July 24, 2017


News and Views


THESE TRUMP FAMILY MEMBERS (AND RIGHTIST NON-FAMILY OFFICIALS, BUT ZERO ZIP LIBERALS, MODERATES OR PROGRESSIVES) MOSTLY HAVE THE OUTER IMAGE OF CIVILIZATION. TRUMP HIMSELF IS AN EXCEPTION, AND OF COURSE THE OVERT ROUGHNECKS – STEVE BANNON, ALEX JONES OF INFOWARS, RUSH LIMBAUGH, AND THE ALT-RIGHT POSTER CHILD RICHARD B SPENCER, WHO ARE ALL PROMINENT AMONG TRUMP’S MOST OBVIOUSLY RADICAL FOLLOWING – THESE PEOPLE ARE ALL WEALTHY (A REQUIREMENT FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THAT CLUB) AND MOSTLY CLASSIST. SO, WHEN I READ KUSHNER’S WORDS WHICH ARE EVIDENCE OF A GOOD EDUCATION, AND HE SAYS HOW HE DID NOT INITIATE THE IDEA OF COMPARING NOTES FOR ANY UNDERHANDED OR UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES, I ALMOST BELIEVE HIM.

HOWEVER, WHEN I THINK OF THE DECEMBER GATHERING AT THE MAYFLOWER HOTEL, IN WHICH RICHARD SPENCER AND OTHER NEO-NAZI PEOPLE SHOUTED OUT “HEIL TRUMP” AND GAVE THE NAZI SALUTE, I DO A QUICK TURNAROUND FROM A LIBERAL ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM AS A GROUP. IT’S NOT BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE REPUBLICANS, WHICH IS TRUE IN SOME CASES; BUT BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE NEO-NAZIS, RACISTS, AND OTHER POLITICALLY HARMFUL PEOPLE. THIS WHOLE SITUATION THAT OUR COUNTRY IS IN DISTURBS ME DEEPLY AND FILLS ME WITH GREAT EMOTION; SO, WHEN KUSHNER STANDS UP AND SAYS HOW INNOCENT HE IS, IT JUST DOESN’T STRIKE ME AS BEING PROOF OF THE TRUTH OF HIS STATEMENT. I’M SORRY, GUYS! THERE’S TOO MUCH CONTRARY EVIDENCE.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/07/24/kushner-to-detail-four-meetings-with-russian-officials-in-congressional-testimony/?utm_term=.757987304827
Post Politics
Kushner to detail four meetings with Russian officials in congressional testimony, but says ‘I did not collude’
By Philip Rucker July 24 at 6:01 AM

Photographs -- 1 of 29 Full Screen -- White House and Cabinet officials left strong impressions in the early days of the administration.


Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, plans to detail four meetings he had with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign and transition period — including one set up by Donald Trump Jr. with a Russian lawyer — but will deny any improper contacts or collusion in testimony to a congressional panel on Monday.

Kushner defends his interactions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other Russian officials as typical contacts in his role as the Trump campaign’s liaison to foreign governments, according to an 11-page prepared statement he plans to submit for the record, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.

Kushner is scheduled to testify in closed-door sessions, first before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday and then before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, as part of the congressional probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election and contacts between Russia and Trump campaign officials and associates.

Play Video 3:00 -- 3 things lawmakers want to know from Kushner, Manafort and Trump Jr.

With some of the closest members of President Trump's campaign slated to testify before Senate committees investigating its ties with Russia, here's what lawmakers want to ask Trump's son, son-in-law and former campaign manager. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian government orchestrated a far-reaching campaign to meddle with last year’s presidential campaign and influence the outcome in Trump’s favor.

In his testimony, which will be submitted to the congressional committees before he answers questions from lawmakers, Kushner says he has had only “limited contacts” with Russian representatives and denies any wrongdoing.

“I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,” Kushner writes. “I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.”

Kushner portrays himself as a goal-oriented task master new to presidential politics who assumed increasingly important responsibilities on a fast-paced campaign in which decisions were made “on the fly,” including serving as the main point of contact for foreign government officials.

Kushner writes that his first meeting with a Russian official was in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Trump delivered a major foreign policy speech, the execution of which Kushner says he oversaw. Kushner writes that he attended a reception to thank the event’s host, Dimitri Simes, publisher of the National Interest, a foreign policy magazine. Simes introduced Kushner to four ambassadors at the reception, including Kislyak, Kushner says.

“With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump’s speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America’s foreign policy,” Kushner writes. “The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.”

Kushner does not name the other three ambassadors he met at the reception.

Kushner denies having had any other contact with Kislyak during the campaign, disputing a report by Reuters that he had two phone calls with the ambassador.

“While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador,” Kushner writes. “We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place.”

In fact, Kushner goes on to note that on Nov. 9, the day after the election, when the campaign received a congratulatory note from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kushner tried to verify it was real and could not remember Kislyak’s name. “So I sent an email asking Mr. Simes, ‘What is the name of the Russian ambassador?’ ” Kushner writes.

Kushner also describes attending a June 2016 meeting organized by his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr., with a Russian attorney. He says it was listed on his calendar as “Meeting: Don Jr. | Jared Kushner.” He writes that he arrived at the meeting late, and when he got there the Russian lawyer was talking about a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children.

“I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting,” Kushner writes. “Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for 10 or so minutes and wrote, ‘Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get our of meeting.’ ”


Kushner writes that he received a “random email” on Oct. 30, 2016, from a screen name “Guccifer400,” which he interpreted as “a hoax” that was “an extortion attempt and threatened to reveal candidate Trump’s tax returns and demanded that we send him 52 bitcoins in exchange for not publishing that information.”

Kushner says he brought the email to the attention of a Secret Service agent he was traveling with, who advised him “to ignore it and not to reply — which is what I did.”

Kushner also details two interactions with Russian officials during the transition period, before Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20. The first, on Dec. 1, was a meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower in New York, which retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, who would become the president’s national security adviser, also attended.

“I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations,” Kushner writes. “Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President. The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day.”

Kushner writes that Kislyak addressed U.S. policy in Syria and wanted to “convey information from what he called his ‘generals,’ ” but that they could not come to the United States and “he asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation.”

Kushner continues that he or Flynn explained there were no such lines, and that Kushner asked Kislyak if the Russians had “an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn.” He writes that Kislyak said “that would not be possible” and they agreed to wait until after the inauguration to receive the information.

The Washington Post first reported in May on Kushner and Kislyak's discussions about establishing a secret communications channel, though Kushner suggests in his testimony that the channel would have been for the purpose of this one meeting as opposed to establishing a “secret back channel.”

[Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin]

“I did not suggest a ‘secret back channel,’ ” Kushner writes. “I did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period.”

The second transition-period meeting Kushner says he had with Russians was on Dec. 13, when Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, a banker with “a direct line to the Russian President,” at the urging of Kislyak. On Dec. 6, the Russian Embassy asked Kushner to meet with Kislyak on Dec. 7, and Kushner declined, he writes. They asked if he could meet on Dec. 6 and Kushner declined again, he writes. Kislyak then requested a meeting with Kushner’s assistant — “and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed,” Kushner writes.

Kislyak and Kushner’s assistant, whom Kushner does not name in his testimony, met on Dec. 12, where Kislyak requested that Kushner meet with Gorkov, “who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together.”

Kushner agreed to meet Gorkov, making room in his schedule for him the next day. Their meeting lasted 20 to 25 minutes, Kushner writes, and Gorkov presented two gifts — a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where Kushner’s grandparents were from in Belarus, and a bag of dirt from there. Kushner then gave the gifts to his assistant and asked him to formally register them with the transition office.

During the meeting, Kushner writes, Gorkov told him about his bank and discussed the Russian economy, expressing “disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future.” Kushner writes that “no specific policies were discussed,” including sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

[Explanations for Kushner’s meeting with head of Kremlin-linked bank don’t match up]

At the end of his testimony, Kushner offers an explanation for failing to disclose all of his foreign government contacts on his SF-86 application for security clearance. He writes that his form was “prematurely submitted due to a miscommunication and initially did not list any contacts (not just with Russians) with foreign government officials.”

