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aboveallarescuer · 4 years

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Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.5: Kissed by Fire

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Scene 5

This episode was written by Bryan Cogman, but he admits here that the scenes in Essos were actually written by D&D.

Before I talk about the scene itself, we need to consider that its premise is flawed to begin with. Neither Barristan nor Jorah are known for making jokes and being friendly and amusing in general, they are actually known for lacking a sense of humor:

And Daario Naharis made her laugh, which Ser Jorah never did. (ASOS Daenerys V)

"Give that tongue of yours a rest unless you'd rather I tied it in a knot."

Tyrion swallowed his retort. His lip was still fat and swollen from the last time he had pushed the big knight too far. Hard hands and no sense of humor makes for a bad marriage. That much he'd learned on the road from Selhorys. (ADWD Tyrion VII)

Twice exiled, and small wonder, Tyrion thought. I'd exile him too if I could. The man is cold, brooding, sullen, deaf to humor. And those are his good points. (ADWD Tyrion VIII)

Littlefinger was the last. As Ned looked to him, Lord Petyr stifled a yawn. "When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it," he declared. "Waiting won't make the maid any prettier. Kiss her and be done with it."

"Kiss her?" Ser Barristan repeated, aghast.

"A steel kiss," said Littlefinger. (AGOT Eddard VIII)

In the purple hall, Dany found her ebon bench piled high about with satin pillows. The sight brought a wan smile to her lips. Ser Barristan’s work, she knew. The old knight was a good man, but sometimes very literal. It was only a jape, ser, she thought, but she sat on one of the pillows just the same. (ADWD Daenerys II)

Which is not to say that they can't ever laugh at people's jokes or make jokes themselves, but it's noticeable that the show's time to depict Dany's storyline is limited and that they still chose to write a scene that has little to do with their core personality traits.

Even more importantly, these two are unable to be friendly with one another because Jorah is too suspicious of Barristan and wants to isolate Dany from other men:

“In King’s Landing, your ancestors raised an immense domed castle for their dragons. The Dragonpit, it is called. It still stands atop the Hill of Rhaenys, though all in ruins now. That was where the royal dragons dwelt in days of yore, and a cavernous dwelling it was, with iron doors so wide that thirty knights could ride through them abreast. Yet even so, it was noted that none of the pit dragons ever reached the size of their ancestors. The maesters say it was because of the walls around them, and the great dome above their heads.”

“If walls could keep us small, peasants would all be tiny and kings as large as giants,” said Ser Jorah. “I’ve seen huge men born in hovels, and dwarfs who dwelt in castles.”

“Men are men,” Whitebeard replied. “Dragons are dragons.”

Ser Jorah snorted his disdain. “How profound.” The exile knight had no love for the old man, he’d made that plain from the first. “What do you know of dragons, anyway?” (ASOS Daenerys I)

“It was said that no man ever knew Prince Rhaegar, truly. I had the privilege of seeing him in tourney, though, and often heard him play his harp with its silver strings.”

Ser Jorah snorted. “Along with a thousand others at some harvest feast. Next you’ll claim you squired for him.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

“A warrior without peer ... those are fine words, Your Grace, but words win no battles.”

“Swords win battles,” Ser Jorah said bluntly. “And Prince Rhaegar knew how to use one.” (ASOS Daenerys I) 

“...A change in the wind may bring the gift of victory.” He glanced at Ser Jorah. “Or a lady’s favor knotted round an arm.”

Mormont’s face darkened. “Be careful what you say, old man.”

Arstan had seen Ser Jorah fight at Lannisport, Dany knew, in the tourney Mormont had won with a lady’s favor knotted round his arm. He had won the lady too; Lynesse of House Hightower, his second wife, highborn and beautiful ... but she had ruined him, and abandoned him, and the memory of her was bitter to him now. “Be gentle, my knight.” She put a hand on Jorah’s arm. “Arstan had no wish to give offense, I’m certain.”

“As you say, Khaleesi.” Ser Jorah’s voice was grudging. (ASOS Daenerys I)

Ser Jorah watched with a frown on his blunt honest face. Mormont was big and burly, strong of jaw and thick of shoulder. Not a handsome man by any means, but as true a friend as Dany had ever known. “You would be wise to take that old man’s words well salted,” he told her when Whitebeard was out of earshot.

[...] “This Arstan Whitebeard is playing you false. He is too old to be a squire, and too well spoken to be serving that oaf of a eunuch.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

“Sit, good ser, and tell me what is troubling you.”

“Three things.” Ser Jorah sat. “Strong Belwas. This Arstan Whitebeard. And Illyrio Mopatis, who sent them.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

But when Mero was gone, Arstan Whitebeard said, “That one has an evil reputation, even in Westeros. Do not be misled by his manner, Your Grace. He will drink three toasts to your health tonight, and rape you on the morrow.”

“The old man’s right for once,” Ser Jorah said. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“Whilst you have an honest beard, is that what you are telling me? You are the only man I should ever trust?”

He stiffened. “I did not say that.”

“You say it every day. Pyat Pree’s a liar, Xaro’s a schemer, Belwas a braggart, Arstan an assassin ... do you think I’m still some virgin girl, that I cannot hear the words behind the words?” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“Khaleesi, before you kneels Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who betrayed your House to serve the Usurper Robert Baratheon.”

The old knight did not so much as blink. “The crow calls the raven black, and you speak of betrayal.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

I doubt their book counterparts would spend their time apart from Dany talking to each other about their pasts, and I think that's a significant change because it's another way that makes show!Jorah (whose book counterpart is a slaver who tries to groom, isolate and undermine Dany) be seen in a much more positive light than in the books.

JORAH: It was a bitch of a siege.

BARRISTAN: Mm, you were first through the breach at Pyke?

JORAH: The second. Thoros of Myr went in alone, waving that flaming sword of his.

BARRISTAN: Thoros of Myr. Bloody madman. Robert knighted you after the battle?

JORAH: Proudest moment of my life. One knee in the dust, the king's sword on my shoulder, listening to the words. "In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave." All I could think of was how badly I had to piss. In full plate metal for 16 hours. Never occurred to me till the fighting was over. I was very nearly the first man knighted to piss on the king's boots.

In the books, the siege of Pyke is brought up in this context:

“By then my father had taken the black, so I was Lord of Bear Island in my own right. I had no lack of marriage offers, but before I could reach a decision Lord Balon Greyjoy rose in rebellion against the Usurper, and Ned Stark called his banners to help his friend Robert. The final battle was on Pyke. When Robert’s stonethrowers opened a breach in King Balon’s wall, a priest from Myr was the first man through, but I was not far behind. For that I won my knighthood.”

“To celebrate his victory, Robert ordained that a tourney should be held outside Lannisport. It was there I saw Lynesse, a maid half my age. She had come up from Oldtown with her father to see her brothers joust. I could not take my eyes off her. In a fit of madness, I begged her favor to wear in the tourney, never dreaming she would grant my request, yet she did.”

[...] “What did she look like, your Lady Lynesse?”

Ser Jorah smiled sadly. “Why, she looked a bit like you, Daenerys.” He bowed low. “Sleep well, my queen.”

Dany shivered, and pulled the lionskin tight about her. She looked like me. It explained much that she had not truly understood. He wants me, she realized. He loves me as he loved her, not as a knight loves his queen but as a man loves a woman. She tried to imagine herself in Ser Jorah’s arms, kissing him, pleasuring him, letting him enter her. It was no good. When she closed her eyes, his face kept changing into Drogo’s.

[...] She had heard the longing in Ser Jorah’s voice when he spoke of his Bear Island. He can never have me, but one day I can give him back his home and honor. That much I can do for him. (ACOK Daenerys I)

As we can see above, the siege of Pyke is brought up to contextualize Jorah and Lynesse's relationship and parallel their relationship with Dany and Jorah's current one. It is there to service Dany's storyline, motivations and relationships - with that backstory, she realizes at that point that, while Jorah loves her, she can't love him back. This makes her feel guilty, so much so that she thinks she has to compensate by bringing him back home. This is also an instance that displays how deeply ingrained patriarchal views are on this universe - because Dany is a woman, she thinks she owes her knight something in return for his protection. The roles of liege and object of desire intersect in a way that wouldn't happen to a king.

But why am I saying all of this? My point is that connections between past and present in ASOIAF matter only to the extent that they say something about our POV characters. The Arianne/Rhaenyra and Arianne/Nymeria comparisons matter only to the extent that they inform Arianne's motivations and storyline, as well as the Jon Snow/Blackfyres one, which informs Catelyn's views on Jon. By contrast, the show brought up the siege in Pyke only so that we would empathize with show!Jorah again, but that was never the main purpose in the books, in which the backstory primarily serviced Dany's character. But then, the show writers are intent on erasing how creepy and disrespectful Jorah's treatment of Dany in the books is.

Also, the only new detail that they added was that Jorah wanted to urinate while Robert was knighting him. Was that really necessary?

BARRISTAN: Robert would have laughed. He was a good man, a great warrior. And a terrible king. I burned away my years fighting for terrible kings.

In the books, Barristan has more conflicted feelings about Robert Baratheon than he ever lets on in the show:

“Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was a ... a good knight ... chivalrous, brave ... he spared my life, and the lives of many others ...[”] (ASOS Daenerys VI)

I came to bring Daenerys home. Yet he had lost her, just as he had lost her father and her brother. Even Robert. I failed him too. (ADWD The Queensguard)

And what did Robert say when he saw them? Did he smile? Barristan Selmy had been badly wounded on the Trident, so he had been spared the sight of Lord Tywin's gift, but oft he wondered. If I had seen him smile over the red ruins of Rhaegar's children, no army on this earth could have stopped me from killing him. (ADWD The Kingsguard)

Barristan may admit Robert's value as a knight (highly questionable as it is), praise him for showing mercy to the Targaryen loyalists and be ashamed for "failing" him. At the same time, Barristan still feels anger for the deaths of Rhaegar's children, so much so that he can't stop himself from thinking he would avenge them if he had seen Robert smiling at the sight of their corpses. Also, when he thinks about the people he failed, he thinks that he failed "even Robert", which shows that he had considerably less regard for him than he did either Dany or Rhaegar.

I don't think Barristan would ever call Robert a "good man", and I think his feelings for Robert are particularly important because they inform Barristan's siding with Ned when he asks Robert not to kill Dany, as well as why he chose to follow Viserys (Rhaegar's heir) instead of Stannis (Robert's heir) and why he demands that the Shavepate does not kill Dany's hostages if he is to side with him.

Also, again, Barristan would never share his personal feelings (much less negative ones) about anyone with Jorah.

The infuriating part, though, is this one:

JORAH: You swore an oath.

BARRISTAN: Yes. And a man of honor keeps his vows, even if he's serving a drunk or a lunatic. Just once in my life before it's over, I want to know what it's like to serve with pride, to fight for someone I believe in. Do you believe in her?

JORAH: With all my heart.

First, they portray show!Jorah as a reliable source as to whether we should trust show!Dany or not. While one might argue that these are two different characters, not only the erasure of Jorah's negative behaviors for the sake of an unrequited love story is still disgusting, but Jorah was never a reliable source about Dany in the books.

Second, Barristan's arc is partly about finding out on his own that Dany is a worthy liege after spending years following bad kings:

“...The truth is, I wanted to watch you for a time before pledging you my sword. To make certain that you were not ...”

“... my father’s daughter?” If she was not her father’s daughter, who was she?

“... mad,” he finished. “But I see no taint in you.”  (ASOS Daenerys VI)

“So I am a coin in the hands of some god, is that what you are saying, ser?”

“No,” Ser Barristan replied. “You are the trueborn heir of Westeros. To the end of my days I shall remain your faithful knight, should you find me worthy to bear a sword again. If not, I am content to serve Strong Belwas as his squire.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

“I flung my sword at Joffrey’s feet and have not touched one since. Only from the hand of my queen will I accept a sword again.”

“As you wish.” Dany took the sword from Brown Ben and offered it hilt first. The old man took it reverently. “Now kneel,” she told him, “and swear it to my service.”

He went to one knee and lay the blade before her as he said the words. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

“Freedom to starve?” asked Dany sharply. “Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?” Am I mad? Do I have the taint?

