Says Long Awaited RAND Report On Deputy Gangs. Los Angeles, CA – The long anticipated report on the deputy gangs inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was released on Friday, Sept. 10. And it has a lot to say. The 230-page report by the nonprofit RAND Corporation was commissioned by the LA County Board of Supervisors, who are fed up with the deputy gang issue, and it contains a list of interesting conclusions about what needs to be done about the problem of deputy cliques that has plagued the nations largest sheriff’s agency for approximately half century. “At their worst,” the authors […]
Influence
15 posts
Brain cells that monitor liquid, mineral and salt levels in the body influence what types of drinks we crave when thirsty. Krisanapong Detraphiphat/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Krisanapong Detraphiphat/Getty Images Brain cells that monitor liquid, mineral and salt levels in the body influence what types of drinks we crave when thirsty. Krisanapong Detraphiphat/Getty Images Researchers appear to have shown how the brain creates two different kinds of thirst. The process involves two types of brain cells, one that responds to a decline in fluid in our bodies, while the other monitors levels of salt and other minerals, a team reports […]
Emails obtained by the New York Post suggest that Hunter Biden introduced a Ukrainian energy boss to his father, then-vice president Joe Biden. The former VP has insisted he knew nothing about his son’s dodgy dealings. A year after Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma in 2014, the then-vice president’s son’s family connections apparently paid off – at least that’s what the latest materials obtained by the New York Post claim to show. In a 2015 email published on Wednesday, Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi thanked Hunter for an invitation to Washington, and for the “honor and pleasure” of […]
Former high-dollar Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy is facing a federal criminal charge over an alleged scheme to influence the Trump administration on behalf of a Malaysian businessman at the center of a massive international money laundering conspiracy. In a criminal information filing filed in federal court in Washington on Tuesday, the Justice Department accuses Broidy of accepting millions of dollars to press the administration to abandon or reduce its criminal probe into Jho Low, who is accused of orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar fraud against a Malaysian government investment fund. The filing alleges that Broidy committed one count of conspiracy to violate the […]
Report Finds ‘Gang Like’ Police Clique That Exerts ‘Undue Influence’ By Alene Tchekmedyian, LA Times. October 6, 2020 Report Finds ‘Gang Like’ Police Clique That Exerts ‘Undue Influence’2020-10-062020-10-06https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/10/police-e1602012398861.jpg200px200px Above photo: Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and Homicide Bureau Captain Kent A. Wegener, right. Al Seib/Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles County’s top watchdog said Monday that substantial evidence exists that a secretive group of tattooed deputies at the East L.A. sheriff’s station are “gang-like and their influence has resulted in favoritism, sexism, racism and violence.” In a 32-page report probing activities of the Banditos clique, Inspector General Max Huntsman alleged that Sheriff Alex […]
Before sommeliers became “somms” and everyone was either drinking “dirty” or “clean” wine, Belinda Chang was building some of the most spectacular wine programs in America. She has held her own in a trinity of cities—Chicago, San Francisco and New York—even when there was no one that looked like her working as a sommelier. But Belinda is determined. When we met for a video interview at nine in the morning, I was still drinking coffee and hadn’t brushed my hair yet, while she popped on the screen with red lipstick and earrings. Instantly, feeling self-conscious and a bit embarrassed that I […]
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, picked by President Donald Trump for the US Supreme Court, has said a judge’s policy views must play no role in their decisions ahead of what is expected to be a highly-politicized confirmation process. Speaking alongside Trump in the Rose Garden, minutes after he officially tapped her to fill the SCOTUS seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barrett reaffirmed her commitment to the judicial philosophy of her mentor, former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. “I clerked for Justice Scalia more than twenty years ago, but the lessons I’ve learnt still resonate. His […]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused neighboring Russia of trying to divide the world into “spheres of influence” in a speech, delivered remotely from Kiev, to the 75th session of the UN General Assembly. According to Zelensky, the United Nations (UN) was built on the fact that “humankind should have learned the tragic lessons of World War II,” but Russia’s “occupation of Crimea” and “aggression in the Donbass” are proof that the world has not learned from the past. “I would like to remind you that it is not only, and not just, war in Ukraine. It’s war in Europe,” Zelensky […]
