The Commentariat -- May 24, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump has notified Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, that he has canceled their much-anticipated meeting to discuss steps toward denuclearization and peace because of recent 'tremendous anger and open hostility' by Pyongyang toward members of his administration. In a letter dated Thursday to Mr. Kim, the American president left open the possibility that the two could meet in the future. But hours later Mr. Trump warned that the United States and its allies are prepared to respond should 'foolish or reckless acts be taken by North Korea.'" Mrs. McC: "Many people are saying" Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize anyway. ...
... Jonathan Chait reproduces Trump's letter to Kim. "The letter clearly springs from, or at least reflects the deep influence of, Trump's own mind. Almost the entirety of Trump's very short list of favorite words is represented: 'tremendous,' 'massive,' 'powerful,' 'wonderful,' 'beautiful,' 'wealth,' and 'sad.'... The president was obviously manipulated by other actors into a series of impulsive decisions that rewarded his momentary ego needs.... He has, characteristically, refused to learn anything about the subject he was putatively negotiating." ...
... Alex Shephard of the New Republic: "There's no magic bullet -- or magic summit -- that will resolve the North Korea situation. Trump has finally acknowledged that. But in Trump-ian fashion he's done so in a way that escalates the situation and alienates our allies."
"Most Unpatriotic President Ever" Whacks Black Patriots. Again. Jonathan Chait: "Yesterday, the National Football League capitulated to President Trump and announced a policy banning players from kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality.... Trump pressed his advantage. 'You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn't be playing,' he told Brian Kilmeade. 'You shouldn't be there. Maybe you shouldn't be in the country.'... The explanation for this contradiction between his demands that players revere the flag and his own contempt for its spirit is easily explained. Patriotism is the cover for Trump's true intention, which is to delegitimize protest on behalf of African-American civil rights."
*****
This Russia Thing, Etc., Ctd.
When Corruption Meets Panic
Mel Leonor of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday said he did a 'great service to this country' by firing former FBI Director James Comey. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Trump speaks only until about the 5-minute mark in the video below, after which some ABC News reporters, including White House correspondent Tara Palmeri, discuss his conspiracy theories. Mrs. McC: The video was produced & uploaded by some pro-Trump guy, but it's the only one I could find that covered all of the remarks Trump made yesterday on the White House lawn:
... See also Linda Qiu's analysis, linked below.
Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump repeated unconfirmed claims on Wednesday about federal investigators using a spy inside his presidential campaign, and said it could be one of the 'biggest political scandals in history!' The president also gave the scandal a name: 'SPYGATE.'... In a series of Twitter posts early Wednesday..., Mr. Trump departed from his previous language about the possibility that the government deployed a spy inside his presidential campaign. Instead, he stated it as fact.... 'Look how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State. They go after Phony Collusion with Russia, a made up Scam, and end up getting caught in a major SPY scandal the likes of which this country may never have seen before! What goes around, comes around!'... Mr. Trump's claims about the government spying on his campaign are part of a pattern for this president, who rails about injustice and political bias among the top officials at the Justice Department -- officials he appointed. He has described his own Justice Department as a 'deep state,' and on Wednesday appeared to accuse the department of criminal activity, calling it the 'Criminal Deep State.' The latest accusation is similar to Mr. Trump's claims in the early days of his presidency that former President Barack Obama had Mr. Trump's 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower. His unsubstantiated claims were later proven to be false...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Once again, the paper of record publishes a front-page story which describes the POTUS* as a lying sack o' and/or a lunatic.
Tom Porter of Newsweek: "In his new memoir, Facts and Fears: Hard Truths From a Life in Intelligence, [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper describes evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin swayed the election in a bid to secure Trump's election as 'staggering.' 'Of course, the Russian efforts affected the outcome,' writes Clapper, as cited in a Washington Post review. 'Surprising even themselves, they swung the election to a Trump win. To conclude otherwise stretches logic, common sense and credulity to the breaking point. Less than eighty thousand votes in three key states swung the election. I have no doubt that more votes than that were influenced by this massive effort by the Russians.'"
Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "In highly charged and notably ominous terms, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on Wednesday laid bare his fears about the damage Donald Trump was inflicting on the office he holds, and called out his fellow Republicans for lacking the spine to fight to it. 'Our presidency has been debased by a figure who has a seemingly bottomless appetite for destruction and division and only a passing familiarity with how the Constitution works,' Flake declared, according to an advanced copy of the commencement address he was delivering to graduates of the Harvard School of Law. 'And our Article I branch of government, the Congress, is utterly supine in the face of the moral vandalism that flows from the White House daily.'... 'This is what it looks like when you stress-test all of the institutions that undergird our constitutional democracy, at the same time.'" ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Trump's ability to comprehend objective reality is characteristically cracked. But his confidence that the array of forces are shifting to his benefit, and that he may turn the tables on his enemies, has a real basis in reality. He is bringing his party, and the powers it commands, around to his warped manner of thinking.... The defense has ignored all this evidence of guilt, and instead focused on the question of why Trump was being investigated at all.... Planting evidence? Multiple spies? Obama political operatives? You might think ... Trump could not get his party to go along with this theory, to dismiss all the evidence of culpability as having been fabricated by a pro-Obama cabal in the FBI. But then you would be ignoring how far down the Trump rabbit hole the Republican Party has gone so far." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Greg Sargent: "... Trump's latest tweets show him concocting crazy conspiracy theories in the face of an investigation that is closing in on him, his family and his cronies. Why is he doing this? Because the investigation, in tandem with dogged media digging, has already produced evidence of Trump campaign collusion with a foreign power to subvert our democracy and allegations of mind-boggling levels of corruption, which include Trump corruptly going to extraordinary lengths to subvert the workings of justice, with the active help of Republicans in Congress.... Democrats should talk about this.... Even if the public may not be closely familiar with all the details involving Russian collusion, Democrats can connect the Mueller investigation to a broader case about Trump corruption and Republican efforts to help him escape accountability.... Trump's whack-job lies are not a sign that he's winning the public argument; they're a sign that he's losing it. Democrats should act accordingly." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Elizabeth Drew of the New Republic: "In the past four days alone, two new items were added to President Trump's list of impeachable offenses. He was already a sitting duck for a charge of obstruction of justice.... He was also already vulnerable to a charge of accepting foreign emoluments.... And now Trump has chalked up two more reasons to impeach him (or some kind of reckoning): abusing his office by ordering an investigation of the FBI's investigation into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russia, and attempting to punish a specific individual by damaging that person's business.... If Trump gets away with these things unscathed, dangerous precedents will have been set.... If a president can attack an individual for a reason of his own, no one is safe."
Donald Trump Is No Adlai Stevenson (or JFK or LBJ or):
You Can't Make This Up:
... Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "A trio of influential Senate Republicans, cut out of a high-stakes meeting this week on classified information about a confidential FBI source who aided an investigation into Trump campaign advisers, is asking the White House to be allowed to review the material. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Tex.) made the request in a letter obtained by The Washington Post. In it, the senators stress their 'interest in attending such a meeting and in support of providing Congress with documents necessary to conduct oversight of these issues.'... In a separate letter sent Wednesday to Rosenstein and Wray, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the officials to abandon plans for the meeting. If the meeting is held, the Democrats asked that it be opened up to a bipartisan group of eight lawmakers.... 'We can think of no legitimate oversight justification for the ex parte dissemination -- at the direction of the president -- of investigative information to the president's staunchest defenders in Congress and, ultimately, to the president's legal defense team.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Update. Jonathan Karl, et al., of ABC News: "The White House confirmed Wednesday it is planning for a bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders, known as the 'Gang of 8,' to receive a highly-classified intelligence briefing on the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling, reversing plans to exclude Democrats altogether.... While details of the bipartisan meeting are still being worked out, a Republican-only briefing will go on as scheduled Thursday.... The bipartisan 'Gang of 8' includes the Republican and Democratic leaders from the House and Senate as well as the respective party leaders from the House and Senate intelligence committees." Mrs. McC: The Gang of 8 meeting will no occur until after the Memorial Day recess, giving Nunes & the gang plenty of time to spread & solidify whatever "facts" he claims he learned during his more-or-less "exclusive" (with Trey Gowdy [RTP-Benghaaazi!]) briefing. ...
... Update Update. Rep. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC tonight that the head of an intelligence agency had assured him that -- contrary to White House statements -- the meeting among the DOJ, intelligence officials & members of Congress scheduled for Thursday would be "at the Gang of 8 level" and that leaders of both parties would be invited to attend. ...
