Chris Hedges's Blog, page 564

NFL’s Eagles Give Trump a Civics Lesson

President Donald Trump abruptly disinvited this year’s Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles from the White House this week, irked that most of the players were declining to attend. He hastily converted the event into a military celebration, betraying his authoritarian impulses, his racism and his profound ignorance of what “patriotism” means. “The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House. Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry,” Trump tweeted, even though not one of them took a knee during the entire season.

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick protested during the 2016-17 season, first by sitting through the national anthem, then in later games by taking a knee. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he told NFL.com. His action resonated with millions of people, inspiring hundreds of other athletes, from professional teams down to high school leagues, to take a knee as well.

Trump lashed out at the NFL players, 70 percent of whom are African American, at an almost entirely white rally in Huntsville, Alabama, in September 2017: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired!'” The president told Fox News in May, “You have to stand proudly for the national anthem. Or you shouldn’t be playing … Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”

NFL team owners, overwhelmingly white men, half of whom are billionaires, held a secret meeting with several players in October, following Trump’s attacks. The New York Times obtained an audio recording of the three-hour meeting. Jeffrey Lurie, the Eagles’ owner, warned, “We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump.” Nevertheless, the NFL took Trump’s bait, issuing a new policy in May requiring players to “stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem.” Players could choose to remain in their locker room, but refusing to stand during the anthem while on the field would result in the team being fined.

It was a U.S. Army veteran who advised Kaepernick to change his protest from sitting to taking a knee. Nate Boyer, a former NFL player and Green Beret, wrote an open letter to Kaepernick, and met with him. “I’m not judging you for standing up for what you believe in. It’s your inalienable right,” Boyer wrote. “What you are doing takes a lot of courage … I’ve never had to deal with prejudice because of the color of my skin.”

Protest takes courage, and often comes at a cost. Colin Kaepernick hasn’t been hired by any NFL team, even though he is indisputably one of the best quarterbacks in the country today. He is pursuing a formal grievance against the NFL, alleging collusion by the owners to keep him unsigned. His former teammate Eric Reid, who also took a knee and remains unsigned, is doing the same.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney praised the Eagles, saying, “These are players who stand up for the causes they believe in and who contribute in meaningful ways to their community.” These contributions include efforts by Eagles’ safety Malcolm Jenkins, who is part of a players’ coalition that has partnered with the NFL to commit at least $90 million to programs combating social inequality, Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz matching up to half a million dollars in donations to raise money for Haiti, and Eagles defensive end Chris Long donating his entire 2017 million dollar base salary to charity.

On Wednesday, Malcolm Jenkins responded to Trump’s disinvitation, silently holding a series of hand-written signs before members of the press. Some of them read:

“You aren’t listening.”

“More than 60 percent of people in prison are people of color.”

“Any given night 500,000 sit in jail. Convicted? No. Too Poor? Yes #EndCashBail.”

“Colin Kaepernick gave $1 million to charity.”

“In 2018 439 people shot and killed by police (thus far).”

At his brief replacement event at the White House on Tuesday, Trump tried and failed to sing along with the U.S. Army Chorus’ rendition of “God Bless America.” He didn’t know the words, just like he doesn’t know what patriotism is. Dissent is patriotic. These brave athletes, representing the city where the U.S. Constitution was drafted, have an important civics lesson for President Trump.

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Voters Choose Woman to Replace Recalled Judge

On Tuesday, voters in California’s Santa Clara County recalled Judge Aaron Persky, who presided over the highly publicized trial of Brock Turner, a Stanford student convicted of sexual assault. Persky gave Turner a controversially light sentence, which made Turner a symbol for many critics who claim that judicial bias favors defendants from privileged backgrounds. Voters chose Judge Cindy Hendrickson, known for her work in support of marginalized communities, to replace Persky.

Hendrickson, who said she supported the effort to recall Persky, told Newsweek in 2017, “I’m devoted to every single person in Santa Clara County feeling like when they go to court, they have [a] chance at being heard and having a fair result. Maybe not the result they want, but as fair a result as anybody else. The deck is not stacked against them.”

