Midnightwalk
Midnightwalk's JournalDivided Highway. As a freeway comes down, Syracuse, New York, faces its legacy of segregation
For more than 50 years, Interstate 81 has cut through the heart of hard-luck Syracuse, New York, raining vehicle exhaust on its Southside neighborhood, where most residents are Black and poor.
Now, New York State wants to replace that elevated stretch of freeway with a street-level boulevard to knit the citys urban grid back together. Construction could begin as soon as next year.
The plan has stirred visions of renewal in a city where one in three residents lives in poverty. Some here say it could also make amends to Black residents who were displaced by Interstate 81s construction decades ago and have been living in its shadow ever since.'
When they put that highway up they destroyed this community, said David Rufus, a lifelong Southside resident who is now an organizer for the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). Now heres an opportunity to right that wrong by bringing it down.
[link:https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-BIDEN/INFRASTRUCTURE-FREEWAYS/qzjpqbzzyvx/|]
Summary of Greenberg's Plea deal
My il-legally trained read of the plea deal. Not a lawyer. Corrections welcome.
It details Greenbergs crimes and mentions two people involved in his covid-19 loan schemes aka Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL)s.
The first 25 pages cover the plea deal. Lists the counts that he will plead to and says the rest will be dropped. Has to cooperate. Even Personalization of Element which I guess is what hell be asked at allocution
The minimums and average times are long
Then details on counts
Count 1
Sounds like he has a sex compulsion. Theres a month of expenses, june 2017, where he paid around $425 each time for sex. Later in 2020 he wondered how fast he could blow 100k on p...y. Did the counting and math in head, but at that rate it is close to $10k per month for 3 years.
Regardless this is the count that covers the minor. Throw the book at him.
Count 8 and 9 and the feds
Aka fake driver licenses. Some for himself but maybe he sold some. Basically he uses his role at the dmv to make false ids.
First he bought a boat from someone and then used that persons info to create a license with Greenbergs address without that persons knowledge . Then another with Greenbergs photo.
He then proceeded to make these federal offenses. Dont do this at home kiddies.
Greenberg was the Tax Collector. He used his Tax Collector credit card to purchase a badge (license) making machine from office depot. Turns out the machine and were manufactured in France. Thats all it takes. Hello federales.
He couldnt keep using the poor boat sellers info to make licenses but no worries. There was a basket where the dmv kept the old licenses after renewals until they could be diligently destroyed every 45 days. Apparently they have to age before shredding.
Count 14 and the fire
The crypto currency. Big deal, but you can read good summaries about it I think and this isnt one of them. Basically used his position to embezzle funds to make short term investments for the office but used it to buy crypto currency for himself instead
That wasnt enough, so he used some of the proceeds to buy around $58,000 of servers to mine crypto currencies. Those servers wound up in the Tax Collectors Office because of Covid.
Those machines couldnt be examined because.....
Those machines
were damaged in a fire, which occurred due to a power surge caused by the way in which the machines were daisy chained together. The expenses incurred for the server room buildout,fire damage, and server room tear down in the Lake Mary branch were approximately $98,000. All of those costs were due to Greenberg using Tax Collector Office funds to benefit himself personally , including by operating a business out ofthe Tax Collector's Office for his personal benefit under the guise of Government
Blockchain Systems.
Yes, sounds like he plugged all these high powered servers which burn electricity like crazy into the same extension chords.
Count 24 or how republicans win elections
This is about Greenberg having an opponent in his re-election bid for the Tax Man gig and committing crimes to win.
Greenberg first sent a letter to the head of the school where the victim worked as a teacher then to 8 other faculty members. The letters were sent as if written by a student and described his concerns about a inappropriate homosexual relationship between and his friend who was also a student. Ages not mentioned.
Then Greenberg created imposter facebook and Twitter accounts making racist statements posing as the teacher.
Cant paste either easily. You can see them on pages 71 and 72 of the doc.
Count 26 The covid loans and baby I cant get enough
This is about fraud in applying for and getting covid-19 loans aka economic injury disaster loans (EIDL). This is where two other people who seem to be in legal trouble are mentioned. The recruiter conspirator and the SBA guy. Well covered elsewhere but one part caught me eye.
