Things to Keep an Eye On
Pope says Israel's actions are immoral, Bannon leaves prison and has more trouble, did Bibi bug BoJo's bathroom?, America's Chernobyl, FISA expansion, and more
Pope Francis suggests Israel’s war is immoral
Here’s the beginning of the AP story that provides the context:
Pope Francis suggested Sunday that Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, saying its military domination has gone beyond the rules of war.
Francis was asked en route home from Belgium about Israel’s targeted killing of one of Hezbollah’s founding members, Hassan Nasrallah. Friday’s strike in Beirut targeted an area greater than a city block and reduced several residential buildings to rubble, and at least six other deaths have been confirmed.
Francis didn’t mention Israel by name and said he was speaking in general terms. But he said that “the defense must always be proportionate to the attack.”
He’s already said he favors a ceasefire. And this is not exactly a considered statement. There is very much a proportionality problem in Israel’s actions, but not quite in the way he seems to suggest here. Proportionality refers to force proportionate to ends, not some sort of balance of forces. The Israeli government has been unclear about what its ends are in Gaza, and there’s not really any end there that most of the world will not consider illegal. With respect to Hezbollah, the pager attack is probably more defensible than a 2,000 pound bomb in Beirut.
Cognyte suit dismissed, for now
Cognyte is another Israeli company messing around on Facebook, with Meta now claiming plausible deniability after releasing a report on the company’s activities. This was an investor class action lawsuit, but Cognyte is facing a lawsuit in Israel as well having to do with its complicity in human rights abuses in Myanmar.
TD Securities charged in spoofing scheme
From SEC:
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against registered broker-dealer TD Securities (USA) LLC for manipulating the U.S. Treasury cash securities market through an illicit trading strategy known as spoofing. The bank was also charged for failing to supervise the then-head of its U.S. Treasuries trading desk, who allegedly made hundreds of illegal trades over a 13-month period.
According to the SEC's order, between April 2018 and May 2019, the former TD Securities trader spoofed the U.S. Treasury cash securities market by entering orders on one side of the market that he had no intention of executing (herein, non-bona fide orders), so he could obtain more favorable execution prices on bona fide orders he was entering simultaneously on the other side of the market. After the bona fide orders were filled, resulting in profits to TD Securities, the trader allegedly then canceled the non-bona fide orders. The SEC’s order also finds that TD Securities lacked adequate controls and that it failed to take reasonable steps to scrutinize the trader after receiving warnings of his potentially irregular trading activity.
FTC bans Hess CEO from serving on Chevron board after communicating with OPEC
The FTC alleges a price collusion scheme:
Mr. Hess further encouraged his OPEC competitors to stabilize production and draw down inventories, the complaint alleges. As Mr. Hess has noted publicly, there is a direct correlation between inventory levels and oil prices. Reductions in crude oil exploration and production generally lead to higher oil prices and higher prices for products derived from oil, including transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, and heating oil.
“Mr. Hess’s communications with competitors about global oil output and other dimensions of crude oil market competition disqualify him from serving on Chevron’s Board of Directors,” said Henry Liu, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “The FTC will use all its available enforcement tools to protect competition in this vital market and help ensure American consumers benefit from lower prices at the pump.”
Another big domain takedown allegedly targeting Russians
From CBS:
The warrant alleged that Russian-directed cybercriminals pilfered "valuable information and sensitive United States government intelligence."
Targets included former U.S. intelligence employees, former and current Department of Defense personnel, Department of State employees, Department of Energy staff, U.S. military contractors and U.S.-based companies.
The Justice Department seized 41 internet domains and coordinated the takedowns with tech giant Microsoft, which seized an additional 66 unique domains operated by the same group.
Dan Friedman in Mother Jones says Steve Bannon threatened Sam Nunberg
Talk about a fight with no good guys. Nunberg is the one who referred to Maggie Haberman as “our Trumpist reporter at the New York Times,” and here he is lined up with Elliott Broidy and Steve Wynn against Bannon and Miles Guo:
Nunberg says that moments after the meeting began, Bannon pulled out what he said was a printed lawsuit and warned that the fugitive Chinese mogul Guo Wengui was poised to sue Nunberg.
Bannon—who was working for Guo at the time—said he could have the lawsuit shelved. But Bannon wanted something in return: Nunberg would have to appear in a video with Guo and claim that Nunberg had learned that three other men had conspired to fabricate a rape allegation against Guo made by a former personal assistant—an allegation that had resulted in a criminal case in China and a lawsuit in New York, both begun in 2017.
Further, Bannon wanted Nunberg to say that the same three supposed accomplices—a Chinese entrepreneur named Bruno Wu, casino mogul Steve Wynn, and GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy—were involved in the issuing of a “red notice” by Interpol seeking the arrest of Guo for alleged financial crimes in China, Nunberg recalled.
