Climate Change Is Erasing Human History

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Europe,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

We’re standing on the bank of Ukkuqsi, a site that Jensen, Utqiaġvik’s resident archaeologist, has been monitoring since 1994, ever since the frozen body of a girl who died eight hundred years ago emerged from the bluffs. Iñupiat people have lived in and around Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow) for more than a thousand years. Their history has accumulated in the ground beneath their feet, preserved in the same permafrost soils that underlie most of Alaska’s North Slope.

…On top of the erosion, a warmer atmosphere is causing Alaska’s permafrost to thaw. As that happens, exquisitely preserved remains—clothing, sod houses, scraps of food, human bodies—are starting to rot.

…It’s a story that’s playing out across the entire world, from mountaintop glaciers to Caribbean islands. Over the last several decades, archaeologists have watched in alarm as history and heritage are erased by rising seas, melting ice, and worsening storms. Researchers liken the vanishing remains to books containing priceless knowledge about past cultures, past ecosystems, and past climates.

…Jensen shows me artifacts from Walakpa, a major coastal archaeological site about fifteen miles southwest of Utqiaġvik that’s likely been occupied on and off for over 3,000 years. The site, which contains an extensive record of Birnik and Thule Eskimo cultures, started to erode about five years back. The oldest, deepest layers, which sit right along the coastline, are going fast.

…Hillerdal estimates that the entire site has about a decade left. But the areas she is actively excavating, which are close to the erosion edge, “can disappear this winter,” she says. There’s a lot to lose.

“The preservation is extraordinary,” Hillerdal tells me. “We have grass ropes, basketry, pretty much an amazing sample of Yu’pik pre contact life from this time period. The number of museum quality pieces is in the thousands.”

…But it remains to be seen who would fund a global effort to survey and excavate vanishing sites—or even a fraction of them. In the U.S., the National Park Service has taken on a leadership role, both in terms of planning for climate change impacts on cultural heritage sites, and funding researchers who want to study threatened sites that reside within parks. But NPS funds are limited.

Climate Change Is Erasing Human History

sigh…

Melania and Donald Trump Are Publicly Fighting Over the Remote

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

According to an e-mail exchange between officials in the White House Military Office and the White House Communications Agency obtained by the Times, the president “raged” at the staff for breaking protocol that all flights must begin with the TVs tuned to Fox.

…Melania Trump, it turns out, does not adhere to this strict channel selection; she watches CNN on Air Force One, the president is none too pleased, and the First Lady doesn’t seem to give a damn.

…It’s like Grisham is trying to drive the spin-control vehicle away from the controversy, thinks twice, loops it back around with a pointed statement aimed at the president, and then quickly drives away. This is a publicly broadcast marital spat, folks. And the First Lady, via a representative, just fired a warning shot.

Meanwhile, per the e-mail exchange, the president put in an order for Beam, a TiVo-like streaming device that will allow for both members of the relationship to watch what they want in their separate hotel rooms.

Melania and Donald Trump Are Publicly Fighting Over the Remote | Vanity Fair

hmmm

Manafort Left an Incriminating Paper Trail Because He Couldn’t Figure Out How to Convert PDFs to Word Files

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

There are two types of people in this world: those who know how to convert PDFs into Word documents and those who are indicted for money laundering.

…As one former federal prosecutor told the Washington Post, Manafort and Gates’ methods appear to have been “extensive and bold and greedy with a capital ‘G,’ but … not all that sophisticated.”

…So here’s the essence of what went wrong for Manafort and Gates, according to Mueller’s investigation: Manafort allegedly wanted to falsify his company’s income, but he couldn’t figure out how to edit the PDF. He therefore had Gates turn it into a Microsoft Word document for him, which led the two to bounce the documents back-and-forth over email. As attorney and blogger Susan Simpson notes on Twitter, Manafort’s inability to complete a basic task on his own seems to have effectively “created an incriminating paper trail.”

…What have we learned from all this? If you’re going to engage in some kind of complicated conspiracy, it’s probably a good idea to bone up on some basic computer skills first. 

