Category / Corruption

White House ordered to restore CNN reporter Jim Acosta's access
by Crimson Tazvinzwa

US – After Years of Taking Up Too Much Space, Trump Is Finally Small

As the president’s lies and bullying get bolder and bolder, we can finally see him for what he is: boring.

From left: Robert Mueller, Roger Stone and Julian Assange. Photos: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call; Michael Schwartz and Jack Taylor via Getty Images

From left: Robert Mueller, Roger Stone and Julian Assange. Photos: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call; Michael Schwartz and Jack Taylor via Getty Images

|DAHLIA LITHWICK, SLATE|AIWA! NO!|After Years of Taking Up Too Much Space, Trump Is Finally SmallThe holidays can be tricky when one has begun to reflexively assume the posture of being pinned under the breakfront as the crazy racist grandpa shrieks year round. For many of us, the echo of Donald Trump’s voice, his tweets, his boasts and threats, are what wake us up at 4 a.m. and what makes us afraid to contemplate summer plans or even buy green bananas.

But after two deeply destabilizing and in fact traumatic years of soaking in the president’s ugliness and invective, of absorbing the sound and sight of the sneering and the scowling and the fury, there is much to be thankful for this year. Because this year, by dint of miracle or magic or human endeavor, Donald Trump has been reduced to his actual size. He isn’t everything anymore. He is barely anything at all. He becomes smaller every single day, and for that, we have America to thank.

It is no secret that Trump himself is sliding further and further off the rails. The tweets are cruder and materially less coherent, and the public performances are more frightening still. The White House staff is in turmoil, and the president seems to have aligned himself with the Saudi murderers of a Washington Post reporter. None of this offers holiday solace, save for the fact that, as support for the president peels off among members of the military, conservative lawyers, and women, he finds himself ever more shrilly attacking them all. And as the president finds himself shunned and largely ignored internationally, he is left more and more alone to watch television, tweet hectically, and attempt to rewrite his own story to his satisfaction.

At least we can, as Matt Yglesias smartly observes, be grateful that he can’t manage to be effective and pissed off at the same time.

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by Crimson Tazvinzwa

TRUMP, RUSSIA COLLUSION PROBE; ‘plot to frame Special Counsel Robert Mueller’

Women Allegedly Offered Money to Make ‘False Claims’ Against Special Counsel Mueller

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller said cyber security will be the number one future threat in the country, but for the time being, “counterterrorism and stopping terrorist attacks” is more important. (Photo: Kit Fox/Medill Flickr)

|CRIMSON TAZVINZWA, AIWA! NO!|MSNBC anchor Ari Melber on Tuesday reported on the FBI investigating a “smear plot” against special counsel Robert Mueller.

“Our top story is breaking news unlike anything we’ve seen this year, the FBI is probing a credible plot to frame Bob Mueller,” Melber noted.

Image result for Vermont Law School Professor Jennifer Taub

Law professor Jennifer Taub

“This sounds big and unusual, because it’s big and unusual,” he noted.

“Multiple news outlets reporting tonight on a plot by a Republican-linked operative trying to frame Mueller on what appeared to be made-up allegations of either harassment or sexual misconduct that would be pushed against Mueller,” he reported.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has told the FBI that women were allegedly offered money to make “false claims” about him, CNBC reported Tuesday.

The news comes just as conservative commentator Jack Burkman claims to have information about a number of women who were sexually assaulted by Mueller. In a Twitter post Tuesday morning, Burkman said he will reveal the identity of “the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sex assault victims” on Thursday.

“While the fallout from this quite strange story is obviously still reverberating because this is all brand-new, legal experts and some White House veterans already noting that if the order of what I just told you had been reversed — if, for example, the world first learned about this kind of accusation in theory against Mueller before these leaks about its potentially illegal framing — well, it could have upended his career and the probe into the heart of the Trump presidency,” Melber noted.

“I think this is very important for the public to know,” explained former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman.

“I mean, this is a situation where everything has been thrown at Robert Mueller, they have tried to undermine him through the Congress, they have tried to undermine the Manafort jury deliberation — you had one juror even referring to the whole investigation as a witch hunt, copying basically what [Rudy] Giuliani and Trump have been saying.”

“They have tried everything, so it does not surprise me that they would go to this length of trying to obstruct this entire investigation by going directly after Mueller,” Ackerman concluded.

Vermont Law School Professor Jennifer Taub called-in to the show to explain how she was personally targeted by the scheme.

“What did you make of that inquiry?” Melber asked.

“I found it really creepy, to be honest with you,” she noted. “And immediately upon reading it, I went on the internet to try to find a phone number or some other method to contact the special counsel’s office. And all I could find was an email, so I immediately forwarded the email.

