Last Call For Weekend At Jeffrey's

The judge in Jeffrey Epstein's trial has ruled on his bail hearing, and Jeff is absolutely staying in jail.

A federal judge on Thursday denied bail to wealthy investor Jeffrey Epstein, citing the potential danger he poses to the public and the risk that Epstein will flee to avoid prosecution for child sex trafficking charges.

The decision by Judge Richard Berman means that the 66-year-old Epstein will remain in jail pending trial in the case, where he faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

“I doubt any bail package could overcome dangerousness .... to community,” Berman said during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, agreeing with the recommendation by prosecutors to keep Epstein locked up.

Berman said that risk was “the heart of this decision” to deny the financier release on bond.

He noted that two women who claim they were abused by Epstein gave “compelling testimony” at a court hearing on Monday, where they had expressed “fear for their safety.”

The judge also called Epstein’s proposal for bail “irretrievably inadequate.” 

Epstein, a former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, had asked Berman to release him on a bond of as high as $100 million or more.

Epstein had also suggested strict bail conditions, which could include requiring him to remain in his New York City mansion, round-the-clock security monitoring and an electronic trafficking device.

But Berman said that prosecutors had established that Epstein could be dangerous by “clear and convincing evidence,” and had shown by a “preponderance” of evidence that he could flee.
The judge noted that Epstein’s “great wealth and his vast resources,” which include private planes and a residence in Paris, France.

And Berman said Epstein’s possession of a passport issued by the country of Austria worried him.

That expired passport has Epstein’s photo but a different name on it, as well as stated residence in Saudi Arabia. It was used in the 1980s for travel, according to prosecutors. 

The odds of Epstein fleeing the country were about as close to 100% as it could get.  The guy had a second fake passport ready to go, quite literally.  Like I said before, he'd end up in a no-extradition country within 24 hours.

Judge Berman made the right call here, no doubt.

Meanwhile, Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman sets the table for the discovery phase of the Jeffrey Epstein mess, with hundreds of pages of documents and dozens of very well-connected people holding their collective breath.

The Jeffrey Epstein case is an asteroid poised to strike the elite world in which he moved. No one can yet say precisely how large it is. But as the number of women who’ve accused the financier (at least, that’s what he claimed to be) of sexual assault grows to grotesque levels—there are said to be more than 50 women who are potential victims—a wave of panic is rippling through Manhattan, DC, and Palm Beach, as Epstein’s former friends and associates rush to distance themselves, while gossiping about who might be ensnared. Donald Trump’s labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, architect of the original 2007 non-prosecution agreement that let Epstein off with a wrist slap, has already been forced to resign. 

The questions about Epstein are metastasizing much faster than they can be answered: Who knew what about Epstein’s alleged abuse? How, and from whom, did Epstein get his supposed $500 million fortune? Why did Acosta grant Epstein an outrageously lenient non-prosecution agreement? (And what does it mean that Acosta was reportedly told Epstein “belonged to intelligence”?) But among the most pressing queries is which other famous people might be exposed for committing sex crimes. “There were other business associates of Mr. Epstein’s who engaged in improper sexual misconduct at one or more of his homes. We do know that,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Courtney Wild, one of the Epstein accusers who gave emotional testimony at Epstein’s bail hearing. “In due time the names are going to start coming out.” (Attorneys for Epstein did not respond to a request for comment.) 

Likely within days, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will release almost 2,000 pages of documents that could reveal sexual abuse by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders,” according to the three-judge panel's ruling. The documents were filed during a civil defamation lawsuit brought by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former Mar-a-Lago locker-room attendant, against Epstein’s former girlfriend and alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.“Nobody who was around Epstein a lot is going to have an easy time now. It’s all going to come out,” said Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies. Another person involved with litigation against Epstein told me: “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names. It’s going to be contagion numbers.”

I have serious doubts over this case affecting politics the way Harvey Weinstein's fall affected Hollywood, but if a lot of obnoxious people with ten- or eleven-digit net worths get rounded up for child molestation, I won't lose a wink of sleep.

Of course, if Donald Trump isn't getting a wink of sleep because of this, well I'm not going to feel bad either.

Symbolic Gestures 101

Despite all the considerable drama this week, House Democrats did hold votes to find Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to respond to subpoenas.

The House voted Wednesday to hold Atty. Gen. William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with its subpoenas seeking information about why the Trump administration wanted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
It marked the first time the full House held Trump Cabinet officials in contempt since Democrats took over the chamber.

