The 2,000 visiting troops at the exercise were provided by the US, the UK, Denmark, Germany, Poland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Georgia, Ukraine and Ireland. NATO heavyweights also brought in some hardware for Siil 2018, including American UH-60 Black Hawk attack helicopters, British Lynx Wildcat AH1 attack helicopters, French Mirage 2000 fighter jets and Poland's veteran Sukhoi Su-22 fighter-bomber planes. The host nation provides Robinson R-44 utility helicopters and Aero L-39 Albatros jet trainers for the drill.
"Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility." - Professor Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show BusinessWhat characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater. And what political theater it is, diabolically Shakespearean at times, full of sound and fury, yet in the end, signifying nothing.
Prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller's office are seeking to delay the first court hearing in a criminal case charging three Russian companies and 13 Russian citizens with using social media and other means to foment strife among Americans in advance of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Law & Crime comments that Mueller's indictment bid may be 'falling apart':
The 13 people charged in the high-profile indictment in February are considered unlikely to ever appear in a U.S. court. The three businesses accused of facilitating the alleged Russian troll farm operation - the Internet Research Agency, Concord Management and Consulting, and Concord Catering - were also expected to simply ignore the American criminal proceedings.
Last month, however, a pair of Washington-area lawyers suddenly surfaced in the case, notifying the court that they represent Concord Management. POLITICO reported at the time that the move appeared to be a bid to force Mueller's team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.
On Friday, Mueller's prosecutors disclosed that Concord's attorneys, Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly, had made a slew of discovery requests demanding nonpublic details about the case and the investigation. Prosecutors also asked a judge to postpone the formal arraignment of Concord Management set for next week.
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In a blunt response Saturday morning, Concord's attorneys accused Mueller's team of ignoring the court's rules and suggesting a special procedure for the Russian firm without any supporting legal authority.
"Defendant voluntarily appeared through counsel as provided for in [federal rules], and further intends to enter a plea of not guilty. Defendant has not sought a limited appearance nor has it moved to quash the summons. As such, the briefing sought by the Special Counsel's motion is pettifoggery," Dubelier and Seikaly wrote.
The Concord lawyers said Mueller's attorneys were seeking "to usurp the scheduling authority of the Court" by waiting until Friday afternoon to try to delay a proceeding scheduled for next Wednesday. Dubelier and Seikaly complained that the special counsel's office has not replied at all to Concord's discovery requests. The lawyers, who work for Pittsburgh-based law firm Reed Smith, also signaled Concord intends to assert its speedy trial rights, putting more pressure on the special counsel's office to turn over records related to the case.
One of the Russian companies indicted by Robert Mueller has called the special counsel's bluff and is challenging Mueller's accusations in an attempt to force the release of not-yet-public information.
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The indictment also claims Concord Management was the "primary source of funding for [Russian] interference operations." The document goes on to accuse the company of concealing their alleged troll-funding efforts by intentionally and erroneously labeling those funds "as payments related to software support and development."
Now, it appears Concord Management is forcefully pushing back. Bloomberg News described the firm's tactics as "hardball" due to the thorough and pointed nature of their questions. Politico even suggested that Concord Management's aggressive lawyering could result in an "embarrassing dismissal."
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Concord Management's attorneys of record are Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly. On April 11, Dubelier and Seikaly filed their initial notice of appearance in the case United States v. Internet Research Agency LLC et al. This appearance was immediately supplemented with over a dozen discovery requests and a pleading for answers to 51 factual claims made by Mueller stylized as a Bill of Particulars.
Mueller rubbished those requests in a Friday court filing. Government attorneys Jeannie Rhee, Rush Atkinson and Ryan Dickey wrote:Until the Court has an opportunity to determine if Concord was properly served, it would be inadvisable to conduct an initial appearance and arraignment at which important rights will be communicated and a plea entertained. That is especially true in the context of this case, which involves a foreign corporate defendant, controlled by another, individual foreign defendant, that has already demanded production of sensitive intelligence gathering, national security, and foreign affairs information.Specifically, Mueller's attorneys asked Trump-appointed Judge Dabney Friedrich to delay Concord Management's formal arraignment scheduled for next week. Concord Management's extensive April requests-and Mueller's pleadings complaining about those requests-are contained in Mueller's Friday filing (available here.)
Five public security cameras en route to Marielle Franco's home were turned off 24 to 48 hours before her assassination. The cameras, which all belong to Rio de Janeiro's Security Department, were mounted on street posts and buildings with one of the cameras located at Estacio Metro Station a short distance away from where the Black activist and Councilwoman was murdered.See also:
The Estacio Metro Station camera, according to Extra, records 360 degrees images and transmits those images to the Integrated Center of Command and Control if the cameras were operational they could have assisted in the ongoing investigations.
The public security cameras belong to Rio de Janeiro's Security Department.
Three days before she was murdered on March 15, Marielle denounced the deaths of two youths during a military police operation in the Acari favela.
Marielle, along with her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, was executed in a barrage of bullets at her car while returning home from an event in central Rio de Janeiro called "Young Black Women Moving Structures."
Though her murder remains unsolved, investigators have revealed that the 9mm bullets that killed Marielle were part of a lot bought by federal police in 2006.
Two witnesses to the execution said a silver Cobalt car brushed up against Marielle's vehicle at a curve near Joaquim Palhares and Joao Paulo streets, according to Globo. As Marielle's vehicle slowed down, a passenger in the Cobalt's back seat lowered its tinted window and fired at least nine 9mm bullets from a long-muzzled firearm. Both witnesses said the sound of the gunshots were suppressed, "as if it had a silencer."
Comment: See also: