🧵
Asst Chief Filice (@rfSalinasPD),

I'd like to report crimes in your jurisdiction:

1. Louie Alejo (@SupervisorAlejo) took bribes from Mike Hackett of Casa Sorrento fame. (cocaine dealer and @maryrduan's soft spot) - it's on recording.

2. Dave Drew was involved in a fraud

The man on the left is David Armanasco. He has been doing free public relations for @MCoSheriff Steve Bernal. 🤔

He is best buds with Leon Panetta.

The @mcweekly met with Armanasco as Steve Bernal was poised to enter office (from deputy to sheriff) and agreed to go easy.

* 2003

#DefundThePolice

A @MCoSheriff Sgt. Mike Richards asks newly elected Sheriff Mike Kanalakis for permission to fraternize with a convicted drug trafficker. #Sheriff Kanalakis gave it to him.

* 2010

A group of #corrupt local officials attached letters to the court during a "Certificate of Rehabilitation" effort which is the first step in a #Pardon process.

It was scandalous and partly caused Mike Kanalakis' loss to Scott Miller in 2010.

Fmr. @SalinasPD cop Joe

* 2010

Gunter was on board. So was two term sheriff Mike Kanalakis and soon to be fired Commander Mike Richards of the @MCoSheriff Department.

As was Supervisor John Phillips (a former DA and Judge) along with another @SalinasPD copper Gary "the grey fox" Edwards.

#Salinas

* 2010

and Mayor Dennis Donohue (who abruptly retired in 2012) - the fix was in.

But this #Pardon was not at all straight forward.

Dave Drew was a multiple time convicted felon with a huge rap sheet for narco and gun trafficking. He would need not only a willing Governor but

the Chief Justice of the #California State Supreme Court. This took planning, coordination and timing. It also took a handful of public relations consultants and @RepJimmyPanetta's dad's hand on all of this. This was big stuff.

In 2018 all that work paid off and a corrupt gov.

... it's not that hard to figure out who the corrupt fucks are in my community.

Mike Hackett is a convicted cocaine trafficker and major marijuana kingpin in Monterey County.

Monterey County supervisors claimed no felons would be working in "legal" #cannabis.

2/

Mike Hackett's @RiverviewFarms_ is being sued (again) for various torts.

In a nutshell people who do biz with Hackett later and often soon end up accusing Hackett of being a scumbag.

The lawyer representing Hackett is lying Larry Biegel a local criminal defense attorney.

3/

Jennifer Rosenthal is representing Riverview Farms.

Who is Jennifer Rosenthal?

She is a @RepJimmyPanetta campaign cash bundler.

Rosenthal is also a marijuana lawyer (of course) and represents a guy named Sal Palma Jr.

Junior's grandfather was also named Sal Palma.

4/

Sal Palma is a well known name in the @CityofMonterey. Palma co-owned the hotel where the Monterey Marriott now sits. Named the restaurant on top Ferrante's. Sal Palma also developed millionaire housing at Markham Ranch in Corral de Tierra where billionaire Bruce Taylor lives

5/

Sal Palma was a new immigrant to our community and a non-citizen. In the 1940's in his early 20's Sal Palma because a United States Citizen.

In his later 20's he was accused of sexual assault and arrested by @MontereyPolice.

Sal Palma was convicted. But, he was a new

I love the smell of a leaked legal service opinion in the morning

The conclusion: the EU Council legal service says that it's OK for the Brexit deal to be concluded with the UK by the EU only, not needing Member States' participation

The reasoning: the legal service distinguishes between competences reserved to Member States, and competences shared with the EU. For the latter, the EU has the choice of concluding an EU-only treaty.

The legal service summarises the prior case law backing up its interpretation.

It refers to the Weddell case, concerning competence to conclude a treaty on the Antarctic environment, where Member States *could* be involved. But that was based on the particular legal features of the Antarctic treaty; and the UK is not Antarctica.

🤮”Former FBI director William Sessions once condemned Russia's mafia. ‘We can beat organized crime,’ he told a Moscow conference in 1997.

“Today,Sessions is a lawyer for Semyon Mogilevich..one of Russia's most powerful organized-crime figures.” @wsj 2007

“Sessions is trying to negotiate a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice for his client, who is charged with racketeering and is a key figure in a separate Justice Department probe of energy deals between Russia and Ukraine.”-@wsj 2007

“A number of notable Washington insiders are earning big fees these days by representing controversial clients from the former Soviet Union.”-@wsj 2007 archives

“From prominent businessmen—some facing criminal allegations—to top politicians, well-known ex-Soviets are lining up to hire help with criminal cases, lobbying and consulting.”-@WSJ 2007 archives

“These figures, many of whom made fortunes in the wide-open 1990s amid the Soviet Union's disintegration,hire Washington insiders to help rehabilitate their reputations in the West or to persuade investors and regulators they are committed to good corporate governance.”-@WSJ 2007

Thread of terrorist leaders if they were drugs

Osama bin Laden - weed

old school, a true classic, kinda boring, your parents probably talk about it a lot

Ayman Al-Zawahiri - Rohypnol

old, creepy, puts you to sleep in ten minutes flat, once he comes out nobody is having a good time and the police needs to get involved

Abubakar Shekau - Crack

very high energy, much bigger than anyone ever thought it'd be, for when the original is too elitist for you, speaking in tongues is just part of the deal

Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi - Alcohol

everyone knows about it, easy to pretend it's not a problem until it's A REAL BIG PROBLEM, not great for the waist line, when it ends it's messy and children probably get hurt

I'm all for discussing Navaly's personal politics, and disagree with him on much, but saying the free world shouldn't stand up for someone jailed and nearly murdered because he's not Bernie Gandhi Mandela is bullshit. He's risking his life fighting a mafia dictatorship.

Plus, Navaly's politics as we know them (he's never held office), not coincidentally, largely reflect mainstream Russia, which is far from liberal by Western standards. This is probably a more useful topic anyway, tbh, esp re Crimea.

He's ambitious, as was/is Khodorkovsky. He has positions (again, no formal platform) that would make him acceptable to Russians should he ever get an actual chance at power. That makes him less acceptable to Western liberals, but they're always hoping for a Yavlinsky, a Nemtsov.

Navalny and his org fight Putin and corruption. They advocate for free and fair elections, for a democratic Russia that is part of the civilized world. As for his being xenophobic and pro-annexation of Crimea, congratulations, you discovered that he's Russian.

(I've got quite a few far more liberal Russian friends who have a hard time saying Russia should ever give Crimea back. It's a real weak spot, one that Putin was very aware of and exploits effectively with propaganda.)

Hey all you ‘nothing is habbening’ guys 👋.

Check this out

This was last night in Sterling Virginia