AUGUST 24 AND 25, 2018


NEWS AND VIEWS


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-trump-world-tower-doorman-releases-catch-and-kill-contract-about-alleged-trump-affair/ar-BBMpf93?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
CNN
Ex-Trump World Tower doorman releases 'catch-and-kill' contract about alleged Trump affair
By Sonia Moghe, CNN
AUGUST 25, 2018 8 hrs ago

A former Trump World Tower doorman who says he has knowledge of an alleged affair President Donald Trump had with an ex-housekeeper, which resulted in a child, is now able to talk about a contract he entered with American Media Inc. that had prohibited him from discussing the matter with anyone, according to his attorney.
On Friday, Marc Held -- the attorney for Dino Sajudin, the former doorman -- said his client had been released from his contract with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, "recently" after back-and-forth discussions with AMI.

CNN has exclusively obtained a copy of the "source agreement" between Sajudin and AMI, which is owned by David Pecker.

The contract appears to have been signed on Nov. 15, 2015, and states that AMI has exclusive rights to Sajudin's story but does not mention the details of the story itself beyond saying, "Source shall provide AMI with information regarding Donald Trump's illegitimate child..."

The contract states that "AMI will not owe Source any compensation if AMI does not publish the Exclusive..." and the top of the agreement shows that Sajudin could receive a sum of $30,000 "payable upon publication as set forth below."

But the third page of the agreement shows that about a month later, the parties signed an amendment that states that Sajudin would be paid $30,000 within five days of receiving the amendment. It says the "exclusivity period" laid out in the agreement "is extended in perpetuity and shall not expire."

The amendment also establishes a $1 million payment that Sajudin would be responsible for making to AMI "in the event Source breaches this provision."

"Mr. Sajudin has been unable to discuss the circumstances regarding his deal with American Media Inc. and the story that he sold to them, due to a significant financial penalty," Held told CNN. "Just recently, AMI released Mr. Sajudin from the terms of his agreement and he is now able to speak about his personal experience with them, as well as his story, which is now known to be one of the 'catch and kill' pieces. Mr. Sajudin hopes the truth will come out in the very near future."

In April, Sajudin told CNN he claims to have knowledge of a relationship Trump had with his former housekeeper that resulted in a child.

At the time, AMI called Sajudin's story "not credible" and denied any connection between the story and Trump and his then-personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie© Photo Illustration: Mark Kauzlarich/ Getty Images / CNNMoney

The White House did not respond to CNN's requests for comments in April.

CNN has contacted AMI to clarify whether Sajudin has now been released from the contract to be able to speak on terms of the agreement and to seek reaction on this latest development, but has yet to receive a response.

Sajudin's allegation that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock has not been independently confirmed by any of the outlets that have investigated the story.

Held said he cannot give the exact date the agreement was terminated, per another agreement the attorney made with AMI in order to get his client out of the contract.

Held said that now that Sajudin has been released from the agreement with AMI, he would no longer be liable for a payment for speaking out.

"He's a blue-collar worker and a million dollars would have ruined him for life," Held told CNN.

What the doorman claims to know

When the story surfaced in April, Sajudin told CNN about the alleged relationship in a statement:

"Today I awoke to learn that a confidential agreement that I had with AMI (The National Enquirer) with regard to a story about President Trump was leaked to the press. I can confirm that while working at Trump World Tower I was instructed not to criticize President Trump's former housekeeper due to a prior relationship she had with President Trump, which produced a child."

The Associated Press reported in April that Cohen "acknowledged to the AP that he had discussed Sajudin's story with the magazine when the tabloid was working on it. He said he was acting as a Trump spokesman when he did so and denied knowing anything beforehand about the Enquirer payment to the ex-doorman."

Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges of tax fraud, false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations tied to his work for Trump.

In that deal, he pleaded guilty to paying $130,000 to former adult film star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to conceal her story of an alleged affair with Trump. He also pleaded guilty to working with AMI to pay off former Playboy model Karen McDougal in a similar "catch and kill" agreement in order to keep her allegations of an affair with Trump from being published. Trump has denied an affair with both women.

Pecker has received immunity in the Cohen case for providing details of the payments to prosecutors, a source confirmed to CNN on Friday.


