Don’t Get A Room | Manafort Trial Drama | Verizon Under Fire Over Fire

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” – Maya Angelou

Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: President Trump continues to lash out at his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight counts of criminal behavior. In open court, Cohen said that “in coordination with, and at the direction of, a candidate for federal office” he made non-disclosure agreements with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal “for the principal purpose of influencing the election”. Hush money payments made to the women amounted to an illegal corporate donation made directly to a candidate, and an illegally large individual donation. The extent of Trump’s involvement was spelled out in charging documents which described how Cohen submitted false invoices so that Trump could reimburse him for the payments. Cohen’s lawyer said Wednesday his client is anxious to tell special counsel Robert Mueller “everything he knows about Donald Trump.”

On Thursday morning’s Fox & Friends show the president said that Cohen was cooperating to get a lighter sentence, and that people who decide to cooperate with the government “make up stories” and “just make up lies”. “It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” Trump said. Trump accused Cohen of making up the story of hush money payments to Daniels and McDougal. But in the same interview Trump said he knew of the payments, and that he’d made them. “[The payments] didn’t come out of the campaign, they came from me. And I tweeted about it,” he said. Trump went on to warn against any potential impeachment, saying “If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor.”Then he added incredulously, “I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who’s done a great job.” So far five Trump associates have been found guilty, or have pleaded guilty, to various crimes. The thread that runs through them is Mueller’s investigation.

Baghdadi Returns: Islamic State leader and self-proclaimed “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been in hiding, but what sounded like his voice was heard Tuesday in a 54-minute audiotaped message to his followers in which he marked the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, and urged them to keep up the fight. Baghdadi left unaddressed the fact that the Islamic State has now lost 95 percent of the territories it seized in 2014. Rumors circulated earlier this month that Baghdadi had died of injuries suffered in airstrikes. But references in his speech to current events, including the dust up between Turkey and the US over an American pastor, suggest he was alive at least until very recently. (WaPo)

Don’t Get A Room: The Mexican city of Guadalajara has decided to decriminalize sexual relations in public. This is an attempt to curb potential police extortion of young people caught in the public act of whoopee and to make parks cool again (the second part is subjective). Public acts of love making will only be considered a punishable offense if they are reported (or if you’re into that sort of thing). Rape, masturbation, and exploitation of minors will still be seen as crimes and will not have to be reported to be punishable. (NPR)

Unapologetic: Myanmar’s military generals are unapologetic a year after assailing Rohingya Muslims in the state of Rakhine, reportedly raping women, killing children, and beheading men. Almost a million Rohingya were driven from their country to Bangladesh, causing the creation of one of the world’s largest refugee camps. (WaPo)

The Jewish Divide In America: A huge rift exists between the world’s two largest Jewish communities, according to a startling opinion survey released this summer. 77 percent of Israelis approve of President Trump’s handling of US-Israeli relations, hardly a surprise considering Trump is the most pro-Israel president to occupy the White House in many years. However, only 34 percent of American Jews feel the same way, and 57 percent disapprove of Trump’s approach to Israel. (NYT)

Mazel Tov: It’s scandalous! More and more young Israeli couples are foregoing traditional legalities, bypassing the ultra-Orthodox state rabbinical authority, and getting married any way they want. Next they’ll be having ‘alternative’ ceremonies and writing their own marriage vows. Oh, wait – they are. (NYT)

He’s Had A Long Week, Jeff: President Trump has repeatedly, publicly, lambasted his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, mostly over Sessions recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Speaking on Fox News Thursday Trump again criticized Sessions, saying he “never took control of the Justice Department.” A few hours later Sessions released a statement saying the Justice Department will not be “improperly influenced by political considerations.” But apparently still feeling the need to placate his boss, Sessions added: “I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda.” (WaPo)

