fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
April Picks: 🙏 Welcoming the Ramadhan season + #AwardWinningStudio
By: Victoria Simansjah
Tags: Award Winning, Monthly Picks, Design Picks, Ui Ux Design, Figma

In a few days, Muslims all over the world will be celebrating Eid. For those of you unfamiliar with Eid, it is one of the biggest holidays celebrated in my home country, Indonesia.

I’m not a Muslim, so I can’t speak on behalf of them. However, I embrace the spirit of Ramadhan like a holiday of my own — even though we don’t get to unwrap Christmas gifts under a tree, or cut a warm plate of turkey, I still feel like it has a special place in my heart. For a whole month prior to D-day, Muslims worldwide go on a month long period of fasting, prayer and reflection. The fasting begins before the sun rises and Muslims would start to prepare their Sahūr meal before the fajr prayer. The fast ends when the sun sets accompanied with an Adhan prayer.

What makes this season special to me is that it brings the opportunity to reach out to different social groups to “break the fast” together. Peers and old colleagues that we don’t see in ages come to break their fast collectively — despite the fact you fast or not. There is a joy that I feel deep inside, as I see those who are breaking their fast, trying to be mindful of what they first consume and seeing satisfied faces as they take their first bite.

Even during the fasting hours, there is a sense of community that is prominent that makes me “the outsider” behave more respectful as well. Ramadhan kindles a different atmosphere — people are more gentle, somber, and in a state of prayer. It truly shows a different side of Indonesia. Hampers and gifts are also shared between friends and families to show appreciation, love and care. Closer to D-day, people would travel back “home” to gather with families and spend Eid together. This period of visiting family and friends will go on for 2–3 days while eating meals together and catching up after being apart for a long time.

With COVID-19’s spread, it definitely has effected how Ramadhan is celebrated. Although there are certain social restrictions, I continuously hope that whoever is celebrating Eid, will share it with their loved ones and cherish this holy month.
How to find the voice and tone for your UI/UX style guide?
Tags: Style Guides, Ui Ux Design, Content Strategy

How to find the voice and tone for your UI/UX style guide? Prasana Follow May 7 · 2 min read

image from unsplash

One way to write impactful content is to be conscious of the voice and the tone of your content. However, these two can go hand-in-hand, as you create the persona, purpose, intent and vision for your brand.

When designing a UI style guide for your brand, take time to find the exact tone and voice, and over the course of time to find ways to improve it.

Voice — Talk from the shoes of the customers

As content creators, each writer must have developed a unique personal voice over the years. This is the voice that we usually write when developing a story, or a piece, and your readers usually resonate with it.

But when writing a UI literal (error message), or a UX (onboarding texts), it’s ultimately the “screen” vs “reader”. Uniformity in the tone is crucial here. Because no matter if one or more than one writer is contributing to the content, it must be consistent throughout the pages and platforms.

Thus, create a style guide to direct your team to write with a voice in a way, your brand speaks with its customers.

Tone — Talk about situations, and not actions

As the voice remains unique for a writer, tone varies time to time. It varies with situations. For example, while writing an error text, you try to be formal and optimistic. Whereas, on an UX onboarding text you can be informal and cheerful.

The challenge lies in deciding when to pick what type of tone. To make your team easily understand this, mention explicitly in your guide on what tone to choose during the different situations.

An example for uniform vs non-uniform content

Key points to develop tone and voice:
My First UX Case Study for Google UX Certification
By: Yesha Shah
Tags: Grow With Google, Ux Case Study, Yesha Shah, Google Ux Certificate, Ui Ux Design

Problem we’re solving

The target users of the IndiePendent app face difficulty in finding and booking concerts nearby. They feel disappointed with the fact that it takes hours of research to find affordable music concerts/gigs of their choice near them to enjoy with friends over the weekend.

Our Goal

Our goal was to design the app that is simple for all users and allows music enthusiast to easily find and book concerts and music gigs of their favourite artists near them.

About Designer

My name is Yesha Shah. I’m less than 2 months old to the world of product design. My role in this project as a UX designer was to take ownership of the app’s design

Project Duration

February 2021 to April 2021

Industry

Events and Hospitality

My Responsibilities

user research, wire-framing, prototype, usability testing, iteration, and the creation of the final high-fidelity prototype.

Among all the design frameworks taught to us in the Google Certification, I chose a simplistic Lean UX approach to my project. We constantly pivoted our design based on the feedback from relevant users and experts at the earliest.

We performed foundational user research to understand more about the personas that is the target audience of the IndiePendent User App.

Primary Research: We recruited 2 Male, 3 Female participants who agreed to provide us their time and feedback during the project. We interviewed them about their life, general behaviour and more to form our initial impression. We learned a lot from first-hand user interaction and observation.

Secondary Research: We analysed industry reports and other public research studies in event and concert industry (software and otherwise).