The mostly partisan 230-198 vote comes days after Trump, blocked by the Supreme Court from proceeding with the citizenship question, announced that he would give up the legal battle.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the reason Ross had provided for adding the citizenship question — to help in enforcing the Voting Rights Act — was “contrived.” The justices blocked the Commerce Department from adding the question unless administration officials could provide a more compelling rationale.

Critics say the real reason for adding the question was to suppress census turnout in Democratic-majority states like California, where large immigrant populations would be afraid to respond. That would lead to a drop in congressional seats and federal funds for those states.

The House Reform and Oversight Committee voted last month to advance the contempt resolution to the full House after Barr and Ross declined to share documents detailing the rationale behind the proposed citizenship question.

The contempt citation will be automatically referred to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., for prosecution, but that almost certainly won’t happen, since Barr oversees the office.

It’s more likely that Democrats intend Wednesday’s vote as a symbolic gesture meant to show their disapproval. They could also turn to the courts for help in enforcing their subpoenas.

Oh.

Symbolic gesture.

Cool.

That would explain this then.

Whole bunch of symbolic gestures happening, with none of them getting a vote in the Senate because of Mitch.  The ones that House Democrats actually have full control over, well those are also symbolic gestures and go nowhere, so that's nice.  It's really great that House Democrats have passed scores of legislation that go nowhere and don't benefit anyone.

House Democrats passed another symbolic gesture today, actually.

The House voted Thursday to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, delivering a long-sought victory to liberals and putting the Democratic Party’s official imprimatur on the so-called Fight for $15, which many Democratic presidential candidates have embraced.

The bill would more than double the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour — about $15,000 a year for someone working 40 hours a week, or about $10,000 less than the federal poverty level for a family of four. It has not been raised since 2009, the longest time the country has gone without a minimum-wage increase since it was established 1938.

The measure, which passed largely along party lines, 231-199, after Republicans branded it a jobs-killer, faces a steep climb in the Senate. Only three Republicans voted for it, while six Democrats opposed it.

But it previews what Democrats would do if they capture the Senate and the White House in 2020, and it demonstrates how fast the politics have shifted since 2012, when fast-food workers began to strike in cities around the country, demanding $15-an-hour wages and a union.

At the time, the figure seemed absurdly high, and even Democrats thought it was politically impossible. In the years since, even Republican states like Arkansas and Missouri have raised minimum wages, encouraging Democrats on Capitol Hill. In 2016, Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, pushed the issue to the fore when he challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“This is an historic day,” declared Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who argued that raising the minimum would disproportionately help women, who make up more than half of minimum wage workers, and would particularly help women of color. Turning to Republicans, she said: “No one can live with dignity on a $7.25-per-hour minimum wage. Can you?”

Nancy Pelosi delivered on her promise, Democrats got it done, right?

Well, there's a problem. Mitch McConnell will never allow it to come up for a vote.  Never.  Because he's protecting America, you see.

Hiking the U.S. minimum wage to $15 per hour would give millions of Americans a raise but put a smaller share of people out of work, according to projections released Monday.

Raising the pay floor to $15 per hour by 2025 would boost wages for 17 million workers, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated. At the same time, 1.3 million people would lose jobs, according to the CBO projections.

So Republicans will say "We saved over a million jobs from Democrat socialism!"  And people will continue to vote for Republicans in the Senate to balance out those wacky Dems and their symbolic gestures because that's how the both sides game works.

Symbolic Gestures 101 is a fun class, no?

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

Our friends, neighbors, co-workers and family who are Republican voters are increasingly adopting Trump's "white identity" rhetoric when it comes to "making America great again" according to new Pew Research data.

A majority of Americans (62%) continue to say the country’s openness to people from around the world is “essential to who we are as a nation.”

But the share expressing this view is 6 percentage points lower than it was in September – a result of a shift in opinion among Republicans. Democrats continue to overwhelmingly take the view that openness is an essential characteristic of the nation.

Currently, 57% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that if the United States is too open to people from around the world, “we risk losing our identity as a nation.” Fewer (37%) say America’s openness to those from other countries is essential to who we are as a nation, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted July 10-15 among 1,502 adults.

Both last fall and in 2017, Republicans’ opinions on this question were divided. Since September, the share of Republicans who say America risks losing its identity if it is too open has increased 13 percentage points, while the share who view the nation’s openness to others as essential has declined 10 points.

Over the past two years, there has been virtually no change in Democrats’ attitudes. Today, an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (86%) say America’s openness is essential to who we are as a nation; 85% said this last September.

Opinions about whether America’s openness to those from other nations is essential – or a risk – to its identity also differ by gender, race and ethnicity, and education.

