to subpoena Maguire to turn over the report and testify before his committee.
Further, there are already five IG vacancies in agencies that have a critical role in responding to the pandemic. The Treasury itself has not had a permanent, Senate-confirmed IG for over eight months now, and Trump hasn’t nominated a replacement. The Treasury Dept. has taken a lead role in the coronavirus response, with Secretary Mnuchin handling most of the negotiating with Congress on Trump’s behalf. The fact that the lead agency doesn’t have IG oversight should be troublesome in itself; replicating the situation with a special IG doesn’t seem to be a promising solution.

The other four coronavirus-related agencies without a permanent IG: Department of Health and Human Services’ IG has been vacant for nine months, Department of Defense’s IG has been vacant for four years, Department of Education’s IG has been vacant for one year, and Office of Personnel Management’s IG has been vacant for four years. Overall, there are twelve IG vacancies in the 37) presidentially-appointed offices.

UPDATE: The nation's inspectors general have appointed Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's acting IG, to lead the committee of IGs overseeing the coronavirus relief effort.

This is one of several oversight mechanisms built into the new law. They include:
A committee of IGs (now led by Fine), a new special IG (to be nominated by Trump), a congressional review panel (to be appointed by House/Senate leaders)

Direct payments

Included in the stimulus bill is a $1200 one-time direct payment for all Americans who made less than $75,000 in 2019 (less than $150,000 if couples filed jointly). More details can be found here. I have read that the Treasury will use 2018 information for those who have not filed yet this year, but I am not 100% sure that’ll happen.
Mnuchin has said that Americans can expect to receive the money within three weeks, but many experts expect that timetable to be pushed into late April. Additionally, that only applies to Americans who included direct deposit information on their 2019 tax returns. Those who did not include their bank’s information will have to be sent a physical check in the mail… which could take anywhere from two to four months.
Other options are being discussed, including partnering the Treasury Dept. with MasterCard and Visa to deliver prepaid debit cards. Venmo and Paypal are reportedly lobbying the government to be considered as a disbursement option.
Future payments?
House Speaker Pelosi is already planning another wave of direct payments to Americans, saying that the $1,200 is not enough to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic: “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of direct payments.” Republicans, meanwhile, are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, using the next couple of weeks to measure the impact of the $2 trillion bill passed last week.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “What concerns me is when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it’s because she did not get out of things that she really wanted...I’m not sure you need a fourth package...Let’s let this work ... We have now given the resources to make and solve this problem. We don’t need to be crafting another bill right now.”
For the fourth legislative package, Democrats have said they would like to see increased food stamp benefits; increased coverage for coronavirus testing, visits to the doctor and treatment; more money for state and local governments, including Washington, D.C.; expanded family and medical leave; pension fixes; and stronger workplace protections.

Trump’s signature
Normally, a civil servant signs federal checks, like the direct payments Americans are set to receive. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump has told people that he wants his signature to appear on the stimulus checks.

THE SIDES

War on the poor continues

Amid the coronavirus crisis, Trump has defended his continued support of a Republican-led lawsuit to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would result in 20 million Americans losing health insurance if successful. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case this fall. Contrasting with his position that the ACA is illegal, Trump is considering reopening enrollment on HealthCare.gov, allowing millions of uninsured individuals to get coverage before potentially incurring charges and fees related to COVID-19.
Joe Biden called on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the charge against the ACA, and President Trump to drop the lawsuit:

“At a time of national emergency, which is laying bare the existing vulnerabilities in our public health infrastructure, it is unconscionable that you are continuing to pursue a lawsuit designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance and protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums due to pre-existing conditions.”

The Trump administration is also pushing forward with its plan to kick 700,000 people off federal food stamp assistance, known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The USDA announced two weeks ago that the department will appeal Judge Beryl Howell’s recent decision that the USDA’s work mandate rule is “arbitrary and capricious."
Additionally: The Social Security Administration has no plans to slow down a rule change set for June that will limit disability benefits, the Department of Health and Human Services still intends to reduce automatic enrollment in health coverage, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue the process to enact a rule that would make it harder for renters to sue landlords for racial discrimination.

Lawmakers’ stock transactions

The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are beginning to investigate stock transactions made ahead of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. CNN reports that the inquiry has already reached out to Senator Richard Burr for information. “Under insider trading laws, prosecutors would need to prove the lawmakers traded based on material non-public information they received in violation of a duty to keep it confidential,” a task that won’t be easy.
Sen. Burr is facing another consequence of his trades: Alan Jacobson, a shareholder in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, sued Burr for allegedly using private information to instruct a mass liquidation of his assets. Among the shares he sold were an up to $150,000 stake in Wyndham, whose stock suffered a market-value cut of more than two-thirds since mid-February.