We also made a Bubble-Graph for the key delights and objections in the app store reviews of other competitors. We also engaged in the indie-musician discord groups to understand more about what they expect from an app like this.

We then built empathy maps for each participants that were later collated to create user personas.

User Personas

We interviewed a few musician friends to understand the kind of audience that frequent in their concerts the most. Furthermore, we analysed the loyal users of our competitors to create an initial broad understanding of the personas we may we focusing on.

Then we recruited 5 people among our network which suit the persona profiles. We scheduled a short call/chat with each one of them to get a basic understanding about their behaviour before usability testing at a later stage
Opposition for the sake of Leadership
By: Jaganathan Raghupathy
Tags: Opposition, Leadership, Corruption, Politics

Opposition for the sake of Leadership

The biggest threat to democracy is not poor leadership, terrorism or even corruption — it is the absence of good Opposition Jaganathan Raghupathy Apr 27, 2019·2 min read

Pic Courtesy: Internet

Anyone whose election campaign claim is to genuinely clean up politics is either terribly MISTAKEN or is LYING. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely!

If you’re genuinely interested in public service, and also claim to not want to take part in hegemony, corruption and requests for personal favour that follow political power, then it is not the Mayorship, Chief Ministership or Prime Ministership that one should aim for — it should be The Leader of Opposition.

The role of The Leader of Opposition is to: Provide constructive criticism and raise relevant questions against the Govt. Lead the debate on Bills tabled in the legislature and recommends amendments 3. Call upon checks and balances provided by the Constitution 4. Ensure that the minorities are always represented in the ruling party’s policies 5. Lead Parliamentary Committees 6· Not engage in opposition for the sake of opposition

A good LOP has to do all this while wishing away any kind of political or personal mileage in return, which makes the position most sacred of all.
The war on science is in fact part of a bigger war of ideologies, capitalist totalitarianism vs…
By: Tom Moriarty
Tags: Politics, Propaganda, Capitalism, Pseudoscience, Corruption

The war on science is in fact part of a bigger war of ideologies, capitalist totalitarianism vs enlightened democracy. Knowledge amongst the masses gets in the way of profit. In order to win this war, one has to discount knowledge already in existence by throwing a cloud of doubt around it and of course originate and disseminate utter lies, pseudo-science written by pseudo-thinkers in pseudo-think tanks with pseudo-academic titles, that conform to the agenda of capitalist fundamentalists. We can call them neo-feudalists.

That is what this war on truth is about. They want to ensure that people do not know the truth and therefore there is no support for a course of action that will hinder wealth creation and the concentration of that wealth in the hands of the very very few. This is not just in the US. This is a global ideology shared by those that wish to rule the planet. It is the link between that tramp in the Whitehouse and Putin. It is the link between hedge fund managers and people trying to annex the UK from Europe… and destroy European unity. Why? because the only thing that can stop the neo-feudalists from having total control of the world is an international alliance of countries that can act in concert to defend itself against the inevitable trade wars that the international neo-feudalist network will launch at them. That will happen…more.

Some people call this paradigm mafia capitalism. Well, there is most certainly threats involved and there is most certainly violence. So the attack on Science is a bigger war. It is in fact a war against pretty much everyone on the planet, a war against societal evolution, a war against progress. These people will keep worshipping their false gods of capitalism and watch people die. As far as the science associated with environment is concerned, they’ll disregard it and demonize it. They’ll burn the planet until there’s nothing left to burn.

The end of the world won’t be because of a meteorite created out in deep space, it will be at the hands of the capitalist machine…created by us.
Death Penalty to Overcome Corruption in Indonesia
By: Meilisa Jibrani
Tags: Politics, Death Penalty, Indonesia, Jokowi, Corruption

Photo by Michal Matlon on Unsplash

Corruption has an enormous political, social, and economic impact on a country. It can destroy the foundation of the nation and bring the loss of government. This leads people to start considering corruption as a high priority crime and the death penalty has to be legalized as a result. In Indonesia, the law of Corruption itself has been arranged in UU Tipikor Nomor №31 Tahun 1999 jo UU No 20 Tahun 2001. Based on this law, article 2 paragraph (2) has covered the death penalty as punishment for corrupter. However, since the independence day of Indonesia in 1945, the punishment has never been applied in any cases of corruption. I strongly believe government should be brave to take a chance of this legalization and this article, which contains the death penalty for corruption, should be sentenced.

Why is the article on the death penalty so important to be sentenced? First, Corruption can be a high-priority crime against humanity. Corruption belongs to crime against humanity when it causes material loss and occurs during a natural disaster, economic crisis, or dangerous condition of a country. Based on UN Resolution in 2006, the death penalty can be sentenced to a crime against humanity. An example of this case is the corruption of the Covid-19 social grant in 2020. This case happened during the first period of Covid-19 in Indonesia right after it has announced as a global pandemic.