Kushner describes a frenzied period disentangling from his real estate business and moving his family to Washington during which a “rough draft” of his form was submitted by his assistant because of a “miscommunication.” Kushner writes that the initial submission omitted “all foreign contacts,” and that a supplemental submission disclosed more than 100 contacts from more than 20 countries.



THIS ARTICLE TODAY IS A FOLLOWUP ON YESTERDAY’S HUMAN TRAFFICKING CASE IN TEXAS – THE DRIVER OF THE TRUCK FACES DEATH, EVEN THOUGH HE SAYS HE WAS UNAWARE OF THE CARGO, AND THAT HE WAS JUST “DELIVERING THE TRUCK”. IF I WERE SUPPOSED TO DELIVER A TRUCK, I WOULD CHECK THE TRAILER TO BE SURE IT WAS EMPTY AND LOOK IN IT AFTER EVERY PITSTOP. HAULING CONTRABAND THAT WAY HAS BEEN IN THE NEWS BEFORE. THIS STORY IS EXTREMELY INCOMPLETE IN ITS’ INFORMATION, LEAVING SOME DOUBT AS TO WHO WAS EVEN THE ACTUAL DRIVER; AND THE STORY ALSO INVOLVES A TRUCKING COMPANY WHOSE OFFICIALS ARE JUST AS “SURPRISED” AS THE DRIVER SAYS HE WAS, ABOUT THE PEOPLE EVEN BEING IN THE TRUCK. ONE MAY BE INNOCENT, BUT NOT BOTH, BECAUSE SOMEBODY KNEW TO MEET THAT TRUCK AND LOAD IT WITH HUMAN CARGO, SO THERE IS CONSPIRACY AND ORGANIZATION HERE.

I DON’T BELIEVE THAT, UNLESS THE UNNAMED “BUYER” IN TEXAS WAS ACTUALLY THE MIDDLEMAN OF A SMUGGLING RING, PROBABLY WITH A PLAUSIBLE-SOUNDING STOREFRONT “BUSINESS,” WHO MADE THE DEALS WITH THE TRUCKING COMPANY AND ALSO WITH SOME CRIME BOSS OR OTHER WHO WAS THE FINANCIAL BACKER OF THIS COMPLEX CRIME. HE VERY LIKELY ALSO ENLISTED THE SERVICES OF THE FLORIDA BASED DRIVER, PERHAPS THROUGH AN AD, AN INTERNET WEBSITE, OR EVEN BY WORD OF MOUTH. NOWADAYS THE INTERNET WOULD PROBABLY BE THE MEANS OF COMMUNICATION.

DHS IS CONDUCTING THE INVESTIGATION, SO HOPEFULLY THEY WILL REALLY DIG DEEPLY TO FIND THOSE CONNECTIONS AND MAKE A MASS ARREST. THESE CASES HAPPEN OVER AND OVER, AND ARE HIGHLY ORGANIZED. BOTH THE TRUCKING COMPANY AND THE DRIVER WERE PROBABLY CONTACTED BY A MUCH LARGER CRIME RING, HOWEVER, WITH EACH KNOWING ONLY HIS SMALL PART OF THE OPERATION. THE ONLY WAY THE TRUCKING COMPANY COULD ACTUALLY BE UNAWARE OF THE TYPE AND EXTENT OF THE OPERATION IS IF A CRIME RING WERE THE ACTIVE LINK.

IT WOULD LIKELY BE LOCATED IN TEXAS AND PRESENTING ITSELF AS A LEGITIMATE MIDDLE MAN FOR BUSINESS CONTACTS TO THE POSSIBLY NUMEROUS TRUCKING COMPANIES AND TRUCK DRIVERS; ALSO, IT PROBABLY FUNCTIONS AS THE EMPLOYER OF THE DRIVERS VIA SOME COMMUNICATION METHOD. THE PART OF THE STORY THAT MAKES ME BELIEVE A CRIMINAL GANG OF COYOTES IN TEXAS OR, EVEN MORE LIKELY, OUTSIDE THE US ENTIRELY, TO BE THE KEY TO THE PLOT, IS THAT ONE ODD STATEMENT THAT WHEN THE TRUCK’S PRESENCE IN THE SAN ANTONIO PARKING LOT BECAME KNOWN, AN UNSPECIFIED NUMBER OF CARS, ACCORDING TO THE WALMART WITNESS, SPONTANEOUSLY CAME TO THE SITE AND PICKED UP GROUPS OF THE TRAVELERS. THAT’S BOTH ODD AND CREEPY TO ME. IT WAS DONE IN AN ENTIRELY BUSINESSLIKE WAY, IT SEEMS TO ME.

ALSO ODD IS THE FACT THAT THE WALMART EMPLOYEE WHO SAID HE FIRST SAW THE TRUCK, DIDN’T IMMEDIATELY CALL THE POLICE -- AND ASK FOR MULTIPLE AMBULANCES -- WHICH MAY IMPLY SOME COMPLICITY EVEN ON HIS PART. THAT WOULDN’T BE SURPRISING EITHER, SINCE A RELIABLE CONTACT ON THE PROPERTY WOULD BE USEFUL. ON THE OTHER HAND, HE MAY HAVE BEEN AFRAID OF BEING ATTACKED IN VENGEANCE FOR THE INTERFERENCE IF HE HAD DONE THAT COURAGEOUS THING.

AS FOR HOW THE AUTOMOBILE DRIVERS KNEW TO COME TO THAT SPOT AND PICK THE TRAVELERS UP, IT IS HIGHLY POSSIBLE THAT ONE OR MORE OF THE RIDERS HAD CELLPHONES BY WHICH THEY COULD CALL A KNOWN TELEPHONE NUMBER FOR LOCAL DRIVERS TO FERRY THEM FARTHER OUT TO OTHER LOCATIONS, BUT I WONDER IF THE PICKUPS BY AUTOMOBILE WEREN’T ALSO PLANNED AND COORDINATED THROUGH THE “MASTERMIND.” EITHER WAY IT CALLS FOR A GREAT DEAL OF COVERT ORGANIZATION.

I THINK THIS IS GOING TO BE A HUGE INVESTIGATION, HOPEFULLY WITH CRIME BOSSES ARRESTED AS WELL AS THIS POOR DUMB DRIVER. I DON’T DISCOUNT HIS RESPONSIBILITY, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IT SEEMS FROM THE STORY HE TOLD, THAT HE DID HEAR THE OCCUPANTS BANGING ON THE WALLS OF THE TRUCK AND CRYING OUT FOR HELP, AND HE DIDN’T STOP IMMEDIATELY, APPARENTLY – HAD TO GET TO THE PICKUP POINT FIRST, MAYBE.

HIS STORY IS THAT HE STOPPED FOR A BATHROOM BREAK -- RATHER THAN TO SAVE THE SOME 100 TRAPPED AND SUFFOCATING HUMANS. ONE OF THE PASSENGERS DID SAY THAT THERE WAS A HOLE IN THE TRUCK AND PEOPLE INSIDE WERE TAKING TURNS BREATHING THROUGH IT. THAT’S HARD TO PICTURE UNLESS IT WAS A VERY LARGE HOLE. WE’LL PROBABLY LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DETAILS IN A FEW DAYS.

THERE ARE LOTS OF MISSING PIECES HERE. BUT ABOVE ALL, THE NIGHTMARISH HORROR OF THESE SIMILAR EPISODES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING THAT I HAVE SEEN IN THE NEWS FOR YEARS NOW, IS SHOCKING AND INFURIATING TO A NORMAL HUMAN WHO HAS EVEN A BIT OF DECENCY AND EMPATHY IN THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL MAKEUP. UNFORTUNATELY, THERE ARE A FRIGHTENING NUMBER OF US IN THIS COUNTRY WHO LACK THAT BASIC DECENCY. THERE ARE REASONS, BUT NOT GOOD REASONS. MANY OF US ARE FINANCIALLY DESPERATE; MANY ARE UNCARING; MANY JUST HAVE A BASIC YEN FOR DANGER SO THAT THEY WILL TAKE ON A “JOB” LIKE THIS; AND MANY ARE DEEPLY CORRUPT. TO THEM IT IS AN ACCEPTABLE WAY TO MAKE A LIVING.

