The Manafort sentencing memo has been made public.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort committed crimes that cut to “the heart of the criminal justice system” and over the years deceived everyone from bookkeepers and banks to federal prosecutors and “members of the executive branch of the United States government,” according to a sentencing memo filed Saturday by special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.

The memo, in one of two criminal cases Manafort faces, does not take a position on how much prison time he should serve or whether the punishment should run at the same time or after a separate sentence he will soon receive in a Virginia prosecution. But it does depict Manafort as a longtime and unrepentant

Of course they have.

Even before Democrats finish drafting bills to create a single-payer health care system, the health care and insurance industries have assembled a small army of lobbyists to kill “Medicare for all,” an idea that is mocked publicly but is being greeted privately with increasing seriousness.

How could we possibly want universal health insurance instead of the thrillingly frightening risk of losing insurance along with a job or never being able to get it in the first place because your job doesn’t provide it or because you’ve been unemployed for too long or because there’s an R in the month?

The lobbyists’ message is simple: The Affordable Care Act is working reasonably well and should be

Ah, this is charming: male sports writer tells women it will be inspiring if trans women do completely take over women’s sport. He does it with plenty of contempt, too.

They’re coming! Over the horizon, they’re coming! They’re coming for your medals and your trophies and your endorsement contracts. They’re coming, with their giant bulging muscles and enormous flapping penises, to ruin everything pure and good. Nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing means anything any more. For the trans people – and let’s call them what they are, men in sports bras – are coming. And all is lost.

Great first para; lets us know where we are.

This is the apocalyptic scenario currently facing women’s sport. At

Another consignment of evil:

The Trump administration took aim at Planned Parenthood Friday, issuing a rule barring groups that provide abortions or abortion referrals from participating in the $286 million federal family planning program — a move expected to redirect tens of millions of dollars from the women’s health provider to faith-based groups.

What do we not want religious zealots doing? Anything to do with planning pregnancy.

The change means federally funded family planning clinics can no longer refer a patient for abortion and must maintain a “clear physical and financial separation” between services funded by the government and any organization that provides abortions or abortion referrals. Groups receiving money under the Title X program, which serves an estimated

Adam Schiff addresses his Republican colleagues:

The president has just declared a national emergency to subvert the will of Congress and appropriate billions of dollars for a border wall that Congress has explicitly refused to fund. Whether you support the border wall or oppose it, you should be deeply troubled by the president’s intent to obtain it through a plainly unconstitutional abuse of power.

To my Republican colleagues: When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t

If Trump pardons Manafort…

New York state prosecutors have put together a criminal case against Paul Manafort that they could file quickly if the former chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign receives a presidential pardon.

New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is ready to file an array of tax and other charges against Manafort, according to two people familiar with the matter, something seen as an insurance policy should the president exercise his power to free the former aide. Skirting laws that protect defendants from being charged twice for the same offense has been one of Vance’s challenges.

…

Prosecutors in Vance’s office began investigating Manafort in 2017, months before Mueller charged him with conspiracy, failure

Another event stamped CANCELED.

Unfortunately we have had to cancel today’s Story Café and Songwriting Workshop due to be held @edcentrallib as part of @AWfest.

We hope to rearrange the Story Café event in Edinburgh on a future date. Email info@womenslibrary.org.uk to register your interest.

— Glasgow Women’s Library (@womenslibrary) February 22, 2019

Had to why? Somebody has the flu? The pipes burst? All the roads and railways closed?

No.

We are committed to an inclusive
approach in working with women and do so under the terms of our own
policies. We feel that the Audacious Women’s Festival’s policy does not align with our own and so we have chosen not to run the events today.

— Glasgow Women’s

Natasha Bertrand talked to Andrew McCabe for The Atlantic. Here’s a striking bit:

Bertrand: Some question now why the public should believe your recollection of events when the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded last year that you had lacked candor when describing your interactions with the press. How would you respond to that?

McCabe: It was very hard to leave the organization that I loved, and still love to this day, under those circumstances. To spend 21 years as an FBI agent, living under the ideals of fidelity, bravery, and integrity, and then to be branded a liar the day before you were gonna retire. It was very tough. But in some ways, it’s also entirely predictable. The facts

Huh. I’ve wondered before why Claire Lehmann is a thing, and now I wonder that little bit more.

https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/1098690463404515328… Read the rest

Aw, it was a setup.

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” is a binary production. Here’s how it breaks down: The host, Tucker Carlson, either welcomes a guest with whom he agrees, in which case the segment is a facile lovefest, or he welcomes a guest with whom he disagrees, in which case the segment is a gutter-scraping slugfest.

A chat with Dutch historian Rutger Bregman was supposed to fall in the former basket, a nice, easy segment in which the host and guest find common ground on the hypocrisy of the world’s elites. In a display of common-sense advocacy, Bregman had appeared at the World Economic Forum in Davos and hammered all the rich people there for avoiding taxes.

So Carlson … Read the rest

It’s not just for university students.

A 15-year-old boy convicted of sexually assaulting a girl in a classroom has been allowed to stay at the same school as his victim.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault and put on the sex offenders register.

The victim said: “I have to just keep my head down, pretend he’s not there, otherwise it makes me panic.”

Is she making a fuss about nothing?

The victim told BBC Inside Out East : “It was known that boy was very ‘hands on’ with girls.

“He started making comments about me, touching my legs and putting his hands on me.

“Then gradually he

Another citizen of Trump’s America:

A Coast Guard lieutenant and self-described white nationalist who was arrested in Maryland last week was plotting to kill a long list of prominent journalists and Democratic politicians, as well as professors, judges and what he called “leftists in general,” federal prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday.

A a long list of prominent journalists and Democratic politicians plus also everyone on the planet.

Prosecutors quoted a letter that he drafted to friends in 2017 and that the authorities found on his computer. In it, Lieutenant Hasson, who works as an acquisitions officer at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, wrote: “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on

Meanwhile in India Modi is locking up his critics.

Last year, the police in Maharashtra, one of India’s largest states, said they had uncovered a vast conspiracy to topple the Indian government that involved Mr. Teltumbde and other well-known writers, academics and lawyers.

Officers raided more than a dozen of their homes, confiscating hard drives and documents. Citing a broad antiterrorism law, the police have put nine of them in jail, accusing them of helping Maoist insurgents, trying to procure grenade launchers, inciting a riot and plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

One is Anand Teltumbde, “a prominent scholar and writer on Indian social issues.”

Human rights activists say the allegations are part of a crackdown

BIG Supreme Court ruling, for once in a good way.

The Supreme Court struck an extraordinary blow for criminal justice reform on Wednesday, placing real limitations on policing for profitacross the country. Its unanimous decision for the first time prohibits all 50 states from imposing excessive fines, including the seizure of property, on people accused or convicted of a crime. Rarely does the court hand down a ruling of such constitutional magnitude—and seldom do all nine justices agree to restrict the power that police and prosecutors exert over individuals. The landmark decision represents a broad agreement on the Supreme Court that law enforcement’s legalized theft has gone too far.

Wednesday’s ruling in Timbs v. Indiana, authored by

this shit is more terrifying with each watch pic.twitter.com/I9uHCrhHJr

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) February 19, 2019

“I don’t care, I believe Putin.”… Read the rest