He was arrested on june 23 and continued committing fraud up to at least July 6.
appearance that day and was released on conditions, which included a prohibition on committing any new criminal offenses and a statement advising him that any new criminal violations would result in the possibility of additional terms of imprisonment
due to the fact that he was on pretrial release in his federal criminal case.
He couldnt get enough but you probably have.
[link:https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20708963/greenberg-plea-agreement.pdf|]
The end
Notes on Judge Amy Berman Jackson's ruling on the DoJ memo leading to Barr's letter to congress
I don't know why I got into reading and summarizing these decisions, but I find them interesting and writing it out helps me organize my thoughts. Hope you enjoy. Not a lawyer. I had some issues cutting and pasting and had to do some piece-wise. Apologies if messed something up. I'll correct anything pointed out.
The Memorandum Opinion lays out the timeline of Mueller delivering his report, Barr delivering his 4 page summary over the weekend, Mueller writing his letter saying "
It's was a good reminder of when the report came out and then the obvious cover up letter to congress. Basically nothing to see here, president is innocent. Those were a bad few days in a sea of bad days.
Here's that in full:
On Friday, March 22, 2019, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III delivered his Report of the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election to the then-Attorney General of the United States William P. Barr
But the Attorney General did not share it with anyone else.
Instead, before the weekend was over, he sent a letter to congressional leaders purporting to summarize the principal conclusions set out in the Report, compressing the approximately 200 highly detailed and painstakingly footnoted pages of Volume I which discusses the Russian governments interference in the election and any links or coordination with the Trump campaign and the almost 200 equally detailed pages of Volume II which concerns acts taken by then-President Trump in connection with the investigation into less than four pages.
The letter asserted that the Special Counsel did not draw a conclusion one way or the other as to whether
the examined conduct constituted obstruction, and it went on to announce the Attorney Generals
own opinion that the evidence developed during the Special Counsels investigation is not
sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.
The President then declared himself to have been fully exonerated
The Attorney Generals characterization of what hed hardly had time to skim, much less, study closely, prompted an immediate reaction, as politicians and pundits took to their microphones and Twitter feeds to decry what they feared was an attempt to hide the ball.
Even the customarily taciturn Special Counsel was moved to pen an extraordinary public rebuke on March 27:
The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Offices work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the Department on the morning of March 25. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations"
Then a long description of what the case is about and releveant laws. Here's a mish mash of my take and quotes
The case involves summary judgement involving FOIA requests on two documents, referred to Document 6 and Document 15. There's a second issue about expediting, and that is ruled moot.
Then a discussion about what goes into making a summary judgement and some background on FOIA. Interesting. There's one paragraph that stood out to me emphasizing accuracy is critical:
FOIA rule 5 is the key to the decision:
Defendant withheld the two records in dispute in this case pursuant to FOIA Exemption 5, which bars disclosure of inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency. 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5).
A document may be properly withheld under Exemption 5 if it satisfies two conditions: its source must be a [g]overnment agency, and it must fall within the ambit of a privilege against discovery under judicial standards that would govern litigation against the agency that holds it.
There are two privileges:
The deliberative process privilege allows the government to withhold documents and other materials that would reveal advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising part of a process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated.
.....
To accomplish that goal, [t]he deliberative process privilege protects agency documents that are both predecisional and deliberative.
Predicisional is important later on
The attorney-client privilege
....
The attorney-client privilege protects confidential communications from clients to their attorneys made for the purpose of securing legal advice or services. Tax Analysts v. IRS, 117 F.3d 607, 618 (D.C. Cir. 1997), citing In re Sealed Case, 737 F.2d 94, 9899 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Its purpose is to encourage full and frank communication between attorneys and their clients and thereby promote broader public interests in the observance of law and administration of justice.
....
But the mere fact that the communication involves a member of the bar does not end the
inquiry. See Mead Data Cent., 566 F.2d at 253 (The privilege does not allow the withholding of documents simply because they are the product of an attorney-client relationship . . . .). For instance, the privilege does not extend to a government attorneys advice on political, strategic, or policy issues, valuable as it may [be].
That last paragraph is also important later.
