During the uprising following the brutal filmed murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Trump called some of the rioters thugs and tweeted that when the looting starts the shooting starts.

Yes, those pikers broke some windows and stole some diapers, some got detergent; one man had a carton of eggs and a young man stole a backpack. These rioters were very disorganized criminals.

Meanwhile, organized crime carried on as usual, figuring out how to use punked legislators to enrich the wealthy even more at the direct expense of everyone who pays taxes.

The coronavirus bailout funds went in dribs and drabs to some average Americans. I was lucky enough to get $800, and many people I know have gotten nothing. Meanwhile, Trumps family businesses and his close associates received more than $21 million, and many other wealthy people got huge checks from the CARES Act.

This is organized crime.

Part of the reason Trump was elected in the first place was a scam by Trump crony Roger Stone and Wikileaks and the Russian intelligence operations to steal and make a big Lock her up! deal about Hillary Clintons emails. Of course, that was ultimately a series of false claims, a nothingburger that continues to be quashed in courts when it reappears in rightwing zombie acts of endless harassment.

As a result of his actions, Stone was convicted in court of seven felonies, all of which related to helping Trump steal the 2016 election.

Stealing the U.S. presidency? Now that is organized crime.

Getting a big assist from the real crime lords at the Russian GRU intelligence agency, and getting the cooperation of the sloppy data thieves at Wikileaks, now that is a planned master criminal enterprise.

With the mob boss in the White House wielding a pardon pen, the circle is complete as Trump commutes the Stone sentences and pardons Flynn. Sorry, mafia, you guys are amateurs compared to Trump, Stone, Flynn, Mitch McConnell, and the crew at the top. Gangsters and thieves everywhere should be taking notes.

During the workup to the Republican tax cut bill back when Trump had all branches of government doing his bidding, we heard lots of empty promises about lowered taxes, no impact on the deficit, and increased investment in U.S. manufacturing.

The House Budget Committee assessed the losses to the American workers and middle class alongside the massive gains for the wealthy as the tax law went into effect, and really, that is seriously organized crime, looting from the taxes collected from working Americans at stunning levels.

Is this what America wants? Thugs in the White House and Senate? Because that is who is in those places now. A catalog of crimes committed by Trump and associates is thick and growing by the day. Its governance by gaslighting and ruling by lawlessness.

I hope we can get just and correctional about all this in November. Instead of when the looting starts, the shooting starts, I hope we can vote in much better. When the stealing ends, the healing mends feels like a better model.

Breaking windows and ripping off cleaning products is beyond stupid but, after all, we only see such riots every 40 or 50 years, while the real looters, the ones in charge, are ripping you off every d**ned day.

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is the director for PeaceVoice and on occasion an expert witness for the defense in court.

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The real looters and thugs are in the White House and Senate - MSR News Online

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shakes hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 25, 2019. Photo: SANA / Handout via Reuters.

JNS.org A new report that maps out the ways in which Irans overseas elite unit, the Quds Force, operates in Syria under various guises, is calling on the United States to designate three organizations tied to the notorious unit as terror organizations.

The Quds Force of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) promotes terrorism and violent subversive activities in order to expand Irans influence across the Middle East. It was commanded by Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani until January 3, when he was assassinated in a US drone strike in Baghdad, and is now under the command of Esmail Ghaani. The unit funds, trains, and arms a host of non-state radical actors, including Hezbollah, Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen. It also maintains an extensive weapons trafficking network.

Yossi Mansharof, an Iran and Shite political Islam analyst at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) and at the Alma Center, authored the report. He said that a gap in publicly available knowledge exists about the various ways in which the Quds Force is active in states outside of Iran.

Mansharofs report was published at the Alma Research and Education Center, an Israeli organization that conducts in-depth geopolitical research, and which is headed by Lt. Col. (res.) Sarit Zehavi, a former military intelligence officer.

July 17, 2020 1:26 pm

It is important that the US administration designates the three organizations analyzed in this study as terror organizations, stated Mansharof, naming the Iranian Red Crescent, the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation, and the Reconstruction Organization of the Holy Shrines.