Women are more likely than men to say America’s openness to foreigners is essential (70% vs. 55%). In addition, there are sizable age differences, with adults under 30 more likely than older people to express this view.

While majorities across racial and ethnic groups see American openness as essential, blacks are particularly likely to have this view (78%, compared with 66% of Hispanics and 58% of whites).

In addition, adults who have not completed college are less likely than those with at least a four-year college degree to regard America’s openness to foreigners as essential. Among whites, 71% of those with at least a four-year college degree say America’s openness to those from other countries is essential, compared with only about half of those who do not have a degree (51%).

A majority of Republicans now have adopted the basic core of white nationalist hatred, guys.  Immigrants are bad, and they dilute/destroy the American "identity", which of course is white supremacy lite.  Pretty soon everyone who's not that "identity" becomes a threat, and must be removed.

Down this road there is only bloodshed and violence.

Supporters at President Trump’s campaign rally on Wednesday chanted “send her back” about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) after the president launched into a diatribe against the first-term lawmaker and Somali refugee.
Trump tore into Omar early on in his rally in Greenville, N.C., a continuation of his days-long attacks against her and three other progressive minority congresswomen. The crowd raucously booed Omar at the first mention of her name.

The president went on to accuse Omar of demeaning U.S. service members and minimizing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“She looks down with contempt on the hard-working Americans saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country,” Trump said.

The crowd then broke into a chant of “send her back” in reference to Omar, who came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee as child.

The country will not survive a second Trump term without massive and breathtaking violence.  Hell, it may not survive the first. Trump is a symptom.  The real problem are the people who voted for him and who still enable him.

"Send her back" doesn't just mean Rep. Ilhan Omar.  It means your black neighbors, the Guatemalan family at church, the Hmong kids your son plays soccer with,  it means your Indian co-workers, it means the Chinese couple in the park, but it sure won't mean the Russian woman who has come here to have a child.

No, it's going to get a lot worse from here, and quickly.

StupidiNews!

• Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul has blocked renewal of heathcare funding for 9/11 first responders, saying that the Senate must make cuts elsewhere to pay for it.
• Online fundraising platform ActBlue says it has raised more than $420 million from small donors so far in 2019 for Democratic candidates from 3.3 million supporters.
• At least 33 deaths have been reported along with dozens of injuries at an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan, police have an arson suspect in custody who has reportedly confessed.
• Donald Trump says he is sending 2,100 more Army Corps of Engineers support personnel to the US-Mexico border as court battles over using Pentagon money for the border continue.
• The World Health Organization now considers the year-long Ebola outbreak in the DRC as an international public health emergency as the agency hopes to get more funding to contain the virus.

Last Call For The Reach To Impeach, Con't

Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green forced Nancy Pelosi's hand on impeachment on Wednesday, filing articles of impeachment against Donald Trump and a vote that went down in absolute flames.

The House on Wednesday killed an attempt to impeach President Trump for statements that the chamber condemned this week as racist, turning aside an accusation that he had brought “ridicule, disgrace and disrepute” to his office.

But 95 Democrats signaled their support for impeachment, while 137 opposed it — a dramatic split signaling trouble ahead for a divided party.

The 332-95 vote to table the impeachment article drafted by Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas, constituted the first action by the House since Democrats took control in January on a measure to impeach Mr. Trump, a significant move that Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and other party leaders have toiled to avoid. By agreeing to table the article, Ms. Pelosi and the Democrats put off — at least for now — a prolonged and divisive debate over whether Mr. Trump’s conduct warrants his expulsion.
But the measure highlighted the rifts among Democrats about how to deal with Mr. Trump, between progressives who want to challenge him more aggressively and moderates desperate to quash talk of impeachment and stick to a poll-tested agenda that includes improving health coverage and raising wages for working people.

Ms. Pelosi has been caught in the middle as she tries to maintain some semblance of control over the party’s agenda as Mr. Trump dictates the terms of the debate. Those dynamics have already dominated the House’s business this week. For two days, Democrats feuded with the president over nativist posts on Twitter about four freshman Democratic congresswomen of color, culminating in a nasty floor fight on Tuesday that left progressives energized but moderates fretting over wasted precious time.

“You have to give him credit: He’s a great distractor,” Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, said of Mr. Trump on Wednesday. She waved off questions about whether the Democrats’ policy priorities were being eclipsed by the president’s antics, saying, “We’re not having him set our agenda; we’re setting our own agenda.”