THEY MAY VERY LIKELY BE WEALTHY AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE, BECAUSE THIS IS A LUCRATIVE BUSINESS. I HOPE THAT ISN’T THE CASE, THOUGH. THERE WAS A GREAT NEWS ARTICLE JUST IN THE LAST YEAR OR TWO ABOUT A TOWN IN CENTRAL AMERICA, GUATEMALA MAYBE, IN WHICH NOT ONE BUT MANY OF THESE “COYOTES,” LIVED, AND WHO HAD REGULAR UNDERGROUND “BUSINESSES” THERE, TAKING “FARES” FROM THE DESPERATE POVERTY-STRICKEN NATIVES TO DRIVE THEM OR THEIR CHILDREN UP TO THE MEXICAN BORDER. FROM THERE THEY HAD TO MAKE THEIR OWN WAY TO THE USA.

THAT WAS DURING THE TIME WHEN THE UNACCOMPANIED MINORS WERE ESSENTIALLY FLOODING UP TO THE RIO GRANDE AND CROSSING. THE TOWN THEY CAME FROM WAS NOT ONLY JOBLESS, BUT OVERRUN BY LOCAL CRIMINALS WHO TERRORIZED THE RESIDENTS. PAINFUL THOUGH THIS IS, THE CHILDREN DIDN’T START NORTH ON THEIR OWN, BUT WERE DELIVERED BY THEIR PARENTS ON A FEE-PAID BASIS, TO THE LOCAL COYOTES; FROM THERE, THEY WERE DRIVEN UP TO THE MEXICO BORDER AND DROPPED OFF. THE MEXICAN BORDER GUARDS WERE LOOKING THE OTHER WAY, PERHAPS, ALSO FOR A FEE.

THOSE PARENTS WERE SO DESPERATE THAT THEY WOULD ALLOW THEIR KIDS TO FACE THE DANGERS OF THE TRIP IN ORDER TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO GET OUT OF THE COUNTRY. PRESIDENT OBAMA ARRANGED MEETINGS WITH THE HEADS OF STATE OF THE THREE COUNTRIES FROM WHICH MOST OF THE CHILDREN ORIGINATED AND WITH MEXICO AS WELL, TO STOP THE MIGRATION, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT WAS. MEXICO WAS COMPLICIT IN THE PROBLEM, ALSO, BECAUSE WHEN THE CHILDREN CROSSED THEIR BORDER, THEY DIDN’T EXERT ENOUGH EFFORT TO STOP THEM AT THAT POINT, AND MORE OR LESS IGNORED THE WHOLE THING. I’M SURE MONEY EXCHANGED HANDS IN THAT MATTER, ALSO.

AFTER THE USA ORGANIZED AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, THE PROBLEM DID STOP, BUT NOT PERMANENTLY, BECAUSE THIS TRUCK THAT WAS DISCOVERED YESTERDAY IS PART OF THE SAME OVERALL PROBLEM. WHEN PEOPLE ARE ESSENTIALLY STARVING AND DESPERATE, THEY WILL TRY TO ESCAPE THEIR SITUATION EVEN WHEN THEIR CHANCES AREN’T VERY GOOD, SO IT’S AN ONGOING PROBLEM THAT REQUIRES AN ONGOING EFFORT TO HALT IT. THIS TERRIBLE CASE IN TEXAS IS JUST ONE OUT OF MANY. JUST ARRESTING PEOPLE AND FORCIBLY PUTTING THEM BACK ACROSS THE RIVER TO THE SOUTH ISN’T GOING TO STOP IT, I’M AFRAID, NOR IS A WALL WHICH THEY WILL MANAGE TO BREACH TIME AND AGAIN JUST LIKE THEY DO OUR CURRENT BORDER PROTECTIONS.

I WAS HALF SHOCKED AND HALF AMUSED AT NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT THE SEVERAL TUNNELS WHICH HAVE BEEN FOUND, CREATED MOSTLY BY SMUGGLERS. ONE SUCH TUNNEL WAS SPECTACULARLY COMFORTABLE FOR THE PEOPLE TO CROSS THROUGH, BECAUSE IT HAD A CEMENTED PATH FOR PEOPLE TO WALK ON, AND ELECTRIC LIGHTS STRUNG UP ALONG THE WAY. NO, THAT WASN’T “FAKE NEWS.” THE ARTICLE PUBLISHED PHOTOS OF THE INSIDE OF THE TUNNEL.

THERE MUST BE AN IMPRESSIVE CRIMINAL NETWORK BEHIND THIS KIND OF THING, RATHER THAN JUST A FEW DESPERATE “WETBACKS” AND THEIR “COYOTES.” IT’S TOO COMPLEX AND PERMANENT IN ITS’ NATURE FOR THAT NOT TO BE THE CASE. I HOPE THERE WILL BE A HUGE GOVERNMENT PUSH NOW TO DIG IN AND CAPTURE THE MOBSTERS WHO RUN SUCH THINGS, AND NOT JUST THESE IGNORANT AND POOR TRUCK DRIVERS. POOR FOLKS OR EVEN INDIVIDUAL COYOTES COULDN’T DO IT ALONE, I DON’T THINK.

LET’S HAVE MORE INTERNATIONAL POLICING COOPERATION ON KEY ISSUES ON THIS SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC. INTERPOL IN EUROPE CONDUCTS OPERATIONS AGAINST CRIMINALS; AND SOME SIMILARLY HELPFUL COOPERATION OVER ALL THE AMERICAS TO WORK ON THESE SHARED PROBLEMS IS OVERDUE. IN MY HISTORY OF LISTENING TO THE NEWS, MEXICO WASN’T MENTIONED MUCH EXCEPT AS A GREAT PLACE TO GO FOR A VACATION WITH THE WELL-KNOWN REMINDER, “DON’T DRINK THE WATER!” BY THE WAY, IT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS THAT TRUMP’S “AMERICA FIRST” VIEWPOINT MAY PROHIBIT THAT COOPERATION FROM HAPPENING ANY TIME SOON. WRITE YOUR LEGISLATORS AND GET ACTIVE AND VOCAL ON THE INTERNET. THE INTERNET IS A PERFECT TOOL. WE SHOULD USE IT FOR MORE THAN LOOKING AT DIRTY PICTURES AND RADICAL RIGHTIST POLITICAL SITES.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/latest-truck-deaths-suspect-charged-monday-140031901.html?soc_trk=gcm&soc_src=ecd5e8af-dc90-3332-9efb-d522bf6b8dfa&.tsrc=notification-brknews
The Latest: Driver could face death penalty if convicted
Associated Press July 24, 2017

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The Latest on the deaths of 10 people whose bodies were found in a roasting tractor-trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas (all times local):

11:40 a.m.

The man charged with driving a Texas tractor-trailer packed with immigrants in the U.S. illegally will remain in detention after an initial court appearance.

James Matthew Bradley Jr. was handcuffed and wearing blue jail scrubs as U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Chestney explained he could face the death penalty if convicted. Bradley is charged with transporting immigrants here illegally, resulting in the deaths of 10 people.

He didn't speak about what happened Sunday.

Chestney scheduled another hearing Thursday.

A federal complaint says Bradley told authorities he was driving the trailer to Brownsville, Texas, and was unaware that it was packed with people until he stopped at a Wal-Mart in San Antonio.

According to the complaint, one of the passengers says people in the trailer were taking turns breathing through a hole inside.

___

11:30 a.m.

A federal criminal complaint says the driver of a broiling tractor-trailer found packed with immigrants outside a Walmart in San Antonio told investigators that he was unaware that there were people inside until he parked and got out to urinate.

The complaint says James Matthew Bradley Jr. told investigators that the trailer had been sold and he was transporting it from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas. He allegedly said that he opened the door after hearing banging and shaking and was "surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground."

The complaint says he did not call 911, even though he realized that several people already were dead.

Bradley was charged Monday in the deaths of 10 of his passengers and could face the death penalty.

___

11:25 a.m.

The president of a trucking company says he sold the tractor-trailer that was discovered in a Texas Walmart parking lot with immigrants' bodies inside.