“A dragon,” Ser Barristan said with certainty. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

Having show!Barristan ask show!Jorah's opinion on show!Dany diminishes the impact of the passages above, which display his own judgment based on the time he spent on Dany's side.

Having show!Barristan ask show!Jorah's opinion on show!Dany undercuts Barristan's arc. The show writers might have show!Barristan say that he wants to "fight for someone [he] believe[s] in", but that's just lip service; these words ring hollow because we don't see him finding out for himself.

Could the show writers have added an original scene that gives the characters around show!Dany more to do? Of course (though I've argued before that even the scenes focusing on show!Dany are often seen from the viewpoint of her advisors and prevent us from fully experiencing the journey with show!Dany herself). But they should have thought about whether it fits into their characterizations in the books and, if it doesn't, why is that change necessary? What does having show!Barristan not find out on his own that show!Dany is a liege worth following cause besides undermining both Dany's and Barristan's characters? What does having show!Jorah not be a creepy and be a reliable source about show!Dany cause besides making a slaver look better?

Show!Grey Worm's first scene has its strengths. I like how it displays show!Dany's genuine empathy for the Unsullied, as well as show!Grey Worm's admiration for her. The actors gave good performances. There is one departure from the books (that I don't really understand the purpose of; they probably forgot about it), though:

DAENERYS: What is your name?

GREY WORM: Grey Worm.

DAENERYS: Grey Worm...

MISSANDEI: All Unsullied boys are given new names when they are cut ... Grey Worm, Red Flea, Black Rat. Names that remind them what they are ... vermin.

The books go even further on the slavers' dehumanization of the Unsullied:

“This one’s name is Red Flea, your worship.” 

The girl repeated their exchange in the Common Tongue. 

“And yesterday, what was it?” 

“Black Rat, your worship.” 

“The day before?” 

“Brown Flea, your worship.” 

“Before that?” 

“This one does not recall, your worship. Blue Toad, perhaps. Or Blue Worm.”

“Tell her all their names are such,” Kraznys commanded the girl. “It reminds them that by themselves they are vermin. The name disks are thrown in an empty cask at duty’s end, and each dawn plucked up again at random.”

“More madness,” said Arstan, when he heard. “How can any man possibly remember a new name every day?”

“Those who cannot are culled in training, along with those who cannot run all day in full pack, scale a mountain in the black of night, walk across a bed of coals, or slay an infant.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Not only their names remind them that they are vermin, they are also changed every day so that they lose their sense of individuality.

Even with this change, I'd say that the scene still conveys how unacceptable and cruel the slavers' treatment was.

There are other changes that I find more concerning. The first is the most inconsequential: why is show!Missandei calling show!Dany khaleesi instead of Your Grace? Only Jorah and her khalasar call her by that title in the books. I suppose this is a Doylist issue since s3!Dany was more recognized as "khaleesi" than "Daenerys" by the audience, but it still goes against their characterizations.

The second is that, as I said in my 3.4 review, this scene would have made more sense in Astapor:

One of the first things Dany had done after the fall of Astapor was abolish the custom of giving the Unsullied new slave names every day. Most of those born free had returned to their birth names; those who still remembered them, at least. Others had called themselves after heroes or gods, and sometimes weapons, gems, and even flowers, which resulted in soldiers with some very peculiar names, to Dany’s ears. Grey Worm had remained Grey Worm. When she asked him why, he said, “It is a lucky name. The name this one was born to was accursed. That was the name he had when he was taken for a slave. But Grey Worm is the name this one drew the day Daenerys Stormborn set him free.” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Dany still had to choose which freedmen would occupy the ruling council, so I assume she stayed in Astapor for a few days. With that in mind, if abolishing the custom of new slave names was one of the first things Dany did after the fall of Astapor, it's much more likely that she did it there rather than on the march to Yunkai. Why couldn't they have written this scene there? Because seeing her leave Astapor makes for a more visually impressive scene, I guess. As I said before, though, it gives weight to the superficial reading that show!Dany only went to the city, took its military force and left (even if we'll later find out that she also installed a ruling council there in 4.5). Being faithful to the books would've prevented any misconception of this sort from happening.

My third and final issue is that this scene is meant to be of secondary importance in the books. As one can see in ASOS Daenerys IV, it only appears as a brief flashback in the context of a scene in which Dany is seen giving Grey Worm military orders. That's because the focus of the chapter is on Dany's character development as a leader and a military tactician (similar to how ASOS Daenerys VI only shows the conquest of Meereen as a brief flashback in the context of Jorah telling Dany that her "sewer rats" won her the city; that's because the focus of the chapter is less on the adrenaline and victory and more on the aftermath of the sack and its negative consequences, intertwined with Dany's personal problems).

One might argue that we could have had both this scene and show!Dany's character development in the next episodes. However, as I will explain in future reviews, the show writers don't care about show!Dany's character development at all, which is why it becomes enough of an issue for me to bring it up.

JORAH: King Robert wanted her dead.

BARRISTAN: Of course he wanted her dead. She's a Targaryen. The last Targaryen.

JORAH: I suppose no one on the small council could speak sense to him.

In this interview with Bryan Cogman, Elio Garcia interprets show!Jorah's actions as if he were "fishing for information about just what Barristan knew about him and his dealings with Varys". That's not an unreasonable guess, but it's another one that does a disservice to Barristan's character. In the books, Barristan only hid information from Dany about Jorah because revealing Jorah's betrayal would mean revealing his identity. If his identity had been already revealed, he would have told her much earlier - that's what happens right after she finds out that he's Barristan Selmy, after all:

“...And since the day you wed Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, trading whispers to the Spider for gold and promises.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

However, because the show writers probably know this, they made another change just as detrimental to Barristan's character:

BARRISTAN: I didn't sit on the small council.

JORAH: No? Doesn't the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard traditionally ...

BARRISTAN: Traditionally, yes, but I killed a dozen of Robert's friends during his rebellion. He didn't want advice on how to govern from a man who had fought for the Mad King. Can't say I minded much. I always hated the politics.

I'm not saying that the Barristan of the books loves the politics or that he's one of the best political players of the books. Far from that. Still, his character development culminates in these realizations:

The gods of Westeros were far away, yet Ser Barristan Selmy paused for a moment to say a silent prayer, asking the Crone to light his way to wisdom. For the children, he told himself. For the city. For my queen. (ADWD The Queensguard)

His queen was the Mother of Dragons; he would not allow her children to come to harm. (ADWD The Kingbreaker)

"You would break King Hizdahr's peace, old man?"

"I would shatter it." Once, long ago, a prince had named him Barristan the Bold. A part of that boy was in him still. (ADWD The Queen's Hand)

Before Dany, Barristan remained silent as he watched Aerys and Robert committing atrocities and abusing their power. After Dany, he's not only revolting against a bad king (Hizdahr), he's also taking on her anti-slavery cause and declaring war against the slavers. That's character development. Siding with Ned against Dany's death was Barristan’s first (albeit small) act of rebellion and the beginning of an arc that will later lead him to fight against slavery because of the very girl whose murder he opposed.

On HBO, not only we'll never see show!Barristan doing any of this (because he'll be killed off earlier), we are seeing him dismiss the importance of political action, which is the very opposite of the ultimate realization of his book counterpart's arc. And what's worse is that all of these changes are being made for the sake of show!Jorah's character.

JORAH: Yeah, I imagine I would, too. Hours spent jabbering about backstabbings and betrayals the world over.

I don't know if show!Jorah reducing politics to "jabbering about backstabbings and betrayals the world over" is necessarily proof that this is what the show writers think. That being said, that dismissal can be considered foreshadowing of how little they will care about adapting Dany's ADWD storyline properly. It can also be interpreted as proof of how they tend to oversimplify the characters according to their basic archetypes. If Jorah and Barristan are warriors, of course they don't care about politics and are friendly with each other (all men are friendly with each other and all women are catty with each other, right? See also: Tyrion/Davos, Jon/Gendry, Sansa/Arya, Dany/Sansa, etc).

BARRISTAN: Mm-hmm. Still, she'll have to wade through that muck if she wants to rule the Seven Kingdoms. She'll have good men around her to advise her, men with experience.

JORAH: Which men do you have in mind?

BARRISTAN: Forgive me, Ser Jorah, for what I'm about to say, but your reputation in Westeros has suffered over the years.

JORAH: It suffered for a reason. I sold men into slavery.

BARRISTAN: I don't know if your presence by her side will help our cause when we go home.

JORAH: Our cause? Forgive me, Ser Barristan, but I was busy defending the khaleesi against King Robert's assassins while you were still bowing to the man.

BARRISTAN: We both want her to rule. Am I wrong?

JORAH: You only joined us a few days ago. I can't speak to your intentions.

BARRISTAN: If we're truly her loyal servants, we will do whatever needs to be done, no matter the cost, no matter our pride.

JORAH: You're not Lord Commander here. You're just another exile. And I take my orders from the queen.

First, I don’t know why the heck would show!Barristan tell show!Jorah rather than show!Dany that Jorah’s presence might not help her cause. Not only it makes him dumb (because show!Jorah obviously wouldn't take that well), it also makes it seem that he likes show!Jorah enough to advise him to leave, which is not true at all in the books, as I've already showed above.

Second, I hate that this exchange makes it seem that show!Jorah feels guilty for selling men into slavery (he doesn't in the books). He was still trying to normalize slavery in 3.1 and 3.3!

I know that fandom tends to praise Bryan Cogman for trying to correct plot holes and for paying attention to the books' events and the show's continuity. That knowledge doesn't mean he necessarily understands the characters well - he certainly does not understand Dany well, and this comment is proof of his ignorance:

“Yeah, it’s probably refreshing for Iain Glen! How many times can he explain something about Essos culture to Dany? ;)”

If he really understood Dany, he would also say that we don't just see Jorah giving Dany knowledge. We also see her retain that knowledge and apply it later, we also see that she has knowledge of her own (because, let's not forget, she has lived in Essos for almost her whole life, certainly for a longer period than Jorah) and we also see her making decisions of her own volition. The misconception that Dany is ignorant and too reliant on the men around her is dismissive of her character, but it unfortunately informs the show's writing of her, for they erase many moments showcasing her intelligence and competence.

He also says that "the Dany stuff is a challenge" because of the lack of material, which is a flimsy excuse - many key scenes of her chapters were cut (see here), even if she doesn't have a lot of chapters in ASOS. Lack of material to adapt was never an issue for anyone in any storyline. The show writers should have been overwhelmed with the amount of material they had and the necessity to select them properly (which they failed to do because they mostly looked at the scenes as plot points).

I'm nitpicking his comments, admittedly, because he also said that (show!)Dany's story is "the rise of a villain". He really doesn't know anything about her.

For this review, there's no comment of mine on any Inside the Episode because D&D's Inside the Episode 3.5 doesn't talk about show!Dany's storyline. I'm not commenting on show!Dany's clothes either because she's wearing the same clothes from episode 3.4 and I've talked about them here.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #barristan selmy #grey worm #asos vs got #asoiaf vs got #jorah mormont #a storm of swords #s3

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macgyvermedical · 4 years

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Soup: a “Tesla + Bell + Edison + Mac” Medical Review

“You have a perfectly functional syringe pump with the PCA in the background, and you’re going to give him an injection with a metal needle? Also, if you’re gonna sedate him you might as well use the IV pump too??? Like, you have a whole ‘nother channel?? Most floor nurses would kill for that setup?” <--- From my notes on this ep.*

Awl - X-Ray + Penny - Duct Tape + Jack - CD + Hoagie Foil - Guts + Fuel + Hope - Wilderness + Training + Survival - Father + Bride + Betrayal - Lidar + Rogues + Duty - Nightmares - Seeds + Permafrost + Feather - Friends + Enemies + Border - Mason + Cable + Choices - Bitter Harvest - Kid + Plane + Cable + Truck -

In case you didn’t see it, the story went like this: After being knocked unconscious trying to prevent Codex from stealing an encoded map to a Tesla-era WMD, Mac wakes to find he’s lost certain memories of the event that are crucial to interpreting the weapon’s location. In order to recover the memories and stop Codex from getting there first, Matty calls on a friend at DARPA who studies experimental memory-recovery drugs. Drugged, Mac enters a dream state to track down the memories, where he encounters his mother, a man he recently chose to kill to save everyone in LA, his high-school bully, and a darker version of himself who thinks Codex’s directive to kill an eighth of the population to save the world might not be too far off the mark.