India is not yet capable of becoming China’s economic rival in Iran, according to various pundits and lawmakers. Moreover, the United States is limiting New Delhi’s political ties with Tehran, according to experts commenting on the Indian Defence and Foreign Ministers’ visits to Iran. On 8 September, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held talks with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, the second Indian minister to visit Iran in recent days. On Sunday, 6 September, talks were held between Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Iranian Defence Minister Amir Khatami. India is concerned about Chinese cash becoming involved in a project to […]
Koch Academic Influence Returns To Massachusetts With New Tufts University Think Tank By Dana Drugmand, DeSmog Blog. August 25, 2020 Koch Academic Influence Returns To Massachusetts With New Tufts University Think Tank2020-08-252020-08-25https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/08/tufts-university-e1598364445281.jpg200px200px Above photo: Tufts University by Pete Jelliffe (CC BY–ND 2.0). When a new Massachusetts think tank housed at Tufts University launched earlier this year, Boston-based media described it as a “CBO-like center” (referring to the Congressional Budget Office) that would offer an “independent analysis” of proposed state policy and legislation. But one of the main funders of this think tank, called the Center for State Policy Analysis, is a program tied financially to the petrochemical billionaire Koch family. This apparent Koch-linked […]
A fifth round of negotiations on a quick separation of forces on the de facto line of control took place nearly two months after Indian and Chinese troops engaged in a deadly standoff in Ladakh. According to some observers, India’s steps are strategically pointless and can be compared with US efforts to contain China. How Long Will the Negotiations Last? The fifth round of talks on reducing border tensions at a high military level took place at the Moldo Border Post on Chinese territory earlier this week. India’s NDTV reported, citing sources in the army, that the Indian side was seeking […]
In a recent report, a United Nations expert found the January killing of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani by a US drone strike was against international law. One journalist told Sputnik the killing fit a long pattern of the US destroying places it cannot control, which is linked to the proliferation of poverty in the US. Kei Pritsker, a journalist with BreakThrough News, told Radio Sputnik’s Political Misfits Tuesday that “for most of US history, we’ve just attacked countries purely out of our interest to extend our sphere of influence for power and take out governments we don’t like, and it’s […]
In his behind-the-scenes book about his tenure at the White House, former National Security Adviser John Bolton has painted Donald Trump’s administration in an unfavourable light. Among other things, the book claims Trump once asked his chief of staff whether Finland was a part of Russia. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has found herself in the midst of a social media scandal after a bogus assertion was made by a Twitter user. The user, named Lin Peace, suggested that following the publication of former US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, where he among other things claimed that Trump thought Finland […]
US envoy James F. Jeffrey’s remark that Washington is no longer seeking Assad’s ouster should be taken with a grain of salt as regime change in Syria remains America’s priority, argues international affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda, explaining how US sanctions have accelerated the rapprochement between Syria, Russia, Iran, and China. On Tuesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem highlighted that the US Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act seeks nothing short of starving the citizens of the Arab Republic. Besides this, the latest batch of sanctions is targeting those engaged in reconstruction activities in the war-torn country. The Caesar Act came […]
A combination of military and media pressure has resulted in the termination of Iraq war related criminal investigations, reflecting the power of the British military as “the only institution in the UK that is allowed to run their own criminal courts and prosecution service”, according to the Peace Pledge Union. The head of the UK military’s prosecuting body, the Service Prosecuting Authority, recently announced that they would be ending over 1,000 criminal investigations into alleged war crimes committed by British forces in Iraq. This decision comes only a few months after the Ministry of Defence was accused of covering up killings of […]