In the report, Mansharof noted that Syria is one of the main destinations Quds Forces are active in today. This is based on the Iranian strategy, which strives to exploit the war in the country and Assads dependence on Iranian support (alongside Russia), in order to turn Syria into a front base against Israel, equipped with factories to manufacture advanced weapons, and to maintain and strengthen Hezbollahs supply route into Lebanon and the access to the Mediterranean Sea.

Regarding the three associations used by the Quds Forces to operate throughout Syria, Mansharof wrote in his report that the Iranian Red Crescent serves as a cover for Quds Forces and the Iranian Intelligence Office (MOIS), making extensive use to advance Iranian subversion in various countries including Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, and Iraq.

Based on WikiLeaks documents, Mansharof stated that during the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the Quds Force used the Iranian Red Crescent as a cover to smuggle military equipment and weapon supplies from Iran to Lebanon.

In light of the extensive history the association accumulated in the European and Middle East arenas, it is likely that it serves as a cover for Quds Forces missions in Syria as well, the report added.

The Imam Khomeini Relief Foundations has a stated purpose to eradicate poverty and provide regime support to the disadvantaged. Khamenei directly appoints the chairperson of the foundation, said the report.

However, the foundation serves as one of the key channels of the Quds Force worldwide and so for example, according to WikiLeaks documents, was one of the channels through [which] Quds Forces delivered weapons to the various pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq during the war against US-led coalition forces (2003-2011).

Mansharofs report assessed that it is likely that the Reconstruction Organization of the Holy Shrines appear to be part of the alleged civilian organizations intended to assist Irans establishment efforts in Syria, financing and arming the Shiite militias operating there and may even be transferring financial assistance to the Assad regime.

The foundations official role is to renovate and look after holy Shiite sites in Syria, such as Zaynabs tomb in Damascus.

In March 2020, the US Treasury Department sanctioned the Iraqi branch of the organization after concluding that it is ruled by the IRGC and had served the Quds Forces in order to send weaponry shipments to Iraq via an Iraqi corporation, the Kosar Company, also controlled by Quds Forces as well to collect intelligence in Iraq and to transfer funds to Hezbollah. However, the organizations operations in Syria remain legal.

Mansharof interviewed senior former officials from the Persian Gulf as part of his doctoral thesis, which analyzed relations between Iran and Shiite communities in the Gulf region. In conducting his current research, he fused information from WikiLeaks documents with the Arab and Iranian media. He also scanned Iranian opposition sources.

When I took this information and connected it with my research from the Iranian media, I saw that I could really complete the puzzle. The Iranian regime does not want this information to be public. Iranian protesters who are calling on the regime to forget about Syria and look after their basic needs want their government to spend billions of dollars on Iranian civilians. Yet we know about the huge sums that Iran sends to Assad. And we know that Iran is in competition with Russia over Syria. So the Iranian regime is very deeply invested in the Syrian story to the point where it is difficult to believe they would reverse out of Syria, said Mansharof.

Iran is making sophisticated and cynical use of associations, charities and humanitarian organizations to export the Islamic revolution, he added. It has two objectives: to make strategic regions across Syria as Shiite as possible, and to turn Syria into a forward base for [attacks against] Israel, which would provide access for Hezbollah and meet Irans aspiration to reach the Mediterranean coast.

Yaakov Lappin is a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He specializes in Israels defense establishment, military affairs, and the Middle Eastern strategic environment.

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Iran Is Using Charities and Humanitarian Groups to Export Its Revolution - Algemeiner

The writer, an FBI agent for 31 years, retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office in 2006.

By Greg Stejskalticklethewire.com

Last week two peoples lives changed dramatically. One avoided jail. The others military career ended prematurely.

On Friday evening, the White House announced that President Trump had commuted Roger Stones 40-month prison term. Stone, a longtime friend of Trump and a self-described dirty trickster, had made no secret of his desire to receive a pardon or clemency from the president. He made it known that he had remained loyal to the president. Actually, he had gone beyond loyalty and committed perjury by lying to Congress and threatening a potential witness.

The subject of his lies was his knowledge of Wikileaks possession and ultimate distribution of emails that a Russian intelligence agency had hacked from the Democratic National Committee. He had acted as a go-between for the Trump campaign with Wikileaks. Stone refused to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation, ostensibly to protect the president.

He was charged with seven counts, including perjury, obstruction of Congress and witness tampering. He was convicted by a jury on all seven counts and sentenced to 40 months in prison.

