Why the single quotes around a key word in the headline? Let's cut to the chase:
[DetroitNews] The defendants going on trial Monday before U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel in Minneapolis are Abdiaziz Shafii Farah; Mohamed Jama Ismail; Abdimajid Mohamed Nur; Said Shafii Farah; Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin; Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff; and Hayat Mohamed Nur. They have all pleaded not guilty. Their trial is expected to last around six weeks.
Opening statements are expected Monday in the fraud trial of seven people charged in what federal prosecutors have called a massive scheme to exploit lax rules during the COVID-19 pandemic and steal from a program meant to provide meals to children in Minnesota.
The seven will be the first of 70 defendants to go on trial in the alleged scam. Eighteen others have already pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors have said the seven collectively stole over $40 million in a conspiracy that cost taxpayers $250 million — one of the largest pandemic-related fraud cases in the country. Federal authorities say they have recovered about $50 million.
Prosecutors say just a fraction of the money went to feed low-income kids, and that the rest was spent on luxury cars, jewelry, travel and property.
THE ALLEGED PLOT
The food aid came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was administered by the state Department of Education. Nonprofits and other partners under the program were supposed to serve meals to kids.
Two of the groups involved, Feeding Our Future and Partners in Nutrition, were small nonprofits before the pandemic, but in 2021 they disbursed around $200 million each. Prosecutors allege they produced invoices for meals that were never served, ran shell companies, laundered money, indulged in passport fraud, and accepted kickbacks.
THE BIG PICTURE
An Associated Press analysis published last June documented how thieves across the country plundered billions in federal COVID-19 relief dollars in the greatest grift in U.S. history. The money was meant to fight the worst pandemic in a century and stabilize an economy in freefall.
But the AP found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion, while another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represented 10% of the $4.3 trillion the government disbursed in COVID relief by last fall. Nearly 3,200 defendants have been charged, according to the U.S. Justice Department. About $1.4 billion in stolen pandemic aid has been seized.
Why would we train them to steal food rations?
[Garowe] Somalia's Defence Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur has conceded Danab Special Forces sold food rations donated by the government of the United States of America, a few days after the incident was addressed by the federal government of Somalia.
In an interview with Universal TV, Nur said that the theft of Danab rations was verified two weeks ago, and some of the officers involved were caught in the act about a week ago. Several officers have since been arrested over the theft.
He refused to give the number of people detained for the theft but admitted the rations were sold in the market. The government had announced the incident in a statement and pledged to 'deal' with those involved, including military officers.
Asked about the responsibility of what has happened, Nur said the responsibility is at a unit level. Danab commandos have been assisting in the fight against Al-Shabaab, a group fighting to topple the fragile UN-backed federal government of Somalia.
He claimed this incident happened at a time when the Somali government was already in the process of working on transferring responsibility for the logistics of the force. He confirmed US support for Danab continues except for rations.
The minister who was accused of spending ample time on his TikTok account, said he will not give up his TikTok, saying it’s a platform for delivering messages. He is a close ally of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
The United States has been supporting Danab forces since 2017 when the unit was first formed to handle violent extremism. So far, over 3,000 elite troops have been trained by the United States, a dependable ally of the Federal Republic of Somalia.
Most of the rest of the world regards us as simple-minded morons who exist only to be fleeced. In 1975, the South Vietnamese Army was ordered to deploy its forces to stop the North Vietnamese invasion...but far, far too many of its officers were padding the rolls and collecting the pay, so the ghost soldiers marched their comrades to defeat. Fifty years later the same damned thing happened in Afghanistan, abetted by the fact that when it came down to it, ethnicity and religion mattered more than nation and freedom.
#2
Yup, and soon these US-trained troops will be overthrowing the government and creating a demand for more US intervention to overthrow them, and it goes on and on.
[AFRICANEWS] Just days after a transitional presidential council was installed, formalising the resignation of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, their list of demands is growing rapidly.
Haitians want security, food, and jobs — and they want them now. "student loan forgiveness! And a pony!"
