Mosque developer Park51 has been leasing its building from Con Ed, which says it is owed $1.7 million in back rent — after raising the rent by 1,600 percent in August — and has threatened eviction. [NYP]
THE FEED
She’s not running, but…
Former first lady Michelle Obama tied with former Vice President Joe Biden as the top choice among Democratic voters when asked who should be the party’s nominee in 2020.
A Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday found that 25 percent of Democrats said they would back Obama in the party primary over nine other declared or potential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas).
Obama has said she is not running, and Biden has not announced whether he will launch another White House bid.
Is Dan Coats next on the Trump chopping block?
President Trump has grown increasingly disenchanted with Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, who has served as the nation’s top intelligence official for nearly two years, leading some administration officials to worry he will soon be dismissed, according to people familiar with the matter.
The president has never seen Coats as a close or trusted adviser, the people said, but he has become more frustrated with him in recent weeks over public statements that Trump sees as undercutting his policy goals, particularly with respect to reaching a disarmament agreement with North Korea.
The people familiar with the matter, who like others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, did not believe that Coats would be fired immediately but said that Trump is considering removing him. They also noted that Trump sometimes grows angry with officials but stops short of dismissing them.
Virginia voters don’t know what should become of their scandal-plagued state leaders
Among black respondents, 24% said Gov. Ralph Northam should resign, while 38% were against it, 22% refused to answer and the rest weren’t sure. As for Mr. Fairfax, 8% of black residents surveyed think he should step down, 29% didn’t think he should, 41% weren’t sure and 22% wouldn’t answer.
Residents are “just not sure what to think because this is unprecedented,” said Larry Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “They are clearly waiting and seeing.”
Among all survey respondents, 31% said Mr. Northam should resign, while 43% said he shouldn’t, and 26% were either unsure or didn’t answer, according to results reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. For Mr. Fairfax, 35% said they believe he should resign while 25% said he shouldn’t, and 40% were undecided or refused to answer.
Trump knew Jeffrey Rosen was the right person to replace Rod Rosenstein when he realized he wouldn’t have to remember an entirely different name
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he intends to nominate Jeffrey Rosen, a longtime litigator and deputy transportation secretary, to replace Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general.
In his current post, the 60-year-old Rosen serves as the Transportation Department’s chief operating officer and is in charge of implementing the department’s safety and technological priorities. He rejoined DOT in 2017 after previously serving as general counsel from 2003 to 2006.
From 2006 until 2009, Rosen was the general counsel and a senior policy adviser at the White House Office of Management and Budget. He also worked as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
Rosen held a variety of positions, including senior partner, at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the same law firm as the new attorney general, William Barr. Rosen spent nearly 30 years at Kirkland & Ellis in a variety of management roles, including acting as the co-head of the firm’s Washington office, he told senators at his confirmation hearing in March 2017.
New Hampshirites are very upset that California senator Kamala Harris hasn’t made them a priority
Harris, at the event, went out of her way in pledging to be active in the state, “to shake every hand that I possibly can.”
But history is not on her side. And her chances of capturing New Hampshire were viewed with such a jaundiced eye by local media that one of Harris’ first exchanges during a two-day swing — with an in-state reporter — included a not-so-subtle reminder that she waited weeks after announcing her White House bid to travel to the Granite State.
“We’re glad you’re here,” the reporter told Harris. Then he asked whether her absence helped feed the perception that New Hampshire isn’t a high priority.
Another interviewer — this one on ABC affiliate WMUR — was more direct: “We haven’t seen much of you in the previous two years. Why was that?” he asked. “The narrative is out there, I guess, that ‘Sen. Harris is focusing elsewhere.’”
We at Google are very sorry for hiding a microphone in your Nest Guard. Rest assured, we’ve been secretly listening to all of your complaints
In early February, Google announced that its home security and alarm system Nest Secure would be getting an update — users could now enable its virtual assistant technology, Google Assistant.
The problem: Nest users didn’t know a microphone even existed on their security device to begin with.
The existence of a microphone on the Nest Guard (which is the alarm, keypad, and motion sensor component in the Nest Secure offering) was never disclosed in any of the product material for the device.
On Tuesday, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider the company had made an “error.”
“The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs. That was an error on our part,” the spokesperson said.
Just assume everyone is lying, except when they say something that validates our dear leader’s narrative
These people plan to keep promoting bits from “The Threat,” which has rocketed past Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” to #1 on Amazon’s best-sellers list, that support their “deep state” narrative. They also plan to argue that the rest of the former FBI deputy director’s claims are a pack of lies.
The part they’ll trumpet as true: McCabe’s comments about discussions, at the highest rungs of the FBI, about removing Trump from office.
Trump and his allies view this as vindicating his narrative that there’s a Deep State “coup” afoot. That’s why Trump — and surrogates like former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino — have been amplifying McCabe’s revelation about internal conversations about the 25th Amendment, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein volunteering to wear a wire.
vision 2020
Big Trend Among Democratic Presidential Candidates: Capitalism
If Trump is reelected, we might get to see what happens when the president defaults on $340 million of loans from a foreign bank
Top Deutsche Bank AG executives were so concerned after the 2016 U.S. election that the Trump Organization might default on about $340 million of loans while Donald Trump was in office that they discussed extending repayment dates until after the end of a potential second term in 2025, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.