Mr. Green’s resolution makes no mention of Robert S. Mueller III’s report or other instances of possible abuses of power by the president that are being studied by the House Judiciary Committee as possible grounds for impeachment. Instead, it contains a single article that refers to the vote on Tuesday to condemn Mr. Trump’s tweets as racist, and concludes: “Donald John Trump has, by his statements, brought the high office of the president of the United States in contempt, ridicule, disgrace, and disrepute, has sown seeds of discord among the people of the United States, has demonstrated that he is unfit to be president, and has betrayed his trust as president of the United States to the manifest injury of the people of the United States, and has committed a high misdemeanor in office.”

Ms. Pelosi said that she had no quarrel with Mr. Green, but that the House was already taking sufficient steps to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his conduct.

Well, the people that wanted IMPEACHMENT NOW got their wish, and it cratered spectacularly, plus Trump now gets to claim victory, and the Village will spout "Dems in disarray!" stories for months now. 

Any momentum towards getting Republicans to condemn Trump has died screaming, even though it was only four Republicans and Justin Amash, and two of those Republicans are retiring anyway.

So I guess we're going to blame Pelosi, demand her resignation, not vote next year out of rage when she doesn't resign, and then cry some because that will show Trump, huh?

While Rep. Green is 100% correct in his assessment and in his charges against Trump, absolutely serious question posed to the readership, what positive benefit did this accomplish for Team Blue?  How did this not hurt another impeachment attempt through inquiries?

Talk me down, guys.  Please.

Sister (White Evangelical) Christian

Steve M. posits that Trump picking an overtly racist fight with Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley is a losing proposition.

I'll repeat what I said yesterday: Trump can't possibly fire up his base more than he already has. They'll crawl through ground glass to vote for him. They're locked in. He's wasting energy selling them on a product they're already 100% certain to buy. It's not as if he can motivate them to vote for him more than once. But when he plays the race card this way, he motivates independents and women, including some who chose him in 2016, not to vote for him.

Trump's usual mode is barely concealed racism, but the Squad inspired him to dispense with even the tiny bit of deniability in his standard rhetoric. If he keeps up his vendetta against them in this way -- or if, perhaps, he's inspired to go full-on racist against, say, Kamala Harris if she's on the Democratic ticket -- I think he'll lose. The Squad may be the foil Trump wants, but what he wants might be the opposite of what he needs.

It's a good theory and it makes sense on the surface.

But I disagree strongly with it.

According to Public Religion Research Institute president and author Robert P. Jones, the numbers bear out record turnout among Trump's "white evangelical Christian" base.

Amid all the ongoing changes in the country that generally favor Democrats, is it still possible that President Donald Trump will be reelected in 2020? Because I study religious and demographic change, I hear this question a lot. Much of the early punditry on Trump’s reelection prospects has focused on complex Electoral College scenarios—insights that, while valuable, shed little light on the bigger picture. I’ve come to answer the question this way: Yes, it is possible Trump gets reelected. While Democrats have the long-term demographic winds at their back, Republicans have a time machine: a consistent skew in ethnic and religious voter-turnout patterns that, in national elections, has the effect of turning back the demographic clock eight or more years.

I first stumbled over this Republican secret weapon while analyzing the political implications of the changing U.S. religious landscape. In the decades since Ronald Reagan’s pivotal election in 1980, describing the political behavior of religious groups has been a simple task. Majorities of white Christian groups—including white evangelical Protestants, white mainline Protestants, and white Catholics—have voted for Republican presidential candidates, while majorities of every other group—including nonwhite Protestant and Catholic Christians, non-Christian religious Americans, and the religiously unaffiliated—have voted for Democratic presidential candidates. The upshot: Any significant change in white Christians’ share of the electorate has major partisan implications.

Yes, white evangelical Christians are shrinking in number, but their turnout percentage in elections is getting larger, to the point where their overall share of the electorate now is still exactly what it was in 2008: 26% of all votes cast.

Even though white evangelical Christians made up only 15% of the population in 2018, so many of them voted that they accounted for over a quarter of all votes.  There's every reason to believe that this trend will continue in 2020.

It explains why Democrats have won back the House in areas with growing urban populations and suburban areas, but have lost 14 net Senate seats in the last five elections as blue voters are moving away from the Midwest and Rust Belt.

Should Republicans be able to hyper-gerrymander the majority of states in 2022 as I expect, those gains in the House go away for the above reason.

Yes, as Steve says, his base is fired up as much as it can go.  Yes, that base is shrinking.  But they vote in increasing numbers, and given the 100 million people who didn't vote in 2018, some of them have to be Trump's base that sat out. 

And you know what?  They'll hold their nose and vote for his policies or hyper-nationalism and yes, white supremacy.  We know Trump's racism is not a dealbreaker with his base, it's a requirement.  Some sat out in 2016 because they were unsure if he could deliver the goods on immigration, judges, and owning the libs.

That won't be the case in 2020.  The election may be the highest turnout in decades.  We haven't seen it hit 60% since 1968, well before I was born.  We're going to hit that again next year, I'm sure of it.

It depends on which trend wins out.  I'm nowhere near as sanguine to believe that Trump won't get at least 60 million votes, and probably 65 million, and that means a huge hunk of GOP candidates enabling Trump will get votes too, people don't split tickets anymore.

We have to turn out regardless.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Five years after he was murdered by the NYPD, any possible justice for Eric Garner has been buried by the vile, racist Trump regime and Trump's vile, racist Attorney General, William Barr.

A contentious, yearslong debate inside the Justice Department over whether to bring federal civil rights charges against an officer in the death of Eric Garner ended on Tuesday after Attorney General William P. Barr ordered that the case be dropped. 

The United States attorney in Brooklyn, Richard P. Donoghue, announced the decision one day before the fifth anniversary of Mr. Garner’s death at the hands of police officers on Staten Island. 

The case had sharply divided federal officials and prompted national protests over excessive force by the police. 

Bystanders filmed the arrest on their cellphones, recording Mr. Garner as he gasped “I can’t breathe,” and his death was one of several fatal encounters between black people and the police that catalyzed the national Black Lives Matter movement. 

His dying words became a rallying cry for demonstrations that led to changes in policing practices across the United States. 

Still, a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was captured on a video wrapping his arm around Mr. Garner’s neck. The federal civil rights investigation dragged on for five years amid internal disputes in the Justice Department, under both President Barack Obama and President Trump. 

In the end, Mr. Barr made the call not to seek a civil rights indictment against Officer Pantaleo, just before a deadline for filing some charges expired. 

His intervention settled the disagreement between prosecutors in the civil rights division, which has pushed for an indictment, and Brooklyn prosecutors, who never believed the department could win such a case.

Garner's family is understandably furious, and the officer who killed him, Daniel Pantaleo, is going to get off scot free.  Understand that in America, every black person you know is only still alive because a police officer hasn't found an excuse yet to end them. That includes myself, for it is only by that grace that I'm still writing this blog, because my day has not come yet.

Eric Garner's day came five years ago because he was selling loose cigarettes.

And yes, we ask ourselves at every public interaction, every passing police cruiser, every time we see a beat cop on the street or at a store or restaurant or park, "Is this my time?"

Because we know that should it come, the odds of justice are minimal.  It fills me with anger.  “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time" as James Baldwin said.

Every day that I get up and I'm still here is one more day I beat those odds.

Black lives still matter.

StupidiNews!

• Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has passed at age 99, appointed as a conservative to the court by Gerald Ford in 1975, who became more liberal in his nearly 35 years on the court.
• In a 240-187 party line vote, House Democrats voted to condemn Donald Trump for his racist tweets that "legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color."
• The Trump regime is taking $40 million in humanitarian aid for Central America and giving it to prop up Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido.
• House Democrats are negotiating a debt limit increase with Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin as the US is expected to breach the current limit by the end of the month.
• As Apollo 11's moon landing reaches its 50th anniversary later this week, a new survey finds US and UK kids would rather be YouTube stars than astronauts.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Con't

With the Trump-controlled federal courts refusing to block Title X funding directives ending all federal money for clinics that perform abortions, the Trump regime is mandating that taxpayer-funded clinics cannot refer women for abortions and that organizations that do provide abortions must separate into different facilities next year, something that will almost certainly put the majority of remaining abortion providers out of business.

Effective immediately, family planning clinics that are funded by taxpayers must stop referring women for abortions, the Trump administration said Monday. The Health and Human Services (HHS) Department formally notified clinics that it will begin enforcing the ban on abortion referrals, along with a requirement that clinics maintain separate finances from facilities that provide abortions.

HHS issued the notification ahead of a planned conference Tuesday with the clinics. In addition to the rule on separate finances, another requirement that both kinds of facilities cannot be under the same roof will take effect next year.

Religious conservatives hailed the new regulation, while medical organizations and women's rights groups denounced it. The head of a national umbrella group representing the clinics said the administration is following "an ideological agenda" that could disrupt basic health care for many low-income women.

The rule is widely seen as a blow against Planned Parenthood, which provides taxpayer-funded family planning and basic health care to low-income women, as well as abortions that must be paid for separately. The organization is a mainstay of the federally funded family planning program and it has threatened to quit over the issue.

Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen said in a statement that "our doors are still open" as her organization and other groups seek to overturn the regulations in federal court. "We will not stop fighting for all those across the country in need of essential care," Wen said.

HHS said no judicial orders currently prevent it from enforcing the rule while the litigation proceeds.

Clare Coleman, president of the umbrella group National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, said, "The administration's actions show its intent is to further an ideological agenda." 

So as of now, abortion clinics that take any taxpayer money are effectively out of business, or soon will be.  As a direct result of the new rules, Planned Parenthood has removed its president, Dr. Leana Wen.

Planned Parenthood on Tuesday removed its president after less than a year in the job, seeking new leadership at a time when abortion rights have come under increasing attack from statehouses and Republicans in Washington.

The move came after hours of negotiations Tuesday between the board of directors and the president, Leana Wen, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Dr. Wen had been the first physician to lead the organization in decades. The people familiar with the move said there had been internal strife over her management, and that the group felt it needed a more aggressive political leader to fight the efforts to roll back access to abortions.

The board voted unanimously on Tuesday to appoint Alexis McGill Johnson, the co-founder of the Perception Institute, an anti-bias research group, to temporarily replace Dr. Wen, the people said. Ms. McGill will serve as acting president and chief executive of both Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nonprofit that provides health care services, and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, its political arm.

Dr. Wen wrote on Twitter after the news broke: “I just learned that the @PPFA Board ended my employment at a secret meeting. We were engaged in good faith negotiations about my departure based on philosophical differences over the direction and future of Planned Parenthood.”

In a joint statement, Aimee Cunningham and Jennie Rosenthal, the chairwomen of the two Planned Parenthood boards, said, “We thank Dr. Leana Wen for her service to Planned Parenthood in such a pivotal time and extend our best wishes for her continued success.”

Wen backed the organization away from political fights, saying that inserting politics into women's health care was detrimental.  Of course, this meant Planned Parenthood was unarmed when walking into fights with the Trump regime, and they've lost every fight since Wen took over for Cecile Richards.  Planned Parenthood needed a fighter and not an administrator.

Here's hoping Alexis Johnson is willing to go the mats.

Meanwhile, we grow closer to Gilead and criminalizing failure to give birth when pregnant, reducing women to breeding machines...

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Why yes, Julian Assange absolutely was a Russian asset working to throw the 2016 election to Trump, and CNN has the receipts to prove it.

New documents obtained exclusively by CNN reveal that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange received in-person deliveries, potentially of hacked materials related to the 2016 US election, during a series of suspicious meetings at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. 

The documents build on the possibility, raised by special counsel Robert Mueller in his report on Russian meddling, that couriers brought hacked files to Assange at the embassy. 

The surveillance reports also describe how Assange turned the embassy into a command center and orchestrated a series of damaging disclosures that rocked the 2016 presidential campaign in the United States. 

Despite being confined to the embassy while seeking safe passage to Ecuador, Assange met with Russians and world-class hackers at critical moments, frequently for hours at a time. He also acquired powerful new computing and network hardware to facilitate data transfers just weeks before WikiLeaks received hacked materials from Russian operatives. 

These stunning details come from hundreds of surveillance reports compiled for the Ecuadorian government by UC Global, a private Spanish security company, and obtained by CNN. They chronicle Assange's movements and provide an unprecedented window into his life at the embassy. They also add a new dimension to the Mueller report, which cataloged how WikiLeaks helped the Russians undermine the US election. 

An Ecuadorian intelligence official told CNN that the surveillance reports are authentic. 

The security logs noted that Assange personally managed some of the releases "directly from the embassy" where he lived for nearly seven years. After the election, the private security company prepared an assessment of Assange's allegiances. That report, which included open-source information, concluded there was "no doubt that there is evidence" that Assange had ties to Russian intelligence agencies. 

UC Global did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

To recap, Assange met with Russian agents and hackers, received packages from them, and was responsible for the DNC leaks that helped to cost Clinton the White House in 2016.  I've been saying for years this was true, and now we have some pretty damning proof.

This should be a much bigger story, and Democrats should be screaming about it, but here we are.

Sub(poena) Optimal

Another week, another Trump regime flunky ignoring a House subpoena, and another round of mostly empty threats from the Democrats.

White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday defied a congressional subpoena, refusing to show up for testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee about her violations of the Hatch Act and prompting House Democrats to threaten to hold her in contempt of Congress.

