Finance and Health Minister Harish Rao (File Photo)
Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and state finance minister T Harish Rao said that PM Narendra Modi came to Telangana not to lay the foundation stone for development projects but to spill poison.
Reacting to Modi’s statements about the state’s non-cooperation with Central projects, Harish said “Every word is far from the truth. Playing so many lies as the Prime Minister is worth it to him.”
ప్రధాని మోడీ గారు, కేంద్ర ప్రభుత్వ ప్రాజెక్టులకు శంకుస్థాపన చేయడానికి వచ్చినట్లు లేదు. తెలంగాణ పై తన కడుపులోని విషాన్ని కక్కడానికి వచ్చినట్లు ఉంది.
ప్రతీ మాట సత్య దూరం. ప్రధానిగా ఇన్ని అబద్ధాలు ఆడడం ఆయనకే చెల్లింది.
తెలంగాణ ఏర్పడినప్పటి నుండీ ఆసరా పెన్షన్, రైతు బంధు వంటివి…
“It is ridiculous for Modi to say that the state government is not cooperating with the Centre. Actually, the situation is reversed. Centre is not giving any support to Telangana by not sanctioning a tribal university, railway coach factory, Bayyaram steel industry, medical colleges, and nursing colleges,” Harish Rao said.
The minister said that Modi’s ‘Parivarvaad’ claims were to divert people’s attention from the Adani issue.
“Since the formation of Telangana, Aasara pension and Rythu Bandhu has been directly deposited in the beneficiary’s account. It is a big lie to say that Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) started because of him,” said the finance minister.
He said that the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme is a copy of Rythu Bandhu. “It is a shame to claim that farmers benefited for the first time because of the PM Kisan scheme. How much of a help is the scheme compared to Rythu Bandhu?” added Harish Rao.
“Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) has been moved to Bangalore, an arbitration centre was set up in Gujarat immediately after Telangana did it and farmers were troubled while rice grains were not purchased from Telangana. Is it not your government that has done all this?” Harish Rao asked Modi.
The FBI is no stranger to criticisms, both internal and external. For years, they’ve been piling up. A series of withering federal watchdog reports have faulted the bureau for slipshod compliance with everything from national-security surveillance procedures to its own rules limiting contacts with the media. A bipartisan assemblage of members of Congress excoriated the FBI for badly botching complaints of sexual abuse of teenage gymnasts. Trials spearheaded by a special counsel have exposed rivalries within the bureau and loose ends that investigators failed to run down.
Many of those issues have been compounded and thrust into public consciousness by Trump, who spent his entire presidency accusing the bureau of deep-seated political bias for pursuing cases against him or his allies — claims underscored by his abrupt and dramatic firing of Comey in 2017. To this day, Republicans in Congress are pushing charges that the bureau was “weaponized” by Trump’s opponents.
But unlike the blunt attacks by outsiders, which often go unrebutted by the bureau, the trial provided a forum for FBI insiders themselves to describe their own views of what has plagued the sprawling crime-fighting and intelligence agency. And their answers exposed fissures among factions of the FBI that have long been viewed in the Trump era as monolithic — divisions that FBI insiders said were more palpable during the handoff of the bureau from Robert Mueller to Comey.
And witnesses named names, with a particular focus on Baker’s predecessor as FBI general counsel, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.
“This was a significant problem under Andrew Weissman’s tenure,” Baker testified, describing a lack of communication in the FBI counsel’s office. People “didn’t tell each other what they were doing,” he added, characterizing it as a “silo problem” that “I inherited from Andrew.”
Weissman is now best known as a top hand to Mueller during the investigation of the Trump campaign’s links to Russia in 2016 — and whether Trump obstructed justice. He led the attention-grabbing criminal cases against former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. He has since become a prominent cable news contributor and commentator on Trump’s bevy of current legal woes. But to Baker, Weissmann was the root of a culture of fear and burnout that plagued the FBI general counsel’s office the day Baker arrived.
“I wanted people to tell me when I was wrong, which was the complete opposite from what Andrew did–Andrew Weissman,” Baker testified. “The agency … had this tendency not to speak truth to each other in meetings and in other settings.”