Manafort Trial Drama: Now that Paul Manafort’s 16-day federal trial is concluded, court documents that had been sealed during the trial were unsealed Thursday. They showed that Manafort would have been convicted on all 18 counts but for one single holdout on the jury. Fox News interviewed a different juror who said she was a Trump supporter who wanted Manafort to be innocent. But, she said, the prosecution’s documentary evidence against Trump’s former campaign chairman was just too overwhelming. It was also revealed that behind-the-scene drama during the trial, which caused several delays, was regarding one juror who complained that another juror was making statements about how weak the defense’s case was before the trial actually ended. (NPR)

Liar Liar Charitable Clothing Donation On Fire: California’s GOP congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife Margaret were charged Tuesday with spending $250,000 of campaign money on personal expenses over a decade. How’d they get away with it? Turns out Margaret was a veritable creative genius behind using allowable campaign codes for unallowable personal expenditures. The family needed “groceries, household items, toiletries, cosmetics and vitamins”? Tell the campaign’s treasurer: “They’re all gift basket items” for a charity. A Barnes & Noble shopping spree? “Children’s hospital book drive.” According to the indictment against the Hunters, Margaret repeatedly bought clothing and toys for her kids and coded them as “donations.” She hosted parties, coded as “fundraisers.” Family trips to water parks were “educational tours.” Duncan was also a prolific grifter; he just didn’t have his wife’s smarts to keep it covered up. “LOL” is not a proper code, Duncan. (WaPo)

Verizon Under Fire Over Fire: Have you ever tried to load up that next episode of Stranger Things but for some reason Netflix just isn’t loading as quickly as it usually does? There’s a chance your internet service provider (ISP) is throttling your internet speeds. Bandwidth throttling is when your ISP limits your internet speed to avoid bandwidth congestion. There are tons of debates over whether or not this is legal/ethical and is a main talking point of Net Neutrality. Now that that’s out of the way, replace Netflix with a California fire engine full of computers used to send and receive emergency information…and replace Stranger Things with emergency information. Verizon is under fire after they throttled the internet speed of the Santa Clara county fire department to 1/200th of the typical speed while they were fighting the largest wildfire in California’s history. (Guardian)

– “When The U.S. Government Tried To Replace Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers” The classic high school problems: dating, Algebra tests, football practices, acne, unseasonably dry summers where all the crops die, and driving tests. (NPR)

– “NYU’s Move To Make Medical School Free For All Gets Mixed Reviews: Nationally gathered statistics suggest that nearly half of graduating physicians in 2017 owed more than $200,000 in student debt.” (NPR)

– “How to Control a Conversation, According to a Dominatrix” Make sure to set up a safety word that will immediately end the conversation. We recommend, “bye.” (Lifehacker)

– “The Persistent Myth of Speed and ‘Productivity’: Speed is not only deadly; it’s defeatist.” (Wired)

– “Gladbeck: The deadly hostage drama where the media crossed a line: Thirty years ago, West Germany was captivated by a hostage-taking drama that began with a failed armed robbery and ended in a shootout on the autobahn 54 hours later…and one journalist in particular was thought by many to have crossed a line.” (BBC)

– “We Can’t Fix The Internet” But we can mend it with memes and blissful ignorance. (Kotaku)

– “Which Is Better, Rewards or Punishments? Neither: Rewards and punishments are conditional, but our love and positive regard for our kids should be unconditional. Here’s how to change the conversation and the behavior.” (NYT)

– “The Criminalization of Parenthood” Having a kid is a 25 year sentence. 32 years if they don’t move out.

– “The Water Crises Aren’t Coming—They’re Here” It’s like the opposite of the movie Waterworld as in we’re all still talking about it. (Esquire)

– “Why Do Men Fight?: An Interview with Thomas Page McBee: ‘When I started asking myself questions about my own notions of masculinity. I just felt so limited, so suddenly afraid of becoming the kind of man I’d grown up in fear of.’” (Longreads)

– “I Just Hacked a State Election. I’m 17. And I’m Not Even a Very Good Hacker.: It took a lot less than you’d think for myself and my fellow teens to steal the midterms.” Great, now we need to watch out for not just Russians but also angry teenagers. (Politico)

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” -Maya Angelou

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