In a letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the panel, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone asserted the Trump administration’s long-standing view that current and former presidential advisers are “absolutely immune” from congressional testimony, writing: “Ms. Conway cannot be compelled to testify before Congress with respect to matters related to her service as a senior adviser to the president.”

“Because of this constitutional immunity, and in order to protect the prerogatives of the Office of the President, the president has directed Ms. Conway not to appear at the committee's scheduled hearing,” Cipollone continued.

Cummings threatened to hold Conway in contempt of Congress if she does not honor the subpoena before July 25.

“This is a clear cut case. We are not requiring her to testify about advice she gave the president or about the White House’s policy decisions,” Cummings said before adjourning Monday’s hearing.

“We are requiring her to testify before Congress about her multiple violations of federal law, her waste of taxpayer funds, and her actions that compromise public confidence in the integrity of the federal government,” he added.

Conway is just the latest administration official to find herself a target of House Democrats’ investigations. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham slammed House Democrats, accusing them of trying to “harass” the White House with their myriad probes targeting the president and his administration.

“Today, Chairman Cummings and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee continued their purely political campaign to harass the president and his close advisors,” Grisham said. “Democrats continue to overreach and politicize the Office of Special Counsel — this time, by trying to silence Kellyanne Conway with ill-founded, phony allegations about the Hatch Act.”

So most likely we'll see some behind-the-scenes negotiations and a closed-door testimony on none of the subjects the Dems want to actually grill Conway about, and we'll move on.

We'll see if today's contempt votes for William Barr and Wilbur Ross go any better.

StupidiNews!

• One person is dead and 15 more injured after a gas explosion at a house in Southern California, utility crews were working on a gas line damaged by a contractor when the accident happened.
• A new United Nations report finds global hunger is on the rise and 820 million people are at risk of hunger, including 20 percent of Africa's total population.
• Convicted neo-Nazi murderer James Fields has received a second life sentence, this time on state murder charges, for the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
• House Democrats will hold a vote to condemn Donald Trump for his racist attacks on four Democratic Congresswomen on Twitter over the weekend.
• Germany's Hesse state has declared Microsoft Office 365 illegal to use in schools and universities because of privacy concerns, continuing the trend of German cities and states dropping Office.

Last Call For Our Little European Right-Wing Terrorism Problem

The European right-wing ultra-nationalists are getting very, very troublesome, and getting very, very dangerous to boot, and of course our Good Friend Vladimir is involved.

Anti-terrorism police in northern Italy have seized an air-to-air missile and other sophisticated weapons during raids on far-right extremist groups. 

Three people were arrested, two of them near Forli airport. Neo-Nazi propaganda was also seized, in the raids. 

The raids were part of an investigation into Italian far-right help for Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, local media said. 

The missile was one of those used by the Qatari army, Italian police said. 

The Turin special police force, called Digos, led the operations, assisted by police in Milan, Varese, Forli and Novara. 

Italian media named those arrested as Fabio Del Bergiolo, 50, an Italian ex-customs officer and far-right Forza Nuova party activist; Alessandro Monti, 42, a Swiss national; and Fabio Bernardi, 51, also Italian. 

The missile appears to be a French-made Matra Super 530 F. 

"During the operation, an air-to-air missile in perfect working order and used by the Qatari army was seized," police said in a statement. 

On 3 July a court in Genoa jailed three men who were found guilty of fighting alongside the Russian-backed separatists who control a large swathe of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 

In the Genoa case, two men - Italian Antonio Cataldo and Albanian-born Olsi Krutani - got terms of two years and eight months. The third, Moldovan citizen Vladimir Vrbitchii, got one year and four months. 

More than 10,000 people have died in fighting since the heavily-armed separatists launched an insurgency in eastern Ukraine in April 2014. Skirmishes with Ukrainian government troops continue, but the frontline has remained generally static for more than a year.

Oh yes, there's a war still going on in Ukraine thanks to Putin, and Qatari missiles are ending up in Turin as a direct result.  This would be the kind of thing that maybe the US and UK would be generally involved in stropping, but the guy in the White House is a Russian asset, and the lady in 10 Downing Street is about to be fired in favor of a Gary Busey cosplayer.

Most historians would consider this alarming, but at this point we're just trying to keep the country from devolving into a Second Civil War and it really is taking most of our attention. 

Deportation Nation, Con't

The Trump regime just effectively ended asylum in the US, illegally and in violation of the law and treaties, and frankly they just don't give a damn.

