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Supreme Court rejects appeal from Trump-allied lawyers over 2020 election lawsuit in Michigan

Court
© Getty ImagesUnited States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from Sidney Powell and other lawyers allied with former President Donald Trump over $150,000 in sanctions they were ordered to pay for abusing the court system with a sham lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in Michigan.

The justices did not comment in leaving in place the sanctions against seven lawyers who were part of the lawsuit filed on behalf of six Republican voters after Joe Biden's 154,000-vote victory over Trump in the state.

Among the lawyers is L. Lin Wood, whose name was on the lawsuit. Wood has insisted he had no role other than to tell Powell he would be available if she needed a seasoned litigator.

The money is owed to the state and Detroit, for their costs in defending the lawsuit. The sanctions initially totaled $175,000, but a federal appeals court reduced them by about $25,000.

Comment: US Supreme Court turns a deaf ear:
The US District Court Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division largely sided with Whitmer and the defendants, writing, "[Powell's election fraud suit] should never have been filed. The State Defendants and the Intervenor-Defendants should never have had to defend it."

The court assessed both monetary and disciplinary sanctions against Powell and several other members of the Trump legal team.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals largely affirmed the district court's sanction. However, the appeals court did remove the sanctions and fees against some members of Trump's legal team and reduced the overall monetary sanctions owed to around $150,000. Powell and several of the attorneys whose sanctions were not reversed filed a petition for certiorari to the US Supreme Court.

In March 2022, the Texas State Bar Association filed a complaint against Powell claiming that she engaged in misconduct by pursuing baseless lawsuits alleging fraud in the 2020 presidential election. In December 2022, Wisconsin's governor also filed sanctions against Powell for similar allegations to those of the Michigan sanctions suit.



Fire

Ship ablaze after missile attack in Gulf of Aden - UK Navy

Red Sea
© Houthi Movement/Getty ImagesYemen's Houthi fighters' takeover of the Galaxy Leader Cargo in the Red Sea • November 20, 2023
The incident followed 'self-defense strikes' by the US targeting Houthi missiles and a launcher prepared to fire toward the Red Sea...

A vessel caught fire after being hit by two missiles southeast of the Yemeni port of Aden on Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has said. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

It comes as Houthi militants have escalated attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The militants who control large parts of Yemen have been targeting merchant ships in response to Israel's military operation in Gaza, which started in October. The United States and the UK have formed an international coalition to protect navigation in the area.

Thursday's incident took place 70 nautical miles from Aden, and the coalition forces are responding, according to the UKMTO, which is a monitoring service operated by the British Navy. An investigation is underway, it added. There has been no official information so far on the type of the vessel that was struck, damage, or casualties.

According to the Associated Press, ship-tracking data helped identify the vessel as a Palau-flagged cargo ship named Islander that had been coming from Thailand bound for Egypt.

Earlier this week, the Houthis claimed to have targeted an Israeli cargo vessel, a number of US warships, and a British vessel in an incident described as "catastrophic," causing the crew to abandon ship.

Comment: Another report:
Yemeni Houthis on Monday said they attacked two American ships in the Gulf of Aden in support of the Palestinian people.

In a statement, the group's military spokesman Yahya Saree said the attack was carried out by "a number of naval missiles," and claimed to have made "accurate hits."

There have been no comments yet by the US and UK on the Houthi statement.

Early on Monday, the group also claimed to have targeted a British cargo vessel, the Rubymar, in the Gulf of Aden and downed a US military drone in Al Hudaydah in the western part of the country.

With tensions escalating due to the joint strikes of the US and UK against Houthi targets in Yemen, the group declared that it considered all American and British ships legitimate military targets.



Gavel

Assange's final appeal - Your man in the public gallery, part 2

Royal Courts of Justice britain assange
© (Nick Garrod/FlickrInside the Royal Courts of Justice

Comment: This is the continuation of Craig Murray's coverage of Julian Assange's final extradition hearing in the UK Royal Court on February 21, 2024. Read the first part here.


Julian Assange is a person in political conflict with the view of the United States, who seeks to affect the policies and operations of the US government.