“I have never met Robert Mueller, had no encounters, no phone calls, I don’t know him at all,” she noted. “I have no idea why they came to me.

https://content.jwplatform.com/players/mRhLrCHf-zffGtjRq.html

Vermont Law School associate professor Jennifer Taub spoke with MSNBC anchor Ari Melber

by Crimson Tazvinzwa

Zimbabwe Commission of Inquiry Hearing in Bulawayo Marred By Arrests & Intimidation

Arrests Mar Zimbabwe Commission of Inquiry Hearing in Bulawayo

Image result for zimbabwe commission of inquiry

ZOOM Zimbabwe NewsCrisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Statement on the Commission of Inquiry – ZOOM Zimbabwe News

Several people were arrested Friday in Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo, where a Commission of Inquiry into the killing of at least six people in Harare by the members of the armed forces soon after the July elections, was holding a meeting with residents. (Video: Annastacia Ndlovu)

https://www.voazimbabwe.com/embed/player/0/4631123.html?type=video

Witness Challenges Zimbabwe Commission of Inquiry to Investigate Mnangagwa

Zimbabweans sleeping in food and petrol 
by Crimson Tazvinzwa

SAUDI JOURNALIST JAMAL Khashoggi killed, torn to pieces by ‘butcher’ in pre-prepared room

Image result for HEAD OF SAUDI ARABIA FORENSIC DEPARTMENT

CNN.comSalah Muhammad al-Tubaiqi, head of the forensic medicine department at the Saudi interior

The Head of Saudi Arabia’s Forensic Department, Salah Al-Tubaigy, is thought to have cut the body of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 15 minutes, Al-Khaleej Online reported on Friday.

READ: ‘Suspicious’ death of Saudi agent in Khashoggi case, Turkish news says

READ: ‘The King ordered Khashoggi’s death and Mohammed bin Salman carried it out’

Consulate officers are seen at the entrance of Saudi consulate as the waiting continues on the disappearance of Prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul, Turkey on 11 October 2018 [Ahmet Bolat/Anadolu Agency]

Consulate officers are seen at the entrance of Saudi consulate as the waiting continues on the disappearance of Prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul, Turkey on 11 October 2018 [Muhammed Enes Yıldırım/Anadolu Agency]

|CRIMSON TAZVINZWA, AIWA! NO!|The Head of Saudi Arabia’s Forensic Department, Salah Al-Tubaigy, is thought to have cut the body of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 15 minutes, Al-Khaleej Online reported on Friday.
A Turkish security source who spoke to Al Jazeera detailed how Al-Tubaigy, along with an assistance team, pulled Khashoggi’s body into a pre-prepared room inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The source claimed that: “The Saudi anatomy expert Al-Tubaigy started dealing with Khashoggi’s body before his colleagues started packaging the torn pieces,” noting that dismembering the body started immediately after Khashoggi had been killed.

 

READ: ‘Suspicious’ death of Saudi agent in Khashoggi case, Turkish news says

According to the source, the Turkish forensic team investigating the incident heard recordingsfrom inside the consulate, before entering the facility to examine the crime. This information is believed to prove previous reports by several Turkish newspapers that a hit-team arrived at the Saudi consulate prior to Khashoggi’s visit.

Al-Tubaigy, a pioneer of mobile anatomy operations, emerged as part of the hit-team believed to have murdered Khashoggi on 2 October. Turkish newspaper the Daily Sabah also published CCTV images of Maher Mutreb, a close friend and bodyguard of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who is believed to have been the leader of the hit-team.

One of the images shows Mutreb entering the consulate before the other members of the hit-team, at exactly 9.55am on 2 October – just hours before Khashoggi’s entry.

READ: ‘The King ordered Khashoggi’s death and Mohammed bin Salman carried it out’

On Friday, Saudi Arabia announced that Khashoggi died during a fight with Saudi officials inside the consulate and that it had dismissed a number of officials as a result.

by Crimson Tazvinzwa

Saudi Arabia, President Trump & Turkey – Cooking Alternative Facts on Jamal Khashoggi’s Murder?

CRIMSON TAZVINZWA|AIWA!NO!|President Trump: “The King firmly denied involvement; it may as well have been some rogue elements.”

 Saudi officials arrive at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to investigate the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Photograph: Tolga Bozoglu/EPA

Trump’s remarks come as Turkish investigators finally get access to Saudi consulate.

Donald Trump has speculated that “rogue killers” may have been responsible for the presumed death of Jamal Khashoggi, as Turkish investigators finally gained access to the Saudi consulate, 13 days after the missing Washington Post columnist was last seen there.

Image result for khashoggi murder

CCTV footage shows missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia has called accusations it ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside its Istanbul consulate “lies and baseless allegations”.

Turkish officials were allowed into the consulate in Ankara only after Saudi staff, consular visitors and a team of cleaners equipped with mops, buckets and disinfectant had been allowed into the building.

The investigators arrived in unmarked black cars late on Monday, and made no comment to journalists outside the consulate. As night fell, a crime scene truck arrived, along with a police car with Ankara plates.

Every now and again, a bewildered Saudi citizen poked his or her head out of the wrought iron gate, before running the gauntlet of dozens of cameras.