Tag Archives: Miami

This Is A Really Good Question

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Yesterday National Review posted an article with the following headline, “Why Are the Airlines Still Flying Out of New York?” That is a really good question.

The article reports:

I am baffled by the continuation of air travel between New York City and the rest of the country. At the moment, the greater New York area is at the center of the coronavirus crisis in the United States, and yet Kayak confirms that, even today, anyone from the city and its environs can get on a plane and travel almost anywhere within the United States. Why?

As I write, direct flights from Newark to Miami are going for $19 on Frontier and $29 on American Airlines. Given the seriousness of the pandemic — and the number of businesses that have been shuttered as a precaution — this seems downright bizarre. Why, one might reasonably ask, are airplanes not subject to the same social distancing rules as other commercial services? The crab shack on the beach near me is closed because the authorities in my county are worried that its customers may stand too closely together while waiting for their tacos. Is this not an equal risk in Basic Economy on United Airlines?

The federal government enjoys only limited powers — and it should enjoy only limited powers. But even my cramped reading of the Commerce Clause allows the authorities in Washington, D.C. to regulate commercial interstate air travel. President Trump threatened a federal quarantine the other day, and then, on the advice of his team, rescinded the threat. Given the legal questions at hand — and the fact that the national government simply does not have the resources to enforce such a rule — this was likely for the best; thinly tested though the relevant precedents may be, it is not at all obvious that the National Guard is allowed to prevent cars from crossing the state line between New York and Pennsylvania. But do you know what the federal government is allowed to do — and, indeed, what the federal government already does? Regulate commercial air travel. Why is it not doing so here?

Air travel should be suspended until we see the number of cases level off. Until then, the airlines are just allowing the virus to move freely around the country.

The Actions Of The People Who Know The Truth

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Breitbart posted an article today about the reaction of Cuban-Americans in Miami to Bernie Sanders’ defense of Fidel Castro.

The article reports:

Caravans of Cuban-Americans rallied in support of President Donald Trump on Saturday after Sen. Bernie Sanders defended Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s policies.

Photos and videos emerged on social media in Miami featuring long lines of cars and trucks flying Cuban and American flags and honking their horns. Others wore MAGA hats and waved Trump 2020 flags to show their support of the president.

…The vehicles featured signs and painted slogans such as “Viva Trump,” “Free Cuba, “Cambio es ya” (Change is Now), and “Abajo La Dictadura” (Down with Dictatorships).

…A group of over 150 Cuban Americans in Kentucky also held a similar protest, giving speeches before driving through the Cuban community blasting car horns and music, while some waved Trump flags and signs.

The Courier-Journal reported that the caravan featured over 150 people protesting Cuba’s socialist government after Sanders defended Castro’s literacy programs.

Signs on the cars read “No Socialism in America,” “Cuba Libra,“ and “Make Cuba Great Again.”

These are people who love Cuba and would probably return there if the dictatorship there ended. They understand socialism and communism. I am old enough to remember when Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. At first Americans celebrated the prospect of freedom for Cubans. However, it soon became obvious that freedom was not what Fidel Castro was about. Castro came into office promising Cubans free stuff and a better life. What he brought them was tyranny and the murder and imprisonment of anyone who disagreed with him. Socialism does not lead to freedom–it leads to tyranny, loss of freedom and poverty. This is the history of socialism. We do not need to experiment with socialism in America again–the Pilgrims tried it and gave it up when it failed,

Guilty As Charged

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On September 19th, I posted an article about Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, an airplane mechanic accused of sabotaging an airplane about to take off at Miami International Airport in July.

The Washington Times posted an article on Wednesday about Mr. Alani’s trial.

The article reports:

A longtime airline mechanic with some possible links to Muslim extremists pleaded guilty Wednesday to sabotaging a jetliner with 150 people aboard, causing the pilot to abort the flight just before takeoff at Miami International Airport.

Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani entered the plea in Miami federal court. He previously admitted to investigators that he committed the sabotage, insisting it was an attempt to gain overtime to fix the American Airlines jet – which he did.

“I do admit the guilt,” Alani, shackled and wearing tan jail clothing, said through an Arabic interpreter.