Brian Pyle told The Associated Press on Monday that Pyle Transportation Inc., of Schaller, Iowa, sold the truck to a man in Mexico in May. He says an independent contractor, James Bradley, was supposed to deliver the vehicle to a pick-up point in Brownsville, Texas, at the weekend. Pyle says he had no idea of any problems with the truck until media started to call Sunday following reports of the deaths in San Antonio.

James Matthew Bradley has been charged with human trafficking.

At least 10 people who were inside the truck have died and more than 15 have been hospitalized with extreme dehydration and heat stroke. Authorities say they expect the death toll to rise.

___

10:50 a.m.

A federal complaint says immigrants packed into a tractor-trailer discovered outside a Texas Wal-Mart were taking turns breathing through a hole in the trailer and pounding on the walls to get the driver's attention.

According to a complaint filed Monday, a passenger in the trailer told investigators that he and others who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally were guided into the trailer to be taken north to San Antonio.

The complaint says passengers appeared fine during the first hour of their journey, but people later began to struggle to breathe. They were trying to get the driver's attention, but to no avail.

Federal prosecutors on Monday charged James Matthew Bradley with illegally transporting the immigrants for commercial or financial gain, resulting in the deaths of 10 people inside.

___
10:30 a.m.

Federal authorities in Texas have charged the driver of a tractor-trailer with transporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally, an incident resulting in the death of 10 people.

A complaint filed Monday accuses James Matthew Bradley of driving a trailer packed with immigrants for "commercial advantage or private financial gain." The charge carries the possibility of the death penalty.

Bradley is expected to appear Monday morning in San Antonio.

Authorities fear the death toll could rise because many of those rescued from the sweltering truck in San Antonio have been hospitalized with extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

___

9:30 a.m.

Federal authorities say a 10th person has died after being discovered in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas.

Prosecutors said in a statement Monday that the person died at a hospital. Nearly 20 others were hospitalized in dire condition after they were found in the truck outside a San Antonio Walmart early Sunday.

___

9 a.m.

Federal prosecutors say a man arrested following the deaths of nine people in a hot tractor-trailer outside a Texas Walmart will be charged Monday.

Prosecutors say 60-year-old James Mathew Bradley Jr., of Clearwater, Florida, was taken into custody at the weekend after the bodies were discovered alongside nearly 20 more people in dire condition in the San Antonio parking lot. He will appear in federal court in San Antonio on Monday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office haven't said Bradley was the alleged driver of the truck and prosecutors haven't outlined the charges he will face.

Authorities fear the death toll from the grim weekend discovery could rise because many of those hospitalized were suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus calls the deaths a "human-trafficking crime."

___

12:07 a.m.

A 60-year-old man who was arrested after authorities say at least nine people died in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer found outside a Walmart in San Antonio is due in federal court.

Federal prosecutors say James Mathew Bradley Jr. of Clearwater, Florida, will be charged on Monday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Thomas Homan says the truck driver is in custody, but the local U.S. Attorney's Office wouldn't say whether Bradley was the alleged driver who was arrested.

Officials say nearly 20 other people rescued from the back of the rig early Sunday were hospitalized in dire condition, many with extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

Foreign officials from Mexico and Guatemala confirmed people from those countries were found in the abandoned tractor-trailer.



MANY OF YOU WON’T REMEMBER THIS CASE, BUT I WAS A CHILD WHEN THIS ROSENBERG TRIAL OCCURRED. SPY STORIES ARE ALWAYS FASCINATING; BUT THIS IS ESPECIALLY SO, BECAUSE THE ROSENBERGS WERE IN THE NEWS DAILY. LATER WHEN I WAS FORTY OR SO AND LIVING IN WASHINGTON, DC, MY OLDER LOVER THERE TOLD ME THAT HE GREW UP WARY OF TELLING PEOPLE THE FACT THAT HIS FAMILY HAD FRIENDSHIP TIES OF SOME SORT WITH THE ROSENBERGS. BOTH HIS PARENTS WERE PROFESSORS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA FOR WOMEN IN GREENSBORO, NC, WHICH WAS PROBABLY THE LINK. UNIVERSITY PEOPLE THEN AND NOW TEND TO BE MORE LIBERAL THAN THE AVERAGE AMERICAN AND MADE FRIENDSHIPS ACROSS THE LINES OF SOCIAL TABOOS.

ALSO, IN THE 1950’S, SOME PEOPLE OF THE INTELLECTUAL CLASS IN THE US WERE INDEED COMMUNISTS. THERE IS A GREAT MOVIE ABOUT THAT SUBSET OF WELL-TO DO WHITE SOCIETY CALLED “REDS.” AND ALSO, OF COURSE, SENATOR JOSEPH MCCARTHY EPITOMIZED THE FEAR AND HATRED OF COMMUNISTS AT THAT TIME, AND LED AN ONSLAUGHT ON LIBERAL SOCIETY IN MUCH THE SAME WAY DONALD TRUMP IS DOING NOW, CONFLATING LIBERAL THOUGHT WITH COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM, WHICH WERE BELIEVED IN SMALL TOWN AND RURAL NORTH CAROLINA TO BE ONE AND THE SAME THING – BOTH BEING DEEPLY SINFUL. IT WAS A FRIGHTENING TIME IN THE USA. SEE THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE ON THAT SUBJECT:

HTTPS://COURSES.LUMENLEARNING.COM/USHISTORY2AY/CHAPTER/THE-COLD-WAR-RED-SCARE-MCCARTHYISM-AND-LIBERAL-ANTI-COMMUNISM-2/

AS THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW WITH THE TWO ROSENBERG SONS IN THIS STORY REVEALS, THE ROSENBERGS WERE VERY, VERY UNPOPULAR THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN, AND WERE HEAVILY STIGMATIZED; TREASON IS A VERY SERIOUS CRIME, BUT THE CHILDREN WERE INNOCENT.

GO NOW TO THE FOLLOWING TRAGIC STORY OF THE ROSENBERG FAMILY. IT DISTURBS ME NO END THAT WE ARE SLIPPING RIGHT BACK DOWN TO THE SAME LEVEL AS A SOCIETY AGAIN, OUR OWN ULTRA-RIGHTIST SOCIAL UPHEAVAL. I HOPE WE PROGRESSIVES AND LIBERALS CAN PULL TOGETHER ENOUGH TO STOP THIS TREND AND SAVE AMERICA.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-brothers-rosenberg-cold-war-spying-2/
Sons of Cold War spies reinvestigate their parents' case
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's sons tell Anderson Cooper how it felt to be the children of the infamous spies, in a story that sheds new light on a central event of the Cold War

It was called "The Crime of the Century," one of the most famous espionage cases of the Cold War. In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sent to the electric chair for conspiring to provide the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. They left behind two little boys, Robert and Michael, just 6 and 10 years old at the time.

The brothers Rosenberg were the orphans of Communist spies at the height of the McCarthy era. Relatives were afraid to take them in. One town blocked them from attending its schools. What ever happened to those two little boys? It's a remarkable story, a piece of American history that hasn't been fully told.

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Michael, left, and Robert Meeropol CBS NEWS

Anderson Cooper: People would ask you?

Michael Meeropol: Oh yeah, "Are you related to those two spies?" "No." But I really hated myself.

"We were the children of Communist spies. Being the Rosenberg's children in 1950 was almost like being Osama bin Laden's kids here after 9/11."

Anderson Cooper: Hated yourself because you were—

Michael Meeropol: I was denying-- I was too scared to-- admit that my parents were my parents.

Robert Meeropol: We were the children of Communist spies. Being the Rosenberg's children in 1950 was almost like being Osama bin Laden's kids here after 9/11.

The Rosenberg boys: The Cold War's most famous orphans 60 MINUTES OVERTIME

The Rosenberg boys: The Cold War's most famous orphans

Today, they're known by their adopted names, Michael and Robert Meeropol, but in 1950, they were Michael and Robby Rosenberg, ages 7 and 3, living in New York City's Lower East Side, with their parents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The Rosenbergs were ardent Communists but Michael doesn't recall his parents ever using that word. Ethel was a stay-at-home mom who loved to sing. Julius – an engineer who ran a small machine shop. That's Michael on his shoulders.