Like Persky, Hendrickson is a graduate of Stanford. She completed law school at UCLA and, according to her Crowdpac fundraising page, served as a civil litigator for five years and a prosecutor for 23 years. Hendrickson also shared her personal story on her page:

I grew up as the daughter of two public servants who raised eleven children, six biological and five adopted. The task wasn’t always easy either socially or financially given the large number of children and the cultural norms in Alexandria, Virginia in the 1960’s and 70’s. So I grew accustomed at an early age to the idea that doing the right thing is more important than being liked or comfortable, and that serving others is the highest calling.

Hendrickson emphasized her work for marginalized communities, adding, “I have been a strong advocate for the most vulnerable victims in our society: elders, dependent adults, children, and domestic violence and sexual assault victims.” She cited her legal focus on preventing financial fraud against the elderly and efforts to put sexual assault perpetrators behind bars.

According to the Los Angeles Times, 59 percent of those who cast ballots voted for Persky’s recall. New York Times data show that Hendrickson won 70 percent of votes (with more than half of precincts reporting) in the initial returns.

For many voting on the recall effort, Hendrickson represents Persky’s opposite. Turner’s trial, a result of his assault on an unconscious woman, was rare in that it included the testimony of two eyewitnesses who stumbled upon Turner as he was engaged in the act and chased him down. The case also made headlines because of Turner’s status as a valued member of Stanford’s swim team, his father’s assertion that jail time was “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-plus years of life” and the victim’s harrowing testimony read in court.

The maximum sentence Persky could have given Turner was 14 years, but he sentenced him instead to six months in jail, and Turner was released for good behavior after serving just three months behind bars. Michele Landis Dauber, the Stanford Law School professor who spearheaded the effort to recall Persky, told Newsweek, “The message sent by the Turner sentence to perpetrators [was], ‘Don’t worry: Even if you’re caught red-handed, literally, and convicted by a jury, the system will have your back.’ To victims, [it] said, ‘Don’t bother calling 911, because even if you put yourself through the trauma of the rape kit and the trial and you prevail, your perpetrator will not experience any serious consequences.’”

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Dinosaurs’ Deaths May Hold Clues for Climate Change

US geologists have identified the moment of the dinosaurs’ death in the Earth’s deep past as the time when the climate changed, even faster and more severely than it is changing as a consequence of human action.

That fateful moment occurred on the day around 65 million years ago when a vast comet or asteroid smashed into Earth over what is now Chicxulub in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and brought the Cretaceous era to a close.

The scientists used tiny bits of fish scales, teeth and bones to compose a temperature chart for the last 50,000 years of the Cretaceous, and the first 100,000 years of the Palaeogene, when planet Earth changed forever.

The planetary average temperatures rose around 5°C [9 F] and stayed perilously hotter for at least another 100,000 years, and in the course of this the last dinosaurs disappeared, as if violently wiped out in one short episode.

Theorists predict that an impact with something 10kms [6 miles] or so across arriving at a minimum of 20 kms [12 miles] a second would have delivered a ferocious blast of heat, a huge ejection of rock and dust into the upper atmosphere, a darkening of the skies, an all-year-round winter that might have endured for a decade, and then dramatic warming as the air filled with carbon dioxide from blazing forests around the planet.

The researchers report in the journal Science that they see this fateful celestial traffic accident as “an unusually relevant natural experiment to compare to modern climatic and environmental changes.”

The evidence comes from a series of shallow marine marls deposited 65 million years ago in what is now Tunisia: these strata contain fragments of fish, and the phosphate compounds in the hard fragments contain oxygen isotopes that in turn can answer questions about the atmospheric temperatures at the time the ancient fish swam in ancient oceans.

And in this series of sediments is a thin red layer rich in the kind of evidence to be expected from a colossal impact with an interplanetary fireball.

No Abrupt Cooling

What the scientists did not find was evidence of a sudden, brief dramatic cooling, but they didn’t expect to. But they did find, they say, evidence that “matches expectations for impact-initiated greenhouse warming.”

The impact probably extinguished three fourths of all life on Earth. As so often happens in research, a second, almost simultaneous study in a different publication of a different series of geological sediments – in North Dakota in the US – yielded more details about the Cretaceous calamity.

Plant fossils, pollen and spores, according to a report in the journal Current Biology, confirm indirectly that not only were the world’s forests incinerated during and after the impact, but perhaps all tree-dwelling birds of the time.