Now why the motion to release document 15 was granted
The memorandum is largely deliberative. But the Court cannot find the record to be predecisional, because the materials in the record, including the memorandum itself, contradict the FOIA declarants assertions that the decision-making process they have identified was in fact underway. Moreover, the record supplies reason to question whether the communication preceded any decision that was made.
The OLC had two people say why the document was predeicisional. See page 18 if interested. The judge quotes CREW (the plaintiff on document 15). They made the decisions before the memo.
CREW had difficulty swallowing this explanation.
DOJs . . . arguments rest on the demonstrably false proposition that the memo was submitted to the Attorney General to assist him in making a legitimate decision on whether to initiate or decline prosecution of the President for obstructing justice . . . . [H]owever, the Special Counsel already had made final prosecutorial judgments and the time for the Attorney General to challenge those judgments had passed. Whatever the contents of the March 24, 2019 OLC memo, it was not part of a deliberation about whether or not to prosecute the President.
The judge can't reveal what's in the memo. But she talks about the two sections of the memo and points out that section 1 was completely strategic and political. Not deliberative or predecisional.
Here's a key piece. They produced the letter to congress without having reviewed the report and before any deliberative predecision discussions. By the time this memo about the letter was made Barr had already decided not to prosecute Trump for obstruction:
The judge throws some shade at Barr for ummm inaccuracy.
She then kind throws some shade and an elbow at the DoJ:
[T]he March 2019 Memorandum (Document no. 15), which was released in part to Plaintiff is a pre-decisional, deliberative memorandum to the Attorney General from OLC AAG Engel and PADAG Edward OCallaghan . . . .
She notes that "hey another court found you trying to pull this crap and I'll include it in the decision"
But here, we have both. Another court in this district has expressed grave concerns about the objectivity of the process that preceded the public release of the redacted version of the Mueller Report.
Quoting from the other court:
She's mauling them at this point:
Then she goes into who got together to produce the memo. I love that she made a who emailed who chart (chart not in decision, but it does say it's available somewhere). Who knew who you meet with can have an effect. They should have hired a lawyer.
The Court has created a chart listing all of the emails in chronological order. It is attached to this opinion as Attachment 1 and incorporated in the opinion as part of the Courts factual findings. The emails are exchanged among Stephen A. Engel, an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel; Brian C. Rabbitt, the Chief of Staff in the Office of the Attorney General; Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General; and Edward C. OCallaghan, the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, and at least one is copied to another person in OLC: Henry C. Whitaker (OLC).
The memo the DOJ attorneys were working on was the advice the OLC was going to give them. Remember deliberative and predecisional. The fix was already in and OLC was in on it and not independent. (my opinion)
The emails show not only that the authors and the recipients of the memorandum are working hand in hand to craft the advice that is supposedly being delivered by OLC, but that the letter to Congress is the priority, and it is getting completed first. At 2:16 pm on Sunday, March 24, the Attorney Generals Chief of Staff advises the others: We need to go final at 2:25 pm, and Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, summons everyone to a meeting at 2:17 pm. Attachment 1 at 4. At 2:18 pm, Steven Engel in the OLC replies to this email chain related to the draft letter, and he attaches the latest version of the memo to the Attorney General, saying: heres the latest memo, btw, although we presumably dont need to finalize that as soon. Id.; see also id. at 6 (finalizing the letter just before 5:00 pm on March 24 and the memorandum just before 9:00 am on March 25). In sum, the set of emails contained in plaintiffs Exhibit A undermines the uninformed assertions in the declarations uponwhich the defense relies
There's discussion of why attorney client privildge doesn't apply because these jokers were acting politically, but this is already too long so read the doc if you want that.
Some quotes from Dominion's response to Powell's motion to dismiss
I am not a lawyer and might have misinterpreted everything I read. These are just parts I found interesting or amusing. Corrections/clarifications welcome. I *think* I can quote liberally from public document. If someone knows better, please tell me and I'll delete.
It starts off pointing out a little confusion in Powell's argument
I can't wait to show my evidence, you'd be stupid not to believe me, no reasonable person would believe me and I do. Ooooh my head hurts...
They do a quick couple of paragraphs on the lies (more later), and and the first section with
They list 4 major issues to be determined by the courts: Actionability, Accountability personal jurisdiction and agency and deceptive trade practices. YES! they will use her fundraising against her.