The second reason is that corruption has reached the lowest point in Indonesia and urgently needs to be solved. International Transparency has released Corruption Point Index in 2020. Indonesia ranked 102nd. Ironically, Indonesia as an archipelago and one of the key economies in Asia has the same score as Gambia, the smallest country in West Africa. The ranking shows the slow progress of Indonesia to combat corruption. The death penalty comes up as an option for this pathetic condition considering that a prison sentence doesn’t make any difference.

At the last, the death penalty policy has been proven by China as an effective way to overcome corruption. China firmly warns the governor to ovoid corruption and bravely sentenced the death penalty for those who did it. Since the policy of the death penalty for corruption has been applied, China steadily increases its score on CPI from 36 to 42. In 2020, China ranked 78th and belongs to one of the significant improvers.

Regarding its big impact, corruption should be put as a high-priority crime, and the death penalty has to be sentenced. Government has no reason to keep the corruptors behind the law. We already have the legalization of the death penalty for corruptors, the article 2 paragraph (2) UU Tipikor Nomor №31 Tahun 1999 jo UU No 20 Tahun 2001. What we need afterward is bravery from the government and the legal institution to take it as an action.
Sanctions Top-5 for the week ending 30 April 2021
By: Nicholas Turner
Tags: Iran, Sanctions, UK, China, Corruption

Here are five things that happened this week in the world of economic sanctions that I think you should know about.

Sign up here if you would like to receive these summaries by email. Click here for an index of past Sanctions Top-5 briefings.

Comments

OFAC is cranking out the settlements lately. This week brings us two cases showing that sanctions compliance is one part technology and one part people. (Or maybe two parts technology.) In the first case, the money transmitter failed to identify SDN transactions in part due to “screening, technology, and fuzzy logic failures” as well as “limited instances of human error” where analysts confused prohibited commercial transactions with permissible personal remittances. In the second case, the software company failed to implement geolocation and IP-blocking controls to prevent users in sanctioned territories from downloading and accessing its products. Meanwhile, a compliance team responsible for the cloud-services business “was not resourced or empowered to manage these processes appropriately.”

Both companies received mitigation credit for beefing up their compliance programs after discovering the apparent violations.

Check out this article from the South China Morning Post about the EU’s reaction to the PRC sanctions announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March 2021. According to the author: “China’s sanctions — unlike those imposed by Western countries that were based on the Global Magnitsky Act or similar frameworks — are not defined by Chinese laws.” If that sounds familiar, it’s because I made this point myself back in March when the sanctions were first announced. I wrote: “[T]he statements do not point to a law or regulation authorizing the sanctions, what the penalty for breaching them is, or where to go for guidance.” The PRC’s sanctions framework is a work in progress.
The business of American politics: Ted Cruz tells it like it is
By: Rashmee Roshan Lall
Tags: Senator Ted Cruz, Corporate Donations, Republican Party, Walter Shaub, Corruption

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

/ POLITICS & AMERICA

“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds”

– Will Rogers

Ted Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, has made an honest admission of dishonesty. In the Wall Street Journal, he warned CEOS opposed to Republican attempts to change voting regulations. No longer, he said, would Republicans look the other way when corporate bigwigs dodge taxes.

Republicans wouldn’t take corporate donations in exchange for “looking the other way”, Mr Cruz said. “We won’t look the other way on Coca-Cola’s $12 billion in back taxes owed. This time, when Major League Baseball lobbies to preserve its multibillion-dollar antitrust exception, we’ll say no thank you. This time, when Boeing asks for billions in corporate welfare, we’ll simply let the Export-Import Bank expire.”

It’s a remarkably explicit admission and Walter Shaub, former head of the Government Office of Ethics, recently helped explain the import of what we were hearing. Mr Shaub recently tweeted that this was probably the “most openly corrupt” message ever from the Senate.

https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1388889727202439171

“These crooks sell access,” he said, “Others have the sense not to admit it. This is why our republic is broken: Immoral politicians selling power we’ve entrusted to them like it’s theirs to sell.”

That is exactly right. Senator Cruz’s admission suggests that the power he and others are entrusted with is theirs to sell.

Well, it isn’t and it’s time they found out.
The week in corruption, 1 February 2019
By: Transparency Int L
Tags: Cpi, Public Sector, Newsletter, Danske Bank, Corruption

Trouble at the top

On Tuesday, we released our Corruption Perceptions Index 2018. It reveals a disturbing link between corruption and the health of democracies: countries with higher rates of corruption also have weaker democratic institutions and political rights.

The top and bottom of the index haven’t seen much change. Somalia, Syria and South Sudan have the lowest scores. Top performers include the Nordics — Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway — plus New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland. These countries mostly have several democratic attributes in common that help them keep corruption in their public sectors under control.