Today’s finches, falcons and guinea fowl all seem on separate evidence to have evolved from the ancestors of the kiwi, the ostrich, the cassowary and other ground-dwellers.

Because Earth is a once-only experiment, the only lessons for how climate change happens without human help are to be found in the deep past. But the past is a mysterious and sometimes enigmatic landscape.

Modern Speed-Up

Climate change happens because of tectonic plate movements, or shifts in planetary orbit, or dramatic losses of oxygen in the oceans, but these changes often happen imperceptibly, over very long periods.

But the change associated with the human expansion and the profligate combustion of fossil fuels – sometimes called the Great Acceleration – in the last 200 years is far, far faster.

Thanks to evidence from the last days of the Cretaceous, though, climate scientists have found an accelerated change even faster than anything humans have yet managed.

So the latest study provides, the scientists say, “a perspective on the response of Earth systems to extremely rapid global perturbations.” So far, that is all it provides: a perspective. There are many more questions to be settled before the dying convulsions of the dinosaurs become a model for what might happen to humanity in the coming century.

Arrests for Illegal Border Crossings Top 50,000 in May

NEW YORK—U.S. Border Patrol agents made 51,912 arrests in May for illegal crossings, the third month in a row the number has topped 50,000 amid a new “zero tolerance” policy and agents separating families caught crossing illegally.

The Trump administration — like previous administrations — uses the arrest numbers as the best gauge of whether illegal crossings are going up or down, though there is no precise measure of illegal crossings because some people aren’t caught.

The border arrest figures are made up of people who are stopped at land crossings and other official points of entry, according to federal data. The May tally was more than triple the number from April 2017, which was the lowest on record since the Homeland Security Department was created in 2003.

Curbing illegal immigration is an administration priority; Trump cited the issue as an achievement in a tweet earlier this week on his 500th day in office. But behind closed doors last month, he criticized the Homeland Security secretary at a Cabinet meeting for failing to stop rising numbers.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tyler Houlton, said in a statement Wednesday that reversing years of political inaction takes time.

“These numbers show that while the Trump administration is restoring the rule of law, it will take a sustained effort and continuous commitment of resources over many months to disrupt cartels, smugglers, and nefarious actors,” he said.

The debate over immigration reached a fever pitch in recent months following reports that since October hundreds of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border have been separated from their parents.

The number of separated minors was expected to jump after Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would enforce criminal charges against people crossing the border illegally with few or no previous offenses. Under U.S. protocol, if parents are jailed, their children would be separated from them.

The U.N. human rights office on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to halt the policy, insisting there is “nothing normal about detaining children.”

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EPA Head Dodges Questions on Chick-fil-A Issue

WASHINGTON—Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt laughed off questions Wednesday about whether he used his office to try to help his wife get a “business opportunity” with Chick-fil-A, while a close aide abruptly resigned amid new ethics allegations against her boss.

Pruitt said in a statement that his scheduling director, Millan Hupp, 26, had resigned. It came two days after Democratic lawmakers made public her testimony to a House oversight panel that Pruitt had her do personal errands for him, including inquiring about buying a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel.

Last year, Pruitt also directed Hupp’s younger sister to reach out to a senior executive at Chick-fil-A to inquire about a “business opportunity.” At the time, Sydney Hupp, 25, was also working in Pruitt’s office as an EPA scheduler.

That business opportunity turned out to be Pruitt’s desire to acquire a fast-food franchise for his wife.

Federal ethics codes prohibit having staffers conduct personal errands and bar officials from using their position for private gain.

On Wednesday, Pruitt laughed when a reporter asked about the reports he had tried to use his government position to financially benefit his spouse.

“I mean, look, my wife is an entrepreneur herself. I love, she loves, we love Chick-fil-A as a franchise of faith,” Pruitt told a reporter for Nexstar Media Group, which owns local television stations around the country. A Republican former Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt added that there needs to be more locations of the fast-food chain in his hometown of Tulsa.

Founded in Atlanta, the Chick-fil-A chain is known for incorporating Christianity into its business code, including shutting down nationwide on Sundays. The two-generation family business has angered some customers and pleased others with its donations to conservative causes, including funding campaigns fighting same-sex marriage.