Alani, 60, is a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Iraq who had been an airline mechanic for 30 years. Prosecutors say he has a brother in Iraq who may be involved with the Islamic State extremist group and that he had made statements wishing Allah would use “divine powers” to harm non-Muslims.

Investigators said Alani also had Islamic State videos on his phone depicting mass murders and that he traveled to Iraq in March but did not disclose that to the FBI after his arrest.

Despite that evidence, Alani was never charged with any terrorism-related crime. He pleaded guilty to attempted destruction of an aircraft, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. Alani will likely get less prison time when he is sentenced March 4.

Court documents show the sabotage involved gluing Styrofoam inside the nose of the Boeing 737 so that it disabled a component pilots use to monitor things such as airspeed, altitude and the pitch of the plane. Authorities say if the flight had taken off as planned July 17 for Nassau, Bahamas, the sabotage could have caused a crash.

Many of Alani’s actions that day were captured on surveillance video and he was identified by fellow workers.

I wonder why this man was not charged with terrorism. It may be that the government felt that their case was not strong enough. However, the government (and we the people) need to understand that terrorists are probing all the time to find weak spots in our defenses. It terrorists realize that they can commit terrorism and not have it recognized as such, they may become more bold. Thank God the plane did not go down. This could have been much worse. Mishandling of this case could easily result in terrorists feeling they have a green light to commit terrorism because the consequences, whether they succeed or fail, will be minimal.

The Epstein Case Gets Murkier

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Mike Cernovich is reporting that the mystery man who filed the brief to keep the records sealed in the Jeffrey Epstein case formerly worked for Robert Mueller and James Comey.

The article reports:

A mystery man with massive wealth and power retained a powerful law firm to keep the records sealed in a case involving Jeffrey Epstein. (See Politico here, and the Miami Herald’s report here.)

After the Second Circuit Court Court of Appeals, in a lawsuit involving investigative Julie Brown of the Miami Herald and others, signaled it was prepared to order an entire vault of records unsealed, the mystery man made the unusual move of filing what’s known as an amicus curiae brief anonymously. Latin for “friend of the court,” an amicus curiae brief is only supposed to be filed when the brief will help the Court reach a proper conclusion of law.

Seeking to bypass ordinary judicial procedure with high-powered lawyers, the mystery man filed a brief that would only benefit himself, and called it an amicus brief.

The Miami Herald’s lawyers properly called out this outrageous move, which would get an ordinary lawyer sanctioned for abuse of the judicial process:

  • “As a preliminary matter, John Doe’s proposed amicus brief is an improper vehicle by which to submit his arguments. See United States v. Gotti, noting that the phrase amicus curiae means, literally, ‘friend of the court,’ and ‘serv[es] for the benefit of the court and for the purpose of assisting the court in cases of general public interest’….”
  • “John Doe is admittedly self-interested in seeking closure.”

Evidently there are some very important people who engaged in some very awful activities and don’t want what they did revealed. If what they were involved in was illegal (as it appears to be), their activities need to be revealed and the appropriate justice applied.

This Could Take Some Very Interesting Turns

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This article is based on two articles posted yesterday–one in The New York Post and one at Fox News.

The New York Post reports:

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into its own possible misconduct in the wrist-slap prosecution of multimillionaire serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The investigation is being conducted by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, according to MSNBC.

“OPR has now opened an investigation into allegations that Department attorneys may have committed professional misconduct in the manner in which the Epstein criminal matter was resolved,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd said in a Feb. 6 letter to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.).

“OPR will thoroughly investigate the allegations of misconduct that have been raised and, consistent with its practice, will share its results with you at the conclusion of its investigation as appropriate,” he wrote.

Sasse, a member of the Judiciary Committee, had asked last month for an investigation into Justice’s treatment of Epstein, citing a Miami Herald series on the pervy hedge fund manager’s crimes and the sweetheart deal that let him off the hook.

Senator Sasse has a reputation as someone who opposes President Trump.

Fox News reports:

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) has opened an investigation into a generous plea bargain awarded in 2007 by a top Florida prosecutor — who now serves as President Trump’s secretary of labor — to a wealthy, Clinton-connected financier and sex offender accused of abusing underage sex slaves.

