February 8, 2022

Feds arrest married couple, seize $3.6 billion in hacked bitcoin funds

Source: Washington Post

The Justice Department announced Tuesday it had seized more than $3.6 billion in bitcoin allegedly stolen as part of a 2016 hack of Bitfinex, saying authorities have also arrested a husband and wife in New York for allegedly trying to launder the cryptocurrency fortune.

Officials said Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31, were charged with conspiring to launder money. They are accused of trying to launder 119,754 bitcoin that were stolen after a hacker breached the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions. Prosecutors said the bitcoin was sent to a digital wallet controlled by Lichtenstein.

At the time of the theft, that amount of bitcoin was worth about $71 million. But the cryptocurrency has appreciated so much in the years since that the total value is now around $4.5 billion. Federal officials said they were able to seize about 94,000 of the stolen bitcoin, with an estimated value of $3.6 billion.

The case marks the largest single seizure of funds in the Justice Department history, officials said, and is the most high-profile prosecution to emerge from the agency’s newly-announced effort to investigate crimes involving cryptocurrency.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/02/08/bitfinex-hack-bitcoin-arrests/

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Cryptocurrency is just too cryptocryptic for me.

February 8, 2022

In his fight against 'woke' schools, DeSantis tears at the seams of a diverse Florida

Some Republicans want to let parents sue schools and teachers over student ‘discomfort’

MIAMI — The school system in Florida’s most populous county includes students whose families moved here from 160 nations.

Its expansive cultural mix is represented in the district’s curriculum, which includes not only American history, but also the stories of violent government upheavals, such as the revolution of enslaved people who founded Haiti, and the more recent political trauma of protesters who fled or perished in Castro’s Cuba.

But as Florida lawmakers consider legislation to police what students are taught, Miami Beach Senior High School teacher Russell Rywell wonders if he will still be able to discuss how some of his students’ ancestors arrived in the United States.

“How do you teach slavery? The slave trade? The Holocaust?” asked Rywell, a speech and debate teacher who has taught in Miami-Dade County’s public schools for 11 years. “How do you teach these issues without talking about the participants and the roles they played?”

As part of the “stop-woke” agenda of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Florida lawmakers are now considering bills that would allow almost anyone to object to any instruction in public school classrooms. DeSantis wants to give people the right to sue schools and teachers over what they teach based on student “discomfort.” The proposed legislation is far-reaching and could affect even corporate human resources diversity training.

https://wapo.st/360vu4T

Seems that Republicans leave nothing but a trail of chaos in their wake whenever they are elected...

February 8, 2022

Military can't discipline officers for refusing vaccine, Florida judge rules

“The military is well aware of the frailty of their arguments in defense of their practices,” Federal District Court Judge Steven Merryday ruled in last week’s court order.

TAMPA — In a stinging rebuke of the military’s handling of the mandatory COVID vaccine enforcement policy, a federal district court judge in Florida has issued a temporary order preventing disciplinary action against two officers who refused the vaccine on religious grounds.

“The military is well aware of the frailty of their arguments in defense of their practices,” federal District Court Judge Steven Merryday ruled in a court order. “The record creates a strong inference that the services are discriminatorily and systematically denying religious exemptions without a meaningful and fair hearing.”

The order, which is in place until Friday, is the latest ruling temporarily barring the military from punishing troops over their refusal to get the COVID vaccine. In a separate case, a Texas judge in January ordered a temporary injunction against the punishment of a group of Navy SEALs, the Washington Post reported.

A second hearing to determine whether the injunction will be extended past this week has been scheduled for Thursday.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2022/02/07/military-cant-discipline-officers-for-refusing-vaccine-florida-judge-rules/

Seems to me that this judge may be overstepping some boundaries here.

February 8, 2022

Air Force ordered to pay more than $230M in Texas church shooting

SAN ANTONIO — The Air Force must pay more than $230 million in damages to survivors and victims’ families of a 2017 Texas church massacre for failing to flag a conviction that might have kept the gunman from legally buying the weapon used in the shooting, a federal judge ruled Monday.