Section 87 of the Extradition Act 2003 provides that a court must interpret it in the light of the defendant's human rights as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights. This definitely brings in the jurisdiction of the court. It means all the issues raised must be viewed through the prism of the ECHR and from not other angle.
europe extradition rules assange
© ECHR
To depend on the treaty yet ignore its terms is abuse of process and contrary to the ECHR. The obligation in UK law to respect the terms of the extradition treaty with the USA while administering an extradition under it, was comparable to the obligation courts had found to follow the Modern Slavery Convention and Refugee Convention.

Comment:






Doberman

Dogs and their owners: Biden dogs accused of dozens of additional attacks at White House

joe biden dog attacks secret service
© Official White House Photo by Adam SchultzBiden and Commander, one of the dogs who have bitten Secret Service agents.
We have been writing about the alarming record of the Biden dogs attacking staff and Secret Service agents through the years. At first, the story was a humorous distraction as some of us wondered if the First Family had a vicious dog. It then became more alarming as each of the dogs were found to be attacking staff and had to be eventually removed. Even more worrisome was the response of the White House and President Joe Biden, who dismissed a Secret Service agent's account and brushed off the incidents. Now, a report indicates that Commander is responsible for at least 24 attacks. The record shows not only a lack of concern by the Bidens for staff, but a bizarre litany of vicious German Shepherds in their care.

We began our discussion of these incidents with Major, who continued to attack staff until the press finally reported on the complaints from staff. Only when it became a public embarrassment did the Bidens send Major to Delaware. Major was adopted in November 2018 from an animal shelter.

Then, after the coverage died down, the Bidens simply brought Major back to the chagrin of the Secret Service. He then proceeded to continue to bite agents and staff.

Comment: It's said that a dog's temperament and behavior is a reflection of its owner's.


Bulb

The dark and the light

ravenman
© unknown
"'The rule of law is under threat!' the Regime shrieks, as it throws its political foes into the gulag
— Benjamin Weingarten
The florid carbuncle of Woke-Maoist lawfare weeps its vile effluvium across the social landscape, poisoning whatever it touches, and nothing in the armory of reason, principle, or good faith avails to heal it. Sickness rages through the body politic. You have lost faith in all the doctors, and they have lost faith in themselves. The fever intensifies. The crisis is upon us. Which way will fate turn us? Toward death or recovery?

The poison killing our country is pervasive untruth. Every institution we have relied on to run the public interest has become a factory churning out lies, evasions, and misdirection — not unlike the way mRNA "vaccines" turned the cells in your bodies into tiny generators of spike proteins destroying your organs. Likewise, half the population, apparently, thinks this is a good thing, that we need more lawfare — the perversion of law by attorney perverts — and that we need ever more lies, evasions, and misdirection (just as the degenerates who run Harvard declare their student body needs more mRNA boosters to remain in school).

Since the doctors have all failed — miserably and dishonorably — America needs an exorcism. The poisons in our system are actual persons carrying out their programmed assignments, just as the spike proteins in the bodies of millions act as individual agents of destruction in your body. What possible invocation can drive out the likes of Mayorkas, Christopher Wray, Avril Haynes, William Burns, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, Jack Smith, Jake Sullivan, Marc Zuckerberg, Mandy Cohen, Rachel Maddow, Daniel Sachs Goldman, Jamie Raskin, Mitch McConnell, Charles "Chuck" Schumer, "Joe Biden" (the remnant of a person, after all), and a thousand others in high places behaving in a way indistinguishable from demons?

Bullseye

Best of the Web: China tells ICJ Palestinians have 'inalienable right to use armed force' against Israeli occupation

Zhang Jun
FILE PHOTO: Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun Beijing’s UN ambassador has blasted arbitrary seizures of countries’ assets
China has backed the right of the Palestinian people to use armed force to combat Israel's occupation of their land, calling it an "an inalienable right well founded in international law".

The comments on Thursday were made by the Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, during the fourth day of public hearings held by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands.

Representatives of 52 countries are addressing the ICJ on Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land.

Beijing's envoy said there were "various people (who) freed themselves from colonial rule" and they could use "all available means, including armed struggle".

Comment: It seems that the multipolar world are, increasingly, calling out the warmongers and genociders for who they are. And one wonders whether they'll, ultimately, follow up these statements with effective responses, considering that, increasingly, they are the drivers of the global economy:


Bad Guys

West has doubled military presence on Belarus, Russia borders since 2020

belarus military
© Sputnik / Viktor TolochkoServicemen are pictured during the joint military drills between Belarus and Russia at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground, in Belarus.
The West has increased the number of personnel and tanks on the borders with Russia and Belarus by 50% to 100% in the past four years, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said on Thursday.