Democrats quickly pounced on Pruitt’s statement, accusing him of using religion to try to deflect from his misdeeds.

“He’s hiding behind a very cheap version of faith, in the form of chicken,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on a House subcommittee on Government Operations. “This is somebody who is profoundly ethically challenged, who’s self-dealing. He’s in the trough with all four paws and snout. … We’re dealing with a real pattern here, and frankly it’s disgusting.”

Despite the mounting scandals, President Donald Trump continues to stand by Pruitt and lavished praise on him at a hurricane-preparedness briefing attended by Cabinet secretaries and agency heads.

“EPA is doing really, really well,” Trump told Pruitt on Wednesday. “And you know, somebody has to say that about you a little bit. You know that, Scott. But you have done — I tell you, the EPA is doing so well. … And people are really impressed with the job that’s being done at the EPA. Thank you very much, Scott.”

GOP members of Congress have largely followed Trump’s lead in sticking by Pruitt, though there were increasing signs cracks are developing in that support.

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst suggested this week that it might be time for Trump to tell Pruitt to go.

Pruitt “is about as swampy as you get here in Washington, D.C. And if the president wants to drain the swamp, he needs to take a look at his own Cabinet,” Ernst said Tuesday at an energy policy forum.

Pruitt is the subject of more than a dozen federal investigations into his lavish spending on travel and security, his dealings with subordinates and other matters.

Millan Hupp was described by former EPA staffers as one of Pruitt’s closest and most loyal aides. She told the House panel that Pruitt had her ask about getting an “old mattress” from the Trump hotel at about the same time he was moving to a new apartment in Washington.

Pruitt also directed the elder Hupp, an Oklahoman like her boss, to book a personal trip to the Rose Bowl for him and search for housing for him in the Washington area, she told the investigators.

Pruitt’s statement announcing her resignation called Hupp “a valued member of the EPA team.” The EPA gave no reason for her departure.

She is the fourth senior EPA political appointee to resign in the last two months, since news first broke that Pruitt last year leased a bargain-priced Capitol Hill condo tied to an oil and gas lobbyist.

In appearances before congressional panels since then, Pruitt has repeatedly blamed subordinates for his alleged ethical lapses.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight committee investigating Pruitt, said Hupp shouldn’t have to take the fall for her boss.

“Ms. Hupp cooperated with our investigation and should not become the latest scapegoat for Administrator Pruitt’s litany of abuses, his disregard for our nation’s ethics laws, and his refusal to accept responsibility for his own actions,” Cummings said.

Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, and former top policy adviser Samantha Dravis are due to appear before the oversight committee’s investigators later this month.

For his part, Pruitt suggested the criticism, investigations and unending stream of negative revelations about him were all political attacks motivated by his efforts to roll back environmental regulations.

“I just think that with great change comes, you know, I think, opposition,” he said.

Truthdig editor’s note: The Washington Post reports that a Chick-fil-A representative said Pruitt’s wife “started, but did not complete, the Chick-fil-A franchisee application” and that she has never been one of the company’s franchisees.

Just Say No to an Illegal War on Iran. The U.S. House Did.

In a little noticed but potentially monumental development, the House of Representatives voted unanimously for an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 (H.R. 5515) that says no statute authorizes the use of military force against Iran.

The amendment, introduced by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), states, “It is the sense of Congress that the use of the Armed Forces against Iran is not authorized by this Act or any other Act.”

A bipartisan majority of the House adopted the National Defense Authorization Act on May 24, with a vote of 351-66. The bill now moves to the Senate.

If the Senate version ultimately includes the Ellison amendment as well, Congress would send a clear message to Donald Trump that he has no statutory authority to militarily attack Iran.

This becomes particularly significant in light of Trump’s May 8 withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. That withdrawal was followed by a long list of demands by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, which could set the stage for a US attack on Iran.

Co-sponsors of the Ellison amendment include Reps. Barbara Lee (D-California), Ro Khanna (D-California), Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois), Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) and Walter Jones (R-North Carolina).

“The unanimous passage of this bipartisan amendment is a strong and timely counter to the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iran deal and its increasingly hostile rhetoric,” Ellison said in a press release. “This amendment sends a powerful message that the American people and Members of Congress do not want a war with Iran. Today, Congress acted to reclaim its authority over the use of military force.”

Likewise, Khanna stated, “The War Powers Act and Constitution is clear that our country’s military action must first always be authorized by Congress. A war with Iran would be unconstitutional and costly.”

McGovern concurred, stating, “Congress is sending a clear message that President Trump does not have the authority to go to war with Iran. With President Trump’s reckless violation of the Iran Deal and failure to get Congressional approval for military strikes on Syria, there’s never been a more important time for Congress to reassert its authority. It’s long past time to end the White House’s blank check and the passage of this amendment is a strong start.”

Moreover, the Constitution only grants Congress the power to declare war. And the War Powers Resolution allows the president to introduce US Armed Forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities only after Congress has declared war, or in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” or when there is “specific statutory authorization.”

But even if the Ellison amendment survives the Senate and becomes part of the National Defense Authorization Act, Trump would likely violate it. He could target Iranian individuals as “suspected terrorists” on his global battlefield and/or attack them in Iran with military force under his new targeted killing rules.

Unilateral Sanctions Against Iran Are Illegal

Although the Ellison amendment states that no statute authorizes the use of US armed forces in Iran, it does not prohibit the expenditure of money to attack Iran. Nor does it proscribe the use of sanctions against Iran.

In fact, other amendments the House adopted mandate the imposition of sanctions against Iran.

An amendment introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Illinois) reflects the sense of Congress that “the ballistic missile program of Iran represents a serious threat to allies of the United States in the Middle East and Europe, members of the Armed Forces deployed in those regions, and ultimately the United States.”

The Roskam amendment then states the US government “should impose tough primary and secondary sanctions against any sector of the economy of Iran or any Iranian person that directly or indirectly supports the ballistic missile program of Iran as well as any foreign person or financial institution that engages in transactions or trade that support that program.”

And the House mandated the imposition of sanctions against people connected to named groups in Iran that “commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism,” in an amendment introduced by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas).

When Trump announced his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, he also reinstated US nuclear sanctions and “the highest level” of economic restrictions on Iran. Those sanctions could remove over one million barrels of Iran’s oil from the global market.

The unilateral imposition of sanctions by the United States, without United Nations Security Council approval, violates the UN Charter. Article 41 empowers the Council, and only the Council, to impose and approve the use of sanctions.

The other parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name for the Iran deal, oppose ending it. Known as P5+1, they include the permanent members of the Security Council—the US, the United Kingdom, Russia, France and China—plus Germany, as well as the European Union.

At a minimum, France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom are not likely to cooperate with the US’s re-imposition of sanctions.

Trump Administration Gunning for War on Iran and Regime Change

Before Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement, Iran was complying with its obligations under the pact.

Once Trump named John Bolton, notorious for advocating regime change in Iran, as national security adviser, it was a foregone conclusion the United States would pull out of the pact.

Pompeo also supported renunciation of the deal. His over-the-top demands on Iran include the cessation of all enrichment of uranium, even for peaceful purposes (which is permitted by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty).

“Taken together, the demands would constitute a wholesale transformation by Iran’s government, and they hardened the perception that what Trump’s administration really seeks is a change in the Iranian regime,” the Associated Press reported.

Jake Sullivan, who served in the Obama administration and was Hillary Clinton’s lead foreign policy advisor during the presidential campaign, said of the Pompeo demands, “They set the bar at a place they know the Iranians can never accept.”

Ellie Geranmayeh, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, called the demands “conditions of surrender.”

Meanwhile, it is unclear how long it will take to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act. Constituents who become aware of the risk of a US attack on Iran will invariably lobby their senators to include an admonition comparable to the House’s Ellison amendment.

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Primary Puts Native American Woman on Track for Congress

As primary results in dozens of races across the nation came in on Wednesday, climate action and immigrant rights groups were among those celebrating former New Mexico Democratic Party leader Deb Haaland’s victory in the primary for the state’s 1st congressional district.

“Deb Haaland’s primary win is a historic victory for the climate movement,” said May Boeve, executive director of 350 Action, in a statement. “Deb is the type of climate leader we’ve yet to see on Capitol Hill. She is inspiring people everywhere with her unapologetic progressive platform to stand up for Indigenous rights and keep fossil fuels in the ground. We need leadership like Deb’s in Congress to move us toward a fossil-free world that works for all of us.”

