Crooked Media - What A Day: Flynndependent justice

Two Justice Department whistleblowers testified before the House Judiciary Committee about Attorney General Bill Barr’s politicization of the department, and what do you know, it’s as bad as it looks. 
 

• Career prosecutor Aaron Zelinksy said he was pressured by supervisors to issue a lenient sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s adviser/collusion compadre Roger Stone, for no good legal reason: “I was told that the acting U.S. attorney was giving Stone a break because he was afraid of the president of the United States.” Zelinsky testified that he and other prosecutors resisted efforts to reduce their recommendations, and were told they would be fired. They followed standard sentencing guidelines anyway, only to have Justice Department leaders override their recommendation after Trump fired off an angry tweet.
   
• John Elias, an official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, told lawmakers that Barr improperly targeted cannabis suppliers because of his “personal dislike” for the industry. It takes a special gift to be such an extreme narc that you wind up undermining the rule of law, but that’s what makes Barr one of the greats! Elias also said that DOJ’s investigation into California’s emissions deal with four automakers appeared to have been driven by Trump’s angry tweets. A subtle pattern emerges.
   
• Just hours before the hearing began, a couple of Trump-friendly judges rubber stamped the Trump-friendly DOJ’s effort to let another of Trump’s criminal friends off the hook. A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court ruled that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan must immediately dismiss the case against former national security advisor Michael Flynn, without first scrutinizing the Justice Department’s stunning decision to drop charges against him, even after he twice pled guilty. That may not be the final word—the full appeals court could decide to reconsider the matter, and it really, really should.

Anyway, there can be no remaining doubt that Bill Barr has some ‘splainin’ to do.
 

• Shortly after House Democratic leaders threatened Barr with a subpoena, a Justice Department spokeswoman announced that Barr has agreed to attend an oversight hearing on July 28. Barr has “agreed” to testify before without successfully finding his way to the Capitol—if he shows up in July, it will be for the first time since he took the job.
   
• He’ll have plenty to address, beyond his kid-glove treatment of Flynn and Stone (and his weird personal vendetta against pot): In just the past few weeks, Democrats have called for investigations into the clumsy firing of prosecutor Geoffrey Berman, who was investigating Trump’s allies, and that time Barr reportedly personally ordered law enforcement to tear gas peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so that Trump could take a walk.
   

Former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, who has publicly called for Barr to step down, told lawmakers today that “we're on the way to something far worse than Watergate,” and that “Barr poses the greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law.” Democratic leaders say they don’t see the point of impeaching Barr, but Republicans' desperate tantrums alone should make the case for the value of unpacking his wrongdoing in public. 

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Black progressive candidates appear poised to sweep yesterday’s primaries, though several races will be too close to call until absentee ballots have been counted. Jamaal Bowman declared victory over Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), a 16-term Democrat, in a hotly contested New York congressional primary, which means it is time to enjoy this tweet again. Bowman was one of several candidates to gain momentum over the past month: Lawyer Mondaire Jones is set to become the first out gay Black congressman, if he maintains his lead over Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), and New York City councilmember Ritchie Torres could become Congress’s first first out gay Afro-Latin representative. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also handily defended her seat against a well-funded challenger. The Democratic Kentucky Senate primary race between Charles Booker and Amy McGrath is still too close to call.

• The U.S. recorded 35,000 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the highest single-day total since April and the third-highest total since the pandemic began. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have imposed a 14-day day quarantine on travelers arriving from states with spiking coronavirus infection rates.
   
• A Georgia grand jury has indicted Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William "Roddie" Bryan in the death of Ahmaud Arbery. The three men were charged with nine counts each, including felony murder and malice murder. 
   
• Senate Republicans just confirmed President Trump’s 200th judge, who happens to be an enthusiastic supporter of voter suppression.
   
• Senate Democrats blocked debate on a Republican police reform bill that fell far short of proposing meaningful change. The GOP plan focuses on incentives, federal reporting requirements, and training to diminish the use of force, without actually outlawing dangerous maneuvers or addressing systemic racism.
   
• The New York City Marathon has been canceled due to coronavirus concerns. Oh nooo, the year all of us had trained super hard to run it and no one can prove otherwise!
   
• A representative for Mel Gibson denied Winona Ryder’s claims that Mel Gibson made antisemetic and homophobic remarks, even though, once again, we are talking about Mel “Mel Gibson” Gibson.
   
• A judge ruled that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) cannot sue Twitter over statements made by a fake internet cow. Then the judge rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and thought about one bright summer day many years ago, when he decided to attend law school instead of medical school. How noble the law had seemed then, and how promising his future. He had been so young.

The CO2 Coalition has free rein to spread misinformation on Facebook, after a Facebook employee overturned a fact check on its post last year. The climate change-denial organization, which is funded by groups that oppose regulations on fossil fuels, published a piece in the conservative Washington Examiner that climate scientists labeled as false on Facebook, in their capacity as approved fact checkers. One Facebook employee quietly removed the fact check, leaving the post free to be shared. The coalition and similar groups have found that they’re able to proliferate climate misinformation on Facebook because the platform will consider it “opinion” and therefore immune from vetting. Facebook will also happily take their money to run misleading ads. It’s now the primary venue for climate change-denial groups to reach a wider audience, by its own apparent design.

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No one is allowed to get complacent, but Joe Biden is walloping Trump in national polls. Biden’s also holding a lead in Wisconsin, and the race is tied in Ohio, where Trump won by eight points in 2016. You are now required to click this, and do some work.

The Boston City Council banned the city government, including police, from using facial recognition technology.

Rhode Island is moving to change its official name, which is, as everyone knew all along, “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

Black-owned bookstores are seeing an unprecedented surge in demand. If you've placed an order, especially for something on an anti-racist reading list, a) nice work and b) be patient!