POLITICS ACTUALLY IS, TO A GREAT DEGREE A SWAMP, BUT THERE ARE GREAT PEOPLE THERE, TOO. JOHN MCCAIN WAS ONE OF THOSE MEN. I NOT ONLY RESPECTED HIM, I LOVED HIM FOR BEING WHAT HE WAS -- A TRUE ROLE MODEL, WHO HADN’T FORGOTTEN HOW TO BE WARM AND CARING. HEAVEN BLESS HIM. I COLLECTED THIS TOP ARTICLE IN EARLY AFTERNOON, AND NOW AT 9:20 PM HE IS DECEASED, AND UNDOUBTEDLY AT PEACE. READ THE AZCENTRAL ARTICLE HERE ON HIS DEATH, PERSONAL HISTORY AND FAMILY.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2018/08/25/john-mccain-dead-arizona-senator-republican-maverick-obituary/538330001/?csp=chromepush

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45301232
Senator John McCain discontinuing cancer treatment
AUGUST 24, 2018 5 minutes ago

PHOTOGRAPH -- US Senator John McCain of Arizona has been battling cancer since last summer GETTY IMAGES

US Republican Senator John McCain will no longer be continuing treatment for his brain cancer, his family has announced.

Mr McCain, 81, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain tumour last summer and had been undergoing treatment since July 2017.

He left Washington to be with his family in Arizona, though he has still been a vocal political figure.

He has, at times, been a fierce critic of President Donald Trump.

His family said in a statement shared with US media: "Last year, Senator John McCain shared with Americans the news our family already knew: he had been diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma, and the prognosis was serious."

"In the year since, John has surpassed expectations for his survival. But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict.

"With his usual strength of will, he has chosen to discontinue medical treatment."

In a tweet, Meghan McCain, Mr McCain's daughter, said that her family "is deeply appreciative of all the love and generosity" they have received over the past year.

His wife, Cindy McCain, also shared the family's statement on Twitter, saying: "I love my husband with all of my heart. God bless everyone who has cared for my husband along the journey."

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he was "very sad" to hear the news.

Skip Twitter post by @SenateMajLdr

Leader McConnell
✔
@SenateMajLdr
Very sad to hear this morning’s update from the family of our dear friend @SenJohnMcCain. We are so fortunate to call him our friend and colleague. John, Cindy, and the entire McCain family are in our prayers at this incredibly difficult hour.

11:21 AM - Aug 24, 2018
635
421 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Report
End of Twitter post by @SenateMajLdr

Former Secretary of State John Kerry called his fellow Vietnam veteran "a brave man".

Skip Twitter post by @JohnKerry

John Kerry
✔
@JohnKerry
God bless John McCain, his family, and all who love him — a brave man showing us once again what the words grace and grit really mean.

Meghan McCain
✔
@MeghanMcCain
My family is deeply appreciative of all the love and generosity you have shown us during this past year. Thank you for all your continued support and prayers. We could not have made it this far without you - you've given us strength to carry on.

View image on Twitter
11:23 AM - Aug 24, 2018
1,333
303 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy

Report
End of Twitter post by @JohnKerry

Mr McCain spent more than five years as a prisoner of war.

The six-term senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee was diagnosed after doctors discovered his tumour during surgery to remove a blood clot from above his left eye last July.

Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive brain cancer, and increases in frequency with age, affecting more men than women.

At the time, his daughter said that the family reacted with "shock" to the diagnosis.

"It won't surprise you to learn that in all of this, the one of us who is most confident and calm is my father," she said on Twitter.

"So he is meeting this challenge as he has every other. Cancer may afflict him in many ways: but it will not make him surrender. Nothing ever has."



I WOULD RATHER SEE LOCKED SCHOOL BUILDINGS THAN GUNS IN EVERY CLASSROOM. IT WON’T TAKE LONG FOR SOME DEEPLY MISGUIDED AND ANGRY KID TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT SITUATION, I’M AFRAID.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/gun-control-teacher-groups-threaten-legal-action-against-devos-over-n903676
Gun control, teacher groups threaten legal action against DeVos over possible firearms funding
The Education Department could face a legal challenge if it moves forward with a plan allowing states to spend federal funds on guns for school employees.
by Adam Edelman / Aug.24.2018 / 3:32 PM ET

PHOTOGRAPH -- Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks during a visit of the Federal School Safety Commission at Hebron Harman Elementary School in Hanover, Maryland on May 31, 2018.Jose Luis Magana / AP file

A coalition of prominent gun control, teacher and civil rights groups is threatening legal action against the Department of Education if it moves forward with a controversial proposal that would allow states to spend federal funds on guns for school personnel.

"We are extraordinarily concerned with this dangerous, and what we believe to be unlawful, proposal under consideration to supply teachers with federal funds to buy gun for their classrooms, instead of books and school supplies," said Giffords Law Center chief counsel Adam Skaggs, whose group, which was co-founded by shooting victim and former Rep. Gabby Giffords, is taking the lead on the potential suit.

Other members of the coalition are the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers' union; the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Democracy Forward, a nonpartisan legal group targeting executive branch overreach.