That’s great, but what about the fact that many of these countries have also been involved in major corruption scandals?

Denmark, which tops the list this year, has been rocked by the revelations of massive money-laundering at the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, the country’s biggest lender.

Switzerland — particularly its banks and other financial intermediaries — is a regular feature in stories about stolen public money finding its way out of countries around the world.

The CPI doesn’t measure private-sector corruption like money laundering, tax fraud, foreign bribery, financial secrecy or illicit flows of money. It also doesn’t look at individual corruption cases.

But that doesn’t mean these areas are not important. These scandals from countries at the top of the CPI show that no country is corruption-free. That’s why we continue to put pressure on the governments in countries at the top of the index to do their part to close loopholes, sanction wrong-doing and open their financial systems to scrutiny.

It’s not enough for top performing countries to lead by example with a clean public sector: they must become leaders across the board.

What do you think? Tell us! @anticorruption
CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF MY INDULGENCE
By: Oraibi Imabibo
Tags: Politics, Ethics, Nigeria, Change, Corruption

CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF OUR INDULGENCE

By now you must be familiar with the retweets and intense conversations about how our leaders are corrupt, they let snakes swallow up 300bn Naira and build 55 houses they do not reside in. Oh so corrupt!

In the dark ages; you would find me in these conversations, spittle flying, reciting stories overheard from whispering strangers in public places, usually about the luxurious lifestyles of wealthy relatives and impunity of corruption enablers.

But no more, for we all play a significant role in this corruption game. Be it that you enjoy the inflow from the trickle to your middle class or through the tip you drop each time you visit a government agency and must ‘expedite’ your activities. Then you are an active player.

Other times, you may be an unwilling participant. For you do not ask why you must tip policemen at the junction when all your papers are complete. Nor do you speak up when a new comer shuns a queue and demands service. You may even serve him if your behind the desk. He looks like a big tipper.

Think about the new railway system our government is winging. You must be sharp and purchase tickets from side hustlers at outrageous prices if you must travel, you do not care to join a purchase line or move for a petition for online ticket sales. This is Nigeria!

There are other times too, when you are passive in the game. You notice some of the streets do not have light, the healthcare system does not work and kids in government schools are not fluent in English or adept in counting. There is chaos; but you do not speak up, or attend town hall meetings or bother to know who represents you. You never stop to wonder how your tax Naira is being used.

There are more reasons why we cannot speak up and even more on the role we continually play. Most burdensome is the shame we are plagued with. For we have failed our kids and their generations. We lay with corruption and hypocrisy is our bed cover.

I currently live in Nigeria and recently awakened to the rude realities of my environment. I would be sharing my thoughts, experiences and ideas.

Follow me and leave claps. It helps !
Goldman Sachs sued Sachs to rip off Sachs client — eToys - Thrice
By: Laser Haas
Tags: Goldman Sachs, Wall Street, Toys, Fraud, Corruption

Goldman Sachs sued Sachs to rip off Sachs client — eToys - Thrice Laser Haas Jan 22·5 min read

.

It is being reported that Goldman Sachs, in 2020, set record of billions of dollars in revenue & profits.

Big question is — has Goldman Sachs continued ripping off its client(s) ?

Sachs lawyers have confessed to false affidavits in our eToys case; which resulted in Goldman Sachs being able to betray & rip off Sachs client — eToys — 3 times!

1st time was Sachs taking eToys public

2nd was Goldman rip off bankruptcy

3rd times was eToys NY Supreme Ct

For 20 years now, Goldman Sachs has been — overtly — Obstructing Justice.

Its about time for indictments.

Please take Special NOTE that -

The Delaware law firm of MNAT .com was representing eToys prior to the bankruptcy; and also representing me as court approved top exec of eToys.

At that time MNAT was also. representing Goldman Sachs; but lied about it a dozen times to conceal that fact.

Sachs also was partners of Bain Capital that had just bought Kay Bee; and Bain/ Kay Bee wanted to buy eToys.

MNAT also lied & concealed the fact (To this VERY day) that MNAT represented Mattel & Bain Capital.

Then MNAT arranged for MNAT partner (Colm Connolly) to become the Delaware United States Attorney over eToys & Kay Bee cases.

At the same time, Goldman Sachs lawyers arranged that Paul Roy Traub (Bain Capital lawyer) would become eToys Creditors counsel; as MNAT Traub Sachs Bain / Kay Bee planned on selling eToys Billion $$$ assets to Kay Bee for a paltry $5.4 million.

Despite everybody on ALL sides - other than Laser the Liquidator - being in on the schemes & artifice to defraud, I was able to drive eToys bid prices up into 10 S of millions of dollars.

Then MNAT & Traub offered me millions $$$ bribe that I reported to Delaware US Attorney - COLM CONNOLLY (who concealed the fact he was partners of MNAT).

