Jeezus Krrrr-eyest
Category: Domestic Affairs,
Michael Cohen Sentenced to 36 Months in Prison
Federal prosecutors, having secured a sentence for Cohen, will now have to decide how to handle the fact that Cohen implicated the president in a felony of his own. Trump has denied wrongdoing, characterizing the arrangements as “a simple private transaction” on Twitter, adding that Cohen, as his lawyer, was responsible “if he made a mistake, not me.”
Michael Cohen Sentenced to 36 Months in Prison – Rolling Stone
hmmmm
Senator calls potential Trump intervention in Huawei case ‘very disturbing’
Blumenthal said that “makes it look like law enforcement is a tool of either trade or political or diplomatic ends of this country. … That may be true in other countries, but not in this one.”
Senator calls potential Trump intervention in Huawei case ‘very disturbing’ – POLITICO
hmmmm
AMI: National Enquirer owner admits to paying off Playboy model to protect Trump
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said it had agreed not to prosecute American Media, Inc. (AMI), the Enquirer’s parent company, for its involvement in the scheme in exchange for the company’s cooperation in the investigation into the payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model.
AMI “admitted that its principal purpose in making the payment was to suppress the woman’s story so as to prevent it from influencing the election,” the office said.
AMI: National Enquirer owner admits to paying off Playboy model to protect Trump – CBS News
hmmm
Trump’s environmental rollback rolls on
The Department of the Interior unveiled plans to allow oil drilling on millions of acres that have been off-limits to protect the greater sage grouse.
And the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it would end rules limiting carbon emissions on new coal plants.
The rollback continues despite the US’ own dire warnings about climate change.
Trump’s environmental rollback rolls on – BBC News
agggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh
Mueller Briefs: Bad News for Trump, Manafort, and Cohen
In brief No. 1, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office argues that Paul Manafort breached his cooperation agreement with the government by lying to the FBI and the Special Counsel’s Office in the course of 12 meetings. The brief oozes a level of confidence notable even among professionally hubristic prosecutors: Mueller says he’s ready to present witnesses and documents, and that he gave Manafort’s lawyers an opportunity to refute the evidence but they could not. Mueller is sure he has the receipts.
…Manafort lied about his communications with the reputed Russian intelligence agent Konstantin Kilimnik. …Mueller has emails contradicting Manafort’s description of those meetings, which—we can infer from the unredacted snippets—related to the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian interests. Mueller also asserts that Manafort lied about some of the payments he received. …Manafort lied about his contacts with the Trump administration before his guilty plea, and that text messages, documents, and witnesses prove that he was in contact with administration officials.
In brief No. 2, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York asks a federal judge to sentence the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to a “substantial term of imprisonment”—meaning between three and four years.
…The prosecutors’ rebuttal of Cohen’s sentencing brief is one of the more livid denunciations I’ve seen in more than two decades of federal criminal practice. The Southern District concedes that Cohen provided some information to it, to the special counsel, and to the New York attorney general. But Cohen refused to cooperate fully; he declined to engage in a full debriefing about everything he knew or to commit to ongoing meetings, and he only spilled about the things he’d already admitted in his plea.
..Prosecutors portray Cohen as stubbornly obstructing his own accountant to cheat at taxes, even refusing to pay for accounting work that raised inconvenient issues he wanted suppressed. When it comes to Cohen’s campaign-finance violations, the prosecutors’ fury leaps off the page.
As the brief puts it:
While many Americans who desired a particular outcome to the election knocked on doors, toiled at phone banks, or found any number of other legal ways to make their voices heard, Cohen sought to influence the election from the shadows. He did so by orchestrating secret and illegal payments to silence two women who otherwise would have made public their alleged extramarital affairs with Individual-1. In the process, Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election.
…And that brings us to brief No. 3:
That includes information about multiple cases of contact between other Trump-campaign officials and the Russian government, and about Cohen’s contact with the White House in 2017 and 2018, suggesting an ongoing inquiry into obstruction of justice. Most significant, the special counsel indicates that Cohen “described the circumstances of preparing and circulating his response to the congressional inquiries, while continuing to accept responsibility for the false statements within it.” That statement suggests that the special counsel believes that someone in the Trump administration knew of, and approved in advance, Cohen’s lies to Congress.
Mueller Briefs: Bad News for Trump, Manafort, and Cohen – The Atlantic
Hmmmm
Ammon Bundy Quits Militia Movement, Defends Migrant Caravan
As Hernandez notes, Bundy’s heretical hostility to xenophobic hate isn’t as out of character as it might appear to a lay audience. While the Bundys are heroes to a movement associated with militant nativism, they’ve always belonged to a peculiar strand of the American militia movement — one whose hostility to the federal government is rooted less in white nationalism than a libertarian Mormonism that honors the Church of Latter-day Saints’ traditional support for refugees.
Nevertheless, “woke Bill Kristol” (and woker Axl Rose) notwithstanding, anti-Trump Ammon Bundy has to be the #Resistance’s weirdest recruit yet.
Ammon Bundy Quits Militia Movement, Defends Migrant Caravan
hmmm
Maria Butina, Accused Of Being Russian Agent, Reaches Plea Deal With Feds
Butina has agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to act as a Russian agent on America’s soil without registering as required with the Justice Department.
Maria Butina, Accused Of Being Russian Agent, Reaches Plea Deal With Feds : NPR
hmmmm
How Donald Trump Shifted $1.1M Of Campaign-Donor Money Into His Business
Trump still has not donated a penny of his own, while his businesses continued to charge the campaign for hotels, food, rent and legal consulting. That means the richest president in American history has turned $1.1 million from donors across the country into revenue for himself.
How Donald Trump Shifted $1.1M Of Campaign-Donor Money Into His Business
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Inside the Philadelphia DA’s side hustle — selling seized homes to speculators and cops
In neighborhoods across Philadelphia, …police seized properties after drug raids. Once they were taken, the district attorney auctioned them off to the highest bidder, for cash that went back to the law enforcement agencies. The legal process is known as civil asset forfeiture.
…controversially, with no guilty verdict required.
…A forfeiture petition for one property lists one gram of marijuana, a half gram of cocaine and some over-the-counter pills as justification for taking. In one case recently settled in a $3 million class-action lawsuit, Norys Hernandez nearly lost the rowhouse she and her sister owned after police arrested her nephew on drug dealing charges and seized the house. Another family named in the suit fought to save their house from the grip of law enforcement after their son was arrested for selling $40 worth of drugs outside of it. Of the lawsuit’s four named plaintiffs, three had their houses targeted for seizure after police accused relatives dealing drugs on the property. None of the homeowners were themselves accused of committing a crime.
…The failure of law enforcement to plan for the reuse of these forfeited properties, which often held marginal real estate value, means that many wound up in the hands of absentee landlords or investors who often did not have the resources or motivation to improve the properties. The largest single buyer of forfeited property was a self-described real estate speculator who dabbles in rent-to-own schemes. As many as 325 of these properties appear to be vacant years after their sale and 427 are tax delinquent.
…Finally, records showed that members of Philadelphia law enforcement directly benefited from these sales. This investigation detected at least 11 properties that were sold to Philadelphia police officers trying their hands at real estate investment.
…The full number of sales to police could be much higher. But the Philadelphia Police Department refused to disclose any information about the sale of forfeited property to its officers and a spokesman for the DA said the office had not kept records of who bought auctioned property — or even how many properties were sold.
Critics say these sales to officers demonstrate a conflict of interest and highlight the ethical flaws in a system they say creates a financial incentive for law enforcement to take private property.
…These seizures were notably focused in black and Latino neighborhoods with high rates of poverty. Forty-one percent of all forfeited properties were concentrated in just four ZIP codes in North Philadelphia and Kensington, all with majority black or Latino populations and poverty rates well above the city’s average. For comparison, other large swaths of the Philadelphia, such as Center City, never saw a single property forfeited. Ever.
PlanPhilly | Inside the Philadelphia DA’s side hustle — selling seized homes to speculators and cops
hmmmm
NPYD investigating video of 1-year-old torn from mother’s arms at welfare office
Forget desk duty. The officers involved need to be fired for exercising such poor judgement on the job and charged with child abuse and endangerment.
Campaign Leadership: The Hardest Glass Ceiling in Politics
One prominent female member of Congress told POLITICO that she has gone so far as to make it a habit to keep a man in the room when delivering orders to her political staff. Often, he is a friend; sometimes, a hired hand. He serves a sole purpose: to repeat what she says so that other men—her subordinates—listen and take her points seriously.
…Only a few of the women who spoke to POLITICO for this story suggested that this environment was rooted in intentional malice. Instead, most chalked up the slights to obliviousness.
The handful of men interviewed for this article were startled to learn the women around them are so alienated. All of the men said they were disturbed once they looked at the terrain through the eyes of their female colleagues.
“What if it isn’t just that women are excluded from lucrative leadership roles in campaigns, but what if the end result of this is fewer women in the U.S. Senate?” wondered a male Republican consultant. “It never occurred to me.”
The Hardest Glass Ceiling in Politics – POLITICO Magazine
hmmmm
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