Betsy DeVos considers using federal funds for guns in classrooms
AUG.23.201805:11

NBC News reported this week that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos began deliberating the controversial move earlier this year after Texas and Oklahoma asked the agency if schools could buy weapons using federal funds known as Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants, which are part of Title IV funding. The Education Department is still weighing the issue and "no decision is imminent," a senior administration official told NBC.

But if the agency moves forward with the proposal, the coalition is prepared to fight it.

"In essence, our complaint will seek a declaration that allowing these federal funds to be spent on guns instead of activities meant to make schools feel safe is unlawful, as well as an order from the court enjoining the Department of Education from approving such funds," Skaggs told NBC News.

Skaggs explained that the suit is based on the fact that "nowhere in federal law has Congress authorized the use of education funds for the purchase of guns or to arm teachers."

Trump talks about Kanye and Kim, but avoids McCain's terminal health

Citing the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, which bans unauthorized individuals from bringing loaded and unsecured guns into school zones, as well as the definition of school "drug and violence prevention" under federal law (it includes the phrase,"the creation and maintenance of a school environment that is free of weapons"), Skaggs said federal law "in various ways makes clear" that "guns are disfavored in the education environment."

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


MORE SNEAKY AND ILLICIT RUSSIAN BEHAVIOR, BUT THE MARYLAND SENATORS CARDIN AND VAN HOLLEN ARE ONTO IT. THAT’S GOOD NEWS. CAN WE GET (REQUIRE) EVERY STATE IN THE UNION TO INITIATE DEPENDABLE ENCRYPTION OR ANOTHER KIND OF STRONG PROTECTION AGAINST HACKING? NOW, IF WE CAN WITH EQUAL STEALTH KEEP TRACK OF THAT OLIGARCHS’ REPRESENTATIVES WHEN THEY’RE IN THE USA AND SWOOP DOWN ON THEM WITH HALF A DOZEN ARMED FBI AGENTS, CLOSE THEIR FAKE BUSINESSES, AND EXAMINE THEM CLOSELY FOR TAX FRAUD, EVERYTHING WILL BE BETTER. RIGHT? AND OH, YES – NO BAIL!

https://bigthink.com/stephen-johnson/senators-push-for-new-laws-after-a-russian-oligarch-bought-marylands-elections-vendor
Senators want new laws after a Russian oligarch bought Maryland’s elections vendor
August 21, 2018 by STEPHEN JOHNSON

PHOTOGRAPH -- Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) meeting with metals magnate Vladimir Potanin (Photo: MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images)

Now, Maryland Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen are asking the Senate Rules Committee to support an amendment that would require vendors of election services to inform lawmakers when a foreign actor takes ownership of one of their companies.

The amendment would become part of the Secure Elections Act, a bipartisan measure to improve election infrastructure and protocols that the Senate Rules Committee is scheduled to consider on Wednesday.

“As the Rules Committee prepares to mark up the Secure Elections Act, we respectfully request that you sponsor an amendment requiring that an election infrastructure vendor submit a report to the Chair of the [Election Assistance Commission] and the Secretary of [the Department of Homeland Security] identifying any foreign national that directly or indirectly owns or controls the vendor, as well as any material change in ownership resulting in ownership or control by a foreign national,” Cardin and Van Hollen wrote on Monday.

The Maryland company, ByteGrid LLC, hosts the online voter registration system, candidacy and election management system, online ballot delivery system and unofficial election night results website, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections. In 2015, Russian investors, including the reportedly Putin-connected billionaire Vladimir Potanin, purchased an ownership stake in ByteGrid, unbeknown to state lawmakers at the time.

ByteGrid said the move hasn’t affected company operations.

“ByteGrid’s investors have no involvement or control in company operations,” the company said in a statement. “We stand by our commitment to security in everything we do, and do not share information about who our customers are and what we do for them.”

Still, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Maryland officials decided it was “imperative that our constituents know that a Russian oligarch has purchased our election machinery, and we need to be on top of it.”

Miller and Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch have also called for a review of the state’s election systems.

“When the FBI comes in and tells you that they have information that there might be Russian money involved in the vendor you have for your electoral system, you take notice,” Busch told CNN in July.



RELIGION, EDUCATION, PARANOIA, LACK OF ATTENTION TO THE REAL WORLD, USING TALL TALES AS A FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT, AND GENUINE GULLIBILITY ARE ALL, IT SEEMS TO ME, RELATED TO THE “FAITH-BASED” VIEW OF THE WORLD, BY WHICH I MEAN THE INABILITY OR UNWILLINGNESS TO FIGURE THINGS OUT FOR OURSELVES. I WILL HAPPILY SAY THAT WE ALL NEED SOME FAITH, AND THAT IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE, BUT IF IT COMES TO A POINT OF BEING UNABLE TO TELL PLAUSIBILITY OR TRUTH FROM A HUGE, ORNAMENTED LIE, THEN IT IS A REAL PROBLEM. AT THIS POINT IN THE USA, I BELIEVE WE ARE IN A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS STATE. A PURPOSELY GULLIBLE AMERICAN CITIZENRY ARE HAPPILY FOLLOWING A MADMAN/LIAR/SCAM ARTIST. HOW MANY OF US WILL KEEP OUR MINDS FREE TO THINK FOR OURSELVES? MOST, I HOPE.

