US steel mills | Ukranian money laundering
Just passing this on, excellent story from the Pittsburg Post Gazette about a money laundering scheme by Ukranian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky in which he embezzles money, purchases steel mills and other real estate in the US, gets help from various US govt officials (including Joe Manchin) to evade safety regulations, ultimately leaves a mess for tax payers in US and Ukraine. https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/dirty-dollars-2/
Milwaukee ADA
After watching your segment on the horrible events in Wisconsin, I found myself so horrified that the individual responsible demonstrated a pattern of violent behavior prior to this incident and was able to post bail. I thought of the parades and town events I take my children to, and how I’ll never feel safe without barricades of all types at every entry point from now on. I reached out to my college roommate (who is a journalist for the local Milwaukee NBC affiliate) and I said “I hope you guys are really hammering the DA” - what he told me I found sadly not surprising, but it speaks to the even larger issue that is likely happening nationwide and putting us all at a higher risk each day. Milwaukee county jail has 175 homicide suspects in the jail awaiting trial, with only enough space for 800 total. Think about what that means - if out of 800 available beds, 175 of them are taken up by potential murderers - imagine the type of heinous crimes that must qualify for the remaining 625. Therefore, the DA office and judges are almost forced to let violent offenders walk with low bail numbers because they can’t possibly accommodate them in the county lockup. Finally, the ADA here graduated law school 2 years ago - was this horrible? Yes - but it shouldn’t end her career. This is still a person who chose to take a ADA job making a fraction of what her fellow grads did. If you can find a young professional to be motivated by justice instead of money you build them up, because those people are rare. I just think that this is a real opportunity for attention to be given to the direct, real world impact on a system that was very broken before Covid, made worse during Covid, and now is directly responsible for how someone like Daniel E Brooks was able to be behind that wheel instead of behind bars. Thank you for your time.
Steps in dismantling two party politics
Hello fabulous smart hosts, Please outline the steps necessary to dismantle the current two party system. It favors big money and corruption. The elected officials serve special interest and not their constituents. Both Republicans and Democrats are for big corporations, unnecessary wars, and loyalty to their parties at the expense of progress. Let’s figure out how to get this done!