So there’s a lot to talk about here medically. For this post, I’ll go into the concussion and its aftermath, the drug and it’s administration, and the medical technology that the Phoenix infirmary seems to have at its disposal.

The Concussion/Amnesia:

Mac is knocked out by a blow to the head. He wakes up “a few hours” later in the Phoenix infirmary. I’ve talked about concussions before (see here, here, and here), so I’m not going to go into too much detail about them in this post, but essentially if someone’s out for that long, they’re in trouble.

It’s reasonably common to lose consciousness in a concussion, but it’s usually only for seconds to minutes, and if it occurs at all, that person needs prompt medical evaluation in an emergency room. Even if there ends up being no major complications, like bleeding in the brain or an increase in pressure in the skull, the recovery time for concussions with a loss of consciousness can be in the weeks or months range. Someone who’s out for “hours” is looking at a stay in a neuro ICU and probably severe and possibly permanent brain damage. Like, it’s a season-long arc at least.

Since we’re not seeing that level of medical need, I think it would probably be safe to assume that Mac wasn’t actually out for “hours” as stated. He could have been briefly unconscious, as shown in the house attack scene, but then had trouble forming memories after that, which caused him to not remember the ride back to Phoenix very well, if at all. These are still concerning enough symptoms that I would have taken him to an emergency department instead of to the infirmary, but at least with that scenario there’s a possibility what happened to him isn’t actively life threatening outside of a neuro ICU.

Unlike the extended period of unconsciousness, the portrayal of amnesia isn’t far off the mark for once. The amnesia that Mac suffers is actually pretty reasonable- trouble remembering the incident and the events just before it is common in head injuries, as is having trouble forming new memories after. Not only is accurate amnesia something that I didn’t expect out of Rob Pearlstein (writer of the infamous Guts + Fuel + Hope), but it’s something that fiction as a whole (including, I’ll admit, 1985 MacGyver**) tends to struggle with. So kudos for that specific part of this episode, Pearlstein.

The Drug:

Even if we assume Mac wasn’t unconscious that whole time, the brief unconsciousness and memory problems indicate that he still had a pretty significant concussion that needed medical care and monitoring. I’m guessing that as advanced as the Phoenix Infirmary is, it doesn’t have the capacity to do neurosurgery or intracranial pressure monitoring. That means the Phoenix medical team’s priority in this situation would essentially be to catch any major, life-threatening complication as early as possible, and if one happened, get Mac to a hospital quickly enough to save him.

The best and lowest-tech tool they have to this end is repeated mental status exams. Mental status exams have the patient answer a series of questions like “what’s your name?” “what day is it?” “where are you right now?” “what happened to you/why am I asking you these questions?” followed up with a series of mental tasks like counting backwards from 100 by 7s or making a logical decision based on a given scenario. If Mac’s answers significantly change, from one assessment to the next, that could mean he’s in trouble.

Because these assessments rely so heavily on Mac’s ability to answer questions and perform tasks accurately, and they’re really the only thing that’s going to catch a serious problem early enough to save Mac’s life, the last thing you’d want to do is give him a drug cocktail that would alter his perception of where he is and what’s going on around him. I’ll just… leave that there.

But let’s assume that for some reason they have a non-CT way of assessing whether Mac’s about to die from a brain bleed while in a drug-induced dream state (they do appear to have limited EEG capability- can anyone tell me if this would still be helpful in the context of the drugs?). I’m not going to talk too much about the drug cocktail itself, since it was stated as fictional (so, essentially, anything they say it does it can probably do), but since they do reference it as containing DMT, I invite you to check out the erowid experience vault for DMT for stories of other people’s experiences with it.

I will, however, talk a little about the administration of the drug. In the episode, a syringe with a needle is used to deliver the medication. Though not explicitly shown, I assume Dr. Cheryl inserted the metal needle into one of Mac’s arm veins and injected the drug.

Something that fiction generally doesn’t understand is that inserting a metal needle into a vein in order to administer medication doesn’t happen in a medical setting. Ever. The ONLY way to administer a medication IV in a medical setting is through an IV cannula- a short, flexible plastic tube inserted into a vein, often just colloquially called an “IV”:

If Mac had one of these ^^^, the syringe could attach to one of the blue and white pieces and the medication could be injected without worrying that the needle could slip out of the vein (many IV medications must be injected slowly over several minutes, and that’s a long time to hold a needle still).

Before Dr. Cheryl gives him the drug, she takes his vitals and asks him some questions, namely whether he has ever had “a psychotic break”, then, without explaining further, asks if he thinks he will become violent.

Now, it does make sense to ask someone about their psych history when administering a drug known to have psych side effects, because those can be a lot worse or more likely for people with certain psych histories. Think about SSRIs and SNRIs- they’re good antidepressants, but when given to someone with bipolar disorder, they can greatly increase the risk of a manic episode, and that possibility has to be evaluated before the drug is prescribed.

The conversation should have started with Dr. Cheryl asking everyone else to leave the room. Asking if someone has ever experienced psychosis in front of their coworkers, is not only a serious breach of patient privacy, but could also be incredibly dangerous. If Mac had experienced psychosis, but didn’t want his coworkers to know, he’d either have to lie and risk side effects without being able to prepare, or feel pressured to release that medical information and possibly risk his job or reputation***.

Then she’d ask something to the effect of “have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness, been hospitalized for a mental health reason, or do you take any medications for a mental health problem?” And if the answer to that question was anything that would make the drug particularly dangerous to him, she’d probably tell him the risks and her assessment that it was a bad idea to proceed.

If there was no other option for some reason (I’d argue not the case in this situation), she’d tell him what the risks were, and only then would she possibly have to ask if he knew he might become aggressive, at which point they’d come up with how he’d like her to handle that possibility.

I know it’s not quite as snappy, but I would have really liked to see it.

Plus, unless it’s been asked off screen, Dr. Cheryl hasn’t asked him if he has any other health problems, if he takes any medications, or if he has any allergies, all of which could significantly impact how safe this drug could be for Mac.

Phoenix Infirmary Medical Tech

Now let’s look at some of the bits and pieces in the background of the episode. Particularly, I wanna talk about that chair, the IV pump, and the monitor.

So, chair first- it’s a dentist’s chair. It’s good for dental things and maybe some minor procedures (we have a slightly different chair in a doctor’s office I work at- we use it for things like implanting birth control, removing warts and moles, and providing wound care), but it’s not great for anything else. It’s especially not great if you have to sit there longer than a half hour. Considering we know from previous episodes that they have a full-on hospital bed somewhere at their disposal and possibly a couple of carts (narrower beds you see in the emergency department), I gotta say it makes literally no sense to put the guy who’s unconscious from a head injury in the procedure chair.

Next, the IV pump

We talked above about administering medications “IV push”- a medication “pushed” through an IV by a syringe, one dose at a time. Another way to give IV medication or fluids is via an IV drip or “piggyback”- the medication is diluted in a bag of saline or other IV fluid, and set to continuously run into a person’s IV. These are nice for doses of IV medication that have a lot of volume (like IV antibiotics) medication that wears off quickly and may need constant adjustment (like some kinds of sedation or some types of pain medication or medications that counteract shock), or just straight up IV fluids.

IV pumps control how fast the medication or fluid goes from the bag into the person. You can vaguely control this without a pump using gravity, a drip chamber, and a roller clamp, but if you need to know precisely how many milliliters of medication/fluid per hour is getting into a person, and you didn’t start your nursing career in the 1970s, you need a pump.

The one pictured above specifically consists of a central computer box (colloquially called a “brain”) where the pump rate can be programmed, flanked by interchangeable modules that each do a slightly different thing. The modules on the pump in the episode include an infusion pump, which essentially just pumps fluid from a bag hanging above it into a person, and a PCA pump. A PCA pump holds a syringe of medication (usually pain medication) and delivers a dose of it when the patient presses a button.

Honestly I think the whole things is just chillin’ in the background making the room look medical-y, but they really could have used it to continuously administer the drug or the sedation if they’d really wanted to incorporate it.

Side note, the modules are actually kind of heavy, so you have to balance them a little or the whole thing kinda tilts (see the screenshot from the episode). Also, for some reason if you stick an infusion module on the same side as a PCA module, the brain won’t recognize it half the time. Not sure if it’s a feature or a bug. Below is how someone who has ever once used one of these things would have set it up:

The other thing they have in the episode, and the last thing I’ll talk about before I let you get back to your life (I’m sure your cat misses you by now, mine sure does), is the monitor.

I read several user manuals for this (real) monitor system in preparation for this post. I’ve concluded that it’s way, way above my med-surg pay grade, and usually used in operating rooms by anesthesiologists to monitor sedation level (so at least in theory they could be using it correctly? I’m as shocked as you are, really). I don’t even know what half those numbers mean (beyond the SpO2, heart rate, and respiratory rate), more than just being able to say they (surprisingly) do actually reflect real monitoring options on this thing. This leads me to believe this may be some kind of weird product placement thing? As if the gratuitous use of the Toyota backup cameras weren’t oddly forced enough.

Now, beyond the fact that this is a wildly high-tech, completely overkill machine for what is happening in the episode, the thing I would like to impress upon you is that regardless of the high tech-ness, every line on a monitor requires at least some attachment to the patient. Something measuring an EKG requires at least 3 leads on the patient. Something measuring oxygen saturation and pulse requires a clip on an ear or finger. Something measuring blood pressure requires a blood pressure cuff. Something measuring temperature usually means a probe somewhere the sun don’t shine. Mac has two little leads on his forehead. That is actually hilarious. He’d be covered in wires. He would have so much adhesive stuck to him.

In case you’re wondering, the heart/lungs/brain/person outline picture on the monitor just tells you how each part of the body is doing- like, the brain will turn yellow and then red if something starts going weird with the brain-related monitoring, same with the heart and lungs. It took an insane amount of searching to figure that out. I’ve been writing this post for 4 days now.

*I had a much longer and rant-ier intro to this but I feel like I’ve complained enough on main about how the reboot dumbed down and politically neutralized an extremely opinionated and hardline character. I do really like this show, and the storylines are really interesting, but I need you all to understand how science-based and politically charged the original one was, especially in later seasons. You had such a platform for good here, CBS, and I’m hoping against hope the generic-action-show it’s become was some kind of weird, collective misunderstanding and not a censor problem. My main problem, having finished writing this post, is that he looks really weirdly good for someone who was unconscious with a head injury and then subjected to what was another few hours unconscious and hallucinating. Like, his shirt is still tucked in. Great update to the theme song, though.

**Twice. They played the bourne-style-amnesia storyline twice.

***At this point I can only recommend you watch the 1985 MacGyver Season 7 episode “Obsessed”- it’s a ridiculous-criminal-plot episode but the undertones are all anti-ableist (both criticizing the Phoenix Foundation board of directors’ ableism in assuming Pete is no longer fit to do his (desk) job after he loses his sight, and the pressure Pete himself is under to let MacGyver go because of mental health symptoms).

#MacGyver #medical review #tesla + bell + edison + mac #head injury #unconscious #drugged #whump #needles tw #hospital tw #drugs tw

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denimini · 6 years

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Hey! You probably remember when JK called JM "baby" in bv2. I saw a twitter post by a big V/K account with a compilation of BTS calling each other Baby. Namjoon and V saying "JK is a baby", Namjoon calling Tae "Baby", Hobi calling JM "baby", and then JKs "let's go baby". I actually think there is a difference with the older calling the younger baby and the younger calling the older baby. What's your opinion on this? I actually think that KM moment was made insignificant with that post..

Hey, Anon!

