Miami will hold an “anti-Communist” concert in April in response to Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders’ defense of Fidel Castro’s authoritarian regime in Cuba, according to a report.

“Our city represents the stories of countless individuals who have risked their lives to flee communism,” Mayor Francis Suarez said, mentioning Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the Miami Herald reported on Monday.

“Each and every life that has fled communism has proven how the will to pursue democracy and freedom, even in the face of oppression, can never be suppressed or silenced.”

In an interview Sunday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Sanders praised Castro’s literacy efforts when he took over Cuba in 1959.

More: https://nypost.com/2020/02/26/miami-to-hold-anti-communist-concert-after-sanders-defends-castro-regime/?fbclid=IwAR0cj4G62mQgyEdCftZSQQUOZRbJ3EJYvV43QQqQDrU1-4U4kllSGfk_0PM

Source: Securities and Exchange Commission

Washington D.C., Feb. 27, 2020 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against actor Steven Seagal for failing to disclose payments he received for promoting an investment in an initial coin offering (ICO) conducted by Bitcoiin2Gen (B2G).

The SEC's order finds that Seagal failed to disclose he was promised $250,000 in cash and $750,000 worth of B2G tokens in exchange for his promotions, which included posts on his public social media accounts encouraging the public not to "miss out" on Bitcoiin2Gen's ICO and a press release titled "Zen Master Steven Seagal Has Become the Brand Ambassador of Bitcoiin2Gen." A Bitcoiin2Gen press release also included a quotation from Seagal stating that he endorsed the ICO "wholeheartedly." These promotions came six months after the SEC's 2017 DAO Report warning that coins sold in ICOs may be securities. The SEC has also advised that, in accordance with the anti-touting provisions of the federal securities laws, any celebrity or other individual who promotes a virtual token or coin that is a security must disclose the nature, scope, and amount of compensation received in exchange for the promotion.

"These investors were entitled to know about payments Seagal received or was promised to endorse this investment so they could decide whether he may be biased," said Kristina Littman, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit. "Celebrities are not allowed to use their social media influence to tout securities without appropriately disclosing their compensation."

The SEC's order finds that Seagal violated the anti-touting provisions of the federal securities laws. Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Seagal agreed to pay $157,000 in disgorgement, which represents his actual promotional payments, plus prejudgment interest, and a $157,000 penalty. In addition, Seagal agreed not to promote any securities, digital or otherwise, for three years.

Read more: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-42

More than 200 Cherokees and other Native Americans have signed a letter urging Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren to fully retract her past claims to being Native and help dispel false beliefs held by many white people that they have American Indian ancestry.

The letter cites a Los Angeles Times investigation that found more than $800 million in government contracts reserved for minorities instead went to companies set up by members of groups with dubious claims to being Cherokee and Creek Indian tribes.

The letter describes The Times’ findings as an example of the harm done when white people rely on family lore and DNA tests to falsely assert Native American identity.

The criticism comes at an awkward time for Warren. The Massachusetts senator did not win any of the first three states in the nominating calendar and faces an uphill battle in the South Carolina primary this Saturday.

In response, Warren sent a 12-page letter to the Cherokee authors on Tuesday night. Her letter repeated past apologies, reiterated that she is a “white woman” and detailed a policy agenda that she said was good for Indian Country.

More: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-26/elizabeth-warren-again-is-pressed-on-past-claims-of-native-american-heritage?_amp=true&__twitter_impression=tru

Source: The Daily Beast

ABC News has reportedly suspended one of its veteran journalists over unknown remarks that he made while being secretly recorded. The Washington Post reported that correspondent David Wright had been disciplined, but it remains unclear exactly what he said in the footage. The mysterious video was teased on social media Tuesday by the founder of conservative group Project Veritas, James O’Keefe, who said it “will expose ABC News’ agenda to mislead voters and push their own narratives.” The Post reported that ABC News officials reviewed the footage before his suspension. Project Veritas was previously behind the release of a video that showed ABC News anchor Amy Robach slamming her own network for allegedly sitting on the Jeffrey Epstein story for three years. O’Keefe said on Twitter that he’d release the new footage on Wednesday morning.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/david-wright-suspended-by-abc-news-over-mysterious-footage-says-report

TALLAHASSEE — Two Florida Democrats are suing to block Bernie Sanders from running as a Democrat in the state’s March 17 presidential primary.

In the lawsuit filed Monday in circuit court in Leon County, the plaintiffs ask that Sanders be disqualified from the Democratic primary because he’s a declared independent.