Paul Manafort couldn’t convert PDFs to Word documents.

[snicker]

Ben Carson Declared Mission Accomplished in East St. Louis — Where Public Housing Is Still a Disaster

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The HUD secretary came to town last year and declared residents were no longer at risk, three decades after the federal government took over public housing here. In fact, the complexes are falling apart and a woman was killed in the weeks before his visit.

…Inspectors reported such problems as windows and doors that didn’t lock, infestation, mold and mildew, fire safety violations, holes in walls, broken appliances, peeling paint and missing lead-based paint inspection reports. Among the properties that failed, HUD inspectors estimated an astounding 5,405 violations. One-quarter were deemed life threatening.

In at least one case, persistent security problems may have played a role in a tenant’s death.

…The neglect of public housing in big cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. has been widely documented. But the crisis is also hitting small towns and mid-sized cities — places like Peoria, Illinois; Gary, Indiana; Birmingham, Alabama; Hoboken, New Jersey; Buffalo, New York; and Highland Park, Michigan, HUD property inspections show.

And now, after years of congressional funding cuts to public housing programs, the Trump administration has proposed slashing far more. HUD funding for major repairs at public housing complexes, for instance, has fallen 35 percent — from about $4.2 billion in fiscal 2000 to $2.7 billion in 2018. …Earlier this year, the White House proposed completely eliminating this funding.

…A long list of East St. Louis public officials have faced corruption charges; some have done prison time.

…Today, one in three East St. Louis families earn less than $15,000 a year and about 70 percent of children live below the poverty line. In 2011, the city lost its only hospital with an emergency room. In 2012, the state named a panel to oversee the troubled local school district’s budget. Currently, the city is grappling with acutely underfunded police and fire pension funds.

…The complex sits downtown, in the shadow of the Gateway Arch on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. The signs of neglect are clear: holes in the soffit lining of the roof exposing ragged yellow insulation, a boarded-up community center with holes in the windows that appear to have been caused by bullets. Inside the units, there are mice, roaches, holes in walls, leaky ceilings and missing appliances.

…Leaking pipes caused a hole in Wilson’s living room ceiling that the housing authority patched over, and she continues to battle a mold problem with bleach, which she believes is making her children sick. Her bathroom sink fell off the wall.

…Longtime tenants such as Delbra Myles have complained that the housing authority hasn’t painted occupied units for 20 years. This isn’t just a cosmetic problem. The paint chipping from window sills and bathtubs may contain toxic levels of lead.

…From 1995 to 2016, while HUD was the receiver, state health department test records show at least 70 cases of children with dangerously elevated lead levels. Lead poisoning can cause lifelong developmental delays and health problems in affected children.

…The troubles go beyond lead paint. In audits of the East St. Louis Housing Authority in 2011 and 2012, HUD found that the housing authority double-billed the federal government for certain salaries and unit renovations, and mismanaged stimulus funds during the recession of the late 2000s.

…Five days after Carson visited East St. Louis and declared the housing authority in excellent shape, HUD’s inspector general released yet another damning report about the city’s housing agency. This one accused a private management company, working on the housing authority’s behalf, of improperly paying workers and awarding contracts to companies owned by employees or their spouses instead of honestly evaluating bids.

…Nationwide, the failure rate for public housing projects nearly tripled, to over 13 percent from about 4.5 percent, between 2015 and 2017. African Americans were disproportionately more likely to live in unsafe conditions.

…During the past five years, at least 120,000 people, nearly half of them children, lived in public housing apartments that received repeated failing scores, the analysis found.

…Winston wasn’t the only East St. Louis Housing Authority tenant to die in the weeks before Carson’s visit. Last July 26, a fire broke out in an eight-story apartment complex for seniors known as the Orr-Weathers E-2 building, located about a mile from where Winston lived.

…The alarm sounded loudly on the first floor, but was difficult for some tenants on higher floors to hear.

…Then, about two weeks after her window was shot out, she awoke to the smell of raw sewage.

…Neighbors have had similar experiences. After the incident, Harmon’s doctor wrote a note for her to give to the housing authority saying she needed to be moved or have her apartment repaired as “exposure to raw sewage creates a health hazard for the patient.” The housing authority hasn’t responded, though, and Harmon said her apartment flooded again on July 31.

…A recent assessment showed a staggering backlog of needed repairs at East St. Louis’ public housing complexes. The report said that it would cost $42 million to immediately renovate units and building systems to HUD standards and another $180 million over 20 years.

…“The aging housing stock continues to deteriorate. The prior repairs have been plagued with inferior workmanship and materials and unskilled maintenance staff. The lack of maintenance staff has also taken a toll on timely repairs,” the local housing authority wrote in a brief report on the issue. In recent years, major systems such as plumbing, electrical, roofing and heating, have not been properly maintained, the report said.

Based on the projected annual funding from HUD for major system repairs, “it will take over a 70-year period to correct the deficiencies” identified by inspectors and in a separate assessment of property conditions.

Ben Carson Declared Mission Accomplished in East St.… — ProPublica

Jeezus….

The Shadow Rulers of the VA

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Military,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Moskowitz is a Palm Beach doctor who helps wealthy people obtain high-service “concierge” medical care.

…He is one-third of an informal council that is exerting sweeping influence on the VA from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a longtime acquaintance of President Trump’s. The third member is a lawyer named Marc Sherman. None of them has ever served in the U.S. military or government.

….hundreds of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with former administration officials tell …of a previously unknown triumvirate that hovered over public servants without any transparency, accountability or oversight. The Mar-a-Lago Crowd spoke with VA officials daily, the documents show, reviewing all manner of policy and personnel decisions. They prodded the VA to start new programs, and officials travelled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear their views.

…“Everything needs to be run by them,” the first former official said, recalling the process. “They view themselves as making the decisions.”

The Mar-a-Lago Crowd bombarded VA officials with demands, many of them inapt or unhelpful. 

…Besides advocating for friends’ interests, some of the Mar-a-Lago Crowd’s interventions served their own purposes.

…They proposed inviting private health care executives to tell the VA which services they should outsource to private providers like themselves. It was precisely the kind of fox-in-the-henhouse scenario that the VA’s defenders had warned against for years.

…But it wasn’t just Shulkin — all the officials that the Leinenkugel memo singled out for removal are now gone, replaced with allies of Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz. The memo suggested that Sandoval take charge of the Office of Information and Technology, overseeing the implementation of the Cerner contract; he got the job in April. The memo proposed removing Deputy Secretary Tom Bowman; he left in June, and the post hasn’t been filled. The memo floated Richard Stone for under secretary for health; he got the job on an acting basis in July. Leinenkugel himself took charge of a commission on mental health (the same topic Moskowitz had emailed O’Rourke about). O’Rourke, having hit it off with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd, became acting secretary in May.

The Shadow Rulers of the VA — ProPublica

Sigh….

The Republican Party Seems to be ceding its leadership to corrupt businesspeople

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Some level of corruption is an inescapable part of political life in general, and certainly Democrats are not (and never have been) immune to it. But it has been especially chronic in the modern Republican Party, whose last experience with control of government ended in a series of corruption scandals so blatant they provoked widespread soul-searching on the right as to how the party and the conservative movement could so easily open itself up to grifters. (Remember Jack Abramoff? Bob Ney? Tom DeLay? Grover Norquist?) The temptation to use government as a vehicle for self-enrichment is especially strong in a party dedicated to a credal skepticism about the possibility government can do good.

….The sorts of people Trump admires are rich and brash and disdainful of professional norms, and seem unlikely to rat on him. The sorts of people who are apt to work for Trump seem to be those who lack much in the way of scruples.

The administration is understaffed and disorganized to the point of virtual anarchy, opening up promising avenues for insiders to escape accountability.