Members of the bank’s management board, including then Chief Executive Officer John Cryan, were leery of the public relations disaster they would face if they went after the assets of a sitting president, said the people, who asked for anonymity because the discussions were private.
The bank ultimately decided against restructuring the loans to the Trump Organization, which come due in 2023 and 2024, and chose instead not to do any new business with Trump while he is president, one of the people said.
political science
Trump’s EPA Is Risking the Health of a Generation of American Children
covington catholic
Covington Catholic Teen Sues Washington Post for a Reasonable $250 Million
Say goodbye to the Bramble Cay melomys, the first mammal to go extinct from circumstances created by climate change
Photo: Ian Bell/EHP
“Higher Fox News viewership increases incarceration length, and the effect is stronger for black defendants and for drug-related crimes,” according to a new report from Columbia and ETH Zurich professors.
Higher Fox News viewership increases judges’ punitiveness, leading to longer incarceration, especially for black defendants & drug-related crimes & for elected judges
7 million sentencing decisions tied to Fox News channel position#SocSciResearch https://t.co/Oe6PzuBqmZ
—@mattgrossmann
7 million sentencing decisions tied to Fox News channel position#SocSciResearch https://t.co/Oe6PzuBqmZ
The House is coming for Betsy DeVos
With control of the House and Senate divided, and President Trump in charge of the executive branch, the prospects for the House Democrats’ legislative agenda for education may be limited, but their appetite for oversight of the Education Department appears limitless.
“One of the problems we had in the minority is we asked a lot of questions that have not been answered,” Mr. Scott said in an interview. “Now that we’re in the majority, we can ask the same questions with the expectation that we’ll get an answer.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Scott added to a pile of inquiries stacking up at the department, this time questioning a recent move to replace the Education Department’s acting inspector general, who is investigating Ms. DeVos’s decision to reinstate a troubled accreditor of for-profit colleges and universities. Among other answers he is still waiting for is Ms. DeVos’s justifications for rescinding policies meant to protect black students from being disproportionately suspended and placed in special education and student borrowers from predatory lenders and higher-education diploma mills.
California Governor Gavin Newsom called the Trump administration’s withdrawal of federal funds “retribution” for the state’s decision to sue over the national emergency
In a letter to state officials, Federal Railroad Administrator Ronald Batory said the administration is planning to revoke its grant agreement with the California High-Speed Rail Authority, and halt $928.6 million in future grant payments it was expected to make to fund the project through 2022.
A former Transportation Department official questioned whether the FRA could snuff out the project so easily.
“As much as the Trump administration would like to think they can simply decide to kill a major infrastructure project that has already created thousands of multiyear jobs, it doesn’t work like that,” said the official, who worked in the Obama administration. “It’s actually not as easy as sending a tweet, or even a letter. My money is on this project going forward.”
A new report states Timothy Dean, the second man to be found dead in the home of Democratic donor Ed Buck, had warned friends about his behavior
Powerful Democratic donor Ed Buck solicited Timothy Dean for months prior to Dean’s suspicious death in Buck’s home, according to close friends, speaking out for the first time.
Five friends told The Daily Beast that Dean characterized Buck as predatory.
“Ed Buck hits me up all the time, and I don’t answer none of his text messages,” he said, according to [friend DeMarco Majors]. “Don’t you take your ass over there.”
Majors didn’t know Buck, he told Dean. Still, Dean insisted that Majors steer clear of Buck. Majors said Dean pulled out his phone and opened his texts. He scrolled upward with a flick of his thumb.
“There were all these messages [from Buck], and Tim didn’t respond to none of them,” Majors told The Daily Beast.
Long-shot Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg is the first 2020 hopeful to comment on court packing
.@PeteButtigieg on court packing: “It’s no more a departure from norms than what the Republicans did to get the judiciary to the place it is today….Bold, ambitious ideas need a hearing right now.”
—@Lis_Smith
July 2018 — the month Trump attacked the Russia investigations most since becoming president — was also the month Mueller indicted the “12 Russians,” and Trump and Vladimir Putin did their joint press conference
Photo: New York Times
Ethics agreements are a particular problem within the Trump administration
New: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross violated his ethics agreement and submitted a financial disclosure form that “was not accurate,” according to the Office of Government Ethics. Ross reported he had sold bank stock that other reports indicate he did not sell.
—@jimsciutto
The Executive may not be the only government branch attempting to erode laws protecting nature
BREAKING: Supreme Court agrees to consider limiting scope of Clean Water Act, accepts Hawaii case centering on treated wastewater that ends up in Pacific Ocean.