Then MNAT forges my resignation papers and MNAT / Traub replace me with Barry Gold as new eToys President & CEO.

Barry Gold is both assistant to Bain Capital/ Michael Glazer (where Glazer was CEO of Kay Bee) — and Barry Gold also was. partners of Paul Traub and paid person of Traub’s law firm - who lied concealed those facts.

Once these Machiavellian fiends had successfully usurped Laser Haas (me) as head of eToys — the bid prices of eToys assets to Bain/ Kay Bee — were reduced.

.

Then Barry Gold & MNAT nominated their partner in crime — Paul Roy Traub — to be the one to sue Goldman Sachs in NY Supreme Court (purportedly on behalf of eToys).

Hence, being that they all are partners in the crimes — and MNAT was Sachs law firm — then, in essence, when Traub sued Sachs…

Goldman Sachs was suing Goldman Sachs.

.

When Traub settled eToys v Sachs Billion $$$ case, for $7.5 million, and the racketeers kept those monies, in 2013 (after Traub’s boss Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election) — then eToys lost a Billion dollars a 3rd time.

Meaning justice has yet to be served!
Vatican City or Private Pedo Club?
By: Zoe Kirtley
Tags: Politics, Rape, Change, Religion And Spirituality, Corruption

This is not news.

It’s been over 18 years since Boston Globe News published their findings on the mass child sex abuse and rape cases, (2002.) And over four years, since the release of Tom McCarthy’s film Spotlight (2016) which documented the discovery of Catholic Church records and overwhelming evidence of abuse.

And yet, we still have heard absolutely nothing from the Vatican City authorities.

At minimum, there needs to be a global acknowledgement and genuine apology both written and verbally presented by the Vatican City. This must be accompanied by a drafted re-construction to the Church hierarchy in which the clergy and all church members have scope to add suggestions and give feedback to. Much like the global congregations to edit The Lords Prayer in 1988 and again in 2012, the Catholic Church must prove they are democratic, do not discriminate and are open to very necessary change.

Attacking the problem now is not only massively overdue but is phenomenally important in its’ timing. A proactive and effective change to the denominations system would set the precedent to other denominations and large organisations, not only to improve the way that sexual abuse and abuse of power can be prevented in mass hierarchies — but to respond appropriately in a sense that validates the victim, punishes the offender and minimizes any further negative ramifications.

The timing to act on this now is more important than ever, since sexual abuse has been at the frontier of corruption and misuse of power across News Channels, the Entertainment Industry and Prestigious Sporting Events in the last decade. And globally, we are are waiting for proven applied management template to adhere to in which in which reverses the very archaic systems that have allowed mass scale abuse to take place.

Nothing will take away from the thousands of lives already impacted. But taking action and responsibility for what is horrific and cannot be undone could potentially save thousands of lives from experiencing that same grief in our future.

Priest or not — it is not your place to turn a blind eye.
PNG passes historic whistle-blower protection legislation
By: Martyn Namorong
Tags: James Marape, Icac, Whistleblower, Papua New Guinea, Corruption

ABOVE: List of MPs who voted for Whistle Blower Act. Parliament voted 90 — 0 in favour of the bill. Image credit: Prime Minister Jame Marape/Facebook

Papua New Guinea’s parliament has passed historic whistle-blower protection legislation on Tuesday following a commitment made by Prime Minister James Marape last month. The passing of the Whistle Blower Act also coincided with the tabling of enabling legislation for the creation of an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

Commenting following the vote by parliament, Prime Minister James Marape thanked both sides of the House for supporting the bill.

“I thank the MPs, many time our citizens complain of their lack of action , but they are working here,” Marape wrote on Facebook.

“Parliamentarians are doing our job by passing relevant laws, it is now up to those of you with evidences of corruption to rise above fear, wantok system, nepotism , bribery , hearsay. Politics etc and report corruption and assist prosecuting corruption.”

Marape said he looked forward to the operationalization of ICAC.

“We will appoint credible non PNGeans and known corruption fighters in PNG into ICAC to make it work,” he said.

“I know I will not be PM for ever but my colleagues and I in parliament want to leave behind a safer political and public service system for our country going forward.”

“That’s the least we can do.”

Papua New Guinea has been ranked by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt nations in the world with its most recent rating being 137 out of 180 countries with a score of 28 out of 100.

Meanwhile the enabling legislation for the creation of ICAC has been passed on to the Permanent Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Laws and Acts and Subordinate Legislation for vetting before being tabled in parliament.
trump about to get hit with lawsuits from every direction
By: Left Wisdom
Tags: Donald Trump, Polític, Corruption, Bullying, Lawsuit

Well, trump signed the budget but then immediately declared an emergency in order to get his own way and get money for the wall. This was an obvious gambit to go behind the will of Congress, which is the holder of the purse strings by the Constitution. They didn’t give him what he wanted, demanded, and so he is trying to go behind their back. In my previous post, I used the courts to stop him, since he is ignoring congress.

