How very squalid. Trump’s sister the judge retired so as to escape the consequences of a judicial complaint about the Trump siblings’ gigantic tax fraud. She keeps her pension, she keeps all the millions, nothing happens to her.

President Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings.

The court inquiry stemmed from complaints filed last October, after an investigation by The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry

Following up on a question of Screechy Monkey’s, I learn more about belligerent trans activist Stephanie Hayden, who likes suing people.

https://twitter.com/ThrupennyBit/status/1115985104999014401

Do trans women have more to fear from loss of anonymity on social media than gender critical feminists do?

Hayden is Stephanie Hayden, the one who sued to get the personal details of a woman on Mumsnet.

Jamie Hamilton did some digging last November and found a not very dainty past:

The transgender lawyer who has accused Father Ted scribe Graham Linehan of transphobia and is suing him for harassment was once convicted of affray for threatening a man with a golf club, as well as for a number of other offences.

Stephanie Hayden, who is

Barr is doing what Trump hired him to do.

At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning, Barr confirmed that he is looking into what he called “spying” on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

“I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016,” Barr said. “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”

When pressed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on whether he indeed viewed it as “spying” on Trump’s campaign, Barr said, “I think spying did occur.”

“The question is whether it was adequately predicated,” he said. “I’m not suggesting it was not adequately predicated, but I

A woman reported her stalker to the police five times in six months.

And then he murdered her.

Officers are facing disciplinary action after Shana Grice was fined for wasting police time before she was murdered by her stalker.

Two police officers, one of whom has retired, will face gross misconduct proceedings in front of an independent chairman at public hearings on 7 and 10 May, Sussex Police confirmed. Another police officer will face internal misconduct proceedings, which are carried out in private.

Several others will get retraining, while others still get no further action.

The 14 were investigated by the police watchdog after 19-year-old Miss Grice was murdered in Portslade, near Brighton, East Sussex, in 2016. Michael Lane

Speaking of Republicans and pharmaceutical corporations and filthy practices…

The real winners of Trump's tax cuts:
Pfizer: $2.8B
Johnson & Johnson: $2.5B
Merck: $1.2B
Abbott Labs: $473M

Meanwhile, Pfizer, J&J, and Merck all *raised* prescription drug prices last year. So much for trickle-down benefits…https://t.co/7I0rUBxq8H

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) April 9, 2019

Opens Axios article:

Four pharmaceutical companies — Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck and Abbott Laboratories — collectively kept $7 billion in tax savings in 2018 due to Republicans’ 2017 corporate tax overhaul, according to a new Oxfam report.

The bottom line: Oxfam’s results mirror our reporting, which shows pharmaceutical companies in particular have benefited from bringing back billions of dollars in overseas profits that have

Profits first! Profits first, Republicans second, people last. Take prescription drugs for instance…

In an unusual move, House Republicans are warning drug companies against complying with a House investigation into drug prices.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sent letters to a dozen CEOs of major drug companies warning that information they provide to the committee could be leaked to the public by Democratic chair Elijah Cummings in an effort to tank their stock prices.

Or perhaps in an effort to inform the public on a subject they badly need to be informed about: why prescription drugs are so eye-wateringly expensive.

Cummings requested information from 12 drug companies such as Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis AG in January

Saudi Arabia responds to international criticism of its bullying of women by bullying more women’s rights advocates.

Saudi Arabia jailed another group of women’s rights advocates on Thursday.

The advocates and writers weren’t politically active, but they had opposed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s regime and expressed public support for reforming gendered laws, according to the Associated Press. The 12 people arrested — 11 men and one woman — reportedly have loose connections with a group of activists who were arrested in 2018 for campaigning to end the country’s ban on women driving and its male guardianship system.

Most of the activists were arrested in the country’s capital city, Riyadh, on Thursday, though one was taken by authorities

CNN is live updating on Barr’s conversation with Congress.

Attorney General William Barr just echoed one of President Trump’s recent talking points, highlighting what the two men view as Democratic hypocrisy when it comes to releasing the Mueller report.

That’s because some of the Democrats who want Mueller’s full report released actually spoke out against the full release of the Starr report in the late 1990s. Ken Starr’s investigation led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings.