More than two dozen people were killed when Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire during a Sunday service at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. Kelley, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after being shot and chased by two men who heard the gunfire at the church, had served in the Air Force before the attack.

U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez had ruled in July that the Air Force was “60 percent liable” for the attack because it failed to submit Kelley’s assault conviction during his time in the Air Force to a national database.

Lawyers for survivors and relatives of those killed had asked for $418 million, while the Justice Department proposed $31.8 million.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-air-force/2022/02/07/air-force-ordered-to-pay-more-than-230m-in-texas-church-shooting/

February 7, 2022

California will lift mask mandate for vaccinated residents in indoor public places next week

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

SAN FRANCISCO — With the Omicron coronavirus surge rapidly receding, California will lift its universal mask mandate for indoor public places next week, state officials announced Monday.

The lifting of the indoor mask mandate statewide will apply to counties without local mask orders of their own, such as San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as swaths of the San Joaquin Valley. Other counties with local mask orders will remain in place, such as in Los Angeles County and much of the San Francisco Bay Area.

While this move doesn’t mean face coverings will be a thing of the past — they still will be required indoors for unvaccinated residents and for everyone in select settings, such as nursing homes or while aboard public transit — relaxing the roughly two-month-old order reflects the progress California has made in its battle against Omicron, even as officials say continued vigilance will be vital in keeping the state on the right track.

“Omicron has loosened its hold on California, vaccines for children under 5 are around the corner and access to COVID-19 treatments is improving,” said Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, the state’s public health officer. “With things moving in the right direction, we are making responsible modifications to COVID-19 prevention measures, while also continuing to develop a longer-term action plan for the state.”

Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/story/2022-02-07/when-will-california-ease-mask-vaccine-rules

February 7, 2022

The RNC turns into an Orwellian horror show

The Republican Party has betrayed our democratic system — first by refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election, then by exonerating the violators and censuring the defenders of our Constitution at its recent meeting in Salt Lake City. The party time and again has sided with treacherous seditionists.

From fanning the “big lie” to fomenting a violent insurrection to whitewashing the violence to excusing the former president’s sedition to censuring two Republican representatives investigating Jan. 6 to blessing the violent insurrectionists (“ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” its resolution declared) the Republican Party has underscored its complete dependency on the delusional cult leader who candidly admits that he sought to overthrow the election and that he would pardon the violent seditionists.

Even sycophantic former vice president Mike Pence, who apparently struggled with the decision to try to reverse the election, was forced to concede, “President Trump is wrong. … I had no right to overturn the election.” But the party is now on record celebrating the coup and renouncing the sanctity of our elections. A star chamber rendering judgment on Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) seemed appropriate for a gang that has come to resemble the Party in George Orwell’s “1984.” Up is down, night is day. Trump is always right.

Republicans remaining under the banner of the GOP have a serious dilemma: Their membership in the pro-seditionist party is inconsistent with their oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” After all, they remain allied with and thoroughly loyal to the chief domestic enemy of democracy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/07/rnc-censures-cheney/

February 7, 2022

The Brutal Truth of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party

LONDON — British Conservatives, who have ruled the country for longer than any other party in recent history, are in an agonized, self-flagellating panic. Should they get rid of Boris Johnson, their populist leader, whose deceit and breaking of lockdown rules has infuriated so much of the country and embarrassed his party? Or stick with a man who, so far, has kept them in power?

This may be a British story but the Tories’ choice will resonate among many political parties across the democratic world. As American voters learned with Donald Trump in 2020, the choice of keeping or replacing Mr. Johnson — and the matter is now on a knife’s edge in London — will affect not just the future of the Conservative Party but Britain’s standing in the world. For the party, it’s about being respected again as a coherent ideological force, led with decency. Essentially, it’s about self-respect. In terms of Britain’s standing internationally, the question is whether the Conservatives are ready to get rid of a leader who has done a proud country so much damage.