Environmental rollbacks

Using the pandemic as cover, the Trump administration has begun to more aggressively roll back regulations meant to protect the environment. These are examples of what Naomi Klein dubbed “the shock doctrine”: the phenomenon wherein polluters and their government allies push through unpopular policy changes under the smokescreen of a public emergency.
On Thursday, the EPA announced (non-paywalled) an expansive relaxation of environmental laws and fines, exempting companies from consequences for pollution. Under the new rules, there are basically no rules. Companies are asked to “act responsibly” but are not required to report when their facilities discharge pollution into the air or water. Just five days before abandoning any pollution oversight, the oil industry’s largest trade group implored the administration for assistance, stating that social distancing measures caused a steep drop in demand for gasoline.

Monday morning update: In an interview with Fox News this morning, Trump said he was going to call Putin after the interview to discuss the Saudi-Russia oil fight. A consequence of this "battle" has been plummeting prices in the U.S. making it difficult for domestic companies (like shale extraction) to turn a profit. It's striking that the day after Dr. Fauci told Americans we can expect 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 (if we keep social distancing measures in place), Trump's first action is to talk to Fox News and his second action is to intervene in an international tiff on behalf of the oil and gas industry.

Gina McCarthy, who led the E.P.A. under the Obama administration, called the rollback “an open license to pollute.” Cynthia Giles, who headed the EPA enforcement division during the Obama administration, said “it is so far beyond any reasonable response I am just stunned.”
The EPA is also moving forward with a widely-opposed rule to limit the types of scientific studies used when crafting new regulations or revising current ones. Hidden behind claims of increased transparency, the rule would require disclosure of all raw data used in scientific studies. This would disqualify many fields of research that rely on personal health information from individuals that must be kept confidential. For example, studies that show air pollution causes premature deaths or a certain pesticide is linked to birth defects would be rejected under the proposed rule change.
Officials and scientists are calling upon the EPA to extend the time for comment on the regulatory changes, arguing that the public is unable to express their opinion while dealing with the pandemic.

“These rollbacks need and deserve the input of our public health community, but right now, they are rightfully focused on responding to the coronavirus,” said Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Other controversial decisions being made:

A former EPA official who worked on controversial policies returned as Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s chief of staff. Mandy Gunasekara helped write regulations to ease pollution controls for coal-fired power plants and vehicle emissions in her previous role as chief of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. In a recent interview, Gunasekara, who played a role in the decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord, pushed back on the more dire predictions of climate change, saying, “I don't think it is catastrophic.”
NYT: The plastic bag industry, battered by a wave of bans nationwide, is using the coronavirus crisis to try to block laws prohibiting single-use plastic. “We simply don’t want millions of Americans bringing germ-filled reusable bags into retail establishments putting the public and workers at risk,” an industry campaign that goes by the name Bag the Ban warned on Tuesday. (Also see The Guardian)
Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia passed laws putting new criminal penalties on protests against fossil fuel infrastructure in just the past two weeks.
The Hill: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Friday that it will extend the amount of time that winter gasoline can be sold this year as producers have been facing lower demand due to the coronavirus. It will allow companies to sell the winter-grade gasoline through May 20, whereas companies would have previously been required to stop selling it by May 1 to protect air quality. “In responding to an international health crisis, the last thing the EPA should do is take steps that will worsen air quality and undermine the public’s health,” biofuels expert David DeGennaro said.
NYT: At the Interior Department, employees at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been under strict orders to complete the rule eliminating some protections for migratory birds within 30 days, according to two people with direct knowledge of the orders. The 45-day comment period on that rule ended on March 19.
WaPo: The Interior Department has received over 230 nominations for oil and gas leases covering more than 150,000 acres across southern Utah, a push that would bring drilling as close as a half-mile from some of the nation’s most famous protected sites, including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks… if all the fossil fuels buried in those sites was extracted and burned, it would translate into between 1 billion and 5.95 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide being released into the air. That upward measure is equal to half the annual carbon output of China

Court updates

Press freedom case
Southern District of New York District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that a literary advocacy group’s lawsuit against Trump for allegedly violating the First Amendment can move forward. The group, PEN America, is pursuing claims that Trump “has used government power to retaliate against media coverage and reporters he dislikes.”
Schofield determined that PEN’s allegation that Trump made threats to chill free speech was valid, providing as an example the White House’s revocation of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press press corps credentials:

”The threats are lent credence by the fact that Defendant has acted on them before, by revoking Mr. Acosta’s credentials and barring reporters from particular press conferences. The Press Secretary indeed e-mailed the entire press corps to inform them of new rules of conduct and to warn of further consequences, citing the incident involving Mr. Acosta… These facts plausibly allege that a motivation for defendant’s actions is controlling and punishing speech he dislikes.”

