Some unlucky — or perhaps just very bold — crossword author in Venezuela decided to include Adan (Hugo Chávez’s brother’s name), rafagas (which can refer to a burst of machine gun fire), and asesinen (which means “to kill”) in the same puzzle.
THE FEED
Trump’s belief that social media attacks can stand in for actual leadership has clearly made an impression on his political appointees at the State Department
[Trump’s tweeting of a Game of Thrones-style sanctions warning at Iran] crystallized the contentious divide between career diplomats at the State Department and Trump’s political appointees when it comes to messaging on Iran.
“If nobody is listening, it is useless,” explained a political appointee at the State Department. “We need something that jars people out of their complacency. If we can’t get people’s attention, then we are not communicating our policy. And we are certainly not going to get their attention if we bore them to death.” …
The way the administration has used Facebook to post anti-Iranian messages is another departure from the traditional use of that platform by the State Department. The Trump administration posted notices about US Iran sanctions on the Facebook pages of US embassies around the world in November – primarily in the Middle East. The Facebook pages have historically been used as forums to draw attention to US educational programs in the country or cross-cultural events, rather than sanctions rollouts. The posts provoked an angry response and career diplomats took notice.
In some cases the political appointees’ brainstorms for digital content and messaging have gone so far overboard that they have been shut down completely. Last year one of the political appointees called up the Iran desk with an idea to find a Persian bakery in Washington, have it make rocket-shaped cookies and send them to all the countries within missile-launching range of Iran. The idea was rejected before it turned into anything, but State Department diplomats tell CNN they have had to shut down many similar ideas.
Tweets from the personal accounts of political appointees have also made many career diplomats uncomfortable.
Beyond the Mueller probe…
As Cohen reportedly talks to investigators about insurance claims the Trump Org has filed over the years, it is worth revisiting this October 2016 story about a $17 million dollar claim for hurricane damage a Mar-a-Lago that no one remembers happening:https://t.co/dDXAvPxSpW
—@Susan_Hennessey
Manafort sentencing memo doesn’t seem to have revealed much new information
As I just said on CNN, I don’t see any new bombshells in the Manafort sentencing memorandum. Judge Jackson already knows so much about Manafort’s criminal activity and his recent lies, so there was no need for Mueller to repeat that information here.
Obviously Manafort is in an extremely difficult legal situation entirely due to his own misconduct. He decided not to cooperate until after he lost at trial in the Virginia case, and then blew up his own plea deal by lying.
He also committed new crimes while out on bond. Mueller suggested to the judge that she has the power to order that her sentence runs consecutive to the sentence Manafort receives in the Virginia case. There’s no serious question that he will receive a lengthy sentence and could die in prison.
He’s hoping for a pardon from Trump, but with the New York Attorney General ready to bring charges against him if he’s pardoned, it’s hard to see Manafort walking free soon, given that Trump can’t pardon convictions for state crimes.
via Twitter
More trouble at the Venezuela-Colombia border
Venezuelans are rushing to rescue boxes of emergency food and medicine from burning trucks stalled on a bridge to Colombia.
A large black cloud hung over the Francisco de Paula Santander bridge as protesters passed the boxes by hand and removed them from the blazing vehicles. Fernando Flores, an eyewitness who described himself as a lawmaker from Ecuador, said national guardsmen acting under orders from Nicolas Maduro had torched the trucks once they crossed into Venezuelan territory. ….
[Maduro also] announced he’s breaking all diplomatic ties with neighboring Colombia amid deepening political turmoil.