Michael Meeropol: My father would take me to places like Prospect Park and, you know, get some peanuts and feed squirrels.

Anderson Cooper: What was he like?

Michael Meeropol: He was very energetic. He had a smile on his face a heck of a lot of times. And I remember traveling around with him. In fact, I rode on the subway with him so often that I kind of wondered, you know, when he was working.

Anderson Cooper: And your mom? What was she like?

Michael Meeropol: She was very affectionate. A lot of hugging and kissing. And I remember that she was often cooking. The thing I remember is just a normal life.

But then, in the summer of 1950, FBI agents began rounding up a network of alleged Communist spies. On July 17th, they knocked on the Rosenbergs' door.

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Ethel and Julius Rosenberg AP

Michael Meeropol: I'm listening to "The Lone Ranger." And the door opens. And there is all these people in the room, who, you know, I guess-- friends of daddy's. But then my mother yells, "I had-- I want a lawyer." And I knew something was weird. And then the radio's turned off. Well, I'm a brash 7-year-old and I turned it back on. Somebody turned it off again. After about three times, I gave up, 'cause, you know, the attention was on my father. And then he disappears. He's gone.

Julius was accused of running a spy ring that tried to help the Soviet Union make an atomic bomb. After he refused to talk to the FBI, Ethel was arrested too.

Michael Meeropol: All I remember is I'm on the phone with her. And she says, "I'm under arrest." And I say, "You can't come home?" She says, "No, I can't." And I don't remember anything else about the phone call, but the story is that I screamed and that it gave her nightmares for the rest of her life.

Anderson Cooper: That scream?

Michael Meeropol: Yeah. It tore her heart.

Their grandmother put them up for a few months, but Michael and Robby say she resented their presence. When other relatives refused to care for them, they were sent to a children's shelter in the Bronx.

Anderson Cooper: Why didn't other family members take you in?

Robert Meeropol: They were terrified. Like, for instance, my father's older sister wanted to take us in. But her husband owned a small grocery store. And he said, "If people find out I've taken in the children of the Rosenbergs-- they won't buy food from my store."

Anderson Cooper: So then you're sent, essentially, to an orphanage?

Michael Meeropol: Yeah.

Anderson Cooper: What was that like?

Michael Meeropol: I remember it as horrible. Like something out of Dickens. The staff was pretty free with the slaps and the abuse. I felt like I was in prison.

Anderson Cooper: You felt like you were in prison, as well, not just--

Michael Meeropol: Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Anderson Cooper: --your parents?

Michael Meeropol: One week after I was there, I remember crying to anybody I would talk-- I said, "I've been here a week. Don't you think they could let me go home now?"

The chief witness against their parents was their uncle, David Greenglass, who'd worked at the military's atomic bomb-making plant in Los Alamos, New Mexico. In March 1951, Greenglass testified he'd given sketches of the atomic bomb to Julius Rosenberg, and that Ethel had typed up his handwritten notes. David Greenglass's wife Ruth told the same story under oath. It took the jury only eight hours to reach a verdict.

[NEWSREEL: Headline: Death to A-Spies. Rosenbergs Get Top Penalty In Atom Trial: One of the greatest peacetime spy dramas in the nation's history reaches its climax.]

The judge sentenced the Rosenbergs to death, saying he considered their crime worse than murder, because he believed they'd put the atomic bomb in Soviet hands earlier than anyone had expected. While their lawyers appealed the decision, the Rosenbergs were taken to New York's Sing-Sing prison to await execution. Robby and Michael, now 4 and 8 years old, hadn't seen their parents for a year, but they were allowed to visit them at Sing-Sing.

Anderson Cooper: I heard that you asked to see the electric chair?

Michael Meeropol: Yep. The very first visit I said to a guard, "Let me see the electric chair."

Anderson Cooper: Why did you want to see the electric chair?

Michael Meeropol: I didn't want to see the electric chair. I wanted to prove to the people at the prison I wasn't afraid of it.

Robert Meeropol: I remember that the prison seemed like a big fortress that we were entering, this gray stone building, almost medieval like. But when we went into the visiting room, everything was kind of quiet and calm, which is what I needed. And I think that's because my parents made a conscious effort, to try to act that way. And so you could say that they fooled me. And I wanted to be fooled.

Michael Meeropol: I remember asking them both in Sing-Sing if they were innocent. I said, "Are you really innocent?" And they reacted, "But of course we are," you know? And that was enough for me for, you know decades.

But it wasn't enough for the Supreme Court, which denied the Rosenbergs' appeal. Never before in the U.S. had a husband and wife been sentenced to the electric chair, which would make their children orphans. The Rosenbergs' supporters held protests all over the world, arguing the couple was innocent and the sentence unjust. Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, and the pope appealed for clemency. Days before the scheduled execution, Michael and Robby joined demonstrators in Washington, D.C., and hand-delivered a plea for mercy to the White House. But President Eisenhower refused to intervene. On June 16th, 1953, -- nearly three years after their parents had been arrested -- the boys visited them at Sing-Sing for the last time.

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Michael Rosenberg, right, and his brother, Robert, on June 19, 1953 -- the day their parents were executed. AP

Michael Meeropol: And as I was leaving, I started to wail, "One more day to live. One more day to live."

Anderson Cooper: You actually said that--

Michael Meeropol: Oh yeah, absolutely. It was terrible, you know? But it was-- it was honest. I mean basically, I was pissed off, because they were kissing us goodbye like, "See you next time." And I thought, you know, "They-- they should take-- make th-- a more big deal about this. 'Cause this could be forever."

The attorney general said the couple could still save themselves by providing information to investigators. But Julius and Ethel Rosenberg remained united in silence. As the hours of execution approached, reporters converged on the prison, and protestors gathered near New York's Union Square. Robby and Michael, now 6 and 10 years old, stayed at the home of a family friend in New Jersey, playing baseball and hoping for a last minute reprieve, which never came.

Michael Meeropol: I played catch 'till it was too dark to see the ball. And when I came in, I asked the adults what happened. And they wouldn't tell me. They just said, "We listened to every radio station. They all said the same thing." And so I knew. I got hugged by the woman who we were staying with. And she said, "You'll stay with us." And I said, "Yeah, I guess I will." And-- they said, "Let's keep it from Robby." And so I kept it from him for a week.

Anderson Cooper: For a week?

Michael Meeropol: Yeah. Well, I couldn't, I just couldn't-- for what reason or another, I just couldn't go on with the charade.

Anderson Cooper: Do you remember exactly what you said?

Michael Meeropol: Yeah. 'Cause he was talking about, "When Mommy and Daddy come home." And I said, "Oh, come on, let's tell him….Rob, Robby…"-- he was always Robby --"Mommy and Daddy aren't coming home. They're dead."

Anderson Cooper: Do you remember what he said?

Michael Meeropol: He acted as if he didn't understand.

Robert Meeropol: I think I've had to work my entire life at reacting to bad news, 'cause my first tendency whenever bad news comes is to pretend like it's not that bad somehow. And, you know, if you can do that with your parents being executed, you can do that with almost anything.

The Rosenberg's supporters viewed them as martyrs persecuted for their Communist belief. But to the vast majority of Americans, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were atomic spies and traitors. Many believed they deserved to die.

Michael Meeropol: When my parents were killed, an-- a postcard came to the place I was staying. And it said, "Of course you feel for the loss of your parents, but when you think of all the boys they killed in Korea, you must realize that justice was done. Why don't you change your names and become Christians?"

Anderson Cooper: And you remember the words to this day?

Michael Meeropol: Well, those are the kind of words that you don't forget.

Anderson Cooper: In so many of the photos of you both at that time, your brother is-- his arm is around you or both arms are around you like he's protecting you.

Robert Meeropol: He was my anchor, you know, rather than sibling rivalry, it was more of, like, the two of us against the world.

Anderson Cooper: Who do you think this was harder on? You or Robby?

Michael Meeropol: I think it probably was much harder on Robby, because three years with my parents, what are his memories? He has very little to grab onto.

Robert Meeropol: I think it was harder on him. I think he had a tremendous sense of responsibility for me. And he understood more.