Well, on Friday, the day he declared the emergency, there have already been two lawsuits filed. The first one is by a group called 1) Public Citizens. This is a group that is representing ordinary citizens who are opposed to the wall for one of two reasons. They are bringing the lawsuit for at least three Texas landowners who do not want their property taken for a fence. The point is that this is NOT a true emergency. This is simply trumps desire to ignore the appropriation decisions rightly made by congress. This is over-reach, pure and simple.

The other lawsuit is by 2) Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government. They are suiting the Justice Department for not disclosing properly whatever legal justification they might have for this decision.

Both of the above are government watchdog groups who work to protect the interests of the American citizen. In that process, they are working to assure that we do not lose the entire country to corrupt politicians like trump and his cohorts. But these are only the first two. There are likely ore lawsuits coming in the near future.

In addition, California is anticipating bringing a suit, as is the ACLU and some other groups.

The Democrats are also moving ahead with a resolution to stop this declaration and, as is pointed out in video below, trump himself, today, made it clear that there really is NOT an emergency at the southern border. He claims, in the video, that he had done “a lot of wall” and didn’t need to do this, but he wanted to build the wall faster. He is also claiming that Generals are screaming for a wall. Yet, no general has actually come out and made such a statement.

So, he just said that it is just to “do it faster” and that he thinks he has already done much of what he needed to do. The one thing he admitted which was telling is that this whole thing is about 2020. So that sums up what the “emergency” even is to trump himself.

Congress has finally started showing some backbone and are doing their job. We can not, and should not let trump circumvent the rule of law. That way lies a dictatorship, and of all the possible dictators that we might end up with, trump is the worst possible candidate. He is unstable and far from being a genius but that may just be our salvation as a nation.

Lawsuits will at least give us a chance to slow this monsters roll. But RESISTANCE will continue even outside the lawsuits, trust me.
The Globalist Weekly: 16th February 2019
Tags: Globalist, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, North Korea, Corruption

A concise weekly digest of the top readings, content, ideas and discussions from our global bureaux and correspondents at ComplexGlobal. This week we explore the Nigerian election, crystal meth, Venezuelan protest, Saudi guardianship, humanitarian convoys & global corruption.

Crystal Meth Is North Korea’s Trendiest Lunar Gift

Like many across East Asia, North Koreans have been exchanging presents this month to celebrate the Lunar New Year. But rather than tea, sweets or clothing, some in this impoverished, isolated country are giving the gift of crystal meth. The gifting and use of methamphetamine, a powerful stimulant that has been blamed in health and addiction crises around the world.

Largest ever humanitarian convoy brings life-saving aid

The United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) are carrying out their largest ever humanitarian convoy to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to more than 40,000 displaced people at the remote Rukban ‘makeshift’ settlement in south-eastern Syria, on the border with Jordan. The operation is expected to last approximately one week.

Protesters flood Venezuela’s streets to call for change

Venezuelan opposition supporters returned to the streets on Tuesday, calling on embattled president Nicolas Maduro to let humanitarian aid into the economically crippled country.The demonstrations come nearly three weeks after a stand-off began between Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Transparency International releases Corruption Index

Transparency International, the leading civil society organisation fighting corruption worldwide releases its 24th annual Corruption Perceptions Index. The Index is the leading global indicator of public-sector corruption, offering an annual snapshot of the relative degree of corruption. The index for 2018 ranks 180 countries and territories drawing on 13 expert assessments and surveys of businesspeople.

ABC Four Corners: Escape from Saudi

Sophie McNeil’s investigation tells the stories of the Hundreds of women that have tried to escape Saudi Arabia in recent years, fleeing the strict male guardianship laws that control every aspect of their lives. Four Corners follows the stories of some of the women who attempt the desperate dash for freedom.

Nigeria election 2019: Appeal for calm after shock delay

Nigeria’s president and leading opposition candidate have appealed for calm after the shock move to delay elections for a week.President Muhammadu Buhari said he was “deeply disappointed” but urged people to refrain from “civil disorder”.Main rival Atiku Abubakar called for patience but accused the administration of “anti-democratic acts”.
The House with Michael Cohen’s help might just cook the big guys bacon
By: Left Wisdom
Tags: Investigation, Donald Trump, Corruption, Politics

Mueller is about to finish his investigation from all we have heard recently. Sadly, that investigation will have to go though one of trumps appointments to get released to either Congress or the public. Therefor our best bet on finding out what trump has been up too may end up being the direct House investigation.

Starting today, the man who used to brag about being trump’s fixer, and that he would never ever go against trump is testifying before congressional investigations into the trump problem. Now this is a man who declared he would always be loyal, that is until he realized that he really did love his family more than he did his client, who seemed to have sold him out.

