The Commentariat -- February 22, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Will Hobson & Mark Maske of the Washington Post: "New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with solicitation of prostitution Friday in connection with an investigation of a day spa in Florida. The 77-year-old billionaire and owner of one of the most successful sports franchises in the world was videotaped engaging in a sex act with an employee at Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Fla., police there said at a news conference Friday." "Kraft is a longtime friend of the president's."
David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "On Election Day 2016, six residential buildings called 'Trump Place' stood in a row on Manhattan's Upper West Side -- a legacy of Donald Trump's efforts to develop that site, and a sign of the Trump name's enduring value in New York. Soon, Trump's name will be gone from all of them. On Friday, the last building holding on to the name 'Trump Place' announced that it would take down the president's name, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.... Just one day earlier, the condo board at the second-to-last Trump Place building -- at 120 Riverside -- had announced its own decision to remove the president's name from the building facade."
Walker Davis of CREW: "New tax documents obtained by CREW shed light on the finances of a dark money group tied to longtime Trump associate Roger Stone.... The group itself is reportedly facing scrutiny in the Mueller probe, but the tax documents have not been made public until now. After missing their filing deadline by more than eight months, the 2016 tax returns for the 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, called Committee for American Sovereignty Education Fund (CASEF), were filed with the IRS in July 2018, before quickly being amended weeks later. The submission of the filings may have coincided with scrutiny of the group by Special Counsel Mueller's investigators, and may suggest activity by Mueller's team behind the scenes."
Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: Virginia "Republicans will invite two women who have accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) of sexual assault to publicly testify before lawmakers despite Democrats' objections that it would turn into a 'political, partisan show.'"
Dominic Patten & Nellie Andreeva of Deadline Hollywood: "One day after Jussie Smollett was arrested on multiple felony charges over last month's alleged racist and homophobic attack in Chicago, the producers of Empire have cut the actor from the rest of the show's fifth season."
William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "The Manhattan district attorney's office is preparing state criminal charges against Paul J. Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, in an effort to ensure he will still face prison time even if the president pardons him for his federal crimes, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. Mr. Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced next month for convictions in two federal cases brought by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. He faces up to 25 years in prison for tax and bank fraud and additional time for conspiracy counts in a related case. It could effectively be a life sentence for Mr. Manafort, who turns 70 in April. The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but no such authority in state cases. And while there has been no clear indication that Mr. Trump intends to pardon Mr. Manafort, the president has spoken repeatedly of his pardon power and defended his former campaign chairman on a number of occasions, calling him a 'brave man.'"
Niv Elis of the Hill: "Democrats in the House introduced a resolution on Friday that would block President Trump's emergency declaration on the southern border, a step he took to free up as much as $8 billion in funding to build his proposed border wall. The resolution sponsored by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) had 222 cosponsors. The measure is expected to pass the Democratic-held House, but will need to win GOP support to get through the Senate."
Karen DeYoung & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "The White House said Thursday that 'a small peacekeeping group of about 200' U.S. troops will stay in Syria beyond the planned withdrawal of American forces this spring.... The decision was a partial reversal of President Trump's order announced in December, that all 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria would leave, since their mission to destroy the Islamic State caliphate, in his view, had been achieved. Complete withdrawal was expected by the end of April.&"
Trump Is Still Incriminating Himself. Tal Axelrod the the Hill: "President Trump slammed special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe as a 'witch hunt' in a new tweet on Friday, calling for it to end amid reports that it is coming to a close. 'Highly respected Senator Richard Burr, head of Senate Intelligence, said, after interviewing over 200 witnesses and studying over 2 million pages of documents, "WE HAVE FOUND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA." The Witch Hunt, so bad for our Country, must end!' Trump tweeted."
*****
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Andrew Restuccia & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Facing the possible completion of a special counsel investigation that could upend his presidency, Donald Trump is lashing out at everything and everybody -- except his new attorney general, Bill Barr. Trump, who publicly filleted Jeff Sessions for more than a year, has adopted a noticeably friendly tone toward Barr, even as the newly sworn-in attorney general prepares to face ... the culmination of Robert Mueller's Russia probe. 'He's a tremendous man and tremendous person who really respects this country and respects the justice system. So that'll be totally up to him,' Trump said in the Oval Office Wednesday when asked about a new CNN report that Barr is preparing to announce the completion of Mueller's work as soon as next week. Last week, at the close of meandering remarks in the Rose Garden, Trump similarly praised Barr. 'I want to wish our attorney general great luck and speed -- and enjoy your life,' the president declared." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Neal Katyal, in a New York Times op-ed: "The special counsel Robert Mueller will apparently soon turn in a report to the new attorney general, William Barr.... The report is unlikely to be a dictionary-thick tome, which will disappoint some observers. But such brevity is not necessarily good news for the president. In fact, quite the opposite.... A concise Mueller report might act as a 'road map' to investigation for the Democratic House of Representatives -- and it might also lead to further criminal investigation by other prosecutors. A short Mueller report would mark the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.... There is no open impeachment inquiry now. But that could quickly change if Mr. Mueller writes a report that is anything less than a full clearing of the president: Congress would be under a constitutional obligation to investigate the facts for itself."
You Won't Be Hearing from Roger Stone Any More. Maybe. Darren Samuelsohn, et al., of Politico: "A federal judge hit Roger Stone with a full gag order on Thursday, several days after the longtime Donald Trump associate posted a photo on Instagram that appeared to threaten the federal judge overseeing his case. Before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued her decision, Stone took the stand to offer a formal apology. 'I recognize that I let the court down,' Stone said. 'I let you down. I let myself down. I let my family down. I let my attorneys down. I can only say I'm sorry. it was a momentary lapse in judgment. Perhaps I talk too much.'... 'So thank you, but the apology rings quite hollow,' [the judge] said, adding: 'There's nothing ambiguous about crosshairs.'... 'No, Mr. Stone I'm not giving you another chance,' she said. 'I have serious doubts about whether you've learned any lesson at all. You appear to need clear boundaries,' she added. 'So there they are.'... Stone was already under a partial gag order that allowed the defendant to continue discussing his case so long as he wasn't in the vicinity of the D.C. courthouse."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Jeff Toobin said on CNN that Judge Berman, who was not particularly exercised before Stone began testifying, got angrier & angrier as Stone made numerous outlandish claims during testimony. At the end of Stone's turn in the box, Berman took 15 minutes before coming back to "excoriate" Stone, in Toobin's characterization.
Andrew Desiderio & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Michael Cohen is set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Tuesday, a source close to Cohen said, in what will kick off a three-day marathon of Capitol Hill testimony for ... Donald Trump's former attorney and fixer."
Kara Scannell & Erica Orden of CNN: "Federal prosecutors have charged an analyst with the Internal Revenue Service with illegally disclosing confidential reports about Michael Cohen's bank records that revealed that ... [Cohen] had sought to profit from his proximity to the White House, according to a complaint unsealed on Thursday. The analyst, John C. Fry, was charged with the unauthorized disclosure of a document called a suspicious activity report, which banks file when they review transactions that raise red flags.... Fry, an investigative analyst with the IRS's law enforcement arm, is accused of turning over the reports in the spring of 2018 to an attorney, Michael Avenatti, and of confirming confidential banking information in them to a reporter for The New Yorker, according to the complaint, which was filed under seal earlier this month." The criminal complaint against Fry is here. The story details some of its assertions.
Josh Kovensky of TPM: "Federal prosecutors are investigating interactions between vendors and officials at President Trump's inaugural committee, the Wall Street Journal reports. Officials at the committee reportedly pushed back against top vendor Hargrove Inc., which purportedly submitted a budget that used 'wildly different pricing' from previous inaugurals. The newspaper also reports that after the Trump D.C. hotel asked for $3.6 million for eight days of catering and space rental, an unnamed inaugural official forwarded the request to other committee members. 'Ummm...' the official reportedly wrote.... Prosecutors are investigating whether or not inaugural vendors took payments off the books for services provided to the committee, according to news reports."
Ben Steinberg, in Slate, argues that prosecutors could prove a case of conspiracy against Donald Trump by invoking anti-trust laws, which have a lower standard of proof than do laws prohibiting criminal conspiracies. "Because antitrust conspiracies, like a potential Trump-Russia conspiracy, are carried out by sophisticated actors adept at avoiding detection, courts have ruled that 'it is well recognized law that any conspiracy can ordinarily only be proved by inferences drawn from relevant and competent circumstantial evidence.' Courts have explained that '[b]y its nature conspiracy is conceived and carried out clandestinely, and direct evidence of the crime is rarely available.'... If presented at trial, the jury's task will be to determine whether this mutual assistance between Trump and Russia reflects mere parallel conduct (i.e., pursuing similar goals without coordination), which is not itself illegal -- or coordinated conduct, which is." Thanks to Ken. W. for the link....
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't think I'm a fan of this tack: anti-trust actions are mostly civil, not criminal, and I do want to see Trump doing the jailhouse rock, even though I very much doubt that will happen. I think, in the end, we will have to be satisfied with history's indictment of Trump -- Worst President* Ever, with maybe an impeachment asterisk forever following his name.
Jared Keller of Task & Purpose: "On Wednesday, President Trump tweeted a time-lapse video of wall construction in New Mexico; the next day, he proclaimed that 'THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW'[.]... The footage, which was filmed more than five months ago on Sep. 18, 2018, isn't really new wall construction at all, and certainly not part of the ongoing construction of 'the wall' that Trump has been haggling with Congress over. 'It's a replacement project,' Mike Petersen, public affairs director for the Army Corps of Engineers' South Pacific Division, told Task & Purpose. 'I was in the division 12 years ago and we were doing border wall replacement work back then.'... A separate source told Task & Purpose on condition of anonymity ... that the president was passing off maintenance as new wall construction." Mrs. McC: Also too, it's not "wall"; it's "fence," to any normal English-speaking person.
** Sebastian Rotella, Tim Golden & ProPublica in The Atlantic: "Trump's 'zero tolerance' immigration policies have made America's historically weak anti-smuggling efforts even weaker. Over the past two years, as smuggling networks have thrived, the Department of Homeland Security has shifted money and manpower away from more complex investigations to support the administration's all-out push to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants here illegally.... In the first full fiscal year of Trump's presidency, the number of new human-smuggling cases launched by Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, the investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, dropped from 3,920 to 1,671, a decline of almost 60 percent.... The Human Smuggling Cell, a special-intelligence unit set up within ICE to support more ambitious migrant-smuggling efforts, has dwindled to less than half the staff it had in 2016." --s
Marianne Levine of Politico: "Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that Senate Democrats will introduce a resolution to block ... Donald Trump's national emergency declaration. The Senate Democrats' resolution of disapproval comes as House Democrats plan to introduce a similar resolution disapproving of Trump's emergency declaration on Friday.... It would take four Republican Senators to join Democrats to approve the measure, though Trump would likely veto it."
Franco Ordoñez of McClatchy DC: "As debate in public rages about illegal immigration and a border wall, Jared Kushner has been holding private meetings in the West Wing on ways to overhaul the legal immigration system, according to six people familiar with the conversations and documents obtained by McClatchy.... Kushner has helped kicked off a fresh discussion on immigration that reflects a new paradigm in the White House. It's a shift away from priorities of 2017 that sought to prevent the influx of foreign workers who could displace American workers in favor of a new approach preferred by more traditional Republicans, particularly those close to the corporate sector who are desperate to attract more foreign workers to fill U.S. factories and tech hubs.... [There is a] feeling that Kushner has edged out Stephen Miller, Trump's chief architect on some of the toughest proposals and a favorite in conservative circles[.]" --s
... we've had thousands of Americans die year after year after year because of threats crossing our southern border. -- Stephen Miller, senior adviser to President Trump, in an interview with "Fox News Sunday," February 17
... it's an astonishing statement, suggesting that undocumented immigrants kill thousands of Americans every year.... There's no evidence that thousands of Americans are killed by undocumented immigrants, especially in light of credible studies showing they commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
Alan Gomez of USA Today: "The Trump administration has been blocked from systematically breaking up migrant families, but hundreds of children crossing the border continue to be separated from their parents in a process requiring none of the oversight used to remove children in the United States from their homes, according to a USA TODAY review of the system.... At the border, the removal decision is made solely by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in the field. No child welfare specialist is required, and no judge is involved in a decision that cannot be appealed.... [CPB agents often use an exception to the rulings disallowing separations --] when a parent presents a danger to a child.... Immigration attorneys and family law experts say the process being used to separate children, most commonly carried out by CBP agents, has been shrouded in mystery, provides no due process for the parents and is vulnerable to abuse or mistakes." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
That Time Trump Forgot to Be Cruel & Vindictive. Brianna Sacks & Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "Although ... Donald Trump tweeted that he had ordered his administration to cut off disaster aid to wildfire victims in California, federal officials confirmed on Wednesday that they never received any such directive.... 'Billions of dollars are sent to the state of California for forest fires that, with proper forest management, would never happen,' the president tweeted last month. 'Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!'... 'We never got any such directive,' Brandi Richard, a FEMA spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News. 'That's evidenced by the fact that work is still being done and we continue to support wildfire survivors across the state.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg: "This week offered two prime examples of why Donald Trump's presidency has been weaker than most people realize. First, [Bernstein cites the BuzzFeed News report above.]... Political scientist Brendan Nyhan gets it right: 'Weakest president in contemporary times. "Ordered" likely means he said something to a staff member who ignored him.' Second: 'Bowing to bipartisan concerns in Congress, President Trump retreated Tuesday from his plan to create an independent "space force" in the Pentagon, proposing instead to consolidate the military's space operations and personnel in the Air Force.' Kevin Drum at Mother Jones explains: 'So now it's just a branch of the Air Force, which is more-or-less what it already is since the Air Force Space Command already exists. It's just going to get a little bigger now.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single instance where Trump said, "Here's a good idea," and the Republican Congress said, "Yessir, it is." The Trump tax break for the rich was a Paul Ryan wet dream for years. Trump's ObamaCare repeal, which GOP members of Congress pushed for years, didn't even pass. Lifting sanctions on Russia? Nope. Wall? Nope. The Senate has confirmed his half-assed Cabinet members, but that's SOP for any president, and of course Senate Republicans love "his" judges, but Trump's judges are not his picks; they come via the Federalist Society with a McConnell Seal of Approval.
Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Upon orientation, [White House] interns signed their very own non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), with the envoy of the counsel's office warning them that a breach of the NDA -- blabbing to the media, for instance -- could result in legal, and thus financial, consequences for them. Interns were also told that they would not receive their own copies, these sources said.... To veterans of other administrations, the act of compelling interns to sign these types of NDAs would seem odd, if not downright unenforceable or legally dubious. To this White House, it's standard operating procedure." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
EPA for Sale. Zack Colman & Alex Guillén of Politico: "The nation's biggest coal-burning power companies paid a top lobbying firm [Hunton & Williams] millions of dollars to fight a wide range of Obama-era environmental rules, documents obtained by Politico reveal -- shortly before one of the firm's partners became President Donald Trump's top air pollution regulator. Now that ex-partner, Bill Wehrum, is aggressively working to undo many of those same regulations at the EPA, where he is an assistant administrator in charge of issues including climate change, smog and power plants' mercury pollution.... Twenty-five power companies and six industry trade groups agreed to pay the firm a total of $8.2 million in 2017 alone, according to an internal summary prepared in June of that year -- less than three months before Trump tapped Wehrum for his EPA post." --s
Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "A lobbying firm run by former advisors to ... Donald Trump is representing American Ethane Company, an energy producer funded by Russian billionaires that is involved with a Chinese aluminum company.... American Ethane touts a contract it signed with the Nanshan Group, an aluminum production company based in China. The development also comes as the Trump administration is engaged in high-stakes trade talks with the Chinese government. 'Ryan O'Dwyer and I were hired to help a U.S. company get permits issued to them to fulfill a contract signed during a signing ceremony between President Trump and President Xi,' [Jason] Osborne, a former Trump campaign advisor, told CNBC. [O'Dwyer worked on Trump's inaugural committee.] The deal was signed at a ceremony in November 2017 in front of Trump and China's president, Xi Jinping."
Julie Brown of the Miami Herald: "A judge ruled Thursday that federal prosecutors -- among them, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta -- broke federal law when they signed a plea agreement with a wealthy, politically connected sex trafficker and concealed it from more than 30 of his underage victims. U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra, in a 33-page opinion, said that the evidence he reviewed showed that Jeffrey Epstein had been operating an international sex operation in which he and others recruited underage girls -- not only in Florida -- but from overseas, in violation of federal law.... Instead of prosecuting Epstein under federal sex trafficking laws, Acosta, then the U.S. attorney in Miami, helped negotiate a non-prosecution agreement that gave Epstein and his co-conspirators immunity from federal prosecution. Epstein, who lived in a Palm Beach mansion, was allowed to quietly plead guilty in state court to two prostitution charges and served just 13 months in the county jail. His accomplices, some of whom have never been identified, were never charged." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Pilar Melendez of the Daily Beast: "By signing the deal, Marra ruled, Acosta and other DOJ lawyers violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA), which guarantees victims the right to speak with prosecutors.... [Epstein's] lawyers, including Sexgate prosecutor Ken Starr and celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz, created the secret 2008 plea deal with Acosta, who was then Miami's top federal prosecutor, and other attorneys unbeknownst to the billionaire's alleged victims, [a Miami] Herald investigation found.... The decision comes less than a month after the Department of Justice announced it has opened an investigation into Epstein's sweetheart plea deal to determine whether department lawyers 'committed professional misconduct' during his prosecution." ...
... Get Out! Sarah Jones of New York: "It's not yet clear if Marra's ruling will necessarily force Acosta from office.... The Justice Department says on its website that employees who 'willfully or wantonly' fail to comply with the law could face suspension or termination, but Acosta no longer works for the department. And until he was implicated in the Epstein deal, Acosta enjoyed a relatively uncontroversial public profile by the standards of the Trump administration.... In perhaps any other presidential administration, Marra's verdict would lead swiftly to an Acosta resignation.... The same culture of impunity that insulates elite predators likeEpstein from justice could keep Acosta in power.... His resignation is now long overdue."
Rebekah Entralago of ThinkProgress: "The Republican tax bill helped U.S. banks gain an extra $28 billion in profits last year, according to new data released Thursday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).... Hourly wages have basically remained stagnant while corporate profits have skyrocketed. While the U.S. economy added over 300,000 jobs in January, workers got what amassed to just a 3-cent hourly raise." --s
Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "Federal law bars gun ownership by felons, fugitives, drug abusers, people adjudicated to be mentally ill, those dishonorably discharged from the military or living in the country illegally, and by convicted domestic abusers or others subject to domestic violence restraining orders. But experts say the number of people who are barred from owning guns but have them anyway may reach into the millions.... Only eight states have laws that provide an explicit mechanism so that people suspected of having guns in violation of those prohibitions are actually required to give them up. And some of those states merely allow -- but do not require -- the police to seek a court order to confiscate such guns. That was the case in Illinois, where the authorities knew for more than four years that Gary Martin was a violent felon but apparently did nothing to ensure that he surrendered the laser-sighted Smith & Wesson handgun that he used to kill five co-workers in Aurora, Ill., on Friday.... Only a single state -- California -- has a database dedicated to tracking firearm owners who have lost their right to possess a gun, either because of a new criminal conviction or something else." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Presidential Race 2020
Once a Crook, Always a Crook. Sam Stein, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Nearly three years after hacked materials upended the 2016 presidential campaign, every Democratic candidate running for the White House has pledged not to knowingly use such material should they end up being published during the current election cycle. Only one 2020 campaign declined to make such a commitment: ... Donald Trump"s." ...
... Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "When U.S. politicians take false information that's part of a foreign intelligence influence operation and promote it or otherwise use it to their advantage, that's tantamount to aiding and abetting the attack, [Joe] Biden told an audience in Munich this past weekend. 'Foreign election interference is not only a serious threat to our democratic institutions, I believe it's a threat to our national security,' he said. 'Authoritarian regimes, led by Russia, are actively seeking to interfere in our open, diverse and democratic societies to try to change outcomes of our democratic elections, and we can't allow that to happen.' Biden is co-chair of the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity, a nongovernmental panel established last year to fill the gap on fighting election interference that governments have left. Along with former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen and others, the group brings together U.S. and European leaders to cooperate against the common threat."
Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday he expects to make a springtime trip to New Hampshire as he weighs a 2020 challenge to Donald Trump -- and accused the Republican National Committee of going to extraordinary lengths to shield the president from a potentially draining primary.... 'It's very undemocratic and to say, "We're in some cases not going to allow a debate, we may not have a primary...,"' [Hogan said.]... During its annual winter meeting earlier this year, the RNC passed a resolution giving the president its 'undivided support' ahead of the 2020 election. Trump has also rolled out a 2020 campaign organization that incorporates the RNC and his campaign into a single entity, with the reelection campaign and committee merging their field and fundraising programs into a joint entity.... Traditionally, a presidential reelection committee has worked side-by-side with the national party committee but not overtaken it."
Michael Burke of The Hill: "Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), who are both running for president, have reportedly said they support reparations for black Americans affected by slavery." --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Pretty stupid.
Congressional Election 2018. Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Mark Harris, the Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina whose campaign is at the center of a fraud inquiry, on Thursday called for a new election.... 'It's become clear to me that the public's confidence in the Ninth District's general election has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted,' Mr. Harris said to audible gasps in the hearing room in the North Carolina capital. The state board did not immediately rule on Mr. Harris's request, but the five-member panel is now virtually certain to order a new election.... In [calling for a new election], Mr. Harris effectively acknowledged that L. McCrae Dowless Jr., a contractor he personally hired, and a network of employees had compromised the integrity of the vote." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Update. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: “The North Carolina State Board of Elections on Thursday ordered a new election in the 9th Congressional District, ending a dramatic, months-long investigation into allegations of widespread ballot tampering. 'It appears to me the irregularities and improprieties occurred to such an extent that they tainted the results of the entire election and cast doubt on its fairness,' said the board chairman, Bob Cordle, shortly before the five-member panel voted unanimously to throw out the November results between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jenna Portnoy of the Washington Post: "[Virginia's] Republican-controlled House of Delegates on Thursday killed Democrats' last-ditch efforts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in the waning days of the legislative session, as advocates promised retribution at the ballot box.... Introduced nearly a century ago by suffragist Alice Paul, the amendment would bar discrimination on account of sex. The lower chamber of the Genera Assembly has consistently thwarted a campaign by ERA activists to make Virginia the 38th -- and theoretically the last -- state needed to ratify the measure." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Lynh Bui, et al., of the Washington Post: "... U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant [Christopher P. Hasson] spent hours on end planning a wide-scale domestic terrorist attack, even logging in at his work computer on the job at headquarters to study the manifestos and heinous paths of mass shooters, prosecutors say. He researched how to carry out sniper attacks, they contend, and whether rifle scopes were illegal. And all the while, investigators assert, he was amassing a cache of weapons as he ruminated about attacks on politicians and journalists.... Hasson was arrested on gun and drug charges... [Judge Charles] Day said before he gave the government 14 days to bring additional charges and before Hasson's lawyer could file an appeal for his possible release. The chilling plans prosecutors assert he was crafting became apparent [were] detected by an internal Coast Guard program that watches for any 'insider threat.'... He held a secret-level security clearance beginning in April 2005, and background checks did not find information that merited denying it...."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Erik Wemple of the Washington Post has a terrific post on CNN's decision to hire Sarah Isgur, late of the Jeff Sessions/Donald Trump administration. Don't miss Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez's comment on the hire. Mrs. McC P.S. You can bet that besides personally swearing her fealty to King Donald, she also signed one of those Trumpy non-disclosure agreements. Seriously, how does one "edit" anything at a news organization when obliged to edit out anything that reflects poorly on the worst president* in U.S. history?
Matthew Haag of the New York Times: "After a scandal erupted around Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia this month over a racist photograph in his 1984 medical school yearbook, reporters at USA Today set out on an ambitious review of hundreds of college yearbooks from that time. That search of yearbooks from 120 colleges in the 1970s and '80s found that racist imagery like the black-and-white photograph on Mr. Northam's yearbook page ... appeared on full, blatant display in dozens of the glossy publications. White students dressed up like black celebrities, smearing on shoe polish to resemble Michael Jackson, or wore Nazi uniforms to parties. In an article published on Wednesday, USA Today identified at least 200 instances of racist and derogatory images and material in yearbooks across the United States. One example was on Page 218 of the 1988-89 yearbook at Arizona State University. The yearbook was edited by a 21-year-old named Nicole Carroll, who is now USA Today's own editor in chief.... Ms. Carroll, who is white, also designed Page 218 of the yearbook. When the photograph was discovered, she 'immediately recused herself from involvement in this coverage,' the newspaper said."
Julia Arciga of the Daily Beast: "A former member of Fox News' 'Medical A-Team' was reportedly sued by three female patients within the past year claiming he lured them into sexual relationships that degraded the women through beatings and bondage. One woman even got a tattoo featuring the doctor's initials so that he could claim 'ownership' of her. According to The Boston Globe, the three malpractice lawsuits against Dr. Keith Ablow claim that he instilled feelings of distrust and 'self-recrimination' while treating the women for depression. The three women involved said they relocated to Massachusetts from other states at Ablow's request.... Three former co-workers of Ablow’s reportedly filed affidavits supporting the patients'; claims, and also accusing Ablow of sexual harassment.... Aside from his medical practice, Ablow has had a long career as a TV commentator, including a stint as Glenn Beck's co-author and preferred on-air shrink, and perhaps most notoriously as a Fox News contributor, where he often heavily dosed his medical commentary with overtly sexist, right-wing politics."
Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times: "The Obama Presidential Center promises to be a presidential library like no other. The four-building, 19-acre 'working center for citizenship,' set to be built in a public park on the South Side of Chicago, will include a 235-foot-high 'museum tower,' a two-story event space, an athletic center, a recording studio, a winter garden, even a sledding hill. But the center, which will cost an estimated $500 million, will also differ from the complexes built by Barack Obama's predecessors in another way: It won't actually be a presidential library. In a break with precedent, there will be no research library on site, and none of Mr. Obama's official presidential records. Instead, the Obama Foundation will pay to digitize the roughly 30 million pages of unclassified paper records from the administration so they can be made available online. And the entire complex, including the museum chronicling Mr. Obama's presidency, will be run by the foundation, a private nonprofit entity, rather than by the National Archives and Records Administration, the federal agency that administers the libraries and museums for all presidents going back to Herbert Hoover." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Dubya notwithstanding, Barack Obama is the first president of the 21st century. Of course Trump's "library" won't hold any paper records, either, but that's because Trump ate them in his taco salad.
Capitalism Will Kill You. David Armstrong of ProPublica: "In May 1997, the year after Purdue Pharma launched OxyContin, its head of sales and marketing sought input on a key decision from Dr. Richard Sackler, a member of the billionaire family that founded and controls the company. Michael Friedman [-- now Purdue Pharma's former CEO (Mrs. McC: I think) --] told Sackler that he didn't want to correct the false impression among doctors that OxyContin was weaker than morphine, because the myth was boosting prescriptions -- and sales. 'It would be extremely dangerous at this early stage in the life of the product,' Friedman wrote to Sackler, 'to make physicians think the drug is stronger or equal to morphine.... We are well aware of the view held by many physicians that oxycodone [the active ingredient in OxyContin] is weaker than morphine. I do not plan to do anything about that.'"
Charles Duhigg, in the New York Times Magazine, discovers that most of his fellow Harvard Business School alums are miserable. They hate their meaningless, very high-paying jobs.
Beyond the Beltway
California. Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "... it will probably come as a surprise to California state employees and taxpayers to learn they were helping fund [the National Enquirer]. During the 2016 presidential campaign, California's massive public pension fund, CalPERS, was one of the biggest investors in the debt-laden owner of the National Enquirer, according to public records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Through an investment managed by a New Jersey hedge fund, California's public pension fund appears to have owned as much as one-third of American Media Inc., the National Enquirer's parent company, in 2016. It is not clear whether CalPERS continues to hold a major stake in the tabloid publisher." Mrs. McC: I've linked the story, but unless you're a subscriber, good luck getting there. I've found the LA Times to be mighty tetchy; besides allowing few clicks per month, the page usually tells me I'm in a private window when I'm not.
Illinois. Sopan Deb & Jack Healy of the New York Times: "Jussie Smollett, upset by his salary and seeking publicity, staged a fake assault on himself a week after writing himself a threatening letter, the Chicago police said Thursday after the 'Empire' actor surrendered to face a charge of filing a false police report. A visibly angry Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson said Mr. Smollett had taken advantage of the pain and anger of racism, draining resources that could have been used to investigate other crimes for which people were actually suffering. 'I just wish that the families of gun violence in this city got this much attention,' he said at a news conference in Chicago.... At an afternoon bail hearing, a judge set Mr. Smollett's bond at $100,000. He was released Thursday evening after posting bond." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
West Virginia. Casey Quinlan of ThinkProgress: "On Tuesday and Wednesday, West Virginia teachers went on strike to protest a bill that would allow charter schools to operate in the state and allocate money toward private school vouchers -- and they won. This is the second time in two years that teachers across the state have gone on strike to achieve their education policy goals. But the strike also has important national implications, revealing traditional public school teachers' growing concerns about charter school expansion. There are only six states that have not passed laws authorizing charter schools, and West Virginia is one of them." --s
Way Beyond
Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "Cloistered inside the Vatican on Thursday, Roman Catholic Church leaders heard searing prerecorded video testimonials from abuse survivors, including one made pregnant three times by a priest who started abusing her at age 15, beat her and forced her to have abortions.... The meeting was potentially a consequential moment for this papacy and the most visible step taken by the Vatican to impress upon bishops and other church leaders -- some of them still skeptical -- the enormity of a crisis that has shaken the faithful.... A lack of forceful action by the Vatican has disheartened and disgusted many victims and their advocates, who are demanding a policy of zero tolerance and dismissal from the clerical state for abusive priests and the bishops who protect them. The issue has drastically devalued the moral authority that is the currency of the clergy and Pope Francis.... On Thursday, addressing the 190 Catholic Church leaders who had gathered from around the world, the pope sought to reassure his flock that 'we hear the cry of the little ones asking for justice.' Still, despite his acknowledgment that people 'expect from us not simple and obvious condemnations, but concrete and effective measures,' he offered remedies that disappointed many victims."
Dave Lawler of Axios: "There's a powder keg on the border of Venezuela and Colombia. In some 36 hours, the Venezuelan opposition, led by National Assembly President Juan Guaidó and forcefully backed by the U.S., plans to light the fuse.... A caravan organized by the opposition set off today for the border, where food and medicine flown in by the U.S. have been stockpiled. Guaidó is vowing to bring the aid into Venezuela on Saturday. President Nicolás Maduro, who insists there is no humanitarian crisis, says he won't let them." --s
Barak Ravid of Axios: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded in forming a united ultra right-wing party that will run in the April 9 elections, paving the way for Jewish supremacists from the 'Jewish Power' party to make it into the next Knesset. This is an unprecedented development in Israel's history and is equivalent to a U.S. president cutting a political deal with David Duke, the former KKK leader.... 'Jewish Power' was formed by the followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the former leader of the Kach party, which was banned from running in Israel's 1988 elections and designated a terror organization by the Israeli government in 1994.... Inside Likud -- the same party that ostracized Kach and Kahane in 1984 -- there hasn't been even a whiff of criticism over a move designed to get the Israeli equivalents of David Duke into the Knesset." --s ...
... Juan Cole: "Kahanists are not only racists toward Palestinian-Israelis and Arabs in general, and have not only advocated violence toward those groups, but have spoken of assassinating Israeli prime ministers and so are seen as extremists even by some on the Israeli far right. Netanyahu has made a career of excusing his racism by slamming his enemies as terrorists, but in embracing a Kahanist Party he is, many Israelis feel, revealing his true colors as an extremist himself." ...
... Barak Ravid of Axios: "Hours before the registration deadline for Israel's elections, the two main political rivals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday that they will join forces and merge their parties into a single, centrist party that will run in the April 9 contest." --s
Amanda Billner & Love Liman of Bloomberg: "Scandinavians are taking a hard look at their institutions as allegations of systematic money laundering rock the entire region.... As the investigations pile up, a picture is emerging of a laundering pipeline that allowed crooks in the former Soviet Union to channel their money into the West with the help of Nordic and Baltic banks. The amounts involved are vast, and point to what may be the biggest dirty money scandal ever." --s
Share Article