What goes through my my mind when I read the news with my morning coffee. …Or for the Simon's Rockers in the group, this is my response journal.
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
hmmm
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
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.
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
County attorneys oversee law enforcement and set criminal justice priorities in each county.
Only two county attorney races were close – and in both, Democrats beat out Republican incumbents with a promise of criminal justice reform.
In Merrimack County, public defender Robin Davis won after she was nominated as a write-in Democratic candidate during the primaries.
…Davis plans to prioritize rehabilitation for people with drug charges and look at building an alternative sentencing program for some non-citizens to reduce their risk of deportation after arrest.
Democrats Calling For Reform Win Two County Attorney Seats | New Hampshire Public Radio
hmmm
In a video clip shared on Twitter, Bush takes the small parcel from Laura Bush, and passes it to Obama. In the clip, Obama takes the piece from Bush and whispers “thank you.” The George W. Bush Presidential Center later confirmed to USA TODAY that the item in question was not candy, but actually a cough drop. Even cuter.
While Bush and Obama may seem like an unlikely duo, each coming from different political parties and different backgrounds, the two found kindred spirits in each other, Bush told People in a 2017 interview.
“She kind of likes my sense of humor,” Bush said in the interview. “Anybody who likes my sense of humor, I immediately like.”
John McCain funeral: George W. Bush and Michelle Obama pass candy
TBT awww
Among other head-turning changes, Philadelphia’s district attorney has stopped prosecuting marijuana possession, instructed his 300 assistant district attorneys to stop seeking bail on low-level charges, and had his office begin plea negotiations below the low end of the state’s sentencing guidelines.
…Krasner has challenged the idea that every person convicted of killing should be sent away for the rest of their lives, which is the mandatory minimum sentence for first- or second- degree murder in Pennsylvania. He has mandated that he personally sign off on any deal offered that exceeds 15 to 30 years in prison. According to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer analysis, in six cases that were initially filed as “murder generally” Krasner sought third-degree or involuntary manslaughter charges rather than the first- or second-degree murder charges that would have been the norm under his predecessors. While comprehensive national comparisons are hard to come by, criminal justice experts view this willingness to lower murder charges as a first of its kind effort among prosecutors in major municipalities.
Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner offers his most radical criminal justice reform yet.
hmmm
In March, in the wake of the mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school, Congress wrote that CDC is free to probe the causes of gun violence, despite the Dickey amendment. (The agency has not done so, citing a lack of money.) And annual firearm-related funding from NIH, according to a search of its RePORTER database, roughly tripled after a 2013 presidential directive that was issued in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Just as importantly, the agency began to flag firearm violence in some of its calls for research.
…Their animating principle is that gun violence, like any other public health bane, can be tackled scientifically, divorced from any political agenda. “There is a science to injury prevention,” Cunningham says. She and others note that decades of studies on motor vehicle safety led to evidence-based policies such as car seat and seat belt laws, which have dramatically reduced childhood motor vehicle fatalities even though many more cars are on the road.
…Cunningham is confident that the problem of gun violence can be solved with science—and with participation from all sides. So, she keeps searching for common ground. “We are not having any conversations here that are an ‘us and them’ narrative,” she told scientists at the meeting. “We are about reducing kids dying.”
Guns kill more U.S. kids than cancer. This emergency physician aims to change that | Science | AAAS
hmmmm
Pelosi is referring to the scandal unfolding in two North Carolina counties where investigators are trying to figure out whether there’s a nefarious reason so many absentee ballots were never mailed back. In Bladen County, which has a large black population, 40 percent of absentee ballots were never returned. A whopping 62 percent of absentee ballots were not mailed back in nearby Robeson County, which is 38 percent Native American.
Both counties far exceeded the district’s non-return rate of 24 percent, and Bladen was the only county in which Harris won the mail-in absentee vote.
…Pelosi noted that Republicans in the state are also upset about the race because of how fraud may have affected their primary election. Worst comes to worst, she said, the House Administration Committee has “full investigative authority” to determine the winner of the race and could take that “extraordinary step” if North Carolina officials can’t get to the bottom of what happened.
“This is bigger than that one seat. This is about undermining the integrity of our elections,” Pelosi said. “What was done there was so remarkable, in that that person, those entities, got away with that.”
Nancy Pelosi On North Carolina Election Fraud: We Can Refuse To Seat That Congressman | HuffPost
hmmm
Facebook gave some companies preferential access to user data — including invites to friends in users’ networks — without clearly getting permission, according to excerpts from emails released by the U.K. Parliament Wednesday. The social media giant and its founder Mark Zuckerberg also mulled ways to charge outside companies for user data, the email excerpts show.
Apps from companies including Airbnb, Netflix and Lyft were “whitelisted” — allowing full access to users’ friends — even after Facebook said in 2015 it had phased out that feature.
…The emails also show CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussing ways to encourage users to share more on Facebook in a way that would “increase the value” of the network.
…Facebook maintains that it never sells user data, but many data-privacy advocates say the distinction between selling data and charging companies to access users based on their data is a rather fine line for practical purposes.
hmmmm
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 