https://archive.ph/Ssha6

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20788895

September 27, 2024

Guests
Steve Neavling - investigative reporter at Detroit Metro Times.
Prem Thakker - political correspondent and columnist for Zeteo News.

Minutes after Missouri executed Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams on Tuesday, his son, Marcellus Williams Jr., addressed a crowd of supporters that had gathered to grieve in front of the state prison in Bonne Terre.

Among them was Maha Odah, a Palestinian American activist with Al-Hadaf Kansas City, a Palestinian liberation organization, who had driven more than two hours to be there. When Williams Jr. began to grieve for his son’s stolen opportunity to know his grandfather, Odah thought of her own experience with loss.

“I saw a mirror,” Odah said, recalling moments spent with Williams’s family. “A reflection of these two systems that are both upheld by the U.S. that condemn Black and Palestinian men, our fathers, our grandfathers, and the rest of our families, at the mercy of those who continue to find ways to dehumanize us.”

The US is offering a $20m reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who is accused of plotting to assassinate former US national security advisor John Bolton.

The US State Department says that between 2021-2022, Poursafi was working on behalf of the IRGC's Quds Force to hire criminals to murder Bolton in Washington DC and Maryland. Poursafi is said to have been offering $300,000 for the job.

"Poursafi told the potential assassin - who actually became a confidential source for US investigators - that once he completed the Bolton murder, he would have a second assassination job for him," the administration statement reads.

When Bolton first learned of the plot in 2022, he was asked on CNN what went through his mind. "Well, I was embarrassed at the low price," Bolton responded. "I would have thought it would have been higher. But I guess maybe it was the exchange rate problem or something."

Behold the dossier. (link to dossier from article)

It reportedly comes from an alleged Iranian government hack of the Trump campaign, and since June, the news media has been sitting on it (and other documents), declining to publish in fear of finding itself at odds with the government’s campaign against “foreign malign influence.”

I disagree. The dossier has been offered to me and I’ve decided to publish it because it’s of keen public interest in an election season. It’s a 271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet now vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I’ll let it speak for itself.

“The terror regime in Iran loves the weakness and stupidity of Kamala Harris, and is terrified of the strength and resolve of President Donald J. Trump,” Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, responded when I asked him about the hack.

This is not the Steele Dossier of 2016, with its golden showers and anti-Trump fanfiction. Unlike the Steele Dossier, which was both fraudulent and discredited, the Vance Dossier is factual and intelligently written. No Jason Bourne style capers appear, and there’s no sleaze. Instead, the Vance Dossier enumerates pretty reasonable liabilities as a then-contender for VP nominee, including:

• “Vance has been one of the chief obstructionists to U.S. efforts to providing [sic] assistance to Ukraine.”

• “Vance criticized public health experts and elected officials for supporting Black Lives Matter protests while condemning anti-lockdown [Covid] protests.”

• “Vance ‘embraced non-interventionism.’”

• “In 2020, Vance criticized President Trump’s airstrike killing Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, worrying it would continue to bog down America in the Middle East to the advantage of China. Vance suggested that the country had been entangled in wars in the Middle East so ‘financial elites’ could profit from the rise of China.”

Apologies for the AMP link. I can't figure out a convenient way to get a native link that includes the full article.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with bribery and taking illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources, an unsealed indictment has revealed, throwing the United States’ largest city’s government into turmoil.

In a five-count indictment on Thursday, Adams was charged with crimes such as conspiracy, wire fraud, and bribery. Prosecutors have accused him of offering favours and influence in exchange for luxury travel and airline benefits.

Adams, a 64-year-old Democrat who became the first of the city’s 110 mayors to be criminally charged while in office, has denied the allegations and said he has no plans to step down as mayor.