Haaland has focused her campaign on progressive causes including fighting against new fossil fuel infrastructure while expanding the use of renewable energy; repealing the Republican Party’s tax plan; enforcing a $15 federal minimum wage; defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which she calls “an out of control institution that is terrorizing American families”; and establishing Medicare for All.

LET’S GOOOOOOOOO @Deb4CongressNM supports a federal job guarantee, defunding ICE, 100 percent renewable energy economy, financial transactions tax, free childcare. https://t.co/ZrWvkbAtkh

— Nikhil Goyal (@nikhilgoya_l) June 6, 2018

Haaland is also one of the 2018 candidates supporting the defunding ICE: “It is time to pull our tax dollars from an agency whose policies demean and abuse people.” https://t.co/EhPsfdgmVu #DefundICE

— Gabe #DreamActNow Ortíz (@TUSK81) June 6, 2018

“Tonight, New Mexico made history,” Haaland said after gathering  38.9 percent of the vote on Tuesday evening, winning the primary with an 11 percent margin. The result, she said, was “a victory for working people, a victory for women, and a victory for everyone who has been sidelined by the billionaire class.”

“Donald Trump and the billionaire class should consider this victory a warning shot: the blue wave is coming,” she added.

Haaland’s candidacy also puts her on track to be the first Native American woman to serve in Congress.

Haaland is also one of the 2018 candidates supporting the defunding ICE: “It is time to pull our tax dollars from an agency whose policies demean and abuse people.” https://t.co/EhPsfdgmVu #DefundICE

— Gabe #DreamActNow Ortíz (@TUSK81) June 6, 2018

Haaland will run against Republican Janice Arnold-Jones in November. New Mexico’s 1st congressional district is considered solidly Democratic.

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Trump Commutes Kardashian-Backed Drug Offender’s Sentence

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump commuted the sentence Wednesday of a woman serving a life sentence for drug offenses whose cause was championed by reality TV star Kim Kardashian West in a recent visit to the White House.

Trump commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, two White House officials said. The 63-year old spent more than two decades behind bars and is not eligible for parole. The move comes amid a recent flurry of pardons issued by Trump, who has seemed drawn to causes advocated by conservatives, celebrities or those who once appeared on his former reality show, “The Apprentice.”

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the commutation before it was announced.

Related Articles









Man Sent Back to Prison After Receiving Commutation



by Emily Wells

The commutation puts a renewed focus on the Trump administration’s push for prison and sentencing reform, but which has sometimes clashed with the president’s law-and-order approach, especially at the Justice Department. Indeed, Trump has called for getting tougher on drug dealers, including suggesting some should receive the death penalty.

Johnson was convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts related to a Memphis-based cocaine trafficking operation involving more than a dozen people. The 1994 indictment describes dozens of deliveries and drug transactions, many involving Johnson.

She was sentenced to life in prison in 1997, and appellate judges and the U.S. Supreme Court have rejected her appeals. Court records show she has a motion pending for a reduction in her sentence, but federal prosecutors are opposed, saying in a court filing that the sentence is in accord with federal guidelines, based on the large quantity of drugs involved. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Memphis did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

A criminal justice advocacy site, CAN-DO, and one of Johnson’s attorneys say a request for clemency was rejected by former President Barack Obama. The reasons are unclear.

A 1997 Associated Press story on Johnson’s sentencing said she headed up a multimillion-dollar drug ring. But Memphis attorney Michael Scholl, who filed the latest court documents in her request for a sentence reduction, said she was not a leader in the cocaine operation.

“What is the purpose of putting a lady with no prior criminal record, on a nonviolent drug offense, in jail for her entire life?” he said in a telephone interview. “She’s a model inmate.”

Scholl added that Johnson has admitted her wrongdoing, which is borne out in letters she has written to U.S. District Judge Samuel H. Mays, who now oversees her case.

“Judge Mays I’m writing to you to express my deep remorse for the crime that I committed over 20 years ago. I made some bad choices which have not only affected my life, but have impacted my entire family,” she said in a February 2017 letter in the court record.