It’s so cute how you say like maybe probably I remember JK calling JM “baby” as if I don’t have this moment tattooed on the back of my eyelids. Seriously, I’d probably be 95 years old and on my death bed and my last breath would go for muttering “Jungkook said ‘Let’s go baby’ to Jimin”. Good one, Anon

All jokes aside this is a major moment for us KM supporters and a personal top 5. If you ever doubt its significance, just know that when this happened k-ARMYs freaked over it for days. They, the native Korean speakers and SK citizens, couldn’t believe it had really happened.

No-one, no matter the number of twitter threads or analyses posted, can twist and turn this moment to takes its significance away.

I’m going to prove it to you right now as precisely as I can without this turning into a 5 pages essay (it will probably turn out 10 pages but oh, well if there’s one moment that deserves it, it’s this iconic one)

An Important disclaimer: I am not a native Korean speaker nor a citizen of SK. I don’t have the extensive language knowledge that one who is those things would possess. I have, however, done my research and I believe my opinion is well-informed and objective despite the lack of extensive knowledge a native speaker has. (some links to check out at the end). I have a certain level of apprehension answering this ask, but I will try to do it as truthfully as I can and to the best of my knowledge and understanding of the topic. Please, take this with a grain of salt still. I’m open to your corrections.

There is more than one word in Korean that translates to the English “baby”. There’s 아기 (agi) , 아가 (aga) , 애기 (aegi) . The first one being perhaps the most general of the three, being used both in writing and conversationally but each of them can be used in the meaning of baby = child, kid with different nuances (which I won’t try to describe in details, note the disclaimer). The words for “baby” are perhaps not really a typical way for adult men in Korea to address each other, however, we have on more than a few occasions heard members of BTS using different words for “baby” to refer to or call another member directly, example NJ to (about) Tae, Hobi to (about) JM, JM to (about) JK etc.

Note that in all of this cases “baby” is used by the older person for his dongsaeng. You don’t hear Jimin addressing Jin or Yoongi like that for example (for a good reason, I’ll get to in a bit). Because it is done by the older one and because BTS are very close to each other and not really your “average” Korean men, this (”baby”) doesn’t sound so strange or untypical. It’s a way to say “This kid” or “Hey, kid” in a friendly but still close (for males) way. It’s acceptable and not that big of a deal. What Jungkook did though is different for a variety of reasons.

Let’s start with Kook’s exact words to Jimin:

가자 (gaja) (let’s go) 애기야 (aegiya) (baby) 가자 (gaja) (let’s go)

As you can see, he does use the word 애기 (aegi) for baby, coupled with the ending 야 (ya) which is used informally between friends and people of the same age (or younger), in this case to call to them.

Now, the next question is what did Kookie meant by calling Jimin 애기야 (aegiya) and is it even a big deal, considering we’ve established BTS have used “baby” before? Obviously, I’m not Jungkook, so I can’t tell what he was thinking but I can assure you that it is, in fact, a big deal.

The first thing that many salty people and shippers of other ships will try to tell you is that Kook used 애기야 to Jimin as a “child” and that “baby” in Korean doesn’t have the same romantic connotation as in English (aka “babe”). While we can’t speak instead of JK, we can speak of what “baby” can mean in Korea. “Baby” (all words for it, to my knowledge) certainly can be used in the literal sense =a child, a kid, but they also can be used in a romantic context as a term of endearment between romantic interests/couples. “Baby” can be both platonic and romantic in Korean.

Furthermore, the particular variation of “baby” that Jungkook said 애기야 (aegiya) is in fact famous as exactly that - a sweet, even a bit cheesy and corny endearment between partners. This is absolutely easily proven by watching the Korean film “Lovers in Paris” (2004) where this exact word, actually this exact phrase 가자 애기야 (gaja aegiya) (let’s go baby) is said by the older male protagonist to his younger girlfriend.

So you see, 애기야 (aegiya) can certainly be romantic. Even more, because the film was very famous and this particular line became iconic, “aegiya” also became famous for people to call their partners sweetly like that and exactly because of the popularity of the film and line 애기야 (aegiya) holds even more romantic connotation that the other variations of “baby”. Of course 애기야 (aegiya) doesn’t have to be used romantically either but its pretty well-known reference to the film gives it a rather sweet and cute vibe and romantic implications.

I think I am right when I say that while every word for “baby” might not be the preferred way for Korean adult men to address each other, they would definitely hesitate to use 애기야 (aegiya) exactly because of its cutesy tone, reference to the film and subsequent popularity as a term of endearment between couples. It’s just not a bro thing and it doesn’t sound very platonic.

Some of you may ask now: “If “Let’s go, baby” is a famous movie line, isn’t it possible JK was just quoting it?” - Yes, it’s possible. It’s a popular movie and an even popular line and Kook has quoted famous drama lines to Jimin before (see their vlive) so it’s not entirely out of the question but there is a difference between their live and this moment.

The other times when JK used cheesy pick-up quotes to flirt fluster JM, he did it in a particular way - he had a look, a tone of voice and an entire demeanor set, and he was intently watching for Jimin’s reaction which didn’t disappoint as well. JM was giggling, slapping him, covering his face shyly, overall the behaviour of someone who’s been affected by the flirting teasing. In BV2 we see none of those things.

Firstly, JK doesn’t simply throw the phrase as a joke (though I’d like to emphasize this is not the typical joke a “bro” would probably use anyway), he means it literally. He literally is telling JM to move his cute ass and get going. It is also delivered especially casually, like any other way to say “let’s go” would be but this isn’t any other way as we’ve established. JK doesn’t even look at how JM will act so most likely he’s not just “joking”, “teasing” for no other purpose than entertainment.

Even more telling is Jimin’s reaction or more accurately - his complete lack of one. Except that he starts to walk, there is nothing to indicate he was taken aback or fazed by the phrase or the word 애기야 (aegiya) (baby). Tae doesn’t seem very surprised either. All in all, it’s business as usual for all of them. Probably exactly because this isn’t that unusual of a situation.

Whatever meaning the entire thing or just “baby” might have, from the looks of everything this isn’t the first time Jimin hears it. Even if Jungkook’s just quoting the movie, this apparently isn’t the first time he’s done it and that’s saying a lot for their dynamics.

Leaving aside the meaning behind “baby” for a second, there is another, more telling and interesting detail about this moment that cannot be overstated enough. As you all know in SK age is a big thing, there is a social and age hierarchy in place and certain ways younger people are to address their elders (and vice versa). It is highly unusual for a younger person in Korea to call an older male 애기야 (aegiya) in whatever meaning one can use this word. It is a breach of hierarchy and sign of very high closeness for this to even happen: the dongsaeng to call his hyung “baby” and on top of that so informally, coupled with “ya”.

This isn’t something you just go around and do as it can be insulting to the older person and can come out very rude. It’s not just a thing you simply say, you must be allowed or you must be very close to that person to be sure that you will get away with it. It’s a big big thing for the younger to be able to use such level of casualness and informality with the hyung. It speaks volumes for the depth of the relationship. So much so that in fact even when 애기야 (aegiya) is used as a term of endearment between couples, it is still mainly used by the older person regarding their younger partner. Completely opposite of what is happening here.

So, you see now what I meant earlier when I said that no-one (except perhaps Kook himself) can take the significance away from this moment. Jungkook could have meant with that sentence that he was calling JM “a kid”, or used “baby” as a term of endearment (aka “babe”), or quoted a movie line as a joke or using that famous phrase to tell Jimin to move but in the end that “Let’s go, baby” stays pretty f*cking iconic. Younger males don’t go around calling their hyungs “kid” informally, they don’t usually joke by referring to each other as “babe” either, even by quoting movie lines; even in a relationship the younger one would typically be the one called “baby/babe” and not the other way around.

Think of it this way: you know how we KM supporters always freak out about JK dropping the “hyung” and calling Jimin “Jimin-ah” or “Jiminie” or “Chimchim”. This is the same, only at least a 100 times bigger ! (100 may be a small number)

No matter which way you turn or twist this the conclusion is always the same -

Jungkook and Jimin must be very very close for this to happen

(probably the closest within the group or at least JM is the one JK is closest to as he doesn’t act this way with anyone else)

After we’ve talked about what JK said, what he possibly could have meant by saying it and what significane it may holds, there is one last question left: Why did Kook say it in the first place? Why choose these words when there are so many other ways to tell Jimin to move? Why is he using precisely this telling and controversial wording?

The very easy answer is: it slipped his tongue. But if it really was an accident, not intentional, then the question arises of how often Jungkook says this (or similar things) for “baby” to so easily come out of his mouth. What is the reason he talks to JM like this in the first place (be it intentionally or by accident)? My assumption is this:

Because he can and he likes doing it.

Kook has shown a number of times that he feels and wants to be seen as an equal to Jimin. He doesn’t mind being the baby of Bangtan but when it’s Jimin calling him like that, JK immediately goes “I’ve been an adult”, “I’m an adult”, “Little kid Jungkook is not here anymore”. For whatever reason he wants people and JM to see him as someone of an equal footing and Jimin lets him. In other words, Jimin has allowed Kook to feel and act as if they’re on the same age and social level and Jungkook likes to flaunt this privilege. This again leads to our earlier conclusion: they are pretty damn close.

Take-away messages:

“baby” can be platonic or romantic

it is not a common word of address between adult males

애기야 (aegiya) is even less common

“Let’s go baby” is a very famous movie line

younger people don’t call their elders “aegiya”

the exception to that rule speaks of a very close relationship

JK speaks informally to Jimin the most

such breach of hierachy Kook has never done with anyone else

Jungkook and Jimin are very close

Check these awesome posts by a trustworthy, native Korean speaker: here and here . You can also find some information on the way “baby” is used in SK here

P.S. Do correct me if I’m wrong somewhere. As I said, I am not Korean and I may have made some mistakes.

#jikook #kookmin #lets go baby #analyses

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patriotsnet · 3 years

Text

How Many Republicans Are In The Impeachment Inquiry

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-are-in-the-impeachment-inquiry/

How Many Republicans Are In The Impeachment Inquiry

Impeachment: Frequently Asked Questions

Note: These answers were most recently updated on January 10, 2020.

For only the fourth time in the nation’s history, Congress is determining whether it will impeach the president of the United States.

So what is impeachment, how does it work, and what’s going to happen?

There is no shortage of questions about impeachment and confusion about the process seems to have also enveloped Congress itself. But there’s an abundance of experts and historians on hand to help, including a few here at POGO. We’re using this FAQ to capture the many questions around impeachment, and provide the best answers we can find.

Here we go!

Republican Majority By A 51

Senators casting their vote on the motion to allow additional witnesses and evidence to be allowed in the impeachment trial Friday at the Capitol.

WASHINGTON—Senate Republicans rejected Democrats’ demands to call new witnesses and documents in President Trump’s impeachment trial, clearing the way for an acquittal on abuse of power and obstruction-of-Congress charges next week.

The 51-49 vote late Friday afternoon represented a major victory for Republican leadership, which has sought to complete the trial as quickly as possible and avoid testimony that could be politically damaging. Democrats had spent weeks calling for the Senate to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton and other officials, seeking testimony about Mr. Trump’s efforts to press Ukraine to launch investigations that could benefit him politically.

Two Republicans, Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, joined every Democrat to vote for the Senate to call in new witnesses. The GOP controls 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

Under a separate resolution that Republicans approved along party lines, the impeachment trial will break for the weekend and resume Monday at 11 a.m. EST for four hours of closing arguments. After those arguments, the trial will adjourn again, giving senators the opportunity to speak on the floor about the charges before returning for a vote on the articles of impeachment at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

House Republicans Try To Storm Closed

Republican lawmakers protested outside a secure room where a Defense Department official arrived to testify in the House’s impeachment inquiry.

“I’m gathered here with dozens of my congressional colleagues underground in the basement of the Capitol. Because if behind those doors they intend to overturn the results of an American presidential election, we want to know what’s going on.” “What is Adam Schiff trying to hide? I think that’s a question so many people have, so many of my colleagues have, so many people in the press should have, is through those hidden closed doors over there, Adam Schiff is trying to impeach a president of the United States.” “We’re going to go and see if we can get inside, so —” “Let’s do it.” “So let’s see if we get in.” “We’re going in.”