…Trump himself is a wildly unethical businessman who has stiffed his counterparties and contractors, and worked closely with mobsters, his entire career. A president who is continuing to profit personally from his office is hardly in any position to demand his subordinates refrain from following suit.

via The Whole Republican Party Seems to be Going to Jail Now

Amtrak ups its PR game hoping people will forget they are downgrading food options for long-haul riders

On By peanutgallerynhIn Infrastructure and Transportation,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Amtrak ups its food game for long-haul riders

Amtrak is pitching a lot of articles about how it is “improving” the prepackaged, might-as-well-be-airline food, not-much-different-than-what-you-could-get-out-a-vending-machine, food offering lately. And press across the cultural spectrum seem to be eating it up and publishing these claims without context or critique.

All of these positive articles that neglect to mention the fact that Amtrak is actually ditching the actual food that has been served in their dining cars on longer trips and downgrading to a lesser level of food service and quality.

Sorry Amtrak, you can improve your you-could-buy-this-shit-in-a-convenience-store crap all you want. It’s still crap. Bring back dining cars!!!!!!!!!!!!

For Hawaiians, Defending ‘Aloha’ and ‘Poke’ Is About More than Just Food

On By peanutgallerynhIn Hawaii,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

“You can understand how your use of “Aloha” and “Aloha Poke” is confusingly the same as Aloha Poke’s ALOHA POKE ® trademark,” the letter read. “While we do not seek to interfere with your business or your practice of selling poke cuisine, Aloha Poke cannot let these uses continue without harming its valuable trademark rights in and goodwill associated with its [r]egistered [t]rademarks.”

The main issue here isn’t that Aloha Poke Co. is using the word “Aloha,” which the restaurant’s operators don’t seem to understand and have no claim to, other than thinking that Hawaii culture is cool. (And based on its heavily garnished Instagram photos of raw fish packed alongside ingredients like pineapple, seaweed salad, and jalapeño, it appears they don’t really understand what authentic “poke” is supposed to be either.) The real problem arose when this Chicago restaurant said that no other restaurant can use these two Hawaiian words.

For Hawaiians, Defending ‘Aloha’ and ‘Poke’ Is About More than Just Food – MUNCHIES

sigh…

C.R.E.A.M. – Betsy DeVos’s Family Yacht Sails Under a Foreign Flag

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

We already know that Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s family shipping consortium routes its business through the Marshall Islands—a notoriously secretive tax haven. Federal records detail how Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton and Federal Reserve board appointee Randal Quarles held parts of their personal fortunes in investments based in the Cayman Islands, which are not necessarily required to adhere to America’s domestic financial regulations.

Now there’s DeVos, one of the heirs of Amway’s multilevel marketing empire. When the family’s 164-foot yacht was untethered from a Huron, Ohio, dock, it was flying a flag of the Cayman Islands, where the yacht is registered

Why Does Betsy DeVos’s Family Yacht Fly a Foreign Flag? Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ Administration and the Cayman Islands

hmmm

Popular plant linked to Lyme disease is now banned in Maine

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Local Interest,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Because of its invasive nature, starting this year, Japanese barberry cannot be sold in Maine.

Fish said it’s preventing native plants from growing and doesn’t provide the food or habitat wildlife needs.

…Studies suggest Japanese barberry may be fueling the spread of Lyme disease.

“They’re definitely a tick magnet . They’re very much a tick magnet and they not only are a tick magnet; they’re a mouse magnet and mice is where Lyme disease is reservoired,” Fish said.

Popular plant linked to Lyme disease is now banned in Maine | WGME

hmm

Tapes of Devin Nunes revealing GOP plans for Rosenstein’s impeachment or ‘all of this goes away’

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Nunes is heard saying that if there was someone that was an American citizen or a political campaign got secrets from a foreign government, “it would be a very bad thing.”

…In response to a question from the audience about deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, Rodgers interjects and says that there is a plan in place from the Republicans to impeach Rosenstein.

“It’s a bit complicated, right?” Nunses is heard saying. “I say that because you have to we only have so many months left, right. So if we actually vote to impeach, okay, what that does is that triggers the Senate then has to take it up. Well, and you have to decide what you want right now because the Senate only has so much time. Do you want it to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice, the new Supreme Court justice?”