Her statements are actionable because they can be proven false.
What did she claim? Lots of stuff, some legal arguments. Here's the last paragraph which is a good summary and a good smack down (she does not)...
The next covers whether "opinion" is a defense. I like the footnote:
She never said "in my opinion. So much the worse.
Here's one paragraph calling her a liar a few times. I count 4 times they call Powell a liar. (highlighted):
I didn't realize that some time after Powell saying something like only an idiot would listen to me she doubled down on d'souzas podcast that "just kidding about just kidding i'm really serious". Again, I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't seem too B-R-I-T. I tried to duplicate the highlights from the doc. Don't sue me if I messed up.
.
DSouza: So youre not taking any of it back. Youre not taking refuge in the distinction between fact and opinion. It seems to me what youre saying is, Yes, I have the opinion that there was widespread fraud, but this is not an opinion free floating in the ether. Its an opinion anchored in a whole bunch of testimonies, affidavits, all types of evidence, statistical evidence, and so on. Its opinion that is rooted in fact. ...
Powell: Im not backing up one inch. Everything I said about Dominion, I had a factual basis for. Any reasonable person looking at the evidence Ive seen would have to come to the same conclusion.
They say it better than I could dream
On to malice. The standard:
As Defendants acknowledge (Mem. 36), the actual malice standard does not require complaints to cite evidence proving that a defendant knew her statements were false; rather, a complaint pleads actual malice where it alleges facts giving rise to a plausible inference that the defendant knew or recklessly disregarded that her statements were false.
Let's count how many times they call her a liar again. I'm grinning while highlighting

More good stuff on malice, but you can read it yourself

Jurisdictional stuff. I'm sure it's important and fascinating to some people. I skimmed before i nodded off. One excerpt:
Finally, part of the conclusion:
Acting on behalf of her fundraising website, her law firm, and herself, Sidney Powell went to D.C. and helped launch one of the most damaging disinformation campaigns in American history, fooling millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen the 2020 election. (Compl. ¶¶ 24- 27, 52, 62.) Now that Dominion seeks to hold Powell accountable in the city where Powell waged that campaign, Powell asks the Court to dismiss this case for lack of personal jurisdiction or to transfer the case to Texas. The only connection that Texas has to this case is that
42
Case 1:21-cv-00040-CJN Document 39 Filed 05/03/21 Page 54 of 56
Powell may have left Texas to come to D.C. to transact the business and utter many of the falsehoods giving rise to this case. For weeks, a process server saw no sign of Powell at her asserted residence in Texas. Powell was ultimately served outside her house in North Carolina another state having no meaningful connection to this case. This case arises out of a D.C.-based defamatory campaign, which had serious repercussions for Dominion and the public in D.C.
Hope you find this interesting.
Forgot link
[link:https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20697152-dominion-response-to-powell-mtd?responsive=1&title=1|]
Bodycam video shows moments leading to Mario Gonzalez's death while in Alameda police custody
Source: KRON news
ALAMEDA, Calif. (KRON) The City of Alameda on Tuesday released body camera footage of a Bay Area man who died during an arrest while in Alameda police custody.
Family demands answers after Oakland man dies in police custody
26-year-old Mario Arenales Gonzalez died while in the custody of three responding officers on the morning of April 19, 2021.
3 police officers on leave after Oakland man dies in custody
Warning: Video contains graphic images/language; viewer discretion advised
Read more: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/bodycam-video-shows-alameda-officer-kneeling-on-mario-gonzalezs-neck-before-he-died-family-says/amp/
It is very disturbing
Got lunch at Lukes
In Tucson. We havent been there for years. Beef hot which is beef slices soaked in juice with a hot pepper and olive cooked topping.
Rings were still hot and crunchy
Bags are still translucent by the time you get home. Hit the spot.
Got there a little late for the lunch rush but looked like theyre doing good.
Now Im going to pass out for a while
Lindsey Graham Rumored to be Resigning
Reports are circulating that Lindsey Graham will resign later today according to reporter April Scemo.
Asked to comment Senator Graham replied April, you cant fool me with a gotcha question like that.
Enjoy your day.