The Trump administration on Monday moved to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants in a major escalation of the president’s battle to tamp down the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to a new rule published in the Federal Register , asylum seekers who pass through another country first will be ineligible for asylum at the U.S. southern border. The rule, expected to go into effect Tuesday, also applies to children who have crossed the border alone.

There are some exceptions: If someone has been trafficked, if the country the migrant passed through did not sign one of the major international treaties that govern how refugees are managed (though most Western countries have signed them) or if an asylum-seeker sought protection in a country but was denied, then a migrant could still apply for U.S. asylum.

But the move by President Donald Trump’s administration was meant to essentially end asylum protections as they now are on the southern border, reversing decades of U.S. policy on how refugees are treated and coming as the government continues to clamp down on migrants and as the treatment of those who made it to the country is heavily criticized as inhumane.

Attorney General William Bar said that the United States is “a generous country but is being completely overwhelmed” by the burdens associated with apprehending and processing hundreds of thousands of migrants at the southern border.

“This rule will decrease forum shopping by economic migrants and those who seek to exploit our asylum system to obtain entry to the United States,” Barr said in a statement.

The policy is almost certain to face a legal challenge. U.S. law allows refugees to request asylum when they arrive at the U.S. regardless of how they did so, but there is an exception for those who have come through a country considered to be “safe.” But the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs asylum law, is vague on how a country is determined “safe”; it says “pursuant to a bilateral or multilateral agreement.”

Right now, the U.S. has such an agreement, known as a “safe third country,” only with Canada. Under a recent agreement with Mexico, Central American countries were considering a regional compact on the issue, but nothing has been decided. Guatemalan officials were expected in Washington on Monday, but apparently a meeting between Trump and Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales was canceled amid a court challenge in Guatemala over whether the country could agree to a safe third with the U.S.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who has litigated some of the major challenges to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, said the rule was unlawful.

“The rule, if upheld, would effectively eliminate asylum for those at the southern border,” he said. “But it is patently unlawful.”

So the Guatemalan option is off the table for now, and the Trump regime is just shrugging and deciding the law doesn't matter anymore and they'll do whatever they want.  We've reached the point where it just no longer matters to Trump about what the law says or what the courts say.

I'd say something pithy like "At some point we have to do something" but it's clear we're not going to.

The Epstein Scandal Goes Abroad

The Jeffrey Epstein child trafficking scandal just became the major flashpoint in Israel's elections this week as Benjamin Netanyahu, still facing a massive fraud indictment himself, is now demanding government investigations into political opponent Ehud Barak's ties to Epstein's businesses.

Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest is reverberating in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party are calling for a criminal probe into former prime minister Ehud Barak’s personal and business ties with the accused sex trafficker, Israeli media is reporting.

Barak, 77, served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001. This month he formed a new party to run for prime minister against Netanyahu, who called for new elections in September. Once political allies, Barak and Netanyahu have been sparring on social media, with Netanyahu producing a video raising Barak’s relationship to the multimillionaire New York financier, and Ohio billionaire Les Wexner, who has given money to Barak, the Times of Israel reported.

Barak was a close friend and business partner with Epstein for years. Now some of those business partnerships are being scrutinized amid questions about Barak’s own source of wealth. The Times reported Saturday that Barak is exploring whether to sever business ties with Epstein, 66, who was charged last week with sex trafficking underage girls.

In 2015, Barak formed a limited partnership company in Israel to invest in a high-tech startup called Reporty, now named Carbyne., which develops video streaming and geolocation software for emergency services, the Times reported. A large part of the investment money was supplied by Epstein.

Barak also received $2.5 million from the Wexner Foundation in 2004 for research, which has never been fully explained, Haaretz reported. Epstein was a member of that foundation.

Speaking on Israel TV’s “Meet the Press,” Saturday, Barak stated he had no idea that Epstein’s charges related to molesting underage girls and defended his business relationship with Epstein.

“He’d served his sentence for soliciting prostitution — the indictment didn’t say she was a minor,” Barak said, adding that he wasn’t the only person who kept his friendship with Epstein after his arrest. Epstein’s circle of associates included the presidents of leading U.S. universities, philanthropists, Nobel-prize-winning scientists and politicians from both American political parties, Barak said.

“The American system itself did not label him as a persona non grata…the secretary who just resigned in the Trump administration was the prosecutor and he said he’d been negligent — so you expect me to have noticed [anything wrong]?” Barak said on the program.

"Everyone was doing it, man!" is one hell of an escuse, no matter what country or party you're in.  I hate to say it, but it's hard to judge who's more corrupt at this point, Barak, or Bibi.