At his sentencing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said that Stone was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president, he was prosecuted for covering up for the president.

Until last week, Stone had been trying to postpone the day he would begin serving his sentence Stone claimed he had respiratory issues and was concerned about being vulnerable to Covid-19 if he were incarcerated. He may also have been anxious about being in a communal shower, as he has a tattoo of his idol, Richard Nixon, on his upper back.

Because Stones sentence was commuted, he will not be going to jail, but remains a convicted felon.

Payback time

In late February 2020, very soon after President Trump was acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial, Trump began to exact retribution against witnesses who had testified in the impeachment hearings.

One of them, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, was fired from his position on the National Security Council and escorted out of the White House. Vindman remained in the Army but recently learned that he was not on the promotion list to be a full colonel. In the military if you are not promoted, it is a not-so-subtle indicator that your career is over. Consequently, last week Vindman decided to retire.

His testimony had incurred the wrath of the Commander-in-Chief.

Vindman has a classic, and admirable, immigrant story. His Jewish family fled Ukraine, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union, when Alexander was 3. His mother had died, and his father believed his three sons future would be better in America. After first going to Italy, they were able to get visas to emigrate to the U.S.

They settled in the Brighton Beach area of New York City. It was difficult financially and Vindmans father had to work several jobs. He also took English lessons at night. He told his family how important it was to assimilate into their new country and the importance of education.

Vindman and his brothers went to college, participated in ROTC and after graduation, joined the Army. Vindman, fluent in both Russian and Ukrainian, earned a masters degree in Russian and East European studies from Harvard. In 2003, as an infantry officer, he was deployed to Iraq where he was wounded by an IED explosion and received the Purple Heart.

Live free of fear

In October 2019, Vindman was subpoenaed to testify in the impeachment hearings. In his opening statement, he said: I have dedicated my entire professional life to the United States of America more than two decades as an officer in the U.S. Army.

My simple act of appearing here today. would not be tolerated in many places around the world. In Russia, my act of expressing my concerns to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal and professional repercussions, and offering public testimony involving the president would surely cost me my life.

I am grateful for my fathers brave act 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and public servant, where I can live free of fear for mine and my familys safety.

So, last week we saw the consequences of Trumps acts:

A career soldier who believed he was doing his duty for his country and the Constitution which he swore an oath to protect and defend, was forced to retire from the U.S. Army.

And a career dirty trickster who took an oath to tell the truth but chose to lie to Congress and threatened a potential witness, who then taunted the criminal justice system, will not be incarcerated, because he had the ultimate get out of jail free card.

As we look towards the presidential election and who the president chooses to reward or punish, it would be good to ask ourselves which of these men personifies the values for which our country should stand.

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Stejskal: As the Election Approaches, Keep in Mind Who Trump Chooses to Reward or Punish - ticklethewire.com

July 7, 2020

Watch the launch of an updated bio of Julian Assange, followed by an interview with the author on CN Live!

Top investigative reporter and TV correspondent Andrew Fowler on Wednesday launched his updated biography of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, The Most Dangerous Man in the World: Julian Assange and WikiLeaks Fight for Freedom (Melbourne University Press).

In a time of pandemic, Fowler virtually launched the book online in conversation with Mary Kostakidis, a veteran Australian news presenter, at Gleebooks inSydney, Australia.

Immediately following the event, Fowler joined CN Live! for a Season 2, Episode 12 live interview. If you missed it, you can watch the replay of the bookshop event followed by CN Live! with your hosts Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria. First is the enhanced audio (by our producer Cathy Vogan) of Mary Kostakidis interviewing Andrew Fowler at Gleebooks, Sydney, followed immediately by the CN Live! interview with the author.

Tags: Andrew Fowler Cathy Vogan Elizabeth Vos Joe Lauria Julian Assange Mary Kostakidis

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WATCH: CN Live! Book Launch and Interview With Andrew Fowler, Author of Updated Assange Biography - Consortium News

The documents include FBI memos, called 302s, from interviews about some of the most significant efforts of the investigation, including the investigations of former Trump advisers Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.

For instance, Bannon spoke to Mueller's team extensively about his contact with Stone as Stone sought to reach WikiLeaks about stolen Democratic emails that could help then-candidate Donald Trump, according to the 302s released Tuesday.