At another point, Baker referred to “the negativity that flowed from” Weissmann and said it left some employees in the counsel’s office distrustful of others.
Baker said the communications breakdown extended to the highest levels of the office, with top lawyers not speaking up even if they disagreed with a decision or saw problems it would create.
In a 2014 e-mail shown at the trial, Baker’s chief of staff Justin Schoolmaster, described the flawed hiring process for one general counsel’s office job as a mess left over from Weissmann’s tenure. “Hopefully this is one of the last remaining pot holes left by the previous regime,” Schoolmaster wrote.
Weissman declined to comment for this story.
[ad_2]
#Fear #burnout #insubordination #Insiders #spill #details #life #highest #levels #FBI
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Miller sent her final list to prosecutors, who then packaged the messages into an Excel spreadsheet that they provided to defense lawyers. But unbeknownst to them, the messages Miller initially filtered out — including some that DOJ officials say are likely classified — were left in the final document as “hidden” rows in the Excel spreadsheet. Defense counsel stumbled upon them and began grilling Miller about them in front of jurors in the case.
Overnight, Justice Department attorneys told the defense team they were concerned there had been a “spill” of classified information in the hidden messages they accessed. And on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly paused the trial — already in its third month — to determine how to handle the error.
It’s the latest hiccup in a seditious conspiracy trial that has been marked by excruciating delays and extended legal disputes. Prosecutors say Proud Boys chair Enrique Tarrio and four leaders of the group schemed to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. The group, according to the Justice Department, split into teams that helped engineer the breach of police lines and, ultimately, the building itself, when one of the defendants, Dominic Pezzola, smashed a Senate-wing window with a stolen riot shield.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine, who is supervising the case for the Justice Department, acknowledged the likely “spill” of classified information Thursday morning. She raised particular concerns about a message sent to Miller by another agent who works on covert activity — and who she said did not work on the Proud Boys case — describing a supervisor’s order to “destroy 338 items of evidence.”
“That could impact a classified equity,” Ballantine said.
Defense lawyers cried foul, though, noting that the government’s claims of “classified” material arrived just as the defense sounded the alarm about the content of some of the inadvertently disclosed messages. While Miller testified Wednesday she had produced about “25 rows” of messages, defense lawyers said there were thousands of rows of hidden messages that included contents they contended were directly relevant to their case.
Some of the messages appeared to reveal that FBI agents accessed contacts between defendant Zachary Rehl and his attorney, which led Miller to tell a colleague she thought Rehl would take his case to trial. In another message, an FBI agent tells Miller, “You need to go into that CHS report you just put and edit out that I was present.” After defense attorneys began to press Miller about the attorney-client messages on Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors objected, and Kelly halted the trial to permit the parties to debate the matter.
After hearing arguments Thursday, Kelly ordered defense attorneys to refrain from reviewing or disseminating the messages until the FBI was able to conduct a classification review, a process that Ballantine said could likely be completed by the end of the day Thursday.
The flare-up comes as prosecutors are nearing the end of their case against the Proud Boys. They’ve laid out evidence showing that Tarrio and his allies developed a sense of existential dread about a Biden presidency and quickly embraced Trump’s claims of fraud in the days and weeks after his defeat in the 2020 election. As Jan. 6 neared, the group’s leaders grew increasingly disillusioned with police — who they accused of insufficiently acting to investigate a man who stabbed several Proud Boys at a December 2020 rally in Washington. And they set up a new chapter, dubbed the “Ministry of Self Defense,” that included men they believed would follow orders.
A week before Jan. 6, Tarrio received a document from a girlfriend titled “1776 Returns” that sketched out a plan to occupy federal buildings in order to derail and delay Congress’ proceedings to certify the 2020 election.
Defense attorneys have contended that the group is little more than a glorified drinking club that had no actual plan to either storm the Capitol or prevent Biden from taking office. Miller’s testimony portrayed the group’s march through Washington on Jan. 6 as an organized and concerted advance toward the Capitol that pinpointed weaknesses in Capitol Police defenses and exploited them to help facilitate the breach of the Capitol.
[ad_2]
#Spill #classified #info #derails #Proud #Boys #trial
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got a first-hand look on Thursday at the toll left by a freight train derailment in Ohio, where toxic chemicals spilled or were burned off, leaving the stench of fresh paint nearly two weeks later.
The EPA’s administrator, Michael Regan, walked along a creek that still reeks of chemicals and sought to reassure skeptical residents that the water was fit for drinking and the air safe to breathe around East Palestine, where just less than 5,000 people live near the Pennsylvania state line.
“I’m asking they trust the government. I know that’s hard. We know there’s a lack of trust,” Regan said. “We’re testing for everything that was on that train.”
Since the derailment, residents have complained about headaches and irritated eyes and finding their cars and lawns covered in soot. The hazardous chemicals that spilled from the train killed thousands of fish and residents have talked about finding dying or sick pets and wildlife.
Residents are frustrated by what they say is incomplete and vague information about the lasting effects from the disaster, which prompted evacuations.
“I have three grandbabies,” said Kathy Dyke, who came with hundreds of her neighbors to a public meeting on Wednesday where representatives of railroad operator Norfolk Southern were conspicuously absent. “Are they going to grow up here in five years and have cancer?”
Regan said on Thursday that anyone who is fearful of being in their home should seek testing from the government.
“People have been unnerved. They’ve been asked to leave their homes,” he said, adding that if he lived there, he would be willing to move his family back into the area as long as the testing shows it’s safe.
Those attending the previous night’s informational session had questions about health hazards and demanded more transparency from Norfolk Southern, whose representatives did not attend, citing concerns about staff safety. Many who had waited in a long line snaking outside the high school gymnasium came away upset that they didn’t hear anything new. Some booed or laughed each time they heard the village mayor or state health director assure them that lingering odors weren’t dangerous.
Residents of East Palestine gather to discuss the train derailment and toxic chemical burn-off on 15 February. Photograph: Alan Freed/Reuters
“They just danced around the questions a lot,” said Danielle Deal, who lives a few miles from the derailment site. “Norfolk needed to be here.”
At least five lawsuits have been filed against the railroad, which announced this week that it is creating a $1m fund to help the community while continuing to remove spilled contaminants from the ground and streams, and monitoring air quality.
“We are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety and to help East Palestine recover and thrive,” Norfolk Southern president and CEO Alan Shaw said in a letter to the community.
Families who evacuated said they wanted assistance figuring out how to get the promised financial help. Beyond that, they wanted to know whether the railroad would be held responsible.
State and federal officials have promised to make sure Norfolk Southern not only pays for the cleanup but also reimburses residents.
The White House said that federal health and emergency response teams and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will go to East Palestine.
“We understand the residents are concerned – as they should be – and they have questions. That’s all understandable,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “And we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
No one was injured when about 50 cars derailed in a fiery, mangled mess on the outskirts of East Palestine on 3 February. Officials seeking to avoid an uncontrolled blast evacuated the area and opted to release and burn toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke billowing into the sky again.
The Ohio EPA said the latest tests show that five wells supplying the village’s drinking water are free from contaminants.
At least 3,500 fish, mostly small ones such as minnows and darters, have been found dead along more than seven miles (11.2km) of streams, according to the estimates from the Ohio department of natural resources.
Precautions are being taken to ensure that contaminants that reached the Ohio River don’t make it into drinking water, officials said.
There have been anecdotal reports that pets or livestock have been sickened. No related animal deaths have been confirmed and the risk to livestock is low, Ohio officials said, but the state’s agriculture department is testing samples from a beef calf that died a week after the derailment.
The suspected cause of the derailment is a mechanical issue with a rail car axle. The National Transportation Safety Board said it has video appearing to show a wheel bearing overheating just before the derailment. The NTSB expects to issue its preliminary report in about two weeks.
[ad_2]
#Trust #government #EPA #seeks #reassure #Ohio #residents #toxic #spill
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