As can be seen by reading the articles linked below, the House will have Cohen on Wednesday and possibly Thursday. The Senate committee listened to his testimony today, but with the republicans in the majority there, I am not sure I trust their examination as much as I will the House’s investigation. Sadly, a lot of them tend to cover for trump as history has shown.

Congress does not suffer some of the potential for kick back from trump that Mueller did. Because Congress can go into areas where the new AG might not allow the Independent Investigator’s report to make public.

Apparently, the House has every intention of going into the financial side of things, which is where I think trump will get hung up. We already know that trump has, in fact, gotten much of his money and support from Russians….which means basically members of the Russian mob, with particular attention to Deutsch Bank who are suspected of money laundering for the Russian mob. They also happen to be the bank that has loaned trump literally hundreds of millions of dollars. So there is where the investigation needs to go.

Michael Cohen is planning to testify, not just about the campaign, but about illegal things trump has done while in office. The article where that is announced has a second title line that Cohen has the proof in terms of documents.

There has always been an axiom about corruption in government that we should “follow the money” It looks like that may be exactly what the House is about to do. And the wonderful thing is that trump can scream about “red lines” all he wants. He doesn’t control the House any more.

We may or may not be getting to the bottom of this rabbit hole. But chances are better than I think they ever have been. Who would have thought that a shyster lawyer would be the one that brought trump down…but that may end up being the case. It just goes to show how demands for one-sided loyalty can end up.

And I love the fact that he has documentation…now THAT will be a lot more difficult to discredit that a person’s verbal testimony.
#OpenOilLicense : PIGB. An open oil license award process…
By: Jasper Jaja
Tags: Openoillicense, Nigeria, Oil And Gas, Government, Corruption

An open oil license award process reduces the influence of politicians and lobbyists in the award process. This is important because at the moment, the oil licensing process can be easily compromised by these groups of people. The Minister of Petroleum —usually the President) has been said to — more often than not, send in names of companies he wishes to be assigned oil blocks. These companies neither participate in the bidding rounds nor adhere to the basic regulations of payments of application and processing fees.

‘The Petroleum Industry Bill’

Nigeria began the action of finally redressing the laws guiding the petroleum sector with the introduction of the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) and the Petroleum Industry Administration Bill (PIAB).

The PIGB is an Act to “Provide for the Governance and Institutional Framework for the Petroleum Industry and for Other Related Matters”. The bill has advised that a Nigeria Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NPRC) be established to replace the current Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) amongst others. This bill however still awaits the consent of the President.

The PIAB is a bill to “Provide for the Establishment of a Legal and Regulatory Framework for the Petroleum Industry in Nigeria and for other Related Matters”. This bill contains the prescribed process for management of acreage licenses in Section 5 and Section 8.

Section 8: (2-4), Petroleum Licence - Bid and Award Process

2) Subject to the provisions of this Act, all Petroleum Licenses shall be awarded through an open, transparent and competitive bidding process conducted by the Commission pursuant to this Act.

3) The President may direct the Commission to award Petroleum Licenses, on a negotiated basis, to qualified investors for strategic and bilateral purposes only, based on a transparent methodology of evaluating the acreage for the purpose of payment of signature bonuses by such investors pursuant to the award.

4) The methodology of evaluating the petroleum acreage for the purpose of payment of signature bonuses under sub-section (3) above shall be drawn up by the Commission prior to the award of any Petroleum License on a negotiated basis.”

Although some industry stakeholders believe that the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) will improve the licensing process, they are also of the opinion that the process could still be manipulated even if the bill was passed and the power of discretionary award is eliminated. It is therefore recommended that adequate training of personnel at DPR is carried out in order to avoid avenues for bidders to cut corners.

In other words, the signing of these Bills into law, and subsequently the trained and transparent operative execution of their directives will contribute significantly to the necessary remodeling of the petroleum sector of our country.
Today’s Pill (32): Just observations, but some wealthy white collars are real MFs
By: Ciprian Ghetau
Tags: White Collar Crime, Dehumanization, White Collar, Injustice, Corruption

I was writing, a few days ago, about some decisions of our retrograde court that doesn’t want to change people’s lives in the direction of governing smarter and making this nation modern faster, still ruling the kind of thing you might see scrawled in feces in Daddy’s prison cell.

Another recent post was about the results of a recent study, concluding that many Romanians are searching, when in physical pain, their cure online. Dr Google, medication by word of mouth and auto medication work better than paying a visit to a specialist (after having to go first to a generalist and then waiting for additional days/weeks because of the busy agendas,) going to the state system’s emergency units (where there are some good chances that nobody will look for your condition for many hours because of congestion and lack of empathy) or paying exorbitant amounts to the private providers. The wealthy and dehumanized MDs, the demi-Gods, care only about their pocket money.