"The first thing that the presidential council must do is look into the security problem. Insecurity has made this country unliveable. We are going crazy running everywhere and with nowhere to go," says taxi driver Joseph Ferdinand.
Next on his list is the issue of hunger.
"People are living in misery. Misery is destroying the population," he says pointing to a huge pile of garbage lying uncollected in the street.
His complaints are echoed by many people in the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
This provided an opportunity. As the queer theorists’ vanguard intellectual project was running aground on incest and bestiality fantasies, the most enterprising among them took a different tack: using the commercialization of drag and the goodwill associated with the gay and lesbian rights movement as a means of transforming drag performances into “family-friendly” events that could transmit a simplified version of queer theory to children. The key figure in this transition was a “genderqueer” college professor and drag queen named Harris Kornstein—stage name Lil Miss Hot Mess—who hosted some of the original readings in public libraries and wrote the children’s book The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish. Kornstein sits on the board of Drag Queen Story Hour, the nonprofit organization that was founded by Michelle Tea in 2015 to promote “family-friendly” drag performances and has since expanded to 40 local chapters that have organized hundreds of performances across the United States.
Kornstein also published the manifesto for the movement, “Drag Pedagogy: The Playful Practice of Queer Imagination in Early Childhood,” with coauthor Harper Keenan, a female-to-male transgender queer theorist at the University of British Columbia. With citations to Foucault and Butler, the essay begins by applying queer theory’s basic premise of social constructivism and heteronormativity to the education system. “The professional vision of educators is often shaped to reproduce the state’s normative vision of its ideal citizenry. In effect, schooling functions as a way to straighten the child into a kind of captive alignment with the current parameters of that vision,” Kornstein and Keenan write. “To state it plainly, within the historical context of the USA and Western Europe, the institutional management of gender has been used as a way of maintaining racist and capitalist modes of (re)production.”
To disrupt this dynamic, the authors propose a new teaching method, “drag pedagogy,” as a way of stimulating the “queer imagination,” teaching kids “how to live queerly,” and “bringing queer ways of knowing and being into the education of young children.” As Kornstein and Keenan explain, this is an intellectual and political project that requires drag queens and activists to work toward undermining traditional notions of sexuality, replacing the biological family with the ideological family, and arousing transgressive sexual desires in young children.
[NYPOST] Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in jug for hours.
But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university.
Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the "Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Solidarity Encampment," a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas ...always the voice of sweet reason... war.
The students’ plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.
Terms of the suspensions vary from campus to campus.
At Columbia and its affiliated Barnard College for women, Alwan and dozens more were arrested April 18 and promptly barred from campus and classes, unable to attend in-person or virtually, and banned from dining halls.
Questions about their academic futures remain. Will they be allowed to take final exams? What about financial aid? Graduation? Columbia says outcomes will be decided at disciplinary hearings, but Alwan says she has not been given a date.
“This feels very dystopian,” said Alwan, a comparative literature and society major.
What started at Columbia has turned into a nationwide showdown between students and administrators over anti-war protests and the limits of free speech.
#7
Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.
Posted by: John Wayne ||
04/29/2024 10:57 Comments ||
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#8
Funny how the same people who think I owe "reparations" even though none of my ancestors had anything to do with slavery want a clean slate for themselves.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/29/2024 11:03 Comments ||
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#9
The "amnesty and no suspensions" crowd also are in the works for student debt elimination and taking crap courses.
I see a trend.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/29/2024 19:19 Comments ||
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[GEO.TV] Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday discussed new bailout package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Special Meeting in Riyadh.
In his first meeting with the IMF chief since his re-election, PM Shehbaz reiterated his government’s commitment to put Pakistain’s economy back on track, according to a statement issued by the PM Office.
Pakistain is seeking a new long-term Extended Fund Facility (EFF) after a current $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) expires this month.
"Both sides also discussed Pakistain entering into another IMF program to ensure that the gains made in the past year were consolidated and its economic growth trajectory remained positive," the statement added.