—@GregStohr
Elizabeth Warren’s comprehensive plan to treat the opioid epidemic reads like a solution to a public health crisis, not a criminal problem
As a US senator for Massachusetts, Warren has built a formidable record on the opioid crisis, which now kills more Americans than gun violence or car crashes. She’s called for more research into alternative painkillers, including medical marijuana. She’s tried to holdPresident Donald Trump’s administration accountable for its weak response, even pushing a government watchdog agency to investigate the administration.
And Warren, along with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), in 2018 introduced what experts regularly cite as the best bill in Congress on the issue: the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act. The bill would authorize $100 billion over 10 years to combat drug addiction, funneling money to cities, counties, and states — particularly those hardest hit by drug overdoses — and other organizations to boost spending on addiction treatment, harm reduction services, and prevention programs.
The bill “is the only one that really grasps the nettle of how big the problem is,” Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University, told me. “Whatever else people might say about it, this is the first thing that really recognizes that [the opioid crisis] is a massive public health problem, like AIDS, and is not going to be solved by a tweak here, a tweak there.”
You, too, could be Chad Ochocinco’s Fort Lauderdale neighbor
The Florida house where Roger Stone was arrested in a dramatic predawn raid by the FBI in January is now up for rent. The longtime associate of President Trump is moving out of the Fort Lauderdale residence he leased and into a smaller nearby apartment to save money for his legal defense, his wife wrote in an email last week.
Ted Scouten from CBS Miami spotted a “for rent” sign outside the home on Tuesday.
Stone has been appealing for donations to a legal defense fund to help fray his mounting legal costs. Nydia Stone, his wife, sent an email to supporters last week asking them to contribute: “We are facing a two million dollar cost for lawyers In order to fight the bogus charges against my husband who at 66 years old is facing a potential 45 year prison sentence for crimes he did not commit.”
politics
CNN Hires Former Spokeswoman for Jeff Sessions to Coordinate 2020 Coverage
The blood of the youth is bunk
Taking a young person’s plasma and infusing it into an older person to ward off aging – a therapy that’s fascinated some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley – has no proven clinical benefit, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The agency issued a safety alert on Tuesday about the infusion of plasma from young donors for the prevention of conditions such as aging or memory loss, or for the treatment of such conditions as dementia, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease or post‐traumatic stress disorder.
The idea of infusing young blood to fight aging has attracted technology entrepreneurs like billionaire Peter Thiel and was lampooned in a 2017 episode of the HBO show “Silicon Valley.” Thiel’s reported interest was sparked by a company called Ambrosia, which has locations in five states across the U.S. and sells one liter of blood plasma from donors between the ages of 16 and 25 for $8,000, according to its website.
Law professor Aziz Huq lays out the argument that the Supreme Court’s decision on the travel ban determines that Trump’s national emergency is legitimate.
The parallels between the travel ban and the wall cases are too precise and too plural to be ignored. Even if you think the court’s endorsement of the travel ban wrong—as I have argued—it would be a grave error to ignore its predictive quality.
What will the Supreme Court do when confronted by (1) the president’s invocation of a broadly worded statute, (2) to enact a scattershot, arguably racialized form of border control, (3) where there are colorable arguments that president has not satisfied the statute’s triggers for extraordinary action, and (4) in any case, the executive’s own words and data show that the policy is unwarranted?
If the policy’s challengers point to the president’s own statements on Friday, or his own past conduct in the context of budget negotiations to show that there is no border emergency, or that the real motive at work is to fulfill a campaign promise with 2020 in mind, the court would then remind them, again quoting the travel ban decision, that it is not “the statements of a particular president,” but rather “the authority of the presidency itself” that is at issue. In effect, the court here said that it would refuse to take Trump at his word, and instead ignore evidence of either flawed motive or insufficient justifications.
The fact that the president’s aim of circumventing Congress’s control of appropriations is arguably unconstitutional matters no more than the president’s expressions of animus mattered in the travel ban case.
Not a great look for McKinsey, coming off last year’s revelation that the political consulting firm has helped authoritarian governments further their agendas
McKinsey “instructed the drug company on how to ‘turbocharge’ sales of OxyContin, how to counter efforts to reduce opioid use, and were part of a team that looked at how “to counter the emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed” https://t.co/gZKZZyx3RH
—@tomgara
The hiring of a hard-right operative to help guide CNN’s 2020 coverage has, predictably, not gone over very well among the journalists there
The hiring was met with a negative internal reaction, especially because many CNN staffers have been largely left in the dark on the controversial decision. While other marquee hires are often announced internally, as of Tuesday afternoon the company has not circulated any guidance to staff about Isgur’s new role, leading employees to wonder how much of a role she will have in day-to-day political reporting.
“It’s extremely demoralizing for everyone here,” one network editorial staffer told The Daily Beast.
“People are generally confused,” another editorial employee said, adding that the decision to hire a partisan operative for an editorial position comes off as “very bizarre.”
the swamp
Trump Aides Pushed to Illegally Transfer Nuclear Technology to Saudis: Report
viral video
Kirsten Gillibrand Couldn’t Keep This College Student From Her Ranch Dressing
ancestry
How a Viral Video of Cybergoths Presaged the Emote Dance Craze
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