THERE IS ALWAYS A PROBLEM WITH THAT IN THE USA BECAUSE IF WE ARE BAPTISTS OR CATHOLICS WE VERY LIKELY HAVE BEEN TAUGHT TO SWALLOW EVERYTHING THAT THE BIBLE OR THE PREACHER OR CHURCH OR OUR PARENTS SAY WHOLE AND UNEXAMINED. THAT MAKES MANY PEOPLE AFRAID OR GUILT-RIDDEN IF THEY DO EXAMINE A SITUATION WITH THEIR OWN MIND BEFORE “BELIEVING” ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT IT. THAT’S THE KIND OF THING THAT, WE ARE SOMETIMES TAUGHT, WILL MAKE US GO STRAIGHT TO HELL WITHOUT PASSING GO OR COLLECTING $200.00. NOW, THAT IS INTIMIDATING. IT BREEDS BLINDLY OBEDIENT PEOPLE, WHICH IS UNFORTUNATELY WHAT A DESPOT WANTS.

SO HOW DOES THAT RELATE TO BELIEVING IN WILD AND EVEN DANGEROUS LIES THAT ARE SPREAD BY “THE AUTHORITIES,” OR IN THESE SAD DAYS, THE “AUTHORITY.” TRUMP IS THE SOURCE OF QUITE A NUMBER OF THE STRANGE STORIES THAT ARE OUT AND ABOUT THESE DAYS. I HEARD THAT HE WAS THE ONE WHO PROMOTED THAT LIE ABOUT BARAK OBAMA’S NOT BEING BORN IN THE USA, AND DEMANDED HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE.

WE HAVE BEEN UNDER AN ALMOST ENDLESS STREAM OF THOSE TALL TALES THAT CAME OUT OF RUSSIA TO FRIGHTEN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE; ADDED TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S REPETITION OF “FAKE NEWS,” STORIES ABOUT “CRIMINAL ALIENS,” AND ROBERT MUELLER’S “HOAX” ABOUT THE TRUMP/RUSSIA LINKAGES ARE THRIVING AND MULTIPLYING. THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE EXPLAINS AT LEAST SOME OF THE ORIGIN OF THE WILLINGNESS TO “BELIEVE” ANYTHING; AND SOME OF THOSE THINGS ARE TRULY DANGEROUS TO THE PEOPLE AND TO THE GOVERNMENT. EVEN IF THEY AREN’T DANGEROUS IN A PHYSICAL WAY, THEY DO INTERFERE WITH OUR ABILITIES AS A NATION TO MAKE GOOD QUALITY DECISIONS.

THE LIE ABOUT VACCINES BEING DANGEROUS – WHICH COULD BE TRUE IN SOME CASES GIVEN THE CORRECT SPECIFIC DATA – BUT IF THE DISEASE IS AIDS, SMALLPOX, EBOLA, RABIES OR ANY OTHER DEADLY DISEASE, I WOULD TAKE THE RISK WITH A VACCINE ANY DAY OVER THE HIGH LIKELIHOOD OF TOTAL INCAPACITY OR DEATH. ONE OF THE DISEASES THAT IS COMING BACK IS POLIO. THAT WAS THE KILLER AND CRIPPLER IN MY CHILDHOOD. I REMEMBER A SUMMER IN THE 1950S WHEN THE SWIMMING POOLS WERE CLOSED FOR FEAR OF INFECTION. THANK GOODNESS FOR VACCINATIONS!

https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/one-logical-fallacy-unites-creationists-and-conspiracy-theorists
One logical fallacy unites creationists and conspiracy theorists
August 24, 2018 by SCOTTY HENDRICKS

PHOTOGRAPH – ADAM AND EVE IN STAINED GLASS (shutterstock)
VIDEO -- One logical fallacy unites creationists and conspiracy theorists
August 24, 2018 by SCOTTY HENDRICKS
VIDEO -- How religion turned American politics into a bizarre anti-science spectacle
Kurt_user_photo
KURT ANDERSEN
Novelist / Host, "Studio 360"


Many of us have claimed “everything happens for a reason” or “it was meant to be” when presented with strange outcomes or random occurrences. Some of us see a great plan at work when we look at nearly everything; others see vast plots afoot every time they watch the news.

This kind of thinking is called teleological thinking. It is characterized by pointing to random or natural events and seeing them as