But some Republicans concede privately that it is difficult to mount an effective defense of Mr. Trump when much of the testimony and evidence available paints an unfavorable picture of the president, and there are few witnesses they could call who could credibly refute the accounts of a stream of administration officials who have testified.

The result has been a haphazard approach by Republicans defined mostly by public spectacles like Wednesday’s scene, which even some in the party said crossed the lines of propriety.

Mr. Graham later backtracked on Twitter, saying Republicans had been peaceful in their protest, and , “I understand their frustration and they have good reason to be upset.”

Freedom Caucus Members Have Taken Lead Role In Questioning Foreshadowing Public Hearings

Michael MacagnonePatrick Kelley

Republicans have for weeks blasted the closed-door impeachment process, but transcripts released this week of private depositions show most GOP lawmakers on the three panels at the center of the probe have simply not shown up.

The low attendance for most committee Republicans paints a very different picture of a party that recently stormed the secure room where the depositions have been conducted, demanding to participate in the process. Republican questioning during these private interviews have been driven by a handful of President Donald Trump’s allies and GOP staff.

Conservative Republicans, many closely tied to Trump from the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, have led the GOP questioning, a preview of the coming tumultuous public impeachment process. What is unclear is what role, if any, other Republicans will play.

When they’ve asked questions during these depositions, the president’s allies have criticized the impeachment process, dived into witnesses’ timelines on the Ukraine scandal and resurfaced other controversies, like the so-called Steele dossier.

At least one of Trump’s GOP allies, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, could soon be rewarded with a seat on the Intelligence Committee, which is leading the inquiry. Jordan told Fox News on Tuesday the rumored move would be decided by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and that panel’s ranking member, California’s Devin Nunes.

“I walked right into that one,” Sondland said.

The Key Interrogators In The Trump Impeachment Inquiry

House intelligence committee members and two lawyers – a Democrat and a Republican – will question witnesses

Televised public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump start on Wednesday.

The live proceedings, which could easily draw tens of millions of viewers, come approximately six weeks after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the investigation into Trump’s dealings with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

In the closed-door testimony that followed, witnesses testified in front of several committees about Trump’s alleged attempts to strong-arm Ukraine into interfering with the 2020 presidential race by investigating his main political rival, Joe Biden.

Now some of those witnesses will present their testimony publicly and face grilling by both Democratic politicians seeking to prove Trump plotted a “quid pro quo” and aiming to thwart and delegitimize the inquiry.

Below is a guide to key House intelligence committee members and the two lawyers – one Democrat and one Republican – who will interrogate the witnesses.

Trump Impeachment Inquiry: Key Testimony Finally Begins Despite Republican Sit

Laura Cooper’s testimony for House Democrats underway after protest delayed her appearance by more than five hours

Maanvi Singh in San Francisco and Joan E Greve in Washington

Thu 24 Oct 2019 01.37 BST First published on Wed 23 Oct 2019 14.04 BST

House Republicans brought their phones into the secure area of the Capitol where Laura Cooper was set to testify in the impeachment inquiry, marking a major breach of protocol.

Andrew Desiderio

NEWS: Source tells me that after House tried flooding the SCIF with non-committee members, “many brought their cell phones too into the classified area.”“Stand off in progress,” source adds.

A New York Times reporter argued that the Republican accusations of secrecy are actually a desperate ploy to buy time as the impeachment investigation more damaging accusations against Trump.

Jonathan Martin

The process attacks are a time-buyer for Rs to see what else comes out, if/for how much longer they can defend Trump.

What Can Congress Do About Witnesses Who Wont Testify

Congress has several tools for compelling witnesses to appear.

One path is through the courts. Refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena can constitute contempt of Congress, which is a federal crime. Federal prosecutors can pursue these cases like any other crime. However, in recent decades the Justice Department has argued that federal prosecutors aren’t required to do so, and the department has refused to prosecute executive branch officials who defied Congress.

Notwithstanding the Justice Department’s dubious stance that it doesn’t have to enforce the contempt of Congress statute, congressional committees can and have gone directly to court to force compliance their subpoenas. One such case is ongoing: The House Judiciary Committee has sued former White House Counsel Donald McGahn to force him to testify. That case could have implications for subpoenas issued as part of the current impeachment inquiry. However, congressional Democrats have been unwilling to pursue litigation in the context of the current investigation, going so far as to pull the subpoena for former national security staffer Charles Kupperman after he filed a lawsuit seeking clarity over whether he had to testify. The decision to pull the subpoena will likely end the lawsuit.

House Republicans Shut Down Impeachment Interview

House Republicans who tried to storm the secure area in the Capitol where Laura Cooper, the top Pentagon official on Ukraine, was testifying have effectively shut down the interview, according to a senior Democratic lawmaker.

The House claim that they have been excluded from the impeachment inquiry because interviews have been conducted behind closed doors.

But once again: these Republicans are not members of the three committees running the inquiry. All of the GOP lawmakers who sit on those panels have been allowed to hear the interviews, and the House parliamentarian has already ruled that any other member is not allowed to participate.

Is Due Process Required During The Senate Trial

Defendants in impeachment trials do not receive the same protections as those in criminal trials. Because the consequence is removal from office rather than imprisonment, and because the Constitution provides that “the Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments,” courts would not have the authority to review or overturn an impeachment conviction. Senate rules do provide impeachment defendants with certain rights, including the right to be represented by counsel, to call witnesses, and to cross examine prosecution witnesses.

Why Hasnt The House Subpoenaed Several Key Potential Witnesses

Several notable potential witnesses have not been subpoenaed, including former national security adviser John Bolton and Trump himself. The main reason for this appears to be a desire for speed. Given the administration’s apparent unwillingness to change its uncooperative stance on subpoenas thus far, investigators may have concluded that more demands would slow the process without yielding new information. Another source of delay House investigators have sought to avoid is litigation over the subpoenas. The House withdrew a subpoena against former National Security Council staffer Kupperman to avoid a lawsuit he filed, and Bolton’s stated desire to go to court if subpoenaed led investigators to forgo subpoenaing him. Past instances in which Congress has had to allow the courts to determine whether an individual must testify or be held in civil contempt have taken years.

House Intelligence Committee Hearings

Schedule of public testimony

David Holmes

On November 6, 2019, Chairman Adam Schiff announced that the first public hearings of the impeachment inquiry would be held on November 13, beginning with Bill Taylor and George Kent. The announcement added that Marie Yovanovitch would testify in the second public hearing on November 15. The White House appointed new aides, including Pam Bondi and Tony Sayegh, to work on communications during the inquiry. House Republicans assigned Representative Jim Jordan to the House Intelligence Committee to participate in the hearings. Jordan replaced Representative Rick Crawford , who stepped down so Jordan could take his place.

The release of the Ukraine aid came two days after the House Intelligence Committee was notified of the whistleblower complaint and opened an investigation, and two days after three House committees publicly announced an investigation into Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine.

As hearings began, Schiff said Trump may have committed bribery, and House Speaker Pelosi joined him on November 14; bribery is specifically listed as an impeachable offense in the Constitution.

Mcconnell Predicts Senate Impeachment Trial ‘would Not Lead To A Removal’ If Held Today

Murkowski also benefits from not being up for re-election for three years and from the strong financial backing she has always received from Alaska Native corporations and interest groups, an influential Alaska constituency.

“These things give her the leeway to vote with her heart so often,” Chanda Meek, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks who studies Alaska politics, told NBC News.

On the other hand, Murkowski’s political rivals point out that across her three Senate races , she has never won a majority of the vote — a fact they say signals that there will always be room for a more conservative candidate to mount a challenge when she is up for re-election.

But even those adversaries admit that the unique nature of Alaska politics is likely to enable Murkowski to follow the facts on impeachment — even if the Republican voters oppose it.

“When it comes to the rank and file, I believe strongly that impeachment is looked upon with great disdain and as a reflection of how the system is totally broken,” said Joe Miller, a conservative attorney who ran against Murkowski in and the . “Because she’s so clearly outside the Republican mainstream position is secure because the Republican Party here is just so broad.”

Murkowski has said that she wouldn’t support the Sen. Lindsey Graham’s resolution condemning the impeachment inquiry because “it’s not the Senate’s role to dictate to the House how to determine their own rules.”

What Was Trump Accused Of

The impeachment charges focused on Mr Trump’s request that Kyiv announce a corruption investigation into Joe Biden, a Democratic White House candidate, and his son Hunter Biden.

Mr Trump has argued that the younger Biden improperly held a board position with a Ukrainian natural gas firm while his father was US vice-president and in charge of American-Ukrainian relations.

Democrats accused Mr Trump of abusing his power by withholding $391m in security aid to prod Ukraine’s president into digging up dirt on the Bidens.

The story in 100, 300 and 800 words

They also charged Mr Trump with obstruction of Congress after the White House blocked testimony and documents sought by the House impeachment investigators.

The impeachment inquiry stemmed from Mr Trump’s phone call on 25 July 2019 in which he asked Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to “do us a favour”.

Following a complaint from an anonymous government whistleblower, Democrats launched their investigation in September, compiling a 28,000-page report.

How Did President Trump React

Mr Trump, who is seeking a second four-year term in the 3 November election, always denied wrongdoing.

His re-election campaign said in a statement: “President Trump has been totally vindicated and it’s now time to get back to the business of the American people.

“The do-nothing Democrats know they can’t beat him, so they had to impeach him.” It said “this terrible ordeal” and “nonsense” was merely a Democratic campaign tactic.

Americast: Trump not guilty

The statement added: “This impeachment hoax will go down as the worst miscalculation in American political history.”

Mr Trump – whose personal approval rating with American voters hit a personal best of 49% this week, according to Gallup – tweeted that he would speak on Thursday about the case.

Trump Impeachment: Here’s How The Process Works

Trump became the first president impeached twice.

How the impeachment process works

Former President Donald Trump faces an unprecedented second impeachment trial this week. Adding to the historic nature of the proceeding is that he is no longer in office and the members of the Senate who will decide his fate are among the victims in the Capitol siege, which he is accused of instigating.

The House of Representatives voted 232-197 on Jan. 13 to impeach Trump for an unprecedented second time for his role in the Jan. 6 riot and breach of the Capitol, which occurred as a joint session of Congress was ratifying the election of President Biden.

The extraordinary step of a second impeachment, which charged Trump with incitement of insurrection, took place just days before Trump was set to leave office. Only two other presidents — Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton — have been impeached and none have been convicted.

Unlike Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 , 10 members of the House GOP, including conference chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., voted for impeachment and denounced the president’s actions. Democratic House impeachment managers argued in a brief ahead of his trial, which starts in earnest Feb. 9, that Trump bore “unmistakable” responsibility for the siege and called it a “betrayal of historic proportions.”

“He summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the managers wrote.

Trump Acquitted By Senate In Impeachment Trial

Impeachment of Donald Trump

President Donald Trump has been found not guilty in his impeachment trial, ending a bid to remove him from office that bitterly divided the US.

The Senate, run by the president’s fellow Republicans, voted to acquit him 52-48 on charges of abuse of power and 53-47 on obstruction of Congress.

Democrats charged Mr Trump in December with pressuring Ukraine to smear a potential White House rival.

He will now become the first impeached president to seek re-election.

Impeachment allows Congress – the part of the US government that writes and brings in laws – to put presidents on trial.

It is a rare event and a political process, rather than a criminal one.

Watch: What does it take to impeach a president?

In its historic vote on Wednesday, the Senate decided not to remove America’s 45th president from office on charges arising from his dealings with Ukraine.

If convicted on either charge, Mr Trump would have had to turn over his office to Vice-President Mike Pence.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives approved the articles of impeachment on 18 December.

How Republicans Are Reacting To Developments In The Impeachment Inquiry

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Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy discussed the ongoing impeachment inquiry on Thursday.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

I want to bring in NPR political reporter Tim Mak, who is on Capitol Hill and has been with us this hour, if you heard that.

Tim, what did you hear there from Senator Cassidy in terms of the message that Republicans are crafting as this inquiry moves forward?