The Florida Democratic Party labeled the complaint “ridiculous,” and the Sanders campaign called it “spurious.”

The complaint also seeks to prevent state election officials from counting any votes Sanders has already received. More than 244,000 Democrats have already voted by mail in Florida.

More: https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/02/25/2-florida-democrats-sue-to-keep-sanders-off-primary-ballot-1263505

The Young Turks’ Progressive Founder Urged His Staff Not To Unionize

Top leadership at the progressive news network The Young Turks held an all-staff meeting at its office in Culver City, California, on Feb. 12. The regularly scheduled gathering was supposed to deal with personnel matters, but instead the focus turned to the staff’s nascent union campaign, which had just gone public.

Earlier that day, a Twitter handle claiming to represent TYT employees had announced on the social media platform their intention to form a union. In the staff meeting, the network’s co-founder and influential host, Cenk Uygur, urged employees not to do so, arguing that a union does not belong at a small, independent outlet like TYT, according to two workers who were present. He said if there had been a union at the network it would not have grown the way it has.

His talk ― at times emotional, the staffers said, with Uygur throwing his papers to the ground at one point, and chastising an employee ― seemed to contradict the progressive, worker-first ethos that TYT broadcasts to its millions of lefty followers. Jack Gerard, who is acting as the company’s chief operating officer as Uygur runs for Congress in California, told the staff they were not discouraging unionization. 

But the message from Uygur was clear ― and, to at least some staffers, discouraging

More: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e540686c5b6ad3de3823a32?yqt

He was the lead story on the 6:00 news on channel 10 tonight.

LAS VEGAS — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) mounted a new defense Wednesday for the toxicity emanating from pockets of his presidential campaign’s supporters, implying it was possible Russian actors were again manipulating social media to incite Democratic divisions.

Sanders’s language was indirect, offered on the debate stage here as his opponents faulted him for the behavior of his most strident fans. It drew criticism from experts in disinformation, who said they had no direct evidence the Kremlin had masqueraded as Sanders voters to interfere in the 2020 race much as Russian trolls had done four years earlier.

“All of us remember 2016, and what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our elections and divide us up,” said the senator from Vermont. “I’m not saying that’s happening, but it would not shock me.”

Even the insinuation that foreign actors may be to blame for controversial online behavior by Sanders’s most dedicated followers was an extraordinary indication of the extent to which election interference looms over the 2020 contest. It illustrated how few standards exist for assessing claims of meddling by Russia or other malicious actors, which are being vetted by the very same tech giants whose platforms became host to disinformation that went undetected four years ago.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/20/sanders-implies-russia-not-his-supporters-may-be-blame-online-vitriol-experts-arent-so-sure/#click=https://t.co/xTd00e6VY0

Source: CNBC

Disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti was convicted Friday by a jury of all three charges related to his efforts to extort up to $25 million from athletic apparel giant Nike, in what a top prosecutor called "and old fashioned shakedown."

The verdict in U.S. District Court in Manhattan came two years after Avenatti gained widespread notoriety for his representation of porn star Stormy Daniels in her legal disputes with President Donald Trump.

Avenatti, who briefly flirted with running for the Democratic presidential nomination, faces two other pending federal criminal cases this spring related to alleged thefts from clients, including Daniels, and other charges.

The 48-year-old attorney was accused in the Nike case of trying to shake down the publicly traded company by threatening to go public with alleged evidence that the company had bribed amateur basketball players and their families unless Nike paid him millions of dollars.



Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/02/14/disgraced-lawyer-michael-avenatti-found-guilty-in-nike-extortion-trial.html

Bernie Sanders may have emerged with the most votes from the first two contests in the 2020 Democratic primary, but Miami’s House Democrats echoed many lawmakers in Washington this week when they said it’s far too soon to consider the prospect of a democratic socialist as the party’s nominee.

Sanders’ rise has set off alarm bells in the House of Representatives, where Democrats won a majority in 2018 in part by defeating Republicans in districts President Donald Trump won in 2016.

Even asking the question about whether they would support Sanders elicited eye rolls and stone-faced stares from three of Miami’s four congressional Democrats.

“He’s not going to be the nominee,” Rep. Donna Shalala said when asked if she would campaign for Sanders should he win the nomination. “That’s hypothetical question and since I don’t think he’s going to be the nominee I don’t have to answer the question.”

More: https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240282441.html?__twitter_impression=true