Aside from the newly public Bannon memos, many of the documents are of interviews investigators did with undisclosed or peripheral players that helped form criminal cases and details for the Mueller report.

So far, the previous releases have fleshed out details that Mueller summarized in his final report regarding President Donald Trump's and his campaign's actions. But they often give much more detail. These documents are foundational documents behind what investigators learned about the Trump campaign in 2016 and Trump's behavior then and after.

At times, the documents have given much fuller portraits about what the Russia investigations' top cooperators said, or how the investigators handled their witnesses.

The Justice Department has kept many of the memos heavily redacted as they continue to release them this year.

Though that remains true in the latest release, the Justice Department has made freshly available details about what Bannon told Mueller regarding a topic that's still of interest to Democrats in Congress focused on investigating the President and in court, as judges weigh the decision-making of Attorney General William Barr.

The Bannon interview notes highlight just how much the campaign thought about WikiLeaks releases, which Stone was regularly discussing with top advisers and even Trump himself, according to Mueller investigation witnesses.

The new Mueller memos reveal that Bannon witnessed Trump bringing up the 30,000 emails that were missing from Hillary Clinton's private server -- a persistent focus of Republicans focused on conspiracy theories -- and knew at least some details of an operation to try to uncover them.

"Bannon thought Flynn might have had an idea about using an outside company and finding the 33,000 missing emails," the FBI agents wrote in their memo about a Bannon interview, referring to Michael Flynn, who advised the campaign and later became Trump's first national security adviser.

Bannon knew of Flynn effort to get Clinton emails

Trump said publicly in July 2016 that he hoped Russia would "find the 30,000 emails" that had been deleted from Clinton's server. After that, according to the Mueller report, Trump repeatedly asked members of his campaign to find the emails. Flynn told Mueller that he had launched efforts at Trump's request to find the missing Clinton emails.

As part of that effort, Flynn reached out to Republican operative Peter Smith, who tried to find Clinton emails on the dark web and told associates in 2016 that he was in touch with Russian hackers, according to the Mueller report. Smith told associates that Flynn, Bannon and other Trump campaign officials knew about his efforts, which included the creation of a company named KLS Research that received more than $30,000 to hunt for Clinton's emails.

Smith's shadowy efforts to get Clinton's emails were first revealed by the Wall Street Journal. Bannon distanced himself from the effort, telling the Wall Street Journal in July 2017, "Never heard of KLS Research or Peter Smith."

Smith died by suicide shortly after talking to the Wall Street Journal in 2017.

Bannon thought Stone was a 'nasty piece of work'

Bannon told Mueller that Stone had a "sketchy background" and was a "nasty piece of work," according to the FBI memos. Stone was someone who could "blow you up," Bannon told investigators, so he tried to keep Stone happy during the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign to prevent any blowback or potentially messy fallout, according to the memos. Bannon also told investigators that Trump's children hated Stone, the memos said.

One of the memos reads that during a February 2018 FBI interview, "Bannon didn't recollect any Stone conversations about WikiLeaks and Assange." This was not true, and, a few pages later in the FBI memo, it says that "Bannon clarified that he was talking to Stone about Assange in these emails," a reference to the platform's founder, Julian Assange.

At some point during the Mueller investigation, Bannon's attorneys made an agreement with Mueller's team. Bannon told investigators about his WikiLeaks conversations with Stone, and even testified against Stone at his 2019 criminal trial. Bannon was never charged with lying to the FBI, though he appeared to change his story.

This story has been updated with additional information from the documents.

Link:

366 pages of notes from Mueller investigation witness interviews released - CNN

The United States of America has a disadvantage in the space of mobile network infrastructure because there is no America company currently competing on the top of the 5G infrastructure race. Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson are the worlds 3 biggest network companies, with Samsung, ZTE following along. There is Cisco, which was approached by US government to acquire Nokia or Ericsson, but the company refused.

The new mobile network standard means new base stations and more information flowing through those servers. US is sceptical that China might have access to Huaweis network equipment, which would allow them to spy on other countries. On the other hand, US might be afraid they might not have a level of access in Huawei equipment, considering numerous leaks published by Wikileaks and others proved that US spied on other countries, including allies.