…Alexander Acosta negotiated what critics are calling a sweetheart, potentially corrupt plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein when he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. The arrangement required Epstein to pay restitution to dozens of victims, but offered a variety of unusual concessions as part of a non-prosecution agreement.

So let’s back up and look at this for a minute. Jeffrey Epstein was (and is) very well connected politically. Bill Clinton is directly involved in this scandal–there are records of him flying to Epstein’s island on Epstein’s plane. However, the Clintons have lost a lot of their political sway in the past two years. It is quite possible that this investigation will snare Bill Clinton, but it will also make President Trump look bad because he appointed Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor. For a never-Trumper like Senator Sasse, it’s a win-win situation–the Republicans get Bill Clinton and he gets President Trump.

The matter did come up during Alexander Acosta’s confirmation hearing.

Fox News reports:

In 2017, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine asked Acosta about the plea deal during his confirmation hearings.

“Why cut a non-prosecution deal despite your staff saying you shouldn’t?” Kaine asked.

“That is not accurate,” Acosta, who at the time was dean of Florida International University’s law school, responded. ““It was a broadly-held decision. … The grand jury recommended a single count of solicitation not involving minors. That would have resulted in zero jail time, zero registration as a sexual offender and zero restitution for the victims in this case.”

Instead, Acosta said, he pushed to escalate Epstein’s case to the federal level, even as he recognized that proving all of the allegations against him would be difficult.

“It was highly unusual where a U.S. attorney becomes involved in a matter that has already gone to the grand jury at the state level,” Acosta told senators. “We decided that Mr. Epstein should plead guilty to two years, register as a sexual offender, and concede liability so the victims should get restitution in this matter.”

Asked about keeping the deal confidential, Acosta suggested that he was following common practice.

Jeffrey Epstein’s sentence was a joke. The Department of Justice should investigate it. However, considering some of the bias shown in the recent actions of the Department of Justice, I have no idea what to expect.

Another Incredible Coincidence

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On Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported that Klaus Eberwein, a former Haitian government official had committed suicide in a motel room in Florida.

The article reports:

A supporter of former Haitian President Michel Martelly, Eberwein served as director general of the government’s economic development agency, Fonds d’assistance économique et social, better known as FAES. He held the position from May 2012 until February 2015 when he was replaced. He was also a partner in a popular pizza restaurant in Haiti, Muncheez, and has a pizza — the Klaus Special — named after him.

…During and after his government tenure, Eberwein faced allegations of fraud and corruption on how the agency he headed administered funds. Among the issues was FAES’ oversight of shoddy construction of several schools built after Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake.

Eberwein was scheduled to appear Tuesday before the Haitian Senate’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the head of the commission, Sen. Evalière Beauplan confirmed. The commission is investigating the management of PetroCaribe funds, the money Haiti receives from Venezuela’s discounted oil program.

A website called Yournewswire gives a slightly different description:

Klaus Eberwein, a former Haitian government official who was expected to expose the extent of Clinton Foundation corruption and malpractice next week, has been found dead in Miami. He was 50.

Eberwein was due to appear next Tuesday before the Haitian Senate Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission where he was widely expected to testify that the Clinton Foundation misappropriated Haiti earthquake donations from international donors.

According to Miami-Dade’s medical examiner records supervisor, the official cause of death is “gunshot to the head“. Eberwein’s death has been registered as “suicide.”

Eberwein, who had acknowledged his life was in danger, was a fierce critic of the Clinton Foundation’s activities in the Caribbean island, where he served as director general of the government’s economic development agency, Fonds d’assistance économique et social, for three years.

The article at Yournewswire also reports:

According to the Haiti Libre newspaper, Eberwein was said to be in “good spirits“, with plans for the future. His close friends and business partners are shocked by the idea he may have committed suicide.

“It’s really shocking,” said Muncheez’s owner Gilbert Bailly. “We grew up together; he was like family.”

Bailly said he last spoke to Eberwein two weeks ago and he was in good spirits. They were excited about future business plans and were working on opening a Muncheez restaurant in Sunrise, he said.

Wow. Just wow.