... Update Update Update. Burgess Everett & Elana Schor of Politico: "Top Senate and House party leaders and Intelligence Committee leaders from both parties will be briefed on whether an informant was embedded in ... Donald Trump's campaign on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter. The briefing comes after complaints from Senate Democrats and some Republicans about the adminstration's plans for an unprecedented briefing for two prominent House Republicans from FBI Director Christopher Wray and and the Justice Department on Thursday. At noon, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes and Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy will meet with White House chief of staff John Kelly, deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Chris Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, according to guidance from the Department of Justice. But two hours later on Capitol Hill, those same officials with meet with House and Senate Democratic Republican leaders as well as the chairmen and ranking members of the Intel Committees, a stunning shift after the initial exclusion of Democrats." ...
... Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The Justice Department hasn't indicated what documents or information it intends to provide two GOP lawmakers in a classified briefing Thursday about an FBI informant who made contact with ... Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. But top Trump allies in Congress are already signaling they expect to be disappointed. 'They're not going to see any documents tomorrow, so it doesn't matter,' Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) told reporters.... Pressed on how he knows DOJ won't share the information Republicans have asked for, Meadows paused at length and then said he couldn't comment. He later added it was based on 'rhetoric' and recent history. Several other House GOP lawmakers expressed similar pessimism that DOJ would share the desired 'documents.'"
Rudy Is Saying Some Stuff:
... "Truth is Relative." -- Rudy Giuliani. Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump’s attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani switched gears Wednesday, saying that he would prefer the president grant an interview to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's office and that a decision would be made within 'the next couple weeks.'... In Wednesday morning's interview with The Post, Giuliani said the president sometimes seesaws on whether he wants to do an interview.... Giuliani said he was concerned that the president would become a target or that the interview would be a perjury trap, because the 'truth is relative.' The president's legal team continues to try to set limitations on an interview, including the duration and questions posed, he said.... Giuliani also said the president was unlikely to make changes at the Justice Department and had no intention of firing Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein or Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- all three of whom have come under sustained attack from the president." ...
... Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "Rudy Giuliani says that an ultimate decision won't be made on whether ... Donald Trump will sit for an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller until 'the details of this "Spygate" situation' are figured out.... He later said that those facts include knowing more information about Trump's recent allegations that an FBI informant who reportedly had contact with three Trump campaign officials constituted or was part of 'a major SPY scandal.' Trump has presented no evidence to support such a claim.... '... according to [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, is that they were spying on the Russians and, in the course of spying on the Russians, they ended up spying on the Trump campaign. Well, I want to know why, what the basis for it was, what did they acquire -- nothing, I believe -- so, if they acquired nothing in the counterintelligence investigation, how do you end up with another whole year of Mueller?'" Mrs. McC: I heard Clapper's remarks, and of course he said just the opposite -- that the intelligence community did not spy on the Trump campaign. But, you know, truth is relative. ...
... Update. Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "... Mr. Clapper never said what Mr. Trump [& Giuliani] claimed he did. In fact, he said the opposite.... He explicitly denied that the F.B.I. "spied" on Mr. Trump's campaign.... Mr. Clapper described the use of this informant as 'a fairly benign tool' that the F.B.I. employs 'all the time.'"
** Paul Wood of the BBC: "Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, received a secret payment of at least $400,000 (£300,000) to fix talks between the Ukrainian president and President Trump, according to sources in Kiev close to those involved. The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine's leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Mr Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law. The meeting at the White House was last June. Shortly after the Ukrainian president returned home, his country's anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort." Read on. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times: "Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and adviser, has been granted his permanent security clearance a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday, ending a period of uncertainty that had fueled questions about whether Mr. Kushner was in peril in the special counsel investigation. Mr. Kushner's F.B.I. background checks had dragged on for a year.... Mr. Kushner's clearances were approved by career officials after the completion of the F.B.I. background check and that the president was not involved in the process. The security clearance process had not been delayed by the special counsel's investigation, said Mr. Kushner's lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell.... Mr. Lowell said that Mr. Kushner has cooperated fully with the special counsel and met with Mr. Mueller's investigators twice for many hours.... The resolution of his clearances does not guarantee that Mr. Kushner faces no legal jeopardy. But Mark S. Zaid, a veteran Washington lawyer who handles security clearances, said it was highly unlikely that the special counsel would uncover evidence of improper foreign entanglements and not flag it for security officials." (Also linked, in an earlier version, yesterday afternoon.)