While China and US are in an open trade and technology war to secure their position on the global scene, the European Union is passively watching. As FT quotes an executive inside Nokia or Ericsson: if Ericsson and Nokia had been French and German rather than Swedish and Finnish the issue would have been solved years ago, meaning that the core leadership of EU, mainly France and Germany as the biggest countries, dont take 5G as serious as they should because the two 5G companies arent their core national interest. Inside both, Nokia and Ericsson, exist sides that are for an acquisition by US companies that would ease the financial pressure for both companies, the question is will EU continue to watch how European companies get acquired by US or Chinese firms or start acting to defend the joint EU interest, which keeping Nokia and Ericsson in Europe surely is.

Find more details at FT.

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FT: EU has yet to fully grasp implications of US, China interest in 5G, Nokia and Ericsson - Nokiamob

By Dan Merica, CNN

Hillary Clinton taunted President Donald Trump in an interview published on Friday, criticizing his handling of the coronavirus by saying that she -- as president -- would have done a better job handling the international pandemic.

The comment from a former rival, which came during a wide-ranging interview on a documentary released this year about Clinton's life, hits Trump on an issue that has depressed his reelection hopes and frustrated his administration.

"We sure could have done a better job saving lives, modeling better, more responsible behavior," Clinton told The Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" podcast. "I don't think we necessarily should have had as deep an economic assault on livelihoods and jobs as we have. So I know I would have done a better job."

Clinton said it was "frustrating to be on the sidelines in a pandemic," adding that while she is trying to do her part by speaking out and raising money, she feels like she could do more.

The coronavirus pandemic has dominated the last four months of American life, including altering every aspect of the presidential campaign. Trump's campaign has struggled to forge on in the face of the pandemic and the economic downturn it caused. More than 2.7 million cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the United States, by far the most in the world, and more than 128,000 Americans have died.

The former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee did not hide her disdain for Trump throughout the interview, calling him a "vindictive score-settler" and suggesting that the country is getting a good look at what it means to have a President who isn't prepared for the job.

"Part of what he does in the way he lashes out is because, deep down, he knows the Russians helped him, despite his incredible efforts to deny it. He knows WikiLeaks helped him. He understands all of that," Clinton said. "He's a vindictive score-settler, and he doesn't want the legitimacy of his election ever to be questioned, although history will continue to question it."

Clinton's latest round of interviews comes months after the release of "Hillary" and as the documentary begins to get awards consideration. The documentary, which looked at the sweep of Clinton's life over a four-part series, recently won The Critics Choice Association's award for best limited documentary series.

Clinton was asked a number of questions about her life in the interview, where she said she finds it "impossible to answer" what her life would have been like if she didn't marry former President Bill Clinton and described her encounters with Trump before the 2016 election as "not very many and not of great moment, certainly not to me."

But Clinton's most pointed comments came in response to questions about the tumult facing the country, both over the ongoing pandemic, the nation's reckoning with racism and police brutality, and the way voters and top companies are approaching the 2020 campaign.

"We are divided by sources of information," Clinton said of Facebook and some companies pulling advertising from the site. "Facebook has to be held accountable because they trafficked in conspiracy, they trafficked in misinformation, they trafficked in Russian disinformation.

She added: "They've got to be held accountable because we're going to have another election, and everybody should know what's at stake and then cast their vote accordingly."

Clinton said she would not run for office again -- "Not in the cards" -- but did not dodge a question about whether she thinks she would beat Trump if she were running against him in 2020.

"Yes," she said bluntly. "But I think people believe that this is a referendum on him."

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Hillary Clinton on Trump's handling of the coronavirus: 'I would have done a better job' - WICZ

Former Chief of Army StaffGeneral (Retd) JJ Singh on Wednesday made an explosive revelation statingthat there was pressure, possibly from the United Stateson the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government to compromise on the highly strategic Siachen Glacier in Ladakh in a bid to settle disputes with Pakistan.

Speaking to Republic TV, General JJ Singh (Retd.), who was the Chief of Indian Army during the UPA-I, said that the Manmohan Singh-led government wanted to demilitarise the Siachen glacier and cede the control of the strategic glacier to Pakistan possibly under the pressure of Americans.