TIM MAK, BYLINE: A few things. On process, a lot of Republicans are saying that, hey, Democrats are filled with this hatred of the president, that this process is preordained. It doesn’t matter what the substance of the president’s behavior is; they want to remove him regardless. And on the substance of the allegations against the president, Republicans have been arguing, hey, the president may have done something wrong, but he didn’t do anything particular that – in particular that was criminal.

Now, Democrats have argued that, hey, we have kept an open mind this entire process. And if you talk to a lot of leaders in the Democratic Party and the House, they will say, look – we have not wanted an impeachment process. Over the last two years – or approximately two years – a lot of Democrats have not wanted to go down this road. It’s just that, they say, the president’s behavior warrants that kind of inquiry.

KELLY: All right. Thank you for watching them for us. NPR’s Tim Mak at the Capitol. Thank you, Tim.

MAK: Thanks a lot.

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What Do The House Intelligence Committees Impeachment Reports Say

The House Intelligence Committee majority report on its impeachment inquiry, released December 3, is available . The report was prepared in consultation with the foreign affairs and oversight committees. The minority members of the committees had already issued a rebuttal on December 2. Committee staff presented their reports to the House Judiciary Committee at a on December 9.

The majority’s key factual findings are as follows:

The report is primarily based on witness testimony that is already public, as, according to the Intelligence Committee, “not a single document has been produced by the White House, the Office of the Vice President, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, or the Department of Energy in response to 71 specific, individualized requests or demands for records in their possession, custody, or control.” The committee further notes, “These agencies and offices also blocked many current and former officials from producing records directly to the Committees.”

Does Impeachment And Removal From Office Overturn An Election

No. The vice president, who ran on the same ticket as the president, assumes office if the president is impeached and removed from office.

The 1998 House Judiciary Committee supporting articles of impeachment for President Bill Clinton succinctly summarized the state of the law on this question:

One rhetorical device that has recently been employed by some who oppose the impeachment of President Clinton is that impeachment of the President will “overturn the election.” The suggestion is that the congressional majority is using impeachment for political reasons—to undo a presidential election in which their party did not succeed.The success of this rhetorical strategy rests wholly on the expectation that those to be persuaded by it will not read the Constitution. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified on February 10, 1967, states: “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.” Since the vice presidential and presidential candidates run for office on the same ticket, impeachment of the President could not possibly result in a change of political party control in the Executive. Any assertion to the contrary is patently false.

Interestingly, when the Constitution was adopted, the president and vice president were elected separately, so there was a good chance that if the president were removed from office, his political rival—the vice president—would then take office.

First House Republican Backs Impeachment Inquiry

Tal Axelrod

Donald TrumpKamala Harris should offer Vietnam ‘market economy’ statusSupporters at Alabama rally boo Trump after he tells them to get vaccinatedCNN posthumously airs final interview with late Rep. Paul Mitchell.

In a conference call with reporters, Amodei made clear he wouldn’t vote to impeach Trump, but he also expressed concern over the president’s dealings with Ukraine, adding that the House should “put it through the process and see what happens.”

“I’m a big fan of oversight, so let’s let the committees get to work and see where it goes,” he said, according to audio of the call released by The Nevada Independent.

“Using government agencies to, if it’s proven, to put your finger on the scale of an election, I don’t think that’s right,” Amodei added. “If it turns out that it’s something along those lines, then there’s a problem.”

He later issued a statement after The Independent’s piece was published, emphasizing he was not in favor of impeaching Trump but supportive of the investigative approach.

“In no way, shape, or form, did I indicate support for impeachment,” he said.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump said on the call, according to a memorandum. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

Impeachment Of Bill Clinton

Impeachment trial of Bill Clinton

Impeachment of Bill Clinton Floor proceedings of the U.S. Senate during the trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999, Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding Accused Bill Clinton, President of the United States Date December 19, 1998 to February 12, 1999 Outcome Acquitted by the U.S. Senate, remained in office Charges Perjury , obstruction of justice, abuse of power Congressional votes Voting in the U.S. Senate Accusation Article I – perjury /grand jury Votes in favor Acquitted Accusation Article II – obstruction of justice Votes in favor Acquitted

This article is part of a series about

The impeachment of Bill Clinton occurred when Bill Clinton, the president of the United States, was by the United States House of Representatives of the 105th United States Congress on December 19, 1998 for “high crimes and misdemeanors“. The House adopted two articles of impeachment against Clinton, with the specific charges against Clinton were lying under oath and obstruction of justice. Two other articles had been considered, but rejected by House vote.

Clinton was the second American president to be impeached .

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goldeagleprice · 4 years

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What Is Really Happening In Precious Metals Markets?

By Patrick Heller

In 2020, there has been another modest surge of interest of Americans wanting to own some physical precious metals, especially gold and silver. People are becoming more aware that governments’ inflation of the money supplies is almost certain to reduce the purchasing power of their fiat (paper) currencies.

There is any number of “experts” or “analysts” of precious metals who issue updates explaining what has happened in the markets and projecting what may happen. The quality of their research and forecasts has, collectively, been haphazard. If you are looking for an expert to follow who espouses your preconceived ideas, you won’t have much difficulty finding him or her.

Because precious metals markets are affected by so many factors (supply, demand, inventories, technological innovations, commodity futures markets, other financial markets, changes in currency values, political changes, as some examples) it is about impossible for any one market watcher to cover every aspect.

That is one reason why I seek information from multiple sources, even ones that I have learned over time tend to be frequently erroneous or incomplete. What I have found is that a sizeable number of researchers don’t really know what they are talking about. Another group includes those who mostly understand the markets but have difficulty expressing themselves so as to be understood. Then there are others who have a relatively good grasp of the overall precious metals markets and can clearly pass on this information. Several years ago, when being interviewed by a commodity market journalist at The Wall Street Journal, she noted that while she judged she had better information sources for precious metals commodity markets, she concluded I had better sources for physical precious metals.

A huge problem in figuring out what is really occurring in precious metals markets is the massive amount of information that is kept secret, is reported incorrectly or incompletely, or is skewed in how it is reported so as to mislead those who have access to it.

Let me give you some examples of all of these barriers to comprehending exactly what is really happening in precious metals markets.

The International Monetary Fund regularly reports on physical gold reserves held by official agencies such as central banks. For many years, it required a double-counting of some reserves. If one central bank leased gold to another central bank, it mandated that the lessor central bank continue reporting this gold as part of its reserves and that the other central bank that had custody of the leased gold also report it as part of its reserves. This requirement was changed a few years ago to allow, but not require, that central banks only report the gold reserves for which they have actual title. Thus, IMF reports on official gold holdings cannot be counted on for accuracy.

In 2003, China’s central bank began accumulating gold reserves. One of the traders in the London market breached client confidentiality by arranging to anonymously notify one market watcher in the US as to the dates and amounts of these purchases. This market watcher passed along this information to his readers (including me). By 2005, I had accumulated sufficient corroborating information about the Chinese central bank purchases of gold that I began to mention it in my commentaries. It was not until April 2009 that China’s central bank openly acknowledged that it had been secretly purchasing gold reserves since 2003.

The World Gold Council and others publish statistics about gold supply, demand, inventories, official reserves, changes in hedging activities, and the like. They purport to encompass all global activity, even as they acknowledge that some data such from China and lands in the former Soviet Union may be sketchy. There are other organizations that prepare similar reports for other precious metals. It turned out that none of the analyses of the gold market included China’s 2003-2009 central bank gold purchases, which absorbed more than 3% of global gold output. As best I know, none of the annual reports for that era have been revised to correct for this significant error.

Another way to mislead the reporting of “official” gold holdings is that governments can own gold other than just by central banks. Sovereign investment funds can hold gold without reporting it. Also, some governments, such as China, can effectively hide gold holdings by having it held by government-owned businesses and government sponsored-entities.

In theory, the exchange-traded funds for the various precious metals have in their vaults sufficient physical inventory to cover 100% of their outstanding shares. However, if you read the fine details in some prospectuses, you will find that physical inventory held by some sub-custodians is not necessarily audited to verify it really exists.

Some physical precious metals in vaults have been pledged as collateral to more than one creditor. Because of this, the title to ownership of this metal may be subject to ownership claims by other parties. This could happen, for example, with unallocated vault storage of physical precious metals. In unallocated storage, popular because it costs less than allocated or registered storage, the owner of metal may have a claim to some number of ounces or pieces of what is in the vault, but not to specifically identified ounces or pieces. Metals in unallocated storage are considered assets of the company operating the vault, which means they may be subject to third-party claims against that company. Because of potential multiple claims of ownership, it could happen that reported inventories might be overstated.

In the gold and silver markets in particular, the relatively recent huge increase in COMEX futures contracts called for delivery upon maturity that is settled by the “exchange for physical” (EFP) option is worrisome. This is the most expensive way to settle such a contract. The least expensive option would be to deliver the actual physical metal, to pay cash instead of delivering the metal, or to tender shares of an exchange-traded fund representing the same quantity of metal. When settling by EFP, the short party pays some cash plus delivers another futures contract (usually in the London market) for delivery of the same ounces of metal. It now appears that the EFP method of settlement is how almost all COMEX gold and silver contracts are being settled. If the COMEX really did have in its vaults all the gold and silver it is reporting, why aren’t settlements made by physical delivery?

To try to bring more transparency to the gold market, this week the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) sent a letter to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission asking five questions. You can view the letter here.

The first question in GATA’s letter is “Has your commission ever audited the gold kept in COMEX-approved vaults and reported to the commission as registered or eligible for sale and delivery?” The remaining questions ask for further details if such audits have occurred or if they are planned in the future.

If the COMEX really does have in its vaults all the physical gold that it is reporting, wouldn’t you think it would be pleased to reassure public confidence by announcing that an audit verified this to be true?

As you can see by the examples listed above, it is a major challenge trying to stay on top of what is really happening in precious metals markets. One step that can help detect the truth, even in the absence of full and accurate data, is to follow statistics over time. If available inventories are growing, diminishing, or remaining stable over time or demand or supply is changing, the trend will likely show this. A longer-term trend is much more illuminating than a one-time snapshot of data that may be taken out of context.

Patrick A. Heller was honored as a 2019 FUN Numismatic Ambassador. He is also the recipient of the American Numismatic Association 2018 Glenn Smedley Memorial Service Award, 2017 Exemplary Service Award 2012 Harry Forman National Dealer of the Year Award, and 2008 Presidential Award winner. Over the years, he has also been honored by the Numismatic Literary Guild (including twice in 2019), Professional Numismatists Guild, Industry Council for Tangible Assets, and the Michigan State Numismatic Society. He is the communications officer of Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Michigan and writes Liberty’s Outlook, a monthly newsletter on rare coins and precious metals subjects. Past newsletter issues can be viewed at http://www.libertycoinservice.com. Some of his radio commentaries titled “Things You ‘Know’ That Just Aren’t So, And Important News You Need To Know” can be heard at 8:45 AM Wednesday and Friday mornings on 1320-AM WILS in Lansing (which streams live and become part of the audio and text archives posted at http://www.1320wils.com).

The post What Is Really Happening In Precious Metals Markets? appeared first on Numismatic News.

#Precious Metals

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terabitweb · 5 years

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Original Post from Krebs on Security Author: BrianKrebs

Reporting on the exposure of some 26 million stolen credit cards leaked from a top underground cybercrime store highlighted some persistent and hard truths. Most notably, that the world’s largest financial institutions tend to have a much better idea of which merchants and bank cards have been breached than do the thousands of smaller banks and credit unions across the United States. Also, a great deal of cybercrime seems to be perpetrated by a relatively small number of people.

In September, an anonymous source sent KrebsOnSecurity a link to a nearly 10 gb set of files that included data for approximately 26 million credit and debit cards stolen from hundreds — if not thousands — of hacked online and brick-and-mortar businesses over the past four years.

The data was taken from BriansClub, an underground “carding” store that has (ab)used this author’s name, likeness and reputation in its advertising since 2015. The card accounts were stolen by hackers or “resellers” who make a living breaking into payment card systems online and in the real world. Those resellers then share the revenue from any cards sold through BriansClub.

KrebsOnSecurity shared a copy of the BriansClub card database with Gemini Advisory, a New York-based company that monitors BriansClub and dozens of other carding shops to learn when new cards are added and when existing inventory is removed (sold).