Oh what a tangled web he weaves
Prosecutors say Manafort lied to:
-tax preparers
-bookkeepers
-banks
-Treasury Department
-National Security Division of DOJ
-FBI
-Special Counsel’s Office
-grand jury
-his own legal counsel
-Members of Congress
-executive branch of US government
—@jimsciutto
-tax preparers
-bookkeepers
-banks
-Treasury Department
-National Security Division of DOJ
-FBI
-Special Counsel’s Office
-grand jury
-his own legal counsel
-Members of Congress
-executive branch of US government
Mueller did file Manafort sentencing memo last night (under seal) — and the 25-page redacted public version is now out
Mueller’s office has filed its redacted sentencing memo for Paul Manafort in his DC case. They’re not taking a position on how much prison time he should get, or whether it should stack on top of whatever he gets in his Virginia case. ( https://t.co/TLePiNxWsX pic.twitter.com/ZjGjxB0IlN ) …
The government’s sentencing memo notes that the estimated sentencing guideline range is 210-262 months, BUT: the legal maximum sentence for the two counts that Manafort pleaded guilty to is 10 years (5 years for each count.) So Manafort can’t get more than that in his DC case.
Buzzfeed News
First in Sleight
A judge has just thrown out two amendments to the North Carolina Constitution that voters approved in November. One of the amendments was to implement a voter ID requirement, and the other was a cap on the state income tax rate.
The North Carolina General Assembly is so gerrymandered that its members don’t truly represent the people of the state and thus should never have proposed constitutional amendments in the first place, Wake County Superior Court Judge G. Bryan Collins wrote in his ruling that was issued late Friday afternoon.
“An illegally constituted General Assembly does not represent the people of North Carolina and is therefore not empowered to pass legislation that would amend the state’s constitution,” he wrote.
When the legislature wrote the amendments and voted to place them on the 2018 ballot, many of the members who voted to do so had been elected under district lines that were ruled unconstitutional because they had been drawn to dilute the political power of African-American voters.
The president’s new nominee for U.N. ambassador is a big Trump donor and top Trump hotel patron whose husband is a billionaire coal executive
[Kelly] Craft, 56, was a business executive and philanthropist before serving as ambassador to Canada. Her husband, Joe Craft, is president and chief executive of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners. The couple are major Republican donors, having given about $1.5 million to GOP candidates in 2016, including $270,800 to Trump’s campaign committee or his joint fundraising committee with the Republican National Committee.
The Crafts also have been repeat, high-paying customers at Trump’s hotel in Washington, according to a list of “VIP Arrivals” distributed to hotel staff on June 19, 2018. That list, obtained by The Washington Post, was intended to help staff identify the Trump International Hotel’s most important customers as they checked in.
The Crafts were listed as gold-level members of the Trump Card rewards program when they checked in for a three-day stay. They were also described as “high-rate” customers, and their listing bore the notation R(20), which former Trump Hotels employees have said indicates customers who’ve stayed at least 20 times. That was an unusually high number among the hundreds of Trump hotel guests whose VIP listings have been reviewed by The Post. …
Craft made headlines shortly after assuming her post in Canada when she told Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News that she believes “both sides” of the climate change debate. … Climate change is a major issue at the U.N., which sponsored the 2015 Paris climate accords that President Trump has disavowed.
IRS claims 17 percent drop in tax-refund amounts isn’t as bad as it seems
The average tax refund issued so far this year is down by 17 percent, the IRS said, a steep decline that promises more headaches for Republican lawmakers. The agency released data late Friday showing refunds are down for the third consecutive week, with the typical payment made through Feb. 15 totaling $2,703, compared to $3,256 during the same period last year.
This filing season is the first under Republicans’ overhaul of the tax code, and lawmakers have already been under fire as some taxpayers find their expected refunds smaller or gone altogether. The payments are sacrosanct to many Americans who rely on them to fill holes in their budgets.
The administration blamed the decline on what it said was a quirk in year-over-year comparisons. The agency typically issues a large amount of payments in February to people claiming they earned income tax credit, a wage supplement program for the working poor, as well as a tax credit for having children. That has skewed comparisons, a Treasury Department spokesperson said, because last year’s batch of data happened to include more of those payments than does this year’s.
“We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used.”
In a letter addressed to top executives, a group of Microsoft workers is demanding the company drop a controversial contract with the United States Army.
The workers object to the company taking a $479 million contract last year to supply tech for the military’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS. Under the project, Microsoft, the maker of the HoloLens augmented reality headset, could eventually provide more than 100,000 headsets designed for combat and training in the military. The Army has described the project as a way to “increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy.”