It had been quite a while since anything good had happened to the Rosbenberg boys. But in 1953, not long after their parents' funeral, they were introduced to Anne and Abel Meeropol, teachers who were supporters of the Rosenbergs. They took Michael and Robby into their home and eventually adopted them.

[Dictaphone recording: Introducing the Meeropol family….Robby Meeropol and yours truly! [singing] This land is your land, this land is my land…]

Anderson Cooper: The Meeropols became your parents?

Michael Meeropol: Absolutely. Totally.

Anderson Cooper: They changed your life?

Michael Meeropol: Yeah. They saved our lives.

Robert Meeropol: Within a few months of living with them, I was calling them Mommy and Daddy.

Anderson Cooper: Was it your choice to take their name?

Robert Meeropol: Well, I was too young to really have a choice. But it made us more anonymous. And that was a good thing.

As Michael and Robby Meeropol, they eventually went to college, got married, and started raising families of their own.

Robert Meeropol: I think it's no accident that both of us got married when we were young. That we both had two kids, just like we were two kids. As early as we could, we recreated the family that was torn apart.

Michael Meeropol became an economics professor. Robert, a lawyer and founder of a charity called the Rosenberg Fund for Children. They lived relatively normal lives. But for many years, most of the people they interacted with each day had no idea they were the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Robert Meeropol: Essentially, I was in the closet from when I was 6 until when I was 20 with everybody who didn't already know.

Anderson Cooper: You were worried about letting the world know who you were?

Robert Meeropol: Yeah, I was, because whenever-- when the world knew who I was, it was very bad. Terrible things happened.

More than 20 years after their parents' execution, the brothers decided to step back into the limelight and reinvestigate the Rosenberg case. What they discovered when we come back.

Before Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to provide atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, Ethel wrote a letter to their sons Michael and Robby saying, "always remember that we were innocent." So perhaps it's not surprising that when the boys grew up, they wanted to try to clear their parents' names. What is surprising is how much new information they and independent historians have been able to uncover over the years -- secret messages, intercepted cables, long-forgotten files from the archives of the FBI, the CIA, and the KGB. The new information has changed the way this chapter of American history is viewed and, last year, the brothers asked President Obama to exonerate their mother.

The little boys who disappeared from public view after their parents were executed in 1953, re-emerged as grown men in 1975 determined to uncover new information in their parents case. They sued the FBI and the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking full access to the government's files on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

[Robert Meeropol at press conference: The government files represent the largest body of primary evidence on my parents' case in existence. We are not afraid of what is in them. Why is the government afraid? What are they trying to cover up?]

Anderson Cooper: Did you think you might be able to prove your parents' innocence?

Michael Meeropol: Oh, absolutely. I was absolutely convinced that we would find virtual proof.

Anderson Cooper: You were sure they were innocent?

Robert Meeropol: As sure as one-and-one equal two.

They formed a committee to re-examine the Rosenberg case. Ron Radosh was among the first to sign up. At the time, he was an author and activist, highly sympathetic to the Rosenbergs' cause and eager to help.

Ron Radosh: By then I had a phD in history and I believed, my expertise as a historian enabled me to want to go through all these files that I expected would prove their innocence.

But once Ron Radosh started going through the FBI files, he realized he was wrong: Julius Rosenberg had been a Soviet spy -- and a zealous recruiter of others.

Ron Radosh: I was stunned. It became readily apparent, that this was not people who were arrested because they opposed the Korean War or whatever, because they wanted peace.

Anderson Cooper: Essentially--

Ron Radosh: So--

Anderson Cooper: --Julius Rosenberg's job was as a recruiter of others? He was--

Ron Radosh: Right, he--

Anderson Cooper: --developing a network--

Ron Radosh: --ran a network. He put it together and handled them all.

In 1983, Ron Radosh co-wrote a book outlining the new evidence that Julius Rosenberg was guilty.

Anderson Cooper: How did the Meeropols and others on the left respond?

Ron Radosh: Horrendously. I mean, I was ostracized, attacked.

Anderson Cooper: People stopped speaking to you?

Ron Radosh: Yeah. I had phone calls in the middle of the night, death threats, the usual thing. I mean-- and we lost-- actually lost good friends, very good friends. Who no longer stopped talking to us, and to this day.

Anderson Cooper: To this day?

Ron Radosh: Oh, absolutely.

It took Michael and Robby a long time to accept that their father was guilty. They finally acknowledged it in 2008, when their parents' co-defendant Morty Sobell admitted for the first time he had been part of Julius Rosenberg's spy ring.

Anderson Cooper: Was there any part of you that was disappointed in your father?

Michael Meeropol: No. No. Not at all.

Anderson Cooper: Not disappointed that he actually did commit espionage?

Michael Meeropol: I'll speak for myself. No, I-- I didn't.

Robert Meeropol: You know, for years we were saying our parents were innocent lambs brought to slaughter. And to come to the realization that, instead, they were knowing political actors who made decisions based upon their beliefs, I actually found that to be more palatable. I didn't want them to just be victims.

Anderson Cooper: But your father was breaking U.S. law--

Michael Meeropol: Absolutely.

Anderson Cooper: --to do this. So--

Michael Meeropol: Yeah, he was.

Robert Meeropol: And I think that if he'd been arrested and given a five or 10-year prison sentence, we would have nothing to complain about.

There's now plenty of evidence that Julius Rosenberg's spy network stole important technology for jet fighters, radar, and detonators. But the one thing he and his spies didn't do a very good job of stealing was atomic secrets – the heart of the prosecutors' case. Most historians agree that the Soviets got the most important atomic bomb-making information from Los Alamos scientists Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall, who belonged to a different Russian spy ring.

The Los Alamos informant Julius was accused of recruiting, Ethel's brother David Greenglass, was a machinist, not a scientist. When a copy of the sketch Greenglass said he drew for the Soviets was made public in 1966, nuclear scientists were not impressed.

From the archives: Rosenberg witness says he lied 60 MINUTES OVERTIME
From the archives: Rosenberg witness says he lied
Michael Meeropol: 1966, top scientists look at it, and they make it clear that this thing is a secret of nothing. It's got no dimensions in it. It's got errors in it.

Newspapers called Julius and Ethel Rosenberg "atomic spies" and the judge sentenced them to death for putting the atomic bomb in the hands of the Soviet Union. But there's ample evidence the U.S. government knew at the time that the information David Greenglass gave to the Soviets was of minor value.

Anderson Cooper: The prosecutors knew the information the Rosenbergs had access to was not the-- the crown jewels of the atomic world?

Ron Radosh: Yes. But they were pushing for a prosecution without using the hardest evidence they could-- they had. Couldn't be used.

That's because in the 1940s the U.S. government had been secretly intercepting Soviet messages, and it didn't want the Soviets to know it had broken their code. So instead, prosecutors pressured David Greenglass and his wife Ruth, to testify against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Michael and Robby argue that prosecutors framed their mother by inventing evidence that she typed up David Greenglass' notes on the atomic bomb.

[Greenglass: Where do I sit? Right there?]

[Voice [off camera]: Yes, sir.]

In 2001, half a century after he testified that his sister typed up his notes, David Greenglass told 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon it was a lie.

Bob Simon: So Ethel finally went to the electric chair on the basis of evidence that was false.

David Greenglass: False.

He said he did it to save himself and his wife, and he showed little remorse.

David Greenglass: We're still here. I didn't have to go away, nobody killed me and I survived.

Bob Simon: Your sister didn't.

David Greenglass: You know, I'd like to say something: I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister. How do you like that? My wife is more important to me than my sister.

Greenglass said he was pressed to give this false testimony by one of the prosecutors in the case, Roy Cohn, who would go on to become Senator Joseph McCarthy's right-hand man and was later disbarred for unethical conduct.

Bob Simon: Did Cohn encourage you to testify that you saw Ethel typing up the notes?

David Greenglass: Of course, he did.

As a reward for their testimony against the Rosenbergs, David Greenglass got a reduced sentence and his wife Ruth, who had served as a Soviet courrier, never spent a day in prison. Prosecutors believed the prospect of Ethel dying in the electric chair, would force Julius Rosenberg to confess and name other Soviet spies.

Michael Meeropol: In the case of my mother, she really is collateral damage, you know, this is -- this is the government trying…putting a gun to her head and saying to Julie "Talk or we'll kill her."