Gemini estimates that the 26 million cards — 46 percent credit cards and 54 percent debit cards — representing almost one-third of the existing 87 million credit and debit card accounts currently for sale in the underground.

“While many of these cards were added in previous years, more than 21.6 million will not expire until after October 2019, offering cybercriminal buyers ample opportunity to cash out these records,” Gemini wrote in an analysis of the BriansClub data shared with this author.

Cards stolen from U.S. residents made up the bulk of the data set (~24 million of the 26+ million cards), and as a result these far more plentiful cards were priced much lower than cards from banks outside the U.S. Between 2016 and 2019, cards stolen from U.S.-based bank customers fetched between $12.76 and $16.80 apiece, while non-U.S. cards were priced between $17.04 and $35.70 during the same period.

Image: Gemini Advisory.

Unfortunately for cybercrime investigators, the person who hacked BriansClub has not released (at least not to this author) any information about the BriansClub users, payments, vendors or resellers. [Side note: This hasn’t stopped an unscrupulous huckster from approaching several of my financial industry sources with unlikely offers of said data in exchange for bitcoin].

But the database does have records of which cards were sold and which resellers (identified only by a unique number) supplied those cards, Gemini found.

“While neither the vendor nor the buyer usernames appeared in this database, they were each assigned ID numbers,” Gemini wrote. “This allowed analysts to determine how prolific certain threat actors were on BriansClub and derive relevant metrics from this data.”

According to Gemini, there were 142 resellers and more than 50,000 buyers of the card data sold through BriansClub. These buyers purchased at least 9 million of the 27.2 million cards available.

Image: Gemini Advisory

One reseller in particular (ID: 174,829) offered just shy of 6 million records, posted for $106 million. Of those, almost 940,000 were sold, grossing over $16 million in profits shared between BriansClub and the reseller. In the quote below, a “base” refers to a distinct batch of freshly-stolen card data uploaded to BriansClub.

“For context, the collective price for the entirety of exposed BriansClub records was $566 million, while the total dollar amount of all sold records exceeded $162 million,” Gemini noted. “The top 20 buyers bought 5% of the entire set of records in this shop, while the top 100 buyers accounted for 11%. The shop had a total of 11,000 bases, with most vendors uploading multiple bases.”

Image: Gemini Advisory

All the 26 million+ card records leaked from BriansClub were shared with multiple trusted sources that work directly with financial institutions to inform them when their customers’ cards go up for sale in the cybercrime underground.

Banks at this point basically have three options. Ignore the report and hope for the best. Cancel the card and reissue. Or monitor the card more closely and place tighter fraud controls on that account.

But here’s the thing: Not all banks got the data at the same time. The larger banks got it first and largely shrugged. At least according to anti-fraud sources at two large U.S.-based financial institutions: Their anti-fraud teams had already identified 90-95 percent of the cards as potentially compromised in one of hundreds of breaches since 2015, mostly those involving malware inside point-of-sale payment terminals.

The sources I spoke with at smaller financial institutions found out about the cards they’d issued to customers that wound up in the BriansClub database by receiving alerts last week from Visa and MasterCard. Most of those sources seemed genuinely surprised at the number of cards exposed, and two sources at different credit unions each estimated they were previously unaware of about 80 percent of the cards listed in the alerts from the credit card companies.

Also, smaller financial institutions are far more likely to eat the cost of re-issuing cards at risk of fraudulent use than are larger institutions, which typically have much a higher tolerance for financial losses from counterfeit card fraud. So far, however, there is no evidence this flood of card data intelligence to the banking sector is causing much of stampede for re-issuing cards.

Visa maintains that smaller financial institutions receive the same alerts sent to larger banks about cards thought to be exposed in specific breaches. The alerts include cards specific to each bank, but smaller banks are often limited in the resources they have available to do much with the reported card data, aside from re-issuing the card.

Gemini CEO and co-founder Andrei Barysevich said so far the feedback from the banks has been all over the place.

“While the larger US banks told us that most of the cards have been previously flagged as compromised, the mid and small size financial institutions were caught completely off-guard,” he said. “As to the European and Asian banks, to them the data was mostly new, in some cases upwards of 60% of cards were still open and active.”

I thought perhaps the card associations could provide some meta-statistics on the BriansClub dump, but also those hopes were dashed. MasterCard did not respond to requests for comment. Visa declined to share any information related to the BriansClub database (even though they got it indirectly courtesy of Yours Truly), but issued the following statement:

“As part of our core mission to ensure security across the payment system, we are very aware of carder forums and other criminal enterprises. Visa continuously invests in intelligence and technology to detect cyber threats and works with law enforcement, clients and other partners, to mitigate and disrupt such threats.

“Whenever we discover compromised account information, Visa uses its payment intelligence and investigative capabilities to determine the source. We also work with our financial institution clients to provide card issuers with the compromised account numbers so they can take steps to protect consumers through independent fraud monitoring and, if needed, by reissuing cards. Incidents such as these reinforce the need for secure technologies such as chip and tokenization to devalue account information so that even if stolen, data cannot be leveraged for fraud.””

Gemini found that exactly two-thirds of the stolen cards (66.6 percent) siphoned from BriansClub were Visa-branded, and 23 percent MasterCard. A full 85% of the total records were EMV (chip) enabled, with the remaining 15% using only a magnetic stripe.

One final note: Gemini report also challenges claims made by the administrator of BriansClub, namely that he removed the breached cards from his online store and that the data leak stemmed from a breach in February as his site’s data center.

The BriansClub admin, defending the honor of his stolen cards shop after a major breach.

“While the administrator of BriansClub, operating under the moniker ‘Brian Krebs,’ claimed that the breach took place in February 2019, this appears to be false,” Gemini observed in its report. “The number of records from South Korea corresponds to a previous spike in South Korean records that occurred from March 2019 through July 2019. If BriansClub were breached in February, the South Korean-issued cards would number under 10,000 rather than over 1 million.”

The report continues:

“This threat actor also claimed to have removed the compromised records from the shop. Gemini has found this claim to be false as well. Since BriansClub offers a ‘checker service’ for all purchased records to determine whether compromised payment cards are still open, it may be unnecessary to remove the cards. The shop likely assumes that even if the banks received the compromised card data from this breach, they are unlikely to close down and reissue every single card.”

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Go to Source Author: BrianKrebs Takeaways from the $566M BriansClub Breach Original Post from Krebs on Security Author: BrianKrebs Reporting on the exposure of some 26 million stolen credit cards leaked from a top underground cybercrime store…

#Krebs on Security

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andylocksmithtipsntricks · 5 years

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{ "@context": "http://schema.org", "@type": "Table", "about": "" }

Data effective 6/14/2019. Offers and availability subject to change.

LifeLock’s upper-tier plans are more comprehensive than those offered by similar services, but you pay a lot more for features like million-dollar reimbursements and file-sharing network protection that most people don’t need to worry about. We’re also not fans of the introductory price that then goes up a year after you subscribe, no matter what plan you choose.

The plans work like a subscription service with annual renewals, but you can cancel at any time. If you pay annually, you can get a prorated refund of any months you’ve already paid for.

Identity Alerts

Despite its name, LifeLock’s identity theft protection works less like a lock and more like a security system. LifeLock watches for suspicious activity on your credit report and will alert you if something looks fishy so you can take steps to fix it. It won’t prevent people from getting access to your information, but it will give you the opportunity to stop the fraudulent activity before they get away with much.

On the downside, the LifeLock fraud alerts are often vague and confusing. Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether the “suspicious activity” that triggered the alert was you doing your daily business or identity thieves using your account. Also, because LifeLock checks multiple credit bureaus for its top-tier plans, you may get multiple fraud alerts about the same activity.

One of LifeLock’s biggest strengths is the Bank Account Takeover Alert. We talked to Susan Quackenbush, a credit fraud investigator for Capitol One, who told us that thieves often change names and addresses on existing bank and credit accounts to take them over—it’s one of the most common ways of stealing account information. Quackenbush says even many of the best identity theft protection companies don’t monitor that kind of fraud activity. LifeLock does, but the alert is available only with the most expensive Ultimate Plus plan.

LifeLock App

The LifeLock app comes free with every plan, and it gets high ratings from both Android and iOS users. The app lets you see the different ways LifeLock monitors your identity, and it lets you check your credit score. We think the best feature is the in-app communication that lets you talk directly to identity theft experts 24/7 by either messaging or calling. If you lose your wallet or your driver’s license or get an alert that your private information has been stolen, having someone to walk you through important next steps can take a huge weight off your shoulders.

Norton Antivirus

LifeLock has teamed up with Norton Antivirus to give you virus protection on up to five devices, including laptops, desktops, phones, and tablets. Protection is optional, so if you already have an antivirus that works for you, you can opt out. But Norton Security (aka, Symantec) has some of the best anti-malware products around, and its most recent tests from AV-Comparatives showed that it scored well protecting against spyware, malware, and other viruses that could infect your device and leak your personal information. The only thing we don’t like about the included Norton Antivirus software is that it doesn’t work on iOS devices.

Customer Service

Most of the glowing reviews from customers have to do with LifeLock’s experts helping them recover from identity theft. Less-than-stellar reviews are usually about billing, with customers continuing to get charged for cancelled memberships. Account access is another sore point—several members report being unable to access their accounts and receiving very little assistance from LifeLock customer service.

Note: In our research we discovered that in 2015 LifeLock was ordered to pay a settlement for false advertising and failure to protect customers’ sensitive information, among other offenses. We also discovered that the company suffered an email leak in 2018, putting its customers’ privacy at risk. Keep in mind that the fact that you have to give over so much personal information to an identification theft protection service can make it your Achilles’ heel if it were to ever get hacked.

How LifeLock Stacks Up

Credit Monitoring Identity Theft Insurance Computer and Internet Protection Additional Protection Starting Monthly Fee

LifeLock IdentityForce IdentityGuard 1-bureau monitoring None None $1 million + $25,000 stolen funds reimbursement $1 million $1 million Dark web monitoring Dark web monitoring Social media monitoring Dark web monitoring Safe browsing tools Social Security number and credit card alerts Sex offender registry monitoring Risk management report $9.99 $17.95 $8.99 Visit LifeLock Visit IdentityForce Visit IdentityGuard

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Based on each company’s most basic plan. Data effective 6/14/2019. Offers and availability subject to change.

LifeLock’s main selling point compared to its competitors is its $25,000 insurance policy that covers out-of-pocket expenses if your identity or wallet is stolen. This reimbursement is more clearly defined than the vague million-dollar “identity theft insurance” promise offered by both LifeLock and its competitors.

FAQs

Can LifeLock help if my identity has already been stolen?

Like an insurance company, LifeLock can’t help with reimbursement of personal expenses after your identity has been stolen, but it can help you with identity protection going forward.

How can I protect my child’s identity?

Protect your child’s Social Security number by keeping their Social Security card and other personal information in a safe place. Don’t give their Social Security number out to anyone unless you know specifically how it will be used. Keep an eye out for any pre-approved credit card offers in their name, and request their credit report from a major credit reporting bureau. If their identity hasn’t been stolen, they won’t have a credit report yet. To further protect your child’s identity, you can request that a credit report be created and then put a freeze on it to prevent any activity until they’re old enough to use it.1

What is two-factor authentication?

Two-factor authentication is a way of protecting a private account—like a bank account—by requiring you to provide two forms of proof of access. One is usually a password, but the other could be a PIN number, an answer to a security question, or even a thumbprint ID. This type of authentication adds another layer of protection to your personal accounts.

Conclusion

If you want complete coverage, LifeLock’s top-tier Ultimate Plus plan is a good choice, but it’s pricey. The lower-tier plans are less expensive, but they have enough holes in their identity protections that they just aren’t worth the monthly fees. LifeLock’s history with the FTC is also troubling, and we don’t like how it can change the rates for its services each year. LifeLock is almost a good option, but with the exception of the top-tier plan, we can’t recommend it as a whole for your identity protection. We recommend shopping around to find a stronger identity protection service.