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A court filing Wednesday from special counsel Robert Mueller's office may be a signal that his investigation into Russian efforts to coordinate with the Trump campaign is nearing a conclusion. The filing asks a federal judge to start the process of preparing a pre-sentencing report for former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to investigators in the Trump-Russia probe. The move indicates that a sentencing for Papadopoulos could come this summer -- without him testifying at the trials of others who may have been involved in alleged collusion with the Kremlin on its attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election."
Kevin Poulsen of The Daily Beast: "FBI agents armed with a court order have seized control of a key server in the Kremlin's global botnet of 500,000 hacked routers.... The move positions the bureau to build a comprehensive list of victims of the attack, and short-circuits Moscow's ability to reinfect its targets...[A]verage consumers have the ability to stop Russia's latest cyber attack by rebooting their routers, which will now reach out to the FBI instead of Russian intelligence. According to the court filings, the FBI is collecting the Internet IP addresses of every compromised router that phones home to the address, so agents can use the information to clean up the global infection.... The court order only lets the FBI monitor metadata like the victim's IP address, not content." --safari
Contributor P.D. Pepe mentioned this yesterday: Trump admitted to Leslie Stahl the reason he demeans the press:
John Herrman of the New York Times: "... on Wednesday, one of Mr. Trump's Twitter habits -- his practice of blocking critics on the service, preventing them from engaging with his account -- was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in Manhattan.... In her ruling, Federal District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald wrote of seven plaintiffs who sued Mr. Trump and several of his aides after being blocked by Mr. Trump's Twitter account that 'the speech in which they seek to engage is protected by the First Amendment.'... 'We respectfully disagree with the court's decision and are considering our next steps,' said a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, which is representing Mr. Trump in the case."
Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times: "North Korea said on Thursday that it had destroyed its only known nuclear test site.... North Korea allowed a select group of journalists from Britain, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States to watch its engineers destroy and close tunnels in its mountainous Punggye-ri test site, where the country has conducted all six of its nuclear tests. No independent outside nuclear monitors were invited to verify the dismantlement of the site. The action came two days after Mr. Trump backed away from his demand that Mr. Kim completely abandon his nuclear arsenal without any reciprocal American concessions."
Washington Post: "North Korea says it will reconsider [participating in a] summit with Trump 'if the U.S. continues with its evil acts[.]' The statement, issued by Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, took particular aim at Vice President Pence for his 'unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya.' 'As a person involved in U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice president,' said Choe, who was previously in charge of North Korea's relations with the United States. North Korea was not begging for talks, she said a day after President Trump suggested the talks could be postponed or even canceled." This was a breaking news story at 8:40 pm ET Wednesday.
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to crack down on states that try to circumvent a new limit on the state and local tax deduction, saying it will not allow workarounds aimed at helping individuals fully deduct those taxes.The $10,000 cap, which was included in last year's $1.5 trillion Republican tax overhaul, hit predominantly Democratic high-tax states hardest since it limits the amount of state and local sales, income and property taxes that taxpayers can deduct from their federal taxes.... The Treasury Department on Wednesday warned that such workarounds are unlikely to pass I.R.S. muster.... The notice is a precursor to a formal guidance from the I.R.S. that will need to go through a review process." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Awasin Suebsaeng of The Daily Beast: "Fresh off their heated, 'fuck'-encrusted shouting match in China, tensions and policy fissures between Donald Trump advisers Steve Mnuchin and Peter Navarro are at an all-time high.... Navarro has ... privately nicknamed Mnuchin 'Neville Chamberlain' ... and likened the economic threat from China to that of fascist dictator Hitler.... A senior White House official described the dynamic between the two as a 'cold war that became hot,'... Other administration officials simply expressed dismay at the feud, with one noting with a sigh that 'this is not what [Trump] needs right now, more palace-intrigue horseshit.'" --safari
Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "The Pentagon disinvited China from participating in a major naval exercise on Wednesday, signaling mounting U.S. anger over Beijing's expanded military footprint in disputed areas of the South China Sea. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Logan said the Defense Department had reversed an earlier invitation to the Chinese Navy to the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), the world's largest international naval exercise, over the decision to place anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles, and electronic jammers in the Spratly Islands." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Gordon Chang in the Daily Beast: "Two China crises -- one on North Korea and the other on trade -- are intersecting, and feeding off each other. They both could escalate fast.... In addition to openly violating U.N. sanctions in recent months, Xi has undoubtedly been schooling Kim in the art of defiance of the international community, especially the United States. That second Xi-Kim meeting -- held May 7 and 8 in the Chinese city of Dalian -- preceded North Korea's return to bad behavior. It took some time for Trump to recognize what was going on, but he evidently lost patience with the Chinese at the beginning of this week. On Monday morning, Trump took to Twitter to criticize Beijing." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump opened the door on Tuesday to a phased dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, backing away from his demand that the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, completely abandon his arsenal without any reciprocal American concessions. The president's hint of flexibility came after North Korea declared last week that it would never agree to unilaterally surrender its weapons, even threatening to cancel the much-anticipated summit meeting between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump scheduled for next month in Singapore." This is an update of a story linked yesterday morning. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Robert Burns of the AP: "... service members entrusted with guarding nuclear missiles ... bought, distributed and used the hallucinogen LSD and other mind-altering illegal drugs as part of a ring that operated undetected for months on a highly secure military base in Wyoming. After investigators closed in, one airman deserted to Mexico.... A slipup on social media by one airman enabled investigators to crack the drug ring at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in March 2016, details of which are reported here for the first time. Fourteen airmen were disciplined. Six of them were convicted in courts martial.... Air Force investigators found those implicated in the F.E. Warren drug ring used LSD on base and off, at least twice at outdoor gatherings. Some also snorted cocaine and used ecstasy."
** Patrick Smith of ThinkProgress: "Wednesday ... Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) said the EPA barred his staff from attending a summit on water contamination.... What's especially concerning about this move is that Kildee represents Flint, Michigan, the site of an ongoing toxic water crisis.... In addition, the EPA once again barred press from covering Wednesday's event.... Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) questioned who the EPA was really serving with this event, saying on Twitter that the agency was 'more concerned with protecting the EPA chemical summit from the public than it is with protecting the public from harmful chemicals.'" --safari
"Astounding Ignorance of the Law." Moriah Balingit of the Washington Post: "Civil rights groups slammed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for saying Tuesday that schools can decide whether to report undocumented students to immigration enforcement officials, saying her statements conflict with the law and could raise fears among immigrant students. DeVos's answers came during testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who was at one time undocumented, pressed the secretary for her positions on immigration enforcement.... The Supreme Court made clear in Plyler v. Doe that public schools have a constitutional obligation to provide schooling for children, regardless of immigration status. That means schools also cannot enforce measures that would deter undocumented children from registering. They cannot ask about immigration status. And according to the American Civil Liberties Union, they cannot report students or their families to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.... Under the Obama administration, Arne Duncan, who was education secretary, and Eric Holder, who was attorney general, issued guidance to schools reminding them of their obligation to educate all children, regardless of immigration status. And those officials warned schools that they would violate federal law if they required things an undocumented immigrant might lack, such as a U.S. birth certificate or a Social Security number." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: To be fair to Secretary Dumbbelle, Espaillat set her up. He asked her, "... do you feel that the principal or teacher is responsible to call [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and to have that family reported?" So, what with Betsy's boss embracing the theory that at least someone in that hypothetical undocumented family was a marauding gangbanger & machete-weilding murderer, Dumbelle replied, "... I think that's a school decision. That's a local community decision." As for the Obama-era guidance, reporter Balingit was unfair, too: everybody knows President Obama chose Cabinet members with some level of competence & professional experience; neither is a Trumpy requirement.
AP: "The Trump administration is moving to reverse Obama-era rules barring hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting brown bears with bacon and doughnuts and using spotlights to shoot mother black bears and cubs hibernating in their dens.... Under the proposed changes, hunters would also be allowed to hunt black bears with dogs, kill wolves and pups in their dens, and use motor boats to shoot swimming caribou. These and other hunting methods -- condemned as cruel by wildlife protection advocates -- were outlawed on federal lands in 2015.... Expanding hunting rights on federal lands has been a priority for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke" --safari: Fuck you Zinke! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Spencer Woodman of ICIJ: "Fresh disclosures that ... Michael Cohen used a shell company to receive huge payments from a firm linked to a Russian oligarch as well as two multinational corporations have highlighted the United States' position as a leading global enabler of corporate secrecy. Reports regarding Cohen's firm come just weeks after the British Parliament dropped a financial secrecy bombshell by advancing legislation requiring its island territories, which include some of the world's most notorious tax havens, to publicly disclose company ownership. Cohen's shell company is registered in Delaware, a state that allows companies to disclose little trace of their owners or directors.... 'Right now, the United States is the easiest place in the world to set up an anonymous shell company,' says Clark Gascoigne, deputy director of the FACT Coalition, a group dedicated to financial transparency." --safari
Gubernatorial Race. Maegan Vazquez of CNN: Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez won her runoff and became the Democratic nominee for Texas governor Tuesday night, making her the first openly lesbian and Latina nominee to win a major party gubernatorial nomination in the state. Valdez won 53.1% of the vote while her competitor, Andrew White, obtained 46.9%, according to unofficial election results." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jackson McHenry of New York: "Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have started a criminal probe into the numerous sexual-abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. According to their sources, the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York is looking into whether Weinstein lured or induced women to cross state lines for the purpose of committing a sex crime, which is a federal charge. Previously, local authorities in Los Angeles and New York had opened investigations into Weinstein, though neither have led to an arrest -- though the NYPD has claimed that they are waiting for DA Cyrus Vance Jr.'s approval to make one."
Medlar's Sports Report. Victor Mather of the New York Times: "N.F.L. players will be allowed to stay in the locker room during the national anthem, but their teams will be fined by the league if they go onto the field and kneel, according to new rules adopted by owners on Wednesday in an effort to defuse an issue that escalated last season into a national debate catalyzed by President Trump. Players had previously been required to be on the field for the anthem. Commissioner Roger Goodell said that owners voted unanimously to rescind that rule and to fine teams if their players are on the field or sidelines but do not 'show respect for the flag and the anthem.' At least one owner, Jed York of the 49ers, said his team abstained in the vote.... Christopher Johnson, the chairman and C.E.O. of the Jets, said the team would not punish players who choose to kneel during the anthem, despite the cost.... The new policy was adopted at the league's spring meeting in Atlanta without involvement from the players' union." ...
... New York Times Editors: "Rather than show a little backbone themselves and support the right of athletes to protest peacefully, the league capitulated to a president who relishes demonizing black athletes.... The league has now decided it will also override the best interests of America and try to substitute a phony pageant of solidarity for a powerful civics lesson."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Thanks, China! Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "In a truly remarkable feat of innovation, scientists have figured out how to create 'hybrid' solar cells that generate power not just from sunlight but also from raindrops. This means we may soon see all-weather solar panels that work when it is cloudy and even at night, if it's raining.... Much of this innovation is now coming from China, the world leader in both manufacturing and deployment of solar energy.... For instance, China has developed 'double-sided' solar panels that can generate power from light that hits their underside. That can enable a 10 percent boost in output.... Bloomberg New Energy Finance projects these panels could capture a remarkable 40 percent share of the market by 2025." --safari (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Weird News. Chris Buckley of the New York Times: "An American government employee posted in southern China has signs of possible brain injury after reporting disturbing sounds and sensations, the State Department said on Wednesday, in events that seemed to draw parallels with mysterious ailments that struck American diplomats in Cuba. The State Department warning, issued through the United States Consulate in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, advised American citizens in China to seek medical help if they felt similar symptoms. But it said that no other cases had been reported." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Will Fitzgibbon of ICIJ: "West African countries are plundered by companies and individuals, while governments do little to stem the flow. West Africa accounts for more than one-third of an estimated $50 billion that leaves the continent untraced or untaxed each year.... Overall, a combination of corruption, drug, human and weapons trafficking and other furtive import and export activities strip Africa of three to 10 times as much as it receives in foreign aid.... ICIJ partnered with 13 journalists on West Africa Leaks to investigate high-profile individuals and powerful corporations in the region. The investigation included journalists from six countries where reporters hadn't before examined files pertaining to the individuals and businesses." --safari: This article leads to several others on the same subject. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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