PM Shehbaz thanked IMF chief Georgieva for her support to Pakistain in securing the $3 billion SBA from the international lender last year that was now nearing its completion.
The development came a day before the expected meeting of the IMF Executive Board to decide on the final tranche of $1.1 billion under the $3 billion short-term loan programme.
IMF chief Georgieva appreciated the leadership of PM Shehbaz for timely securing SBA last year, as per the statement.
During the meeting, the prime minister said that he had directed his financial team, led by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, to carry out structural reforms, ensure strict fiscal discipline and pursue prudent policies that would ensure macro-economic stability and sustained economic growth.
The IMF MD shared her institution’s perspective on the ongoing programme with the premier, including the review process.
According to The News, Pakistain country made formal request to the IMF for seeking next bailout package ranging between $6 to $8 billion under the EFF with possibility of augmentation through climate financing.
[GEO.TV] The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor is considering issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Al Jazeera reported quoting Israel’s Channel 12.
The report said that Israeli government had received indications from senior legal officials regarding the arrest warrants.
The ICC is currently investigating Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank and the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip.
In addition to Netanyahu, these investigations could lead to arrest warrants being issued for Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, the report added.
The Israeli newspaper Maariv also reported that Netanyahu is "frightened and unusually stressed" by the possibility of an ICC arrest warrant.
#2
But he won't be able to visit any country that is a signatory. Remember Milosevic and his gang of war criminals? Slobodan Radovic I think? Moreover every UN Member State was served with orders to search for and freeze all of their assets so that they could not use them to evade justice.
All it took was a change of government in Belgrade, and the new ministers, disgusted with the war crimes that had been committed in their names, handed over Milosevic. Unfortunately he croaked before a verdict could be reached and punishment served.
#3
I remember the murder of Milosevic. The world has changed since then. The times when kangaroo courts like ICC & ICJ could support Globalist/Islamist alliance against humans are over. For example: ICC has arrest warrant against Putin.
The Palestinian president has warned Israel against any attempt to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank. pic.twitter.com/7iwfBUktWp
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11141 views]
Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
What are you going to do about it, raghead? Your people are gone. It's already happened, Isreal has destroyed all habitable structures. There's nowhere to live, even if you wanted. Don't worry, plenty of room in America for you. Nation of immigrants, you know. The humanitarian pier is your Arch of No Return. As in, you're never coming back after you get on that boat.
#2
Palestinian president has warned Israel against any attempt to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank...cause nobody else will take us.
[GEO.TV] Israel's foreign minister said on Saturday that a planned incursion into the southern Gazoo
Islamic Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response. In October of 2023 Gazooks belonging to Hamas invaded Israel, killed over a thousand people, raped a bunch of women. Then they bitched and moaned about genocide when their butts handed to them in the entirely justified retaliation. city of Rafah could be suspended should there be a deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas ...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... .
"The release of the hostages is the top priority for us," said Foreign Minister Israel Katz during an interview with local Channel 12 television.
Asked if that included putting off a planned operation to eliminate Hamas battalions in the city of Rafah, Katz answered, "Yes."
He went on to say: "If there will be a deal, we will suspend the operation."
[GEO.TV] A Hamas ...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... delegation will visit Cairo on Monday for talks aimed at securing a ceasefire, a Hamas official told Rooters on Sunday, as mediators stepped up efforts to reach a deal ahead of an Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the delegation will discuss a ceasefire proposal handed by Hamas to mediators Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and Egypt, as well as Israel's response.
He did not disclose details of the latest proposals. Hoping for tips?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2024 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11130 views]
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#2
These are the exact same people who did the anti-white protests. Same methods, same places, same everything. All that's changed is that the protests are now anti-Zionist. Suddenly the naional guard is out breaking them up.
#3
All that's changed is that the protests are now anti-Zionist. Suddenly the naTional guard is out breaking them up.
Didn't your mom taught you that Jews rule the World? And (in case you're wondering re helicopter sounds outside your window) speedily dispose of anyone who finds this out!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...always the voice of sweet reason...
[GEO.TV] Prime Minister 
...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