If I have my timing correct, Bannon is supposed to be out of prison this week.
BoJo says Bibi bugged his potty
From The Telegraph:
A listening device was found in Boris Johnson’s personal bathroom at the Foreign Office after it had been used by Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister has claimed.
Mr Johnson has alleged that when the Israeli Prime Minister visited his department in 2017, his security team found bugging devices in the toilets after he had used the facilities.
During their meeting in his old office, Mr Johnson says Mr Netanyahu, who he calls Bibi, excused himself to go to the bathroom, which Mr Johnson describes as similar to “the gents in a posh London club” which exist within a “secret annexe”.
Malcolm Kyeyune says Hurricane Helene is America’s Chernobyl
A good read in Unherd:
Contrary to popular belief, Hurricane Helene is not “just a storm”, in the same sense that Chernobyl was not “just an accident”. Beyond all the destroyed roads, the flooded towns, the ruined electrical networks and the stranded American families, Helene is also an indication that the US political system, followed by its military, is very close to the point of moral and physical exhaustion.
Details on the Opus Dei investigation
It’s interesting that the investigation starts in 1983, from AP:
Argentine prosecutors have concluded that there are grounds for launching a criminal investigation into the highest authorities of Opus Dei in South America between 1983 and 2015 for the crimes of human trafficking and labor exploitation against at least 44 women recruited by the religious order to perform domestic tasks in their homes.
According to a document seen by The Associated Press, prosecutors sought a federal judge to summon those who served during that period as vicar or regional councilor of Opus Dei Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia to testify: Carlos Nannei (1991-1997), Patricio Olmos (1998-2014) and Víctor Urtizarrazu (2014-2022). They also seek to interrogate the regional secretary in charge of the order’s female section, Gabriel Dondo, who held the position until 2015.
DOJ charges British national for hacking U.S. companies
He’s awaiting extradition to face charges of corporate espionage:
The Department of Justice charged the British national Robert Westbrook (39) for hacking into the systems of five U.S. companies.
Westbrook was arrested in the United Kingdom this week with is awaiting extradition to the United States.
“Robert Westbrook, 39, of London, United Kingdom, was arrested in the United Kingdom this week with a view towards extradition to the United States so that he can face an indictment charging him with securities fraud, wire fraud, and five counts of computer fraud.” reads the press release published by DoJ. “From January 2019 through May 2020, Westbrook executed a hack-to-trade scheme through which he generated millions of dollars in profits.”
Siemens pleads guilty to stealing competitor information
This involved bids on a Dominion Energy plant in Virginia. From DOJ:
After GE and MHI submitted their closed bids to Dominion in May 2019, Account Manager, Michael P. Hillen of Siemens coordinated with a Dominion insider, Director of Generation System Planning Theodore S. Fasca, who used his sensitive position to improperly obtain GE and MHI confidential information. Hillen and Fasca funneled the pilfered GE and MHI bid information through private email accounts, including Hillen’s wife’s Hotmail email address, before sending the confidential information to Hillen’s Siemens email address. Hillen then disseminated the confidential information to Siemens Account Manager Mehran Sharifi, who analyzed the confidential bid information with other employees. Realizing that Siemens had a less competitive bid than GE by some metrics, Sharifi recommended to Siemens Executive Vice President and Head of Sales for North America, John Gibson, that Siemens resubmit a lowered bid to undercut GE’s bid price. Gibson, Sharifi, Hillen, and Fasca all knew the GE and MHI bid information was improperly obtained and that Siemens should not have had access to this information.
Man pleads guilty in Newark public land sale bribery scheme
If the feds got serious about this sort of thing, a whole heck of a lot of people could be charged, because it’s very common:
From 2017 through April 2019, Sablosky, Frank Valvano Jr., and others provided significant monetary payments and other benefits to Garcia while he was serving as a high-level Newark official, and prior to that, as an executive officer of the NCEDC (now known as Invest Newark), in exchange for Garcia’s use of his official positions and influence within the city of Newark and the NCEDC to advance real estate development matters of interest to Sablosky and Valvano. These matters included obtaining preliminary designation letters for Sablosky and Valvano and securing Newark-approved redevelopment agreements (RDAs) that allowed them to purchase and acquire various Newark-owned properties for redevelopment, and to ensure that Garcia did not use his influence and authority to act against their interests.In addition to cash, Sablosky and Valvano also gifted Garcia jewelry, including multiple high-end watches and chains, from their pawnbroker and jewelry business.
DOJ charges ten over Houston-area pill mills
Here’s the video of the DOJ announcement. The feds allege that combined they distributed as many as 70 million opiate pills.
New frontiers of FISA
DOJ OIG report on U.S. Marshals deputation authority says they were using it for things as serious as FISA warrants. I suspect not many people envisioned this.