He goes on to say Rosenstein deserves to be impeached.

…“So therein lies, so it’s like your classic catch-22 situation, where we were at a — this puts us in such a tough spot,” Nunes says. “If [Jeff] Sessions won’t unrecuse, Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones, which is really the danger. That’s why I keep — thank you for saying that, by the way — we have to keep all these, we have to keep the majority. We do not keep the majority, all of this goes away.”

Maddow obtains secret tapes of Devin Nunes revealing GOP plans for Rosenstein’s impeachment or ‘all of this goes away’

Not exactly a smoking gun, Rachel

Cincinnati Police Officer Shoots 11-Year-Old Girl With Taser for Shoplifting

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Modern Parenting,Leave a comment

Cincinnati Police Officer Shoots 11-Year-Old Girl With Taser for Shoplifting

The officer’s reckless reaction was dangerously out of line with the context of the actual situation. Their badge needs to be surrendered  immediately because their lack of judgement poses an imminent and immediate danger to the citizen’s they are there to protect and serve.

Plastic Use and Banning Straws

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The truth is that straws are just the tip of the trash heap when it comes to plastic waste.

…In 2015, plastic consumption worldwide totaled 300 million metric tonnes. That essentially means that for each one of the world’s 7.6 billion humans, we’re making 88 pounds of plastic a year. The packaging industry is still growing, according to Euromonitor, with flexible plastics leading the pack.

…People in the US now spend more money eating out than eating in — often with food coming in plastic or throw-away containers.

It’s not just food. Most plastic turns to trash after a single use. If you think you’re doing Mother Earth a solid by slinging your used plastics into the recycling, think again. More than 79% of all plastic waste ends up in landfills, or gets stuck in the natural world , regardless of which sorting bin you put it in. Another 12% gets burned up in incinerators, adding to particulate matter to the atmosphere. Only a remaining 9% is actually recycled, according to a 2017 report published in Science Advances.

…Some straws drift out to sea, becoming just one more piece of the 79 thousand-ton colossal floating iceberg of trash called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Scientists who’ve studied the patch, a trash heap wider than two whole Texases that bobs somewhere between Hawaii and California, have discovered it’s essentially a watery pit of litter and illegal dumps that’s trapped in the ocean currents, and it is basically all plastic. A 2018 report based on aerial and water surveys of the patch found that “more than 99.9%” of it is plastic, and it’s not just straws in there. Plastic objects identified in the patch included containers, bottles, lids, bottle caps, packaging straps, ropes, and fishing nets.

…What it really comes down to is living with less plastic, and changing old behaviors. Other countries are aggressively regulating plastics already. Morocco, once a land laden with fields full of drifting plastic bags, banned the production, sale, and import of plastic bags completely in 2016 . Rwanda was one of the first places in the world to ban plastic bags , in 2008, and in the US, both California and Hawaii followed suit, while other states (like Michigan) rose up against the idea of ever weaning themselves off plastics and banned bans. India says all single-use plastic will be banned there by 2022. In England, Queen Elizabeth now insists that no plastic straws or bottles appear on the royal estates.

Why plastic straws are being banned by cities, businesses – Business Insider

hmmm

Court rules Mexican mother can sue over cross-border Border Patrol shooting

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Race,Leave a comment

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz is not entitled to qualified immunity, saying that the Fourth Amendment — which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures — applies in this case.

…”Based on the facts alleged in the complaint, Swartz violated the Fourth Amendment. It is inconceivable that any reasonable officer could have thought that he or she could kill J.A. for no reason,” Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld wrote in the majority opinion.

…“The court made clear that the Constitution does not stop at the border and that agents should not have constitutional immunity to fatally shoot Mexican teenagers on the other side of the border fence,” he said in a statement. “The ruling could not have come at a more important time, when this administration is seeking to further militarize the border.”

Court rules Mexican mother can sue over cross-border Border Patrol shooting – POLITICO

the fact that the officer was cleared of criminal charge is a crime in itself.