In a hand-scrawled letter last June she wrote: “I’m a broken woman. More time in prison cannot accomplish more justice.”

Kardashian West visited the White House in May to meet with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who is overseeing the administration’s push to overhaul the nation’s prison system. She also met with Trump in the Oval Office, a photograph of which the president released on Twitter.

In an interview with Mic released earlier this year, Kardashian West said she’d been moved by Johnson’s story after seeing a video by the news outlet on Twitter.

“I think that she really deserves a second chance at life,” Kardashian told Mic. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get her out.”

The commutation comes days after Trump pardoned conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who was convicted of a campaign finance violation, and granted a posthumous pardon to boxing’s first black heavyweight champion, clearing Jack Johnson’s name more than 100 years after what many saw as a racially charged conviction.

The boxer’s pardon had been championed by actor Sylvester Stallone, who Trump said had brought the story to his attention in a phone call.

Trump has also pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a staunch campaign supporter; Scooter Libby, who served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney; and a U.S. Navy sailor convicted of taking photos of classified portions of a sub. In May, he also suggested he was considering acting to commute the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving 14 years in prison for corruption, and celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart, convicted of insider trading.

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GOP, Democrats Dodge Disaster in California Primaries

LOS ANGELES—Republicans and Democrats alike appear to have escaped calamity in a crucial day of coast-to-coast primary battles as they fight to shape the political battlefield for the fall.

There was an especially big sigh of relief from the GOP Wednesday after the party avoided being entirely shut out of California’s November election of a new governor.

Republicans had feared that Democrats would win both of the governor’s spots in California’s unique top-two primary system. With no one to support at the top of the state ticket, the concern was that GOP voters would sit the election out, giving Democrats a big advantage in House races across the state that could help swing control of Congress.

There was less Democratic talk of a November “blue wave” on Wednesday. And President Donald Trump, crediting “the Trump impact,” said there might be “a big Red Wave” instead. But that seemed to be more of a typical presidential boast than a realistic analysis of the California results.

While some Golden State contests remained too close to call Wednesday, Republicans managed to get business executive John Cox on the November ballot for governor. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, easily captured the top spot to succeed term-limited Jerry Brown in the deeply Democratic state’s top office.

There will be no Republican candidate in the other big statewide race, for U.S. Senate. Democrats were fighting to avoid their own calamity, in California’s many competitive House districts, and appeared to have largely succeeded. The concern in their case was that so many candidates would divide the Democratic vote and let Republicans take the top two spots in some House races. After more votes were counted on Wednesday, the Democrats appeared to have avoided being shut out in nearly all of the state’s battleground contests.

Nationwide, Tuesday night was a big night for women, as female candidates for governor advanced, including Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico and Republican Kristi Noem in South Dakota. Female Republican governors in Alabama and Iowa will try for their first full terms after succeeding men who resigned. California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein also fared well, and will face fellow Democrat Kevin de Leon in November. Still, Trump was ready to celebrate. “Many more Republican voters showed up yesterday than the Fake News thought possible,” Trump tweeted.

California’s handful of competitive House races — more than a half dozen Republican-held seats may be in play — has made it hotly contested territory in the fight over control of the House, drawing big money and the spotlight on the biggest primary night of midterms. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats nationwide to retake the House.

Much of Tuesday’s drama focused on women, including former federal prosecutor and Navy pilot Mikie Sherrill, who bested a field of Democratic rivals to replace retiring New Jersey Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen. The favorite of Washington Democrats will take on GOP Assemblyman Jay Webber in one of several New Jersey races Democrats view as possible pickups.

In Alabama, four-term Republican Rep. Martha Roby was forced into a runoff election next month after failing to win 50 percent of her party’s vote. She will face former Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright in Alabama’s conservative 2nd district — where Trump loyalty has been a central issue. Roby was the first member of Congress to withdraw her endorsement of the Republican president in 2016 after he was caught on video bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.

In New Mexico, Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham won her party’s nomination in the race to succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Susana Martinez. If Grisham wins, she’ll be the state’s second Latino state executive.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey fended off three GOP challengers, while South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem became the first female nominee for governor in her state.