Anderson Cooper: You don't think she was involved at all?

Michael Meeropol: We don't believe that, and in fact we believe that the evidence has virtually proved that.

After David and Ruth Greenglass died, their testimony to a grand jury before the Rosenberg's trial was unsealed. There was no mention of Ethel Rosenberg typing up David Greenglass' notes and when those Soviet messages the U.S. had been secretly decoding were publicly released, they showed the Soviets had never given Ethel Rosenberg a code name. In 1997, when Julius Rosenberg's former Soviet handler Alexander Feklisov went public with tales of Julius' spy missions for the Soviet Union, Feklisov had this to say about Ethel Rosenberg:

Alexander Feklisov: Ethel never worked for us. She didn't do anything.

Based on this information, Robert and Michael Meeropol launched a campaign to clear their mother's name. In 2015, they got 13 members of the New York City Council to issue a proclamation declaring the government wrongfully executed Ethel Rosenberg.

Robert Meeropol: It is time for the federal government to step up and do the same.

Last year, they've launched an online petition drive, callling on President Obama to exonerate their mother before he leaves office. But historian Ron Radosh says, based on the documents he's seen, that would be a mistake.

Ron Radosh: She was an accessory to spying by helping, identifying people, urging people to be recruited, suggesting that her own brother be recruited, this is aiding those who are spying. It's aiding and abetting.

Anderson Cooper: You're saying even though she wasn't as involved as her husband, she still engaged in a conspiracy--

Ron Radosh: Yes. She considered herself a friend of the Soviet Union, was doing-- helping her husband in his valuable work.

Anderson Cooper: So the trial was not fair, but that doesn't mean the Rosenbergs were innocent--

Ron Radosh: Right. Right. You could say-- if you want to say those who say the Rosenbergs were framed, they framed guilty people.

Anderson Cooper: But you are acknowledging there was an injustice when it comes to Ethel in terms of the death penalty?

Ron Radosh: Yes. Yeah. Sh-- compared to the others, she was of minimal importance. She should not have been executed. The government did it as a mechanism of leverage, hoping that would push Julius to talk. It didn't work. And I think they were shocked that it didn't work. I th-- they all thought Julius would break and cooperate.

Anderson Cooper: When Judge Kaufman sentenced them to death, he said the Rosenbergs loved their cause more than their children. Do you think that's true?

Ron Radosh: Yes. Unfortunately, I would agree with that. Yes. Otherwise, how could they have done what they did?

Anderson Cooper: You've said that your mother was a hostage who was killed when your father wouldn't talk. Isn't it true though that she could have told investigators everything she knew and lived?

Robert Meeropol: Both our parents could've saved themselves.

Michael Meeropol: No question--

Robert Meeropol: The F.B.I. agents who've written memoires in which they said, "We didn't want them to die. We wanted them to talk."

Anderson Cooper: After your father had been executed, could she have then--

Michael Meeropol: Absolutely.

Anderson Cooper: --last minute--

Michael Meeropol: Exac--

Anderson Cooper: --said, "You know what? I'll tell you everything I know"?

Michael Meeropol: Absolutely. In fact, we know that the rabbi came to her cell after witnessing our father's execution and said, "Julius is gone and, you know, you have two children. And if there's anything you can say, a name, even a false name, just anything, you know, to save yourself." And allegedly, she said to the rabbi, "I have no names. I'm innocent and I'm ready."

Robert Meeropol: Ultimately, they couldn't betray each other. They couldn't and they would not betray each other. And that would've been the ultimate betrayal.

"...the fact that the government facilitated the invention of evidence in order to convict someone of a capital crime, that is something that should concern everybody."

Anderson Cooper: Do you feel she betrayed you?

Robert Meeropol: N-- not at all.

Anderson Cooper: The judge said, "Your parents loved their cause more than their own children," which is certainly a very cruel thing to say--

Robert Meeropol: And it's not true.

Anderson Cooper: You don't believe by--

Robert Meeropol: I don't--

Anderson Cooper: --by choosing to die rather than cooperate, they didn't prove the judge right?

Robert Meeropol: No, I don't think they did. If you were interviewing us in a psychiatric ward-- then you might say, "Yeah-- they-- they damaged us by what they did."

Anderson Cooper: To you exoneration would mean what? Is it political or is it personal?

Michael Meeropol: Both.

Robert Meeropol: Oh, it's both. Our mother was killed for something she did not do. She was taken away from us. That's as personal as it can get. But, the fact that the government facilitated the invention of evidence in order to convict someone of a capital crime, that is something that should concern everybody.

Since our story first aired, more than 50,000 people signed an online petition calling for Ethel Rosenberg to be exonerated. In December, the brothers went to the gates of the White House to plead their case, just as they had done as boys. But President Obama never responded to their request, and the brothers told us they don't plan on asking President Trump.

Produced by Andy Court. Evie Salomon, associate producer.

Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," has contributed to 60 Minutes since 2006. His exceptional reporting on big news events has earned Cooper a reputation as one of television's pre-eminent newsmen.



THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A TYPICAL ACT OF SELF-INTERESTED PEOPLE WHO KNOWINGLY USED A PSYCHOLOGICAL HUMAN BIAS TO IMPROVE THEIR BUSINESS’S POSITION, BUT AS WE SO OFTEN DO, THEY THOUGHT PEOPLE WOULD JUST LET IT PASS AND DO NOTHING ABOUT IT. THE BACKLASH ON THEM HAS CHASTENED THEM, I NOTICE. BLACK PEOPLE AND FAIR-MINDED WHITES AS WELL IN THIS SOCIETY TODAY ARE NOW VOCAL AND PROUD, AND LET’S NOT FORGET THE MEGAPHONE OF FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. THESE THINGS WILL NOT BE DONE WITH ABSOLUTELY NO REPERCUSSIONS ANYMORE. THIS EVENT IS A SIGN OF PROGRESS IN THE USA, I BELIEVE, AND IT WILL INCREASE THE INNATE RESPECT THAT THOUGHTLESS WHITES HAVE FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR. WE RESPECT THOSE WHO FIGHT FOR THEIR OWN PLACE IN SOCIETY, AND OUR MINORITIES ARE BEGINNING TO DO THAT. WE ARE IN A LEARNING PHASE. EVEN WITH BERNIE SANDERS, WE AREN’T IN THE BEST AMERICAN SOCIETY POSSIBLE YET, BUT WE’RE TRYING TO GET THERE.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/quicken-loans-dan-gilbert-detroit-display-sign/
By ALAIN SHERTER MONEYWATCH July 24, 2017, 2:33 PM
Quicken Loans founder: We "screwed up" on Detroit display sign

MOVIE TO SEE: “DETROIT,”

Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert is apologizing after a real estate firm he owns erected a racially insensitive sign in downtown Detroit, causing an uproar over social media.

The advertisement, which was installed on the first floor of a building managed by property developer Bedrock, said "See Detroit Like We Do" while using an image that showed a predominantly white crowd. Detroit's population is 83 percent black and 11 percent white, 2010 U.S. Census data show.

In a Facebook post, Gilbert admitted the company "screwed up badly" in making the sign, which has been removed.

"Although not intended to create the kind of feelings it did, the slogan/statement we used on these graphics was tone deaf, in poor taste and does not reflect a single value or philosophy that we stand for at Bedrock Development or in our entire Family of companies," he wrote.

View image on Twitter
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Khaled Beydoun ✔ @KhaledBeydoun
Detroit is 85% Black.

This poster is 0% Black.
5:03 PM - 23 Jul 2017
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Kevin Lockett @kevinlockett
Most likely Dan Gilbert took the sword for his Bedrock staff's lack self awareness ut this is why you need racial diversity in the boardroom
11:42 AM - 24 Jul 2017
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The sign was posted on the Vinton Building, a residential high-rise Bedrock is developing, during the weekend of the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Detroit riots. The sign was taken down on Saturday.

Bedrock, a commercial real estate firm, owns more than 90 buildings in Detroit, which is also home to Quicken.

Gilbert, a billionaire who also owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, drew fire for the ad, including on social media.