“Many of the people right now who are calling for the release of this report were basically castigating Ken Starr and others for releasing the Starr report,” Barr said.

Ken Starr’s investigation was about non-marital sex and lying to conceal the non-marital sex. … Read the rest

Like Dario Angulo, for example.

At his home on the misty slope of Costa Rica’s tallest mountain, Dario Angulo keeps a set of photographs from the years he tended the rolling fairways and clipped greens of a faraway American golf resort.

Angulo learned to drive backhoes and bulldozers, carving water hazards and tee boxes out of former horse pastures in Bedminster, N.J., where a famous New Yorker was building a world-class course. Angulo earned $8 an hour, a fraction of what a state-licensed heavy equipment operator would make, with no benefits or overtime pay. But he stayed seven years on the grounds crew, saving enough for a small piece of land and some cattle back home.

See this is … Read the rest

Oh gee will you look at that, a federal judge says Trump doesn’t have total absolute power after all.

A federal judge today halted the Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy, which forces certain non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico during their court proceedings.

The plaintiffs — a group of asylum seekers and organizations represented by the American Civil Liberties Union — argued the policy violates U.S. asylum law, international treaty obligations and federal regulatory requirements.

But doesn’t Trump have the absolute right and power to ignore all that? No? Huh.

ACLU asserted in a February court filing that the policy — formally known as the “Migrant Protection Protocols” — put migrants at risk of kidnapping, sexual assault,

Prosecutor in the house.

You seem confused, Mr. Mulvaney.

When the law says the IRS “shall” provide tax returns upon the request of the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, it doesn’t mean:

Unless the President fears it,

Tweets about it,

Or his lawyer complains about it.

Shall means shall. https://t.co/CoNsZthgE9

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) April 8, 2019

 … Read the rest

Trump just really really really wants to take children away from people who try to move to the US without his permission.

President Donald Trump has for months urged his administration to reinstate large-scale separation of migrant families crossing the border, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of meetings at the White House.

Trump’s outgoing Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, resisted — setting her at odds with the president.

According to two of the sources, Nielsen told Trump that federal court orders prohibited the Department of Homeland Security from reinstating the policy, and that he would be reversing his own executive order from June that ended family separations.

Federal court orders, pah! Why should Trump care about that? … Read the rest

The @NewYorker on cats and dogs. pic.twitter.com/bnHsdumPZm

— Martin O'Neill (@martin_oneill) April 8, 2019

… Read the rest

More firings from the White House:

United States Secret Service director Randolph “Tex” Alles is being removed from his position, multiple administration officials tell CNN.

President Donald Trump instructed his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to fire Alles. Alles remains in his position as of now but has been asked to leave.

The USSS director was told two weeks ago there would be a transition in leadership and he was asked to stay on until there was a replacement, according to a source close to the director.
Secret Service officials have been caught by surprise with the news and are only finding out through CNN, according to the source.

Like the day Trump fired Comey and the first … Read the rest

Be careful not to complain of noise if you’re in Indonesia:

The Supreme Court has upheld a blasphemy verdict against a Buddhist woman convicted for complaining about the volume of adzan (call to prayer).

In a ruling dated March 27 and posted on the court’s website on Monday, the panel of justices rejected the appeal by Meiliana, a women of Chinese descent and resident of Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, and upheld her 1.5-year prison sentence.

A year and a half in prison for objecting to a loud “call to prayer.” Too bad for people who work the night shift or the swing shift in Indonesia; they just have to put up with being woken up a lot.

Meiliana’s case

Lucy Bannerman reports that five specialists have quit the Tavistock for reasons of conscience over the past three years.

The clinic used to get about 50 referrals a year, mostly boys, but now thousands of girls are turning up wanting to change their sex.

Until now the specialists struggling to keep up with caseloads have stayed silent, but alarm over the number of adolescents being prescribed body-altering drugs, has prompted five former clinicians to speak out for the first time.

All five have resigned from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in the past three years as a matter of conscience.

“This experimental treatment is being done not only on children, but very vulnerable children, who have experienced mental health