Twitter case
The president suffered another First Amendment defeat last week when the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review a previous ruling that prevents Trump from blocking users on the Twitter account he uses to communicate with the public. Judge Barrington D. Parker, a Nixon-appointee, wrote: “Excluding people from an otherwise public forum such as this by blocking those who express views critical of a public official is, we concluded, unconstitutional.”
Trump-appointees Michael Parker and Richard Sullivan authored a dissent, arguing the free speech “does not include a right to post on other people’s personal social media accounts, even if those other people happen to be public officials.” Park warned that the ruling will allow the social media pages of public officials to be “overrun with harassment, trolling, and hate speech, which officials will be powerless to filter.”
Florida’s felon voting
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ripped into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration for failing to come up with a process to determine which felons are genuinely unable to pay court-ordered fees and fines, which are otherwise required to be paid before having their voting rights restored.
“If the state is not going to fix it, I will,” Hinkle warned. He had given the state five months to come up with an administrative process for felons to prove they’re unable to pay financial obligations, but Florida officials did not do so. The case is set to be heard on April 28 (notwithstanding any coronavirus-related delays).

ICE, Jails, and COVID-19

ICE
One of the most overlooked populations with an increased risk of death from coronavirus are those in detention facilities, which keep people in close quarters with little sanitation or protective measures (including for staff).
Last week, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the federal government to “make continuous efforts” to release migrant children from detention centers across the country. Numerous advocacy groups asked for the release after reports that four children being held in New York had tested positive for the virus:

“The threat of irreparable injury to their health and safety is palpable,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their petition… both of the agencies operating migrant children detention facilities must by April 6 provide an accounting of their efforts to release those in custody… “Her order will undoubtedly speed up releases,” said Peter Schey, co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the court case.

On Tuesday, 13 immigrants held at ICE facilities in California filed a lawsuit demanding to be released because their health conditions make them particularly vulnerable to dying if infected by the coronavirus. An ACLU statement says the detainees are “confined in crowded and unsanitary conditions where social distancing is not possible.” The 13 individuals are all over the age of 50 and/or suffering from serious underlying medical issues like high blood pressure.

“From all the evidence we have seen, ICE is failing to fulfill its constitutional obligation to protect the health and safety of individuals in its custody. ICE should exercise its existing discretion to release people with serious medical conditions from detention for humanitarian reasons,” said William Freeman, senior counsel at the ACLU of Northern California.

Meanwhile, ICE is under fire for continuing to shuttle detainees across the country, with one even being forced to take nine different flights bouncing from Louisiana to Texas to New Jersey less than two weeks ago. That man is Dr. Sirous Asgari, a materials science and engineering professor from Iran, who was acquitted last year on federal charges of stealing trade secrets. The government lost its case against him, yet ICE has had him in indefinite detention since November.

Asgari, 59, told the Guardian that his Ice holding facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, had no basic cleaning practices in place and continued to bring in new detainees from across the country with no strategy to minimize the threat of Covid-19...Detainees have no hand sanitizer, and the facility is not regularly cleaning bathrooms or sleeping areas…Detainees lack access to masks… Detainees struggle to stay clean, and the facility has an awful stench.

Jails
State jails are making a better effort to release detained individuals, as both New York and New Jersey ordered a thousand people in each state be let out of jail. The order applied only to low-level offenders sentenced to less than a year in jail and those held on technical probation violations. In Los Angeles County, officials released over 1,700 people from its jails.
A judge in Alabama took similar steps last week, ordering roughly 500 people jailed for minor offenses to be released to lessen crowding in facilities. Unlike in New York and New Jersey, however, local officials reacted in an uproar, led in part by the state executive committee for the Alabama Republican Party and Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson. Using angry Facebook messages as the barometer of the community’s feelings, Robinson worked “frantically” to block inmates from being released.

Reuters: As of Saturday, at least 132 inmates and 104 staff at jails across New York City had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus… Since March 22, jails have reported 226 inmates and 131 staff with confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a Reuters survey of cities and counties that run America’s 20 largest jails. The numbers are almost certainly an undercount given the fast spread of the virus.

Tribe opposed by Trump loses land

On Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs announced the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation would be "disestablished" and its land trust status removed. Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell called the move "cruel" and "unnecessary,” particularly coming in the midst of a pandemic crisis. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who last year introduced legislation to protect the tribe's reservation as trust land in Massachusetts, said the order “is one of the most cruel and nonsensical acts I have seen since coming to Congress.”
The administration’s decision is especially suspicious as just last year Trump attacked the tribe’s plan to build a casino on its land, tweeting that allowing the construction would be “unfair” and treat Native Americans unequally. As a former casino owner, Trump has spent decades attacking Native American casinos as unfair competition. At a 1993 congressional hearing Trump said that tribal owners “don’t look like Indians to me” and claimed: “I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations” to gambling.
More than his past history, however, Trump has current interests at play in the Mashpee Wampanoag’s planned casino: it would have competed for business with nearby Rhode Island casinos owned by Twin River Worldwide Holdings, whose president, George Papanier, was a finance executive at the Trump Plaza casino hotel in Atlantic City.

In the Mashpee case, Twin River, the operator of the two Rhode Island casinos, has hired Matthew Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a vocal Trump supporter, to lobby for it on the land issue. Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, is director of strategic communications at the White House.

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Lost in the Sauce: Fox News launders unverified Russian intel on Trump's behalf