"Detroit is home to the largest African-American population in the country, and the city is home to concentrated neighborhoods of indigenous African American communities that are not only being pushed out of the city, but seemingly intentionally left out of the new vision for Detroit," Khaled Beyoun, associate professor of law at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, said by email. "The Bedrock ad vividly and brutally illustrates what has been taking place on the ground in the city for years, particularly in downtown, Cass Corridor and other sections of the city that have been rapidly remade without tending to the needs, interests and humanity of black families."

In 2013, Detroit became the largest U.S. city ever to declare bankruptcy after years of losing factory jobs and what some critics say was fiscal mismanagement. Since then, city officials have been accused of fostering rapid gentrification at the expense of lower-income residents.

Gilbert said the image displayed on the building was only one element in a larger ad installation. "The graphic that was completed Friday was unfortunately, not diverse or inclusive when looked at by itself," he wrote, noting that the remaining graphics were to be installed this week.

Despite those plans, the ad campaign has been suspended.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report



THE FOLLOWING TWO ARTICLES ARE ABOUT ONE OF THE MOST FASCINATING PARTS OF CALIFORNIA. IT CONTAINS A NATURAL MUSEUM – THE LA BREA TAR PITS, IN WHICH WELL PRESERVED SKELETONS OF MANY KINDS OF ANIMAL ARE CONTAINED. I’VE ALWAYS BEEN INTERESTED IN THE PLACE, AND WOULD LOVE TO GO THERE, BUT IF MY LOTTO TICKET ISN’T A WINNER, THAT WON’T HAPPEN. AT LEAST I HAVE MY INTERNET SO THAT I CAN VISIT THEM IN MY MIND.

FOR A HIGHLY ENTERTAINING AS WELL AS INFORMATIVE ARTICLE ON THE TAR PITS, GO TO THIS WIKIPEDIA SITE AND READ THE WHOLE THING. IT’S TOO LONG FOR ME TO PUT IN HERE. THIS EARTH FORMATION IS NOT DATED, BUT A SET OF MAMMOTH BONES IN THE PITS ARE CARBON DATED TO MORE OR LESS 10,000 BP. THERE IS AN ADULT FEMALE PARTIAL SKELETON WITH A DOMESTIC DOG IN THERE ALSO! THEN SEE THE FOLLOWING CBS NEWS ARTICLE ABOUT WHAT A WORK CREW FOUND NEAR THE LA BREA SITE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brea_Tar_Pits
La Brea Tar Pits
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The La Brea Tar Pits are a group of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed in urban Los Angeles. Natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, pitch or tar—brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or water. Over many centuries, the bones of animals that were trapped in the tar were preserved. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. The La Brea Tar Pits are a registered National Natural Landmark.

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History[edit]

The Native American Chumash and Tongva people living in the area built boats unlike any others in North America prior to contact by settlers. Pulling fallen Northern California redwood trunks and pieces of driftwood from the Santa Barbara Channel, their ancestors learned to seal the cracks between the boards of the large wooden plank canoes by using the natural resource of tar. This innovative form of transportation allowed access up and down the coastline and to the Channel Islands. . . . .

Scientific resource

Contemporary excavations of the bones started in 1913–1915. In the 1940s and 1950s, public excitement was generated by the preparation of previously recovered large mammal bones.[7] Subsequent study demonstrated the fossil vertebrate material was well preserved, with little evidence of bacterial degradation of bone protein.[8]

Source of methane discovered[edit]

Methane gas escapes from the tar pits, causing bubbles that make the asphalt appear to boil. Asphalt and methane appear under surrounding buildings and require special operations for removal to prevent the weakening of building foundations.

In 2007, researchers from UC Riverside discovered that the bubbles were caused by hardy forms of bacteria embedded in the natural asphalt. After consuming petroleum, the bacteria release methane. "Of the bacteria sampled, about 200 to 300 were previously unknown species."[9]
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Flora and fauna[edit]

Tar and wild flower run within La Brea campus
Among the prehistoric species associated with the La Brea Tar Pits are Pleistocene mammoths, dire wolves, short-faced bears, ground sloths, and the state fossil of California, the saber-toothed cat (Smilodon fatalis).

Only one human has been found, a partial skeleton of the La Brea Woman[18] dated to approximately 10,000 calendar years (~9,000 radiocarbon years) BP,[19] who was 17 to 25 years old at death[20] and found associated with remains of a domestic dog, and so was interpreted to have been ceremonially interred.[21] John C. Merriam of the University of California led much of the early work in identifying species in the early 20th century.

The park is known for producing myriad mammal fossils dating from the last glacial period. While mammal fossils generate significant interest, other fossils, including fossilized insects and plants, and even pollen grains, are also valued. These fossils help define a picture of what is thought to have been a cooler, moister climate in the Los Angeles basin during the glacial age. Among these fossils are microfossils, which are retrieved from a matrix of asphalt and sandy clay by washing with a solvent to remove the petroleum, then picking through the remains under a high-powered lens.

Tar pits around the world are unusual in accumulating more predators than prey. The reason for this is unknown, but one theory is that a large prey animal would die or become stuck in a tar pit, attracting predators across long distances. This predator trap would catch predators along with their prey. Another theory is that dire wolves and their prey may have been trapped during a hunt. Since modern wolves hunt in packs, each prey animal could take several wolves with it. The same may also hold true of the saber-toothed cat (Smilodon fatalis) known from the area.

Other tar pits

Rancho La Brea is the most famous, but two other asphalt pits in southern California contain fossils: the Carpinteria Tar Pits in Santa Barbara County, and the McKittrick Tar Pits in Kern County. Other natural asphalt deposits in the world are Pitch Lake on Trinidad and Lake Bermudez in Venezuela.



CONSTRUCTION WORK ISN’T ALWAYS THIS MUCH FUN!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/prehistoric-fossils-subway-construction-project-los-angeles/
CBS NEWS July 24, 2017, 9:11 AM
Subway construction project unearths prehistoric fossils in Los Angeles

A subway construction project in Los Angeles is unearthing the prehistoric side of Southern California.

Workers excavating the tunnels discovered fossils of ancient mammals that roamed the area about 11,000 years ago. The historic trove includes bones from extinct beasts, like mammoths and mastodons.

CBS News correspondent Carter Evans went underneath Los Angeles to see how building the city's future is shedding new light on the past.

Underneath one of the busiest parts of the city, one of the largest subway projects in the country is underway. It was here that workers digging the new line literally made a mammoth discovery.

Paleontologist Dr. Ashley Leger oversees a team who works alongside construction crews that are searching for fossils. Their discoveries began with bones of Colombian mammoths who roamed the area in herds during the Ice Age.

A three-foot section of tusk that's at least 11,000 years old, and a nearly complete skull were found at the site.

"It's a dream come true for a paleontologist," Leger said. "This is the bucket list you always want to find at some point in your career. And then it's one of the first things we found here."

"This is probably the best gig in the town for a paleontologist," said Dave Sotero, who works for Los Angeles' Metro, which hired the experts who dig up the past. "It's not every day you have a subway project going through a rich fossil area. So it's tremendously exciting for everybody on the project."

Over the next few weeks, the tunnel will close in on an ancient area known as the La Brea Tar Pits, which is located about a mile away. Leger expects the fossil finds will increase dramatically in that area.

Just a couple inches of tar became a sticky death trap for the massive mammals that roamed the area tens of thousand of years ago.

"I think of what's under all of that," Leger said. "Under everyone's feet is this rich history that everybody misses. So we get to open up people's eyes, open up people's imagination and bring the past to life."

Prehistoric black ooze still seeps from the ground around the museum, which contains the world's largest collection of Ice Age fossils.

"Here at the museum, all of these things come to life," Leger said. "They stand up in front of you. They kind of speak to, you know, that curiosity that we're all born with."

Almost every bone ever found near the Tar Pits is kept at the museum. They're cataloged for further research, which helps Leger identify one of her newest finds.

Back in the tunnel, more clues about the ancient past keep turning up -- a leg bone from an extinct camel and a tooth from a mastodon.

"We've got mammoths and mastodons on one end," Leger said. "We're finding horses over here. It's been really fun."

Leger says the best is yet to come. In the next few weeks, she hopes to add more predators like the saber-toothed cat to her finds.