Video: Louisiana man dies after officers put him in choke hold

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Gulf Coast Region,Leave a comment

A criminal justice expert says Avoyelles Parish law officers who wrestled a Marksville man off a tractor while serving an arrest warrant last year used too much force, needlessly escalating a confrontation that ended with the man’s death. [They also] acted negligently by failing to administer aid once Armando Frank was unconscious.

…A forensic pathologist hired by the parish had said in a report that manual strangulation was the primary cause of Frank’s death. The video shows Spillman mount the tractor behind Frank and apply a choke hold while another officer tries to pull him down. For a time, Frank is doubled-over while resisting. Officers had to carry Frank to a patrol car after his body went limp.

…“His level of resistance starts out as passive. It doesn’t go to active and aggressive until he’s physically assaulted by these deputies,” Gregory Gilbertson, director of the criminal justice program at Centralia College in Centralia, Washington, said Thursday.

…Gilbertson said Frank’s questions as to what he was being arrested for, and who signed the warrant, were reasonable.

“There’s no exigent circumstance here,” Gilbertson said Thursday. “He’s not attempting to flee, he’s not assaulting anybody, he’s sitting on a tractor and he’s asking reasonable questions they are refusing to answer.”

…The report by Youngsville pathologist Christopher Tape labels the death a homicide for “medicolegal purposes,” noting that officers compromised Frank’s breathing for more than six minutes by placing him in neck holds and pressing him from behind. The report, which relies on an autopsy and body camera video, also notes that officers did not attempt to resuscitate Frank.

…Tape’s review of body camera footage highlights several points at which Frank struggled to breathe — points that Spillman’s narrative and the Sheriff’s Office’s reports do not include. Louisiana State Police also investigated the incident, but State Police spokesman Scott Moreau referred all questions to the Sheriff’s Office, which he said is the lead agency in the investigation.

Spillman’s neck hold on Frank was temporarily interrupted by the errant stun gun strike, Tape notes, at which point Frank could be heard breathing heavily. The struggle continued once Frank was off the tractor, with Frank coughing as he was pressed onto the tractor from behind, according to Tape’s report.

Less than half a minute later, Frank “can be heard to be coughing and gasping,” Tape wrote, and law enforcement continued pressing him against the tractor for another 78 seconds. During this time, Frank said “let me up” three times “in an increasingly deep and strained voice,” Tape wrote, adding that this was Frank’s “last verbal communication.”

Video: Louisiana man dies after officers put him in choke hold; experts disagree on excessive force or not | Crime/Police | theadvocate.com

Until officers of the law are held legally responsible for murders like these there is no law and order.

Gates admits to affair, says Manafort approved shifting money through offshore accounts

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

Manafort is charged with 18 counts of tax and banking crimes, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Gates, Manafort’s former business partner, pleaded guilty in February and agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

…In his second day of testimony, Gates detailed their use of foreign accounts as well as Manafort’s financial troubles.

…Prosecutors showed emails between Manafort and Gates that appear to confirm Gates’ story that Manafort sought to move money that his consulting company had earned from Ukraine through Cypriot accounts.
“There were hundreds of these,” Gates testified.

Gates had written to Manafort about transferring money from one of Manafort’s shell companies, Leviathan Advisors Limited, to their aboveboard consulting group, DMP International.

…By late 2015, Manafort’s consulting group DMP had no clients, according to Gates. He said they were attempting to secure another political consulting contract in Ukraine but had not been able to.

Gates said that during this time he also supplied false information to banks in order to help Manafort secure bank loans. He admitted to altering the profit and loss documents, which he said was per Manafort’s direction.

….Gates started his testimony Tuesday by getting into the gritty details of how much money each Ukrainian billionaire contracted Manafort for, showcasing exactly how much money was flowing into the hidden Cypriot accounts in 2011 and 2012. It amounted to at least 5 million euros, Gates said.

…Manafort reported some of the payments to tax authorities in the US as loans — though they were income, Gates said. He was “trying to decrease his taxable income,” Gates said

Gates admits to affair, says Manafort approved shifting money through offshore accounts – CNNPolitics

hmmmm