How We Reviewed LifeLock

We studied how the company monitors credit reports and other indicators of identity theft and compared its methods and pricing with similar services. We looked at the Better Business Bureau to find customer complaints against LifeLock, and we also checked into the company’s history to learn of any data breach issues. Our full methodology explains more about the process we use to review products.

Related Pages on SafeWise

Best Anti-Malware and Antivirus Software

The 5 Best Identity Theft Protection Services of 2019

Tips for Recovering Lost or Stolen Items

How to Respond and Recover from Identity Theft

Sources:

Federal Trade Commission Consumer Information, “Child Identity Theft”

The post LifeLock Review appeared first on SafeWise.

Article source here: LifeLock Review

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yesweweresoldiers · 5 years

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What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup 4

Every summer, TeachingAmericanHistory brings together scholars and teachers from around the nation to our campus in Ashland to enjoy week-long seminars on focused topics in American history and government. These courses can be taken for graduate credit, or simply for your personal enrichment — some participants describe the experience as an “intellectual retreat” where they can enjoy both conversation and collegiality.

If you aren’t able to join us in person this summer, we hope you’ll consider joining us in spirit by checking out some of the myriad texts we’ll be discussing. If you’re reading along, we invite you to join the conversation using #TAHreading to share your thoughts!

Lucas Morel, GREAT AMERICAN TEXTS: RALPH ELLISON

My Ralph Ellison course will focus on his novel Invisible Man as a great American text. Although I supplement discussion of the novel with several of his essays and interviews, the course begins with discussion of one of his short stories, “In a Strange Country.” Published in 1944, eight years before the publication of Invisible Man, the story illustrates some elements that will Ellison will employ in his great novel: irony, music, and interior monologue to name a few. More importantly, the plot raises questions about race, diversity, humanity, inclusion, and the meaning of America, in general, that Ellison will return to not only in his novel but throughout the rest of his writing career. The story involves a black American named Mr. Parker, who is on shore leave in Wales during World War II. The plot thickens quickly when he is mugged by a group of bigoted white American servicemen and rescued by a Welshman, who takes him to a pub to recover. They eventually spend the rest of the evening at the Welshman’s private singing club. The harmony of the diverse Welshmen as they sing a variety of songs impresses Mr. Parker, who then is surprised and befuddled as they launch into the American national anthem, as they expect him to help them along. The story closes with his musing about “The Star-Spangled Banner,” thoughts and feelings reeling, as he notes, “For the first time in your whole life, he thought with dreamlike wonder, the words are not ironic.” What is the “strange land” of the story’s title: Wales or America? For racial minorities, or any numerical minority, is an imperfect America worth fighting for? How can diversity be a strength rather than a weakness of a free society? These and other questions come readily to mind, demonstrating Ellison’s close observations of American social and political life. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

William Atto and Thomas Bruscino, THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR

Thomas Bruscino: My recommendation is General Orders No. 100, Lieber’s Code, 1863. It seems so banal–just a list of 157 articles, published with little fanfare and no preamble in 1863. Perhaps that is why General Orders No. 100 is not more well known. But a closer look at the code, written by Francis Lieber and issued by President Abraham Lincoln to govern armies in the field, reveals a document of remarkable importance and reach. General Orders No. 100 is one of the key documents in the laws of war, but more than that, it is the original American counterinsurgency manual, a wartime manifestation of the opposition to slavery built into the constitution, a guide to American principles of justice and fairness, and the fundamental expression of the American mind for war. As such, Lieber’s Code is one of the most important documents in American and world history. It deserves careful reading, study, and deliberation. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Sarah Beth V. Kitch, RACE AND EQUALITY IN AMERICA

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), a philosopher and political actor, observes that many persons regard care for justice as someone else’s task. Some persons, however, share in suffering in a way that moves them to awaken their communities to injustice. Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) invites her audience to experience the pain of racial injustice in her account, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Her account makes fresh a phenomenon that familiarity sometimes render abstract.

An invitation to ethical sensitivity, the narrative highlights the phenomenon of what Heschel would later call indifference to evil. Specifically, she reveals how Americans have accepted as part of their political order the oppression of some persons on the basis of race. Through thoughtful storytelling, Jacobs summons readers to name practices that degrade persons. “These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.” She then shows the reader how an order contrived on racial inequality protects persons who commit sexual violence, breach her motherhood, and attack her practices of conscience and faith. The narrative creates a ringing awareness of the human capacity, whether consciously harsh or unconsciously habituated, to tolerate evil.

Jacobs concludes that the injustices she and others have experienced dehumanize both those who commit harm and those who suffer. As she unveils slavery, Jacobs beckons the reader with to consider its legacy in American political life today. She leaves the reader with a reminder of our common need for home along with a challenge to thoughtful action. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Jeremy Bailey and Marc Landy, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY II: JOHNSON TO THE PRESENT

Jeremy Bailey: My serious recommendation is easy. I was just on the American Political Science Association American Political Thought organized section book award committee. And the best was Jonathan Gienapp’s Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution (Harvard University Press:2o18) shows how the Constitution became “fixed” in the 1790’s and regarded as a settled agreement with its own authority. Allen Guelzo’s short Reconstruction (Oxford University Press: 2018) is also very good, as well as Daniel R’ Rodger’s history of the city on hill speech in As a City on a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon (Princeton).

My summer-y recommendation is Mark Synnott’s The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life (Dutton), which gives a very good account of the free solo climb in the context of American climbing culture in the last several decades. For more recommendations on modern American politics, check out what we’ll be reading in class on the syllabus.

Jason Jividen, THE PROGRESSIVES (online)

Charles E. Merriam (1874-1953) was a professor at the University of Chicago and an early leader in the twentieth century discipline of political science. He was also an influential public intellectual in the Progressive Movement. Often cited as one of the founders of the “behavioral approach” to political science, he argued against the usefulness of “mere” theory or formal law and institutions in understanding politics. Rather, Merriam claimed, political scientists ought to derive data from the behavior of political actors and subject these things to quantitative analysis. For Merriam, if it is to be in any way useful, political science also ought to help citizens, politicians, and administrators realize progressive social, economic, and political reform.

In his 1903 book, A History of American Political Theories, Merriam surveyed the historical development of American political principles and ideologies, and he saw this history as setting the stage for the Progressive Movement. In the eighth chapter, Merriam examined “recent tendencies” in contemporary social science research. Among these recent tendencies was the willingness of progressive scholars to reject many of the theoretical principles associated with the American Founding, e.g. the state of nature, natural rights, social contract theory, limited government, and separation of powers. Few standalone pieces highlight so succinctly the basic tenets of Progressivism and its critique of America’s Founding principles. This piece is regularly taught across several sections of AHG 505 (The Progressive Movement).

Ken Masugi, THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES (online)

My favorite Abraham Lincoln speech to teach (next to the Gettysburg Address) is his Temperance Address. With our current increase in caustic political exchanges, its penetrating (and witty) reflections on social and political extremism are most instructive.

The Temperance Address was delivered on February 22, 1842 in a church at a meeting of the Washingtonian Society, a recently organized group of reformed alcoholics. Lincoln used the occasion of Washington’s Birthday to praise the Washingtonians for their rational persuasion in gaining members. He reminds a greater audience that such rhetoric is essential for self-government. In moving citizens toward a candidate or policies, persuasive speech, which appeals to self-interest, is the alternative to force. Hellfire and damnation preaching promotes civil war.

Throughout his political career Lincoln would use the rhetorical principles of the Temperance Address to teach supporters of noble causes, such as the abolition of slavery, how best to advance them. In its argument and the action Lincoln sobers us up for the duty of self-government. Among the moral and political vices, being drunk on power is possibly the worse.

I will teach this speech in my late August course on the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

The post What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup 4 appeared first on Teaching American History.

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douglasacogan · 5 years

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Any bold predictions for Paul Manafort's (first) sentencing hearing?

As reported in this Reuters piece, "President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort will be sentenced by a U.S. judge in Virginia on Thursday for bank and tax fraud uncovered during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election." Here is more reporting setting the basic context:

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis could deliver effectively a life sentence to Manafort, 69, if he follows federal sentencing guidelines cited by prosecutors that call for 19-1/2 to 24 years in prison for the eight charges the veteran Republican political consultant was convicted of by a jury in Alexandria last August. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for 3:30 p.m....

Manafort was convicted after prosecutors accused him of hiding from the U.S. government millions of dollars he earned as a consultant for Ukraine’s former pro-Russia government. After pro-Kremlin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, prosecutors said, Manafort lied to banks to secure loans and maintain an opulent lifestyle with luxurious homes, designer suits and even a $15,000 ostrich-skin jacket.

Manafort faces sentencing in a separate case in Washington on March 13 on two conspiracy charges to which he pleaded guilty last September. While he faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in the Washington case, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson potentially could stack that on top of whatever prison time Ellis imposes in Virginia, rather than allowing the sentences to run concurrently. Jackson on Feb. 13 ruled that Manafort had breached his agreement to cooperate with Mueller’s office by lying to prosecutors about three matters pertinent to the Russia probe including his interactions with a business partner they have said has ties to Russian intelligence. Jackson’s ruling could impact the severity of his sentence in both cases....

Mueller’s charges led to the stunning downfall of Manafort, a prominent figure in Republican Party circles for decades who also worked as a consultant to such international figures as former Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and Yanukovych.

Defense lawyers have asked Ellis to sentence Manafort to between 4-1/4 and 5-1/4 years in prison. They are expected to tell the judge Manafort is remorseful and that the sentencing guidelines cited by prosecutors call for a prison term disproportionate to the offenses he committed. “The Special Counsel’s attempt to vilify Mr. Manafort as a lifelong and irredeemable felon is beyond the pale and grossly overstates the facts before this court,” his lawyers wrote in their sentencing memo.

Prosecutors have not suggested a specific sentence. Mueller’s office, in court filings, said that only Manafort is to blame for his crimes, that he has shown no remorse and that his lies to prosecutors after his guilty plea should be taken into account. “The defendant blames everyone from the Special Counsel’s Office to his Ukrainian clients for his own criminal choices,” prosecutors wrote.

Manafort will be sentenced by a judge who faced criticism by some in the legal community for making comments during the trial that were widely interpreted as biased against the prosecution. Ellis repeatedly interrupted prosecutors, told them to stop using the word “oligarch” to describe people associated with Manafort because it made him seem “despicable,” and objected to pictures of Manafort’s luxury items they planned to show jurors. “It isn’t a crime to have a lot of money and be profligate in your spending,” Ellis told prosecutors.

In my very first post on this case back in October 2017 right after Paul Manafort was indicted, I noted the guideline calculations that would likely mean he was going to be facing at least 10 years of imprisonment if he were convicted of any of the most serious charges against him. Now, roughly a year and half later, I am tempted to set the "over-under" prediction on his sentence slightly below 10 years. Though it is hardly a bold prediction, I will here predict that Judge Ellis will impose a sentence somewhere around 100 months.

Anyone else have predictions or prescriptions for today's high-profile federal sentencing?

Some prior related posts:

Appreciating ugly sentencing realities facing Paul Manafort and Rick Gates after federal indictment

Paul Manafort has bail revoked ... and has not (yet) gotten rescued from jail by Prez Trump's clemency pen

Paul Manafort found guilty of 8 of 18 counts ... and now faces real possibility of spending many years in federal prison

Reported sentencing details in Paul Manafort's plea deal to wrap up his various federal prosecutions

Paul Manafort's DC plea agreement has a calculated guideline range of 17.5 to 22 years (though he can only get 10)

Paul Manafort seemingly poised to get "senior discount" at upcoming sentencing

Special counsel saying Paul Manafort is breaching his plea agreement by lying "on a variety of subject matters"

Paul Manafort facing potentially longer sentence after judge concludes he failed to comply with plea deal

Special Counsel's office files sentencing memorandum for Paul Manafort seemingly supporting guideline range of 235 to 293 months' imprisonment

Latest Manafort sentencing memorandum from Special Counsel pulls few punches

"Paul Manafort should not be sentenced to 20 years in prison"

Paul Manafort's sentencing memorandum in DC makes pitch for a sentence "significantly below" ten years

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benrleeusa · 5 years