Reality is that the criminal justice system has given up all pretenses that the crimes of the wealthy white collars are worth taking seriously. Many of their lawyers are hiding their clients’ money sketchily or outright illegally. For people who earn most of their income from working (i.e. almost everyone), the fiscal authorities compare individuals’ reports to the records submitted by their employers and banks. For the wealthy ones, who make much of their income from various streams — some illegal or borderline, the same agency has nothing to compare their reports against. The only way to tell if a rich person is cheating on their taxes is to sit down and go through them line by line. VanDesande said. “If you investigate mom and pop grocery stores for 20 years, you lose the ability to do Bernie Madoffs.” Btw, there’s a great, inspirational article about the white collar crimes, in Huffpost, which you can read here.
Maybe if you want an undivided nation, stop supporting a crook in the White House
By: Left Wisdom
Tags: Politics, 2020 Presidential Race, Trump, Republicans, Corruption

Maybe if you want an undivided nation, stop supporting a crook in the White House Left Wisdom Dec 14, 2019·3 min read

We now know that the republicans are in lockstep with the criminal in the White House. The House Judiciary today approved two items for impeachment of trump. They consist in misusing his power. While it was bad enough that he invited Russian intervention in the 2016 election, which he did on national television, it is even worse that he did it again in office. Anyone operating from the Oval Office has power in the eyes of the world, and therefore the pressure is more.

Every single republican voted to give trump a free pass. I suspect the same thing will likely hold true in the Senate when the trial takes place. Why are the republicans ignoring the huge amounts of evidence? There are only a few possible reasons. The first one that comes to mind is that they have power and want to hold on to it.

By voting against impeachment, they are actually showing the lie of their supposed hatred of Obama. Obama did executive orders when congress refused to act, yet, trump violates the will of Congress when they DO act. Remember when congress voted for a budget without funding for the wall, which trump wants apparently as a tribute to his ego. They said “no” and trump said “I will steal the money from some other congressionally approved expenditure”. In other words, the republicans voted to diminish their own body under the misguided impression that power was achieved by having someone with a (r) after their name in the White House.

There is one other possibility. I couldn’t help noticing that of the 17 republicans, all but about 4 were male, white and fairly old. Meanwhile, the democrats were diverse. The democrats were male and female, and every ethnicity possible. In other words, the democrats represent what America really look like in 2019.

Could it be that the often angry looking White men were voting to give trump a pass because they agree with his racist agenda? I think so!!!

Perhaps it is combination of racism and general bigotry and the misguided impression that party affiliation is somehow more important than the division of powers. How Congress can think that loyalty to someone in the White House that is constantly undercutting the power of congress is somehow the thing to do, is beyond me. But then so is the fact that poor and working class people would vote for trump, or indeed any republican knowing how tied they are to huge power for corporations. But then the republicans and trump are both all about the power of corporations over people…as shown by their “trickle down” economic theory which is bogus and results in the rich getting more and more of the overall wealth.
The Only Way Out
Tags: Corruption, Republicans

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

- Juvenal

Loosely translated, it means, “Who watches the watchmen?”

For three years, the media has failed to keep up with the unprecedented avalanche of malfeasance and criminality that is the Trump Administration.

In our system of government, the Three Branches are supposed to police each other. But for the first two years, Congress was completely controlled by toadies, and even today the Senate Majority Leader sees his role only as that which corrupts the Judiciary. Farewell, Checks & Balances, it’s been good to know ye.

That left only the Free Press, which has been overwhelmed — well, those portions not owned by Nazi sympathizers. They struggle for “fairness” and don’t know how to respond when one “side” has no interest in reality. We no longer have two political parties. We’ve got one, and we’ve got the Russian Mob. If the Press is dedicated to Truth, they should call this out, but they don’t know how. The Press does not posses the tools needed to wage a war against agents of Cthulhu.

Democracy regained a toehold when Democrats took the House in 2018. Then enter William Barr, who has hit upon the argument that enforcement of all laws rests with the Executive, and if the Executive doesn’t feel like enforcing, then tough titties, sucker. The House can’t oversee when no one shows up.

Anyone who wants to enforce a law gets fired. Gone are all career federal prosecutors and all those Inspectors General who dared to generally inspect. The whole Executive Branch now consists of dirty cops.

This can be fixed, but not before next year.

With a Democratic House, Senate and President, we can pass laws that would set up an Inspector General Corp with real teeth and subpoena power. Or an IG Court similar to other special courts like FISA. We could have oversight that doesn’t require cooperation.

But we must survive the TrumpVirus first, and win everything in November.

And even then, an IG Corp can be corrupted. Republicans have proven that, given power, they can and will corrupt every item, every scrap, every doorknob and lever of governance.

Juvenal’s question — Who watches the watchmen? — has only one answer:

We the People. That’s our job.

We must get up off our collective asses and vote these feckless Republican thugs out of office. Or else we admit we’re an abused spouse and nothing more.