The damage done to the Tories is clear enough in opinion polls. Following Mr. Johnson’s 80-seat general election victory in 2019, and the strong support he maintained afterward, even during the grimmer moments of the pandemic, recent polling now shows the Tories lagging behind the Labour Party by anything between three and 14 points. For many Conservative lawmakers, those are serious tea leaves, and represent the possible loss of their seats.

But this goes nowhere near capturing the grief and shame convulsing much of this fundamentally traditionalist party. The scandals over boozy parties during the Covid lockdown, and the lying that followed them, ripped into the Tories’ sense of themselves as essentially decent followers of “the people’s priorities.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/opinion/international-world/boris-johnson-conservatives.html

February 7, 2022

Republicans, Wooing Trump Voters, Make Fauci Their Boogeyman

G.O.P. candidates, tapping into voters’ frustrations with a seemingly endless pandemic, are stepping up their attacks on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Jane Timken kicked off an eight-week advertising campaign on the Fox News Channel in her bid for the Republican nomination for Senate, she did not focus on immigration, health care or the economy. Her first ad was titled “Fire Fauci.”

Its subject — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus — is also under attack in Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, a television doctor who has entered the Republican Senate primary there, calls him a “petty tyrant.” In Nebraska, an ad shows Jim Pillen, a Republican running for governor, dressed in hunting gear and cocking his gun after saying, “And Fauci? Don’t get me started.”

Republican attacks on Dr. Fauci are not new; former President Donald J. Trump, irked that the doctor publicly corrected his falsehoods about the virus, called him “a disaster” and repeatedly threatened to fire him. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has grilled Dr. Fauci in nationally televised hearings, and Dr. Fauci — true to his fighter-from-Brooklyn roots — has punched back.

But as the 2022 midterm elections approach, the attacks have spread across the nation, intensifying as Dr. Fauci draws outsize attention in some of the most important state and local races on the ballot in November.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/us/politics/fauci-republicans-trump.html

February 7, 2022

The Jan. 6 committee is an organ of truth. Of course Trump Republicans are attacking it.

The ritual censure of the sane that came during the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee was another affirmation of Donald Trump’s control over the GOP. As if we needed one.

The assembled sycophants declared the participation of Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol to be evidence they wanted to “destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022.”

The Jan. 6 committee itself was attacked for leading a “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” This seemed to imply that the violent shock troops of an anti-constitutional coup attempt carried a truer version of democratic ideals than the legislators investigating them. Support for seditious acts is now a normal and accepted element of Republican identity.

But after all this, it is worth remembering the ultimate reason that Republicans in the country and Congress are beating down the credibility of the Jan. 6 committee: because it is an institution that will generate truth.

https://wapo.st/3uwS536

February 7, 2022

IRS to abandon facial recognition plan after firestorm of criticism

The Internal Revenue Service has abandoned its plan to require Americans submit to a facial recognition check through a private company to access their online tax accounts following a firestorm of criticism from privacy advocates and members of Congress.

The IRS said Monday it would transition away from using a face-scanning service, offered by the company ID.me, in the coming weeks and would develop an additional authentication process that does not involve facial recognition.

The agency originally had said that starting this summer all taxpayers would need to submit a “video selfie” to the company to be able to access their tax records and other services on the IRS website. But lawmakers and advocates slammed the idea of mandating the technology’s use nationwide, saying that it would unfairly burden Americans without smartphones or computer cameras and would risk leaking sensitive data to hackers. Facial recognition algorithms have also been shown to work less accurately on darker skin.

“The IRS takes taxpayer privacy and security seriously, and we understand the concerns that have been raised,” IRS commissioner Charles Rettig said in a statement announcing the IRS decision. “Everyone should feel comfortable with how their personal information is secured, and we are quickly pursuing short-term options that do not involve facial recognition.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/07/irs-idme-face-scans/