In Iowa, 28-year-old Democratic state Rep. Abby Finkenauer was trying to become the youngest woman to serve in Congress.And in New Mexico, former state Democratic Party Chairwoman Debra Haaland, a tribal member of Laguna Pueblo, won her primary and could become the first Native American woman in Congress if she wins this fall.Haaland said in her primary victory statement: “Donald Trump and the billionaire class should consider this victory a warning shot: the blue wave is coming.”

Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker won his primary contest as did New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat who faced federal bribery charges last year. The jury deadlocked, but Republicans hope to use Menendez’s legal troubles to tar other Democrats like Sherrill across the state.

Republican businessman Bob Hugin claimed the Republican nomination to face Menendez this fall.

In California, national Democrats spent more than $7 million trying to curb and repair the damage inflicted by Democrats attacking each other in districts opened by retiring Republican Reps. Ed Royce and Darrell Issa, and the district where Republican Dana Rohrabacher fended off a challenge from the right.

Republican Rep. Mimi Walters easily advanced to the November election in her Orange County district that has been targeted by Democrats.

And to the north, House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican, qualified for the general election ballot as well. Nunes is a polarizing figure in national politics given his support for Trump in one of the many investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A key Senate race took shape in the heart of Trump country as well.

Montana Republicans were picking a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, one of the most vulnerable senators in the nation. State Auditor Matt Rosendale won the GOP nomination.

___

Associated Press writers Amy Taxin in Huntington Beach, Sophia Bollag in Sacramento, David Porter in Montclair, New Jersey, and Kevin McGill in Picayune, Mississippi, contributed to this report.

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Judge in Brock Turner Sexual Assault Case Is Recalled

SAN FRANCISCO—The beginning of the end for the first California judge recalled since 1932 began almost exactly two years ago, when Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky sentenced a former Stanford swimmer convicted of sexual assault to six months in jail instead of a long prison term.

A statement from the victim captured the national spotlight, recounting the ordeal of the investigation and trial, where she was cross-examined about her drinking habits and sexual experience.

“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today,” she said in a statement read in court before the June 2016 sentencing of Brock Turner.

Within days, a politically connected Stanford law professor who was friends with the victim launched a campaign to recall the judge.

On Tuesday, Santa Clara County voters agreed and recalled the judge from office after his nearly 15-year career on the bench.

“The broader message of this victory is that violence against women is now a voting issue,” said Michele Dauber, an outspoken women’s rights campus activist who launched the recall effort. She said the local vote will resonate nationally and underscores the staying power of the #MeToo movement.

“This is a historical moment in time. Women are standing up for their rights and there is a national reckoning.”

Persky, who declined to comment Tuesday, said repeatedly that he couldn’t discuss the case that spurred the recall because Turner has appealed his conviction. But in a lengthy interview with The Associated Press last month, he said he didn’t regret the decision and was taken aback by the reaction.

“I expected some negative reaction,” Persky said. “But not this.”

Persky said he was adopting the probation department’s recommendation to spare Turner prison for several reasons, including Turner’s age, clean criminal record and the fact that both Turner and the victim were intoxicated.

“The problem with this recall is it will pressure judges to follow the rule of public opinion as opposed to the rule of law.”

The California Commission on Judicial Performance ruled that he handled the case legally. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen didn’t appeal the sentence.

The case sparked a national debate over the criminal justice system’s treatment of sexual assault victims and racial inequities in court.

Persky is white and holds undergraduate degrees from Stanford and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Many complained Persky showed too much deference to Turner, a white Stanford scholarship athlete whose parents could afford a private attorney. Activists pointed to numerous other cases in which minorities faced much harsher sentences for less egregious crimes.

The victim, who came to be known as Emily Doe, testified she was passed out behind a trash can when two men saw Turner on top of her. The two men, Swedish graduate students, yelled at Turner to stop and then chased him and held him down for police when tried to flee.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify sexual assault victims.

Persky said he took the victim’s experience into account when sentencing Turner.

But the judge said the publicity of Turner’s arrest and trial and the young man’s loss of a swimming scholarship also factored into his sentence. Turner is also required to register for life as a sex offender. Persky cited numerous letters of support friends, former teachers and employers wrote on behalf of Turner.

“I think you have to take the whole picture in terms of what impact imprisonment has on a specific individual’s life,” Persky said during the sentencing hearing.

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