"Look [on the map]: here is 2020 and here is 2024. I will not voice the figures, but you can see the changes in personnel alone. There is a 1.5 to 2 times growth. Even in terms of tanks: there were 69, now there are 129.... These groupings are not static, we also see them very well," Khrenin said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 broadcaster.

He cited the Pabrade military range in Lithuania, located 15 km (9.3 miles) from the border with Belarus, as an example. Khrenin said that the US promised to form the battalion temporarily, but it is still there.

Comment: Meanwhile the West has convinced a great many people that it is Russia that's preparing to storm through Europe: Korybko: Russia's Avdeevka win will reverberate across Europe and accelerate geostrategic shifts


Satellite

US militarizes space while accusing Russia of doing so

space weapons
Recently, the U.S. began spreading rumors about alleged Russian space-based nuclear weapons. According to American intelligence, Moscow is developing a powerful anti-satellite weapon to be deployed in space, thus violating international norms that prohibit the militarization of Earth's orbit.

Mike Turner, head of the House Intelligence Committee, formally asked for the declassification of documents concerning the investigation on the "space-nukes", stating that a deliberation on the case in the National Congress is necessary. According to Turner, American parliamentarians need to discuss this serious "threat" to U.S. national security, having therefore the requirement to fully release data obtained by intelligence on the subject.

Subsequently, the White House stated that there was no imminent threat to the country's national security according to the information obtained so far. Spokespersons confirmed they are monitoring the possible existence of a Russian nuclear space program, but denied the existence of any evidence of a high-risk threat at the moment. As a result, once again American officials made contradictory statements, discrediting the image of U.S. authorities.

Bandaid

Kiev's sponsors should hold 'discreet' talks with Moscow - Ukrainian ambassador

Andrey Melnik
Ukrainian ambassador to Brazil Andrey Melnik, who called chancellor Scholz for a liver sausage, when he was ambassador to Germany.
Kiev's foreign backers should contact Russia behind the scenes to find out its conditions for peace with Ukraine, former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany Andrey Melnik, who now represents the country in Brazil, has said.

In an interview with the German newspaper Tagesspiegel, Melnik was asked to comment on a poll which revealed that, given the failure of Ukraine's counteroffensive last year and gains by Russian forces in recent months, 64% of Germans now believe that Kiev has lost the conflict with Moscow.

The diplomat called the results of the survey "bitter" and acknowledged that "our partners have the right to say: 'okay, we tried, we helped, but now it doesn't work anymore.'" However, he insisted that Ukraine's defeat would "be a threat to Germany's security." According to Melnik, Berlin must now focus on what else it can do to help Kiev, including supplying "Taurus [missiles], fighter jets, more anti-aircraft defenses and ammunition."

The ambassador suggested that considering how things stand at the moment, "it would at least be wise if our allies could discreetly contact Moscow to find out whether there's real willingness to compromise. Under what conditions and guarantees, for example, would the Russians be ready to withdraw from the occupied territories."

"It's not about lazy compromises or restoring a false calm on the global stage, but about leaving no stone unturned," he said, adding that "conducting exploratory talks doesn't mean giving up one's interests."


Comment: These people while talking about compromise, still call for more weapons to fight Russia. It is delusional to think that Russia will take them seriously under such circumstances. It will be a matter of surrender and accepting the terms set by Russia.


Георгиевская ленточка

West is 'isolated' - Moscow

Dmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation at the United Nations.
© Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesDmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation at the United Nations.
'Tunnel-vision' and a lack of flexibility on Ukraine has alienated the region from the Global South, a Russian envoy to the UN has said.

Russia does not feel isolated in the international arena over its ongoing conflict in Ukraine thanks to the stance of the so-called Global South, Russia's deputy envoy to the UN has said.

Dmitry Polyansky made the remarks in a special interview with media outlet RTVI on Wednesday, when he talked about the role of the UN in the Ukraine conflict, among other issues.

It is rather the West that is facing global isolation due to its uncompromising position on Ukraine, Polyansky told the outlet. Out of the 193 UN member states, only around 75 support all anti-Russian initiatives, he explained.

Comment: See also: