;)
The Commentariat -- March 13, 2019
Afternoon Update:
Ian Austen & Selam Gebrekidan of the New York Times: "Canada's transportation minister grounded all Boeing 737 Max jets on Wednesday morning, saying that newly available satellite-tracking data suggests similarities between the deadly crash involving one of the jets in Ethiopia on Sunday and another accident last October. Cautioning that the 'new information is not conclusive,' Marc Garneau, the transportation minister, also said Canada would not allow the jets to fly into its airspace." ...
... ** New Lede: "President Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States was grounding Boeing's 737 Max aircraft, reversing an earlier decision by American regulators to keep the jet flying after a second deadly crash in Ethiopia. The Federal Aviation Administration had for days resisted calls to ground the plane even as safety regulators in some 42 countries had banned flights by the jets. As recently as Tuesday, the agency said it had seen 'no systemic performance issues' that would prompt it to halt flights of the jet."
Olivia Beavers of the Hill: "The head of the House Judiciary Committee says former Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker 'did not deny' that President Trump had called to talk to him about 'personnel decisions' involving a federal investigation into hush money payments made to two women. 'Mr. Whitaker did not deny that the president called him to discuss the Michael Cohen case and personnel decisions in the Southern District,' Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told reporters after questioning Whitaker behind closed doors for roughly two hours. 'While he was acting attorney general, Mr. Whitaker was directly involved in conversations about whether to fire multiple U.S. attorneys,' he continued." Mrs. McC: The bottom line here is that Whitaker, when he was serving as acting AG, lied under oath in his original testimony last month. Now that he's a private citizen, he's changing his story, though apparently he's unwilling to give Congress the full story. I'm guessing there are others who know something about the conversations Whitaker had regarding these issues. ...
... Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday that former acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker 'did not deny' that President Trump 'called him to discuss the case' against his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, as well as personnel decisions regarding the personnel at the federal prosecutor's office bringing the case against him. Speaking to reporters after a two-hour meeting with Whitaker, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) presented Whitaker's closed-door comments as a contradiction with his public testimony from February, during which Whitaker said Trump never expressed his dissatisfaction with Cohen for pleading guilty to various financial crimes and lying to Congress. When asked at that hearing whether he had ever discussed the Cohen case with Trump, Whitaker refused to answer the question. But Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), who was also present for the interview, strongly disagreed with Nadler, calling it an 'interpretation' -- and insisting that Whitaker 'said he did not talk with the president about Mr. Cohen at all, and had no conversations with the Southern District of New York.'... According to Nadler, Whitaker did not refute the assertion that he was 'directly involved in conversations about whether to fire one or more U.S. attorneys.' Nadler also said that Whitaker did not deny having been 'involved in conversations about the scope' of the recusal of the SDNY's lead prosecutor, U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman, from Cohen's case -- and whether the prosecutors 'went too far in pursuing the campaign finance case in which Trump is Individual-1.'"
Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman who was sentenced last week to nearly four years in prison, was ordered on Wednesday to serve an additional three and a half years for conspiracy, closing out the special counsel's highest-profile prosecution. Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Federal District Court in Washington sentenced Mr. Manafort, 69, on two conspiracy counts that encompassed a host of crimes, including money-laundering, obstruction of justice and failing to disclose lobbying work that earned him tens of millions of dollars over more than a decade. 'It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the amount of money involved,' Judge Jackson said of Mr. Manafort's case. She added, 'A significant portion of his career has been spent gaming the system.'"
... Darren Samuelsohn & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Paul Manafort's prison sentence was upped to seven-and-a-half years on Wednesday morning, bringing an end to Robert Mueller's most public legal battle and capping a spectacular fall for the globetrotting GOP consultant and former chairman of the Trump campaign. It's the longest sentence by far for anyone ensnared in Mueller's nearly two-year-old probe. Manafort's punishment reached its final length after U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Wednesday gave Manafort an additional roughly three-and-a-half years in prison for a series of lobbying and witness tampering crimes he pleaded guilty to last fall. Manafort also must serve nearly four years for his conviction in a jury trial for financial fraud crimes in Virginia.... Manafort issued a full-throated and blunt apology on Wednesday shortly before his second -- and final -- prison sentence was set to be handed out. But it appeared his appeals were falling on deaf ears.... Judge Amy Berman Jackson swiftly upbraided Manafort's penitence, though, insinuating that it was insincere and hinting that she believed Manafort had previously calibrated his statements to appeal to ... Donald Trump for a pardon -- the only way out of a multi-year prison sentence at this point for the former Trump campaign chairman.... 'Saying I'm sorry I got caught is not an inspiring plea for leniency,' Jackson said." ...
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Judge Amy Berman Jackson made a series of strong statements before sentencing President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on Wednesday. But one in particular struck at the core of Trump's personal defense in the Russia investigation. She said the no collusion' mantra is bunk. Manafort's legal team had suggested repeatedly in its sentencing memo that the fact that Manafort hadn't been found to have colluded with Russia should be a mitigating factor when it came to how much time he would serve in prison. But Jackson not only rejected that argument in sentencing him to 43 additional months in prison; she rejected the entire argument behind it. 'The "no collusion" refrain that runs through the entire defense memorandum is unrelated to matters at hand,' she said. 'The "no collusion' mantra is simply a non sequitur.'... The "no collusion" mantra is also not accurate, because the investigation is still ongoing.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: So then Manafort's attorney Kevin Downing walked out of the courtroom & said on the courthouse steps that "Judge Jackson conceded that there was absolutely no evidence of any collusion in this case." I guess its okay if an "officer of the court" flat-out lies about a judge's remarks if your message is not to her but to a corrupt President*. But protesters, who shout-checked Downing, didn't agree. ...
... Darturnorro Clark, et al., of NBC News: "... Donald Trump picked up the refrain in remarks to reporters at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, saying, 'today, again, no collusion. The other day, no collusion. There was no collusion.' Both judges, however, did not say there was no collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia, but rather that the issue had nothing to do with the charges against Manafort. Asked whether he would pardon Manafort, Trump told reporters, 'I have not even given it a thought, as of this moment.' But the president also said he feels 'very badly' for his former campaign chairman."
... William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "Paul J. Manafort ... has been charged in New York with mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., said Wednesday, an effort to ensure he will still face prison time if Mr. Trump pardons him for his federal crimes. News of the indictment came shortly after Mr. Manafort was sentenced to his second federal prison term in two weeks; he now faces a combined sentence of more than seven years for tax and bank fraud and conspiracy in two related cases brought by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but has no such authority in state cases."
Iliana Magra of the New York Times: "Iran has faced international condemnation after one of the country’s most prominent human rights lawyers, detained for eight months, said she had been sentenced to a total of 38 years in prison and 148 lashes, according to her husband. Security agents arrested the lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, at her home in June last year. The government offered no explanation, but at the time Ms. Sotoudeh was defending women who had been arrested after removing their hijabs, or head scarves, in public protests. She received the European Union's most prestigious human rights award, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, in 2012, while serving a previous prison sentence."
Rick Rojas & Liam Stack of the New York Times: "Allegations of sexual abuse trailed John Capparelli, a former priest, for decades, resurfacing in the years after the Archdiocese of Newark removed him from ministry. There were the lawsuits from accusers, and last month his name was included on a list published by the Roman Catholic Church in New Jersey that identified priests who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse. On Saturday, Mr. Capparelli was found fatally shot in his home in Nevada, and the authorities there said that his death was being investigated as a homicide."
~~~~~~~~~~
The Trump Scandals, Ctd.
Tim Mak of NPR: "There's already sufficient evidence to support an indictment of President Trump even before the conclusion of the special counsel investigation, California Rep. Adam Schiff said Tuesday. The chairman of the House intelligence committee pointed to the case of Michael Cohen, the president's former personal lawyer, in which the government described how 'Individual 1' directed and coordinated a campaign fraud scheme. 'Individual 1' is Trump, and Cohen is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in part because of those crimes. 'It's very difficult to make the argument that the person who was directed and was coordinated should go to jail but the person who did the directing and did the coordinating should not,' Schiff told reporters at a breakfast on Tuesday organized by the Christian Science Monitor. The evidence therefore already in place argues 'very strongly in favor of indicting the president when he is out of office,' he said."
Tal Axelrod of the Hill: "Democrats in the House and Senate on Tuesday introduced a bill mandating the publication of visitor logs at the White House and other personal properties where President Trump conducts business. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, respectively, introduced the Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness (Mar-A-Lago) Act.... The legislation was first introduced in the previous congressional term."
Daily Beast: "President Trump claims New York State and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo are 'presidential harassers' after the state's attorney general reportedly launched an investigation into several Trump Organization real estate projects. According to the president, in light of such 'harassment,' it is 'no wonder people are fleeing the state in record numbers.'" Mrs. McC: Yes, I imagine a lot of New Yorkers upended their lives as soon as they heard the horrifying news that the AG was investigating Trump's (allegedly!) crooked business stunts.
Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: A new book titled Kushner Inc., by journalist Vicky Ward, "portrays [Ivanka] Trump and [Jared] Kushner as two children forged by their domineering fathers ... who have climbed to positions of power by disregarding protocol and skirting the rules when they can. And Ms. Ward tries to unravel the narrative that the two serve as stabilizing voices inside an otherwise chaotic White House, depicting them instead as Mr. Trump's chief enablers." After Donald Trump expressed support for white nationalists in Charlottesville, Gary Cohn "was shocked" when Ivanka told him, 'My dad's not a racist; he didn't mean any of it.'... Appearing to channel her father, she added, 'That's not what he said.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Karoun Demirjian, et al., of the Washington Post: "Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page defended herself and the bureau last year against accusations that bias against Donald Trump affected federal investigations of the Trump campaign's suspected Russia ties and of Hillary Clinton's emails, according to a transcript released Tuesday by the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. Page, who came to prominence over anti-Trump texts she exchanged with former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok while both were assigned to the Clinton and Trump investigations, stressed that senior bureau officials were also expressing anti-Clinton animus -- but that neither affected how agents working those cases carried out their jobs.... Page's transcript is the second released in the past week by the panel's ranking Republican, Douglas A. Collins (Ga.), in an effort to make public the record of the now-completed GOP-led probe of how federal law enforcement agencies conducted the two probes. The first, from a session that the Judiciary and Oversight committees held last year with Bruce Ohr, was derided by Democrats as an attempt to resurrect old political talking points in an effort to distract from current congressional investigations of President Trump and an expected report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III."
Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Michael Flynn's cooperation in Robert Mueller's Russia investigation is complete, lawyers for the special counsel said in a Tuesday night report to a federal judge presiding over the former Trump national security adviser's case. In the same joint status report, Flynn's lawyers asked for a 90-day delay in their client's sentencing so he could continue to cooperate with the government in his former business partner's upcoming trial in Alexandria, Va. Flynn expects to testify in the mid-July trial against Bijan Rafiekian, who faces charges of conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign government agent for Turkey.... Mueller didn't take a position on Flynn's request for a delay but noted that prosecutors had exhausted the witness of information since he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017."
Josh Kovensky of TPM: "The founder of a chain of massage and spa parlors that snagged Patriots owner Robert Kraft was apparently also hawking a different line of business: investment immigration.... [Li] Yang, through a Florida-based company called GY US Investments LLC, was also using proximity to Trump and his properties to peddle so-called investor visas.... Yang's company's website listed a few examples of properties that foreigners can invest in as part of an 'investment immigration project.' The first is described as 'high-end luxury real estate' and features a photo of the Palm Beach home of billionaire [Philadelphia Eagles owner] Jeffrey Lurie.... That home is located a quarter-mile south of Mar-a-Lago — a fact that the company promotes as part of the investment, saying it's 'near Trump Manor.'" On her Website, Yang lists one of her "partners" as Elizabeth MacCall, who also frequents Mar-a-Lago events. MacCall, who at least has a business relationship with Yang's husband, hung up on TPM when a reporter called.
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "Vice President Pence is discussing an offer with Republican senators that could lead to the defeat of a Democratic resolution overturning President Trump's emergency declaration to build a wall on the Mexican border, according to GOP sources briefed on the matter. Under the deal discussed between Pence and GOP senators, Trump would sign legislation reining in his power to declare future national emergencies if they defeat the resolution of disapproval. Killing the resolution on the Republican-controlled Senate floor would spare the president a major embarrassment and avoid him having to issue the first veto of his presidency." ...
... Update. Jordain Carney of the Hill: "More than a dozen Republican senators introduced legislation on Tuesday that would make it easier for Congress to terminate future national emergency declarations, days before the chamber will vote on President Trump's. The legislation, spearheaded by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would require that Congress pass a resolution extending an emergency declaration after 30 days for it to continue; otherwise the declaration would be terminated.... Lee's legislation would not impact Trump's current emergency declaration on the wall but, if passed, would impact any future emergency declarations."
Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "The Trump administration is preparing to shutter many of its immigration operations abroad, cutting back on a key support system for those applying overseas to relocate to the United States. The director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, L. Francis Cissna, told senior staff members this week that the international division, which has operations in more than 20 countries, would close down by the end of the year, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting. Agency officials said the move was intended to provide more staff resources to handle the lengthy backlog in asylum applications from tens of thousands of migrants crossing the southern border every month. But it could come at the expense of legal migration, which President Trump has said he favors...."
Mujib Mashal of the New York Times: "Although more than two weeks of talks between the United States and the Taliban ended Tuesday without a breakthrough, two American officials said they were close to a final agreement on one crucial element to a framework for ending the long war: a Taliban promise to not allow terrorist attacks from Afghanistan. The officials also said they had made substantial progress on a second element, detailing a plan for the withdrawal of American troops. The chief American peace envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, was expected to fly back to Washington on Tuesday night to brief Secretary of State Mike Pompeo."
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "An entrenched, sexist culture at many veterans hospitals is driving away female veterans and lags far behind the gains women have made in the military in recent years, veterans and lawmakers of both parties say. Although the Department of Veterans Affairs has scrambled to adjust to the rising population of female veterans and has made progress -- including hiring more women's health care providers, fixing basic privacy problems in the exam rooms and expanding service to women in rural areas -- sexual harassment at department facilities remains a major problem."
Election 2018. Nick Ochsner of WBTV (Charlotte, N.C.): "The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas for a federal grand jury investigation into allegations of election fraud in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District.... The subpoenas come less than a month after the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously to hold a new election in the 9th District. The vote came at the abrupt end of a four-day evidentiary hearing held by the board that concluded with Republican Mark Harris -- the candidate who received the winning number of votes in the November 2018 contest -- admitting he had given incorrect testimony and calling for a new election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Edward Wong & Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "The United States is withdrawing all remaining diplomatic personnel from its embassy in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, because of worsening conditions in the country, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late Monday. The move is a setback for the Trump administration, which had vowed to keep diplomats in the country to legitimize the opposition challenger to President Nicolás Maduro, who cut diplomatic ties with the United States in January. Mr. Pompeo said the move reflected the 'deteriorating situation' in the country and the belief that the presence of American diplomats 'has become a constraint on U.S. policy.' The last phrase could be read as hinting at some form of military intervention." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Bob King of Politico: "The Federal Aviation Administration refused again Tuesday evening to ground Boeing's beleaguered 737 MAX 8 jetliner, despite pleas from lawmakers of both parties who said the U.S. should join a growing list of governments that have barred the plane amid questions about two deadly air crashes.... 'Thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft,' acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell said in a statement just after 6 p.m. 'Nor have other civil aviation authorities provided data to us that would warrant action.'... The statement came hours after ... Donald Trump spoke by phone with Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, who assured him that the 737 MAX is safe. An administration official later said the White House has been in 'constant contact' with the FAA about the issue." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's reassuring. I wonder if the FAA's action would have been different if it was headed by a "real" administrator instead of an acting one. ...
... Update. Rachel Maddow riffed on this theme at length, reminding us that one reason we don't have an actual FAA administrator is that a year ago, when the position came over, Trump thought it would be a great idea to appoint her personal pilot to the job, a pilot who, BTW, didn't seem to notice that the plane he was flying was not certified so the FAA grounded it. Update Update: Here's the segment, which runs nearly half an hour:
... Cary Aspinwall, et al., of the Dallas Morning News: "Pilots repeatedly voiced safety concerns about the Boeing 737 Max 8 to federal authorities, with one captain calling the flight manual 'inadequate and almost criminally insufficient' several months before Sunday's Ethiopian Air crash that killed 157 people, an investigation by The Dallas Morning News found. The News found at least five complaints about the Boeing model in a federal database where pilots can voluntarily report about aviation incidents without fear of repercussions. The complaints are about the safety mechanism cited in preliminary reports about an October plane crash in Indonesia that killed 189." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Maddow noted that, according to a Wall Street Journal report, Boeing is working on a fix, one that they now say will be ready to implement by the end of next month. They might have got it done sooner, the WSJ reports, but because Boeing had to iron out details with the FAA, they were delayed five weeks on account of the Trump's federal government shutdown. The report, which is firewalled, is here. ...
... David Gelles, et al., of the New York Times: "With more countries grounding Boeing jets and with lawmakers, aviation workers and consumers calling on the United States to do the same, the head of the aerospace giant on Tuesday made a personal appeal to President Trump. Boeing's chief executive, Dennis A. Muilenburg, called from Chicago and expressed to Mr. Trump his confidence in the safety of the 737 Max 8 jets, according to two people briefed on the conversation. Two of the planes flown by overseas carriers have crashed in recent months in similar accidents. The brief call had been in the works since Monday, but it came shortly after Mr. Trump raised concerns that the increasing use of technology in airplanes was compromising passenger safety. 'Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly,' he wrote on Twitter. 'Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT.'... By Tuesday afternoon, the United States was nearly alone among major countries still allowing the jets to fly."
Mark Weisbrot in the New Republic: "Seeking to foment a military coup, a popular rebellion, or civil war [in Venezuela], the Trump administration has made it clear that the punishment will continue until the current government is ousted.... All of this is illegal under numerous treaties that the U.S. has signed, including the charter of the United Nations, the charter of the Organization of American States, and other international law and conventions. To legitimize this brutality, which has likely already killed thousands of Venezuelans by reducing access to life-saving goods and services, the Trump administration has presented the sanctions as a consensus of the 'international community' — similar to what George W. Bush did when he put together a 'coalition of the willing' of 48 countries to support his disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq." Many of Trump's "coalition" are unsavory right-wing despots and/or have been pressured by the Trump administration to sign on.
Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "The Senate voted Tuesday to advance ... Donald Trump&'s judicial nominee Neomi Rao, who has a record of weakening protections for sexual assault survivors and once argued that women could avoid date rape by staying sober.The Senate voted 53-46 to move forward with Rao's nomination to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second most powerful court in the country and often a stepping stone to a seat on the Supreme Court. Every Republican voted to advance Rao. Every Democrat voted against it except for Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who did not vote. Rao will get her final confirmation vote on Wednesday. If confirmed, as expected, she will fill the seat formerly held by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh."
Susan Davis of NPR: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has reclaimed office space her predecessor, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., awarded to Vice President Pence.... A placard above the door identifying it as Pence's House office was quietly removed in recent weeks."
Tom Winter, et al., of NBC News: "Hollywood actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are among 50 people charged in a $25 million college entrance exam cheating scheme, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday. The alleged scam focused on getting students admitted to elite universities as recruited athletes, regardless of their athletic abilities, and helping potential students cheat on their college exams, according to the indictment unsealed in Boston. Authorities said the FBI investigation, code-named Operation Varsity Blues, uncovered a network of wealthy parents who paid thousands of dollars to a California man who boosted their childrens' chances of gaining entrance into elite colleges, such as Yale and Stanford, by paying people to take tests for their children, bribing test administrators to allow it to happen, and bribing college coaches and administrators to identify the applicants as athletes." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Rebecca Halleck of the New York Times posts a full list of those charged. The New York Times main story, by Jennifer Medina & others, is here. ...
... Adam Raymond of New York: "Why didn't these rich parents just make a fat donation to the schools to get their kids admitted? It's an age-old tradition that has resulted in many underperforming and undeserving rich kids winning admission to universities they couldn't have gotten into on their own. And one beneficiary is currently working in the White House. As Daniel Golden reported in his 2006 book, Jared Kushner ... was accepted into Harvard shortly after his father [Charles] pledged $2.5 million to the school. Writing for ProPublica in 2016, Golden noted that Kushner's high-school teachers didn't think he was Harvard material[.]... Unlike the scheme that came to light today, it was all legal." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'd guess the cheating parents were too poor or too cheap to go the legal route. Their out-of-pocket expenses to get their underachieving offspring into the universities were $500K or less per child. Charles Kushner spent five times that to get young Jared a spot at Harvard. ...
... ** Levitz of New York: "All of American higher education is, in essence, a giant pay-to-play scandal.... I didn't get into Johns Hopkins University because of my father's name, or my fabricated triumphs at high-school water polo.... But my competitive application was underwritten by my professional-class parents' wealth. My SAT scores were the product of hours of tutoring, and my writing skills were honed in pricey summer classes, which most American families cannot afford. And before all that, my parents' economic security enabled them to buy a home in a suburb with a coveted school system that featured better-qualified teachers and smaller class sizes than most working-class kids are provided. I did not earn these advantages. My parents purchased them for me. And in this respect, I am not atypical.... Meritocracy is a cruel joke."
Scott Bullock & Nick Sibilla in the Atlantic: Last month, in a case titled Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court invoked the Eighth Amendment against excessive fines, thus striking a blow against the ever-so-popular "policing for profit" scheme, wherein police departments seize legally-owned property after a person is accused of committing a crime, whether or not that property has anything to do with the crime. The ruling was unanimous.
David Dayen in the New Republic: "The most acute political scandal in North America -- the one with the greatest chance of toppling the head of government anytime soon -- occurring not in the United States, but Canada.* Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is barely hanging on to power after being accused last month of pressuring his attorney general to abandon the criminal prosecution of an influential company that hails from Quebec, his political stronghold.... It should also pass for a scandal in America, but selective prosecution -- which spares the powerful while punishing those without connections -- has become all too common in this country, and notably so under President Obama.... While deferred prosecution agreements are new to Canada, they've been used in corporate settlements in the U.S. for more than two decades, particularly during and after the last financial crisis, when hundreds of DPAs were executed. In other words, the major difference between the scandal engulfing Canada's government and what happens routinely here is that nobody in our Justice Department needs to be pressured to issue a deferred prosecution agreement."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch: "The Associated Press ... published at least three press releases on its APNews.com website and AP News app that contained misinformation and partisan propaganda from conservative political groups.... One press release advocated for prosecuting doctors who perform abortions, another claimed that measles vaccines cause autism, and one was used to advertise a shady right-wing fundraising campaign. All appeared on the AP's site, surrounded by the company's branding.... The only apparent written indication that the press release was not an actual AP article was a dateline with the name of the wire service.... An uninformed reader would have been forgiven for mistaking the press releases for a news article.... AP appears to be trying to address the problem. On February 27, the news service incorporated more visual indications to alert readers to the fact that what they are viewing is not the newsroom's reporting."
Tucker Carlson wants you to know you're a horrible person and he's a brave defender of "independent thoughts." Here's Tucker's official Fox "News" response -- adapted from Monday night's brilliant monologue -- to what we horrible people are doing to him -- and to all conservatives who must "police themselves" to toe the line of "progressive orthodoxy." Punchline: "But we will never bow to the mob -- ever. No matter what." As far as I can tell, this is not meant to be funny. ...
... See also yesterday's Comments for Akhilleus's view on Carlson's "defense." ...
... Tucker Keeps on Whinin'. Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast: "A night after defiantly declaring that he will not 'bow to the mob' amid a firestorm of controversy over misogynistic and racist comments he made during appearances on shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge's radio show from 2006 to 2011, top-rated Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed that he is the victim of a left-wing authoritarian conspiracy to 'disappear' anyone with 'dissenting political opinions.'... The Fox News host went all out in portraying the backlash against him as part of a leftist plot, at one point even appearing to invoke the Holocaust and likening social media bans of conservatives to enforced disappearances." Mrs. McC: I dunno; I'm not sure calling a young woman "cunty" & all Iraqis "primitive monkeys" are "dissenting political opinions." BTW, where do I sign up for the "left-wing authoritarian conspiracy"? ...
Tucker Carlson is going on vacation next week, claiming he was supposed to go on this week but stayed to work amid all the scandal over previously unearthed remarks. -- Sam Stein of the Daily Beast, in a tweet
So is Tucker being self-disappeared or Fox-disappeared? If the left-wing authoritarian conspiracy works, we'll never hear from Tucker again. But good job on the damage control, Tucker. Good thing you stuck around to make things right. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
Beyond the Beltway
California. Bob Egelko & Alexei Koseff of the San Francisco Chronicle: "Gov. Gavin Newsom is suspending the death penalty in California, calling it discriminatory and immoral, and is granting reprieves to the 737 condemned inmates on the nation's largest Death Row.... He plans to order an immediate shutdown of the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison, where the last execution was carried out in 2006. Newsom is also withdrawing California's recently revised procedures for executions by lethal injection, ending -- at least for now -- the struggle by prison officials for more than a decade to devise procedures that would pass muster in federal court by minimizing the risk of a botched and painful execution."
Way Beyond
That England that was wont to conquer others
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. --
William Shakespeare, Richard II ...
... Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britain hurtled into unknown political territory on Tuesday when Parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's plan to quit the European Union for a second time, leaving her authority in tatters and the country seemingly rudderless just 17 days before its planned departure from the bloc. Mrs. May had hoped that last-minute concessions from the European Union would swing the vote in her favor, but many lawmakers dismissed those changes as ineffectual or cosmetic and voted against the deal by 391 to 242. After the vote, the prime minister defended her agreement as the 'best outcome' for the United Kingdom and betrayed her frustration in addressing the lawmakers, who are scheduled to vote later this week on whether to seek an extension to leave the bloc."
Costa Rica's "Green New Deal." Somini Sengupta> & Alexander Villegas of the New York Times: "Costa Rica ... wants to wean itself from fossil fuels by 2050, and the chief evangelist of the idea is a 38-year-old urban planner named Claudia Dobles who also happens to be the first lady. Every country will have to aspire to something similar, scientists say, if the world is to avert the most dire consequences of global warming. And while Costa Rica's carbon footprint is tiny compared to other countries, Ms. Dobles has a higher goal in mind: Getting rid of fossil fuels would show the world that a small country can be a leader on an awesome problem and improve the health and well-being of its citizens in the bargain.... Costa Rica's green bid, though fraught with challenges, has a head start. Electricity comes largely from renewable sources already -- chiefly hydropower, but also wind, solar and geothermal energy. The country has doubled its forest cover in the last 30 years, after decades of deforestation, so that half of its land surface is now covered with trees. That's a huge carbon sink and a huge draw for tourists. Also, climate change is not a divisive political issue."
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