“We are alarmed that Microsoft is working to provide weapons technology to the US Military, helping one country’s government ‘increase lethality’ using tools we built,” the workers write in the letter, addressed to CEO Satya Nadella and president Brad Smith. “We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used.”
Leaked internal emails appear to reveal that Facebook almost violated Zuckerberg’s privacy, too
Documents posted online Friday appear to be confidential internal Facebook communications that reveal new details of the company’s treatment of user data. About 60 pages of un-redacted exhibits from a lawsuit between Facebook and Six4Three, an app developer, were posted anonymously on GitHub on Friday. They include emails between various Facebook executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and a “highly confidential” 2012 memo detailing various policy matters. …
The new cache of emails appears to refer to what could have been a catastrophic privacy breach for Facebook: a near-miss situation in which a third-party app could have disclosed the company’s financial results ahead of schedule. In an email thread, the former Facebook vice-president Michael Vernal refers to some kind of issue with an app, noting that it “could have been near-fatal for Facebook Platform / Login / etc”.
“Wow that would have been a disaster,” responds Avichal Garg, a former director of product management at Facebook.
“If Mark had accidentally disclosed earnings ahead of time because a platform app violated his privacy … literally, that would have basically been fatal for Login / Open Graph / etc”, Vernal responded.
Top cardinal admits the Catholic Church destroyed abuse records, failed to protect children
A top cardinal has admitted that the global Catholic Church destroyed files to prevent documentation of decades of sexual abuse of children, telling the prelates attending Pope Francis’ clergy abuse summit Feb. 23 that such maladministration led “in no small measure” to more children being harmed.
In a frank speech to the 190 cardinals, bishops and heads of religious orders taking part in the four-day summit, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said the church’s administration had left victims’ rights “trampled underfoot” and “made it impossible” for the worldwide institution to fulfill its mission.
“Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created,” said Marx, beginning a list of a number of practices that survivors have documented for years but church officials have long kept under secret.
“Instead of the perpetrators, the victims were regulated and silence imposed on them,” the cardinal continued. “The stipulated procedures and processes for the prosecution of offences were deliberately not complied with, but instead cancelled or overridden.”
Pushing back on the blockade
Photo: Venezuelans confront national policemen demanding them to let the humanitarian aid in, at the Simon Bolivar bridge, in Cucuta, Colombia after President Nicolas Maduro's government ordered to temporary close down the border with Colombia on February 23, 2019. (Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images)
Trouble at the Venezuela border
Venezuela’s National Guard fired tear gas on residents clearing a barricaded border bridge to Colombia on Saturday, heightening tensions over blocked humanitarian aid that opposition leader Juan Guaido has vowed to bring into the country despite President Nicolas Maduro’s defiant refusal to accept assistance.
The opposition is calling on masses of Venezuelans to escort trucks carrying the nearly 200 metric tons of emergency food and medical supplies sent largely by the United States over the last two weeks across several border bridges.
But clashes started at dawn in the Venezuelan border town of Urena, when residents began removing yellow metal barricades and barbed wire blocking the Francisco de Paula Santander bridge. Venezuela’s National Guard responded forcefully, firing tear gas on the protesters, some of them masked youth throwing rocks, who demanded that the aid pass through.
Reemerging from digital distraction’s distortion field
Steve Jobs wasn’t exaggerating when he described the iPhone as a kind of magical object, and it’s truly wild that in the span of a few years, we’ve managed to turn these amazing talismanic tools into stress-inducing albatrosses. It’s as if scientists had invented a pill that gave us the ability to fly, only to find out that it also gave us dementia.
But there is a way out. I haven’t taken an M.R.I. or undergone a psychiatric evaluation, but I’d bet that something fundamental has shifted inside my brain in the past month. A few weeks ago, the world on my phone seemed more compelling than the offline world — more colorful, faster-moving and with a bigger scope of rewards.
I still love that world, and probably always will. But now, the physical world excites me, too — the one that has room for boredom, idle hands and space for thinking. I no longer feel phantom buzzes in my pocket or have dreams about checking my Twitter replies. I look people in the eye and listen when they talk. I ride the elevator empty-handed. And when I get sucked into my phone, I notice and self-correct.
It’s not a full recovery, and I’ll have to stay vigilant. But for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel like a human again.
The Times tech columnist (and Intelligencer alum) writes about his struggle with phone addiction
Make Qatar great again
A former national field director for President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign registered as a foreign agent of Qatar late last year, the latest figure in Trump’s orbit to profit from a scramble by Gulf states to win favor in Washington.
Qatar’s hiring of the operative, Stuart Jolly, adds to the list of allies of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski that have forged ties to Qatar, a gas-rich nation currently under a blockade that Saudi Arabia and others imposed over allegations that the country was funding terrorism and too cozy with Iran, among other grievances. The dispute has set off an intense, and lucrative, struggle for influence in Washington. Both sides have dished out millions of dollars to lobbyists and public relations firms as they compete for favorable treatment from the Trump administration and Congress.
Qatar’s government has already put Lewandowski’s former lobbying firm, Avenue Strategies, on a $500,000 monthly retainer, and it has arranged interviews and travel for a Lewandowski friend, radio host John Fredericks, who sometimes broadcasts his show from the Capitol Hill row house known as the “Lewandowski Embassy.”
Doha hopes the U.S. government — which maintains a strategically vital airbase in the country — will pressure its neighbors to end the blockade. Jolly’s contract called for him to help Qatar arrange meetings with U.S. officials.
technology
When the Alt-right Loves Your App
It appears that the Mueller investigation missed its Friday night deadline to file a sentencing memo in Paul Manafort’s case. BuzzFeed News reporter Zoe Tillman lays out some reasons why:
Mueller’s sentencing memo in Paul Manafort’s DC case was due today … here’s what may be going on assuming it doesn’t show up in the next 45 min:
1. They’ve filed under seal, and once a redacted version is okay’d we’ll get it soon.
2. They missed the deadline. Option 1 is what’s happened in the past during the plea deal breach briefing (and sometimes the lawyers wouldn’t publicly confirm they’d filed at all), and is much more likely than option
Democrats are calling for the resignation of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta after a federal judge ruled that he had violated victims’ rights in the Jeffrey Epstein case when he a prosecutor in Florida
Three House Democrats are collecting signatures for a letter calling on President Trump to demand the resignation of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta.
“Despite abundant evidence and multiple witnesses still willing to come forward, then-U.S. Attorney Acosta failed to charge Epstein under federal trafficking laws, which could have put Epstein away for life,” the letter states. “Instead, he pleaded guilty to far lesser prostitution-related charges and served only 13 months in a private wing of a county jail but was able to leave 6 days a week for 12 hours at a time.”
“As Members of Congress we are committed to ensuring that those who occupy top positions in the federal government are held to the highest standards of the law,” they said. “We strongly believe that Secretary Acosta was negligent in his duty to represent the best interests of the victims and the U.S. Government. As such, we request that you immediately demand his letter of resignation.”
The former Enron CEO has been released after 12 years in federal custody
Jeffrey Skilling, the onetime chief of Enron Corp who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for his conviction on charges stemming from the company’s spectacular collapse, has been released from federal custody, the Houston Chronicle reported on Thursday.
Skilling, 65, was moved in August 2018 from an Alabama prison camp to a residential re-entry facility in Houston, where Enron was based before crumbling into bankruptcy in 2001 amid revelations of widespread accounting fraud and corruption.
A Houston-based jury in May 2006 convicted Skilling of 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors. In his role as CEO he maintained a facade of success as Enron’s energy business imploded.
Trump’s approval in South Dakota is down 15 net points since his inauguration
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said Friday that President Donald Trump’s trade wars have “devastated” her state, and though she agreed that countries like China were not following fair trade practices, she urged the Trump administration to quickly wrap up its trade talks there.
“South Dakota has been devastated by the trade wars that are going on,” Noem said at POLITICO’s State Solutions Conference, noting that agriculture is “by far” the largest industry in the state. The Republican governor warned that the trade woes of farmers can trickle down to the rest of the state, impacting “every main street business, everybody that has another entity out there that relies on a successful ag industry.”
Another platform takes on anti-vaxers
YouTube on Friday said it would prevent channels that promote anti-vax content from running advertising, saying explicitly that such videos fall under its policy prohibiting the monetization of videos with “dangerous and harmful” content. The move comes after advertisers on YouTube pulled their ads from these videos, following inquiries from BuzzFeed News.
Earlier this week, BuzzFeed News found that while YouTube usually returns a top search result for queries like “are vaccines safe” from an authorized source such as a children’s hospital, its Up Next algorithm frequently suggested follow up recommendations for anti-vaccination videos.
green new deal
Dianne Feinstein Fumbles in Meeting With Young Activists Over Green New Deal
An LIC landlord reportedly paid protestors to rally for Amazon in Queens
Some of the pro-Amazon protesters who rallied against the company’s decision to cancel its move to Long Island City last week were secretly paid to be there, possibly by a landlord miffed over his inability to raise rents.
Two participants in the rally told the outlet that they’d responded to a Craigslist ad promising to pay $30/hour if they held signs decrying Amazon’s departure outside the company’s retail location on 34th Street. The rally was organized by Sammy Musovic, a landlord who owns several Queens buildings, as well as Manhattan restaurants Sojourn, Vero and Selena Rosa Mexicana.
The forever war inside the VA: providing competent healthcare for veterans
Federal union officials accused the Veterans Affairs Department of undermining its own health care system by not filling thousands of open department health positions while they push new rules covering more medical appointments at private-sector hospitals.
At issue are nearly 49,000 empty posts within VA, just under 12 percent of the 420,000-plus jobs there. Department officials said that vacancy rate is normal for the sprawling bureaucracy, noting that they had a net increase of more than 3,000 employees last quarter.
The current number of vacancies is greater than the approximately 35,000 positions that were open 18 months ago, when critics and lawmakers first accused department leaders of not doing enough to keep the agency fully staffed. It’s also above the 45,000 unfilled slots reported last September.
Normally, the Times’ real estate page makes the paper’s best case for class warfare, but this feature on elite malaise is in the competition
“I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told me. “When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.” He recognized the incredible privilege of his pay and status, but his anguish seemed genuine. “If you spend 12 hours a day doing work you hate, at some point it doesn’t matter what your paycheck says,” he told me. There’s no magic salary at which a bad job becomes good. He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said.
Meredith Watson, the second woman to come forward alleging Justin Fairfax sexually assaulted her, has agreed to testify in Virginia
Meredith Watson is gratified that the Virginia General Assembly has announced their intention to hold hearings, and she looks forward to testifying at this forum.
It is our understanding that the hearing will be public and televised and that Ms. Watson, Dr. Tyson and Lt. Governor Fairfax will all testify under oath and be subject to the same rules and requirements, including our right to present witnesses and corroborators.
abortion
New Trump Administration Rule Restricts Federal Funding for Planned Parenthood
Craft, a businesswoman and current U.S. ambassador to Canada, donated $270,800 to the Trump campaign in 2016
I am pleased to announce that Kelly Knight Craft, our current Ambassador to Canada, is being nominated to be United States Ambassador to the United Nations….
Dianne Feinstein mishandles a conversation with young climate activists hoping to get her to support the Green New Deal
Young activist one: Senator, if this doesn’t get turned around in 10 years you’re looking at the faces of the people who are going to be living with the consequences.
Young activist two: The government is supposed to be for the people, and by the people, and all for the people.
Dianne Feinstein: You know what’s interesting about this group, is I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’m doing, you come in here, and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don’t respond to that. I’ve gotten elected, I just ran. I was elected by a million vote plurality.
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