The former Army Chief also revealed that the UPA government and its security establishment wanted to make Siachen a mountain of peace.

There was some pressure being built on the government of that time to settle the Siachen issue, it could be pressure from America who was close to Pakistan. Manmohan Singhs team, which includedShyam Saran, the NSA and others, said we want to make Siachen a mountain of peace. It was a discussion in Delhi.

Further, General JJ Singh (Retd.) also mentioned that it was during the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989, that the proposal to disengage the troops from Siachen glaciers was made, however, the proposal did not go through, fortunately.

Some of us would have landed us in the fallback position of a disadvantage as Pakistani Army could have easily captured the heights once Indian troops vacate it, former COAS JJ Singh said.

General JJ Singh also said that the UPA government had asked him to be part of the discussion. However, he had asked the then-PM Manmohan Singh to instead visit Siachen Glacier to which the former Prime Minister agreed, where they discussed the importance of the area.

Revealing the strategic importance of the glacier, Gen Singh stated that from their current positions, the Pakistanis cannot even have a glimpse of the glacier. The glaciers height allows India to monitor activities in the area from both Pakistani and Chinese sides.

The disclosures made by the former Army Chief General JJ Singh regarding the intention of UPA-I to cede strategic territories such as Siachen to Pakistan further adds up to the allegations and revelations that the UPA and Congress party have been willing to compromise Indias territorial integrity on several occasions.

We had earlier reported in detail on how the UPA government under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wanted to hand over the strategic region of Siachen glacier to Pakistan.

According to former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, the Siachen glacier, which has immense strategic value to Indian security forces to keep an eye on both the Pakistan and China along the northern borders, wasalmost giftedto Pakistan by the Manmohan Singh government in 2006, but only to be stopped by the intervention of the then National Security Advisor (NSA) MK Narayanan.

Shyam Saran, who was the Foreign Secretary in the First Manmohan Singh government, has revealed in his book that, in 2006, he, along with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Mohammad Khan had struck a deal on the orders of Congress government to take back Indian troops and give away the Siachen Glacier to Pakistan.

But during the CCSmeet, the then NSA MKNarayananraised serious concerns about the deal and argued about compromising the National security of the country. The intervention from the then NSA Narayanan saved the strategic glacier from another Pakistani occupation.

The two disclosures one made by former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and the recent statements made by the former Army Chief JJ Singh only strengthens the Wikileaksreport, which had exposed how the UPA government under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had decided to give away Siachen glacier toPakistan despite the Indian Armys objections citing long-term national security implications.

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Manmohan govt was under pressure to compromise on Siachen, wanted to call it Mountain of Peace by letting the Pakistanis have it: Former COAS JJ Singh...

Sweethearts Reed Fox and Jamie Nagode, aka Snarklet, each have their hands full with projects, but they still managed to collaborate on something special.

Fox, who overflows with creativity, psychedelia, joy and absurdity, is best known for his band dCollage and his deejaying. Hes also a member of Moon Hammer and Suspender Defenders; co-founder of Moon Magnet, a creative space and collective that launched back in 2013; and involved with the web series Cosmic Pineapple. And so far this year, hes been dropping at least one new song and sometimes an entire album every couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Snarklet makes films, plays synth, sings, teaches music lessons and is producing a secret absurdist-comedy web show with a handful of Denver comics.

So when Snarklet says that the couple's favorite project at least for now is their love child Bun Bun, that means something. They created the dance-music collaboration in January 2019, when they first fell in love.

The music nods to artists ranging from RuPaul to Devo to Bassnectar. Its bouncy, femme and futuristic, with occasional heavy drops. Bun Bun is a dreamy electronic glitter-pop house project with comedic commentary about the things we love, including computers, bees, narwhals, La Croix, spooning, curry, Casa Bonita and each other, Snarklet explains.

Although they have written nine songs for the project, there's only been one Bun Bun release, Urban Bee, an irresistible, playful dance track about life as an urban-dwelling bee. It opens with a squeaky chant of Bun Bun, and then Snarklet starts riffing on life as a polite bee in the city. The character is surprisingly fleshed out for a candy-pop song a tough-as-nails, hardworking yet mannerly bee who has been to jail (but just once, on a pollinating spree) and is now inviting her fellow bees to join her in raising their fists in the air.

This week, Bun Bun is dropping its second track, We Love to Hack, a sassy dance song built from samples of sounds from 90s modems that opens with lamentations on the difficulty of recalling passwords while a chorus pays homage to WikiLeaks, the Illuminati and Anonymous.

When Levi Double U, a friend of the couple, heard it, he asked them to let him collaborate and they agreed, letting him help with the mix. As a result, We Love to Hack is weirder than we ever hoped it could be, says Fox, but not as annoying as Snarklet originally hoped it would be, which, overall, we are happy about.

The song is all about hacking. With Anonymous stepping out of the shadows for the first time in years, threatening to bring down Donald Trumps presidency with allegedly hacked documents; WikiLeaks securing its reputation as a beloved figure of the right, working to sabotage the Clinton dynasty (after years of being the hobgoblin of the right, dogging George W. Bushs White House); and conspiracy theories flying and trolls trolling faster than the speed of light, now seemed like a good time to poke fun at all of this.

The chorus of our song goes: WikiLeaks...Illuminati...Anonymous...we love to hack, Fox says. We don't have any affiliations with these groups, and the song is satire. It's not condoning any actions of these groups. For example, WikiLeaks is known for leaking government secrets, but also acts on biases that we don't align with. Anonymous is a decentralized hacktivist movement and typically fights for things we get behind. The Illuminati has a shocking history. It was a story made up by two people in the 1960s who wanted to spread misinformation because they believed the world was becoming too authoritarian. They invented the story about the Illuminati's history and spread it by sending in fake, contradictory letters from readers to magazines that ended up printing them about the secret society. It's fascinating to read about the spread of misinformation in the 60s.

While they find humor in hacking, Fox and Snarklet appreciate its serious side, too.

Hacking is subversive, explains Snarklet. Hacking is rebellious. Hacking is dismantling, and it's one way to topple a house of cards that never deserved to be there in the first place. That's what we love about it.

Hear "We Love to Hack" at SoundCloud.

Correction, June 30, 2020: This story has been updated to clarify attributions and quotes.

Kyle Harris quit making documentaries and started writing when he realized that he could tell hundreds of stories in the same amount of time it takes to make one movie. Now, hooked on the written word, he's Westwords Culture Editor and writes about music and the arts.

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Bun Bun on "We Love to Hack" | Westword - Westword

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van as he is driven into Southwark Crown Court in London on May 1, 2019.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged with a second superseding indictment for allegedly recruiting hackers and conspiring with them to commit computer crimes, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The new indictment doesn't add to the 18-count indictment filed against Assange last year under the Espionage Act, but it does "broaden the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with which Assange was previously charged," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Stay in the know. Get the latest tech stories from CNET News every weekday.

The WikiLeaks founder is facing potential extradition to the US after he was arrested last year in London on charges including unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents. The department called it "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."

Assange and WikiLeaks, which launched in 2006, have been under scrutiny since the highly publicized 2010 leak of diplomatic cables and military documents.

In the first decade after its 2006 launch, WikiLeaks released -- by its own count -- more than 10 million secret documents. The leaks ranged from a video showing an American Apache helicopter in the Iraq War shooting and killing two journalistsin 2007 to emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta during the 2016 presidential race.

In the latest indictment, Assange is charged with providing a list of hacking targets to the leader of LulzSec in 2012 to search for mail, documents, databases and PDFs. Assange also allegedly conspired with former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a classified Defense Department computer's password hash.

The Justice Department said that by 2012, the LulzSec leader Assange had contacted was already cooperating with the FBI.

LulzSec came on the hacking scene in a big way in 2011, targeting Sony, the CIA, the US Senate and FBI, among many other groups. The group also targeted Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, after they stopped allowing individuals to provide financial support to WikiLeaks. Just as suddenly as it appeared, the group announced in June that it was leaving the hacking world, saying that its time was up.

Manning was convicted of leaking confidential documents to WikiLeaks in 2013 and sentenced to 35 years in prison, of which she served seven years before her sentence was commuted by outgoing President Barack Obama in 2017. She was jailed in March 2019 for contempt of court when she refused to testify in front of a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. Manning was released from jail earlier this year after attempting suicide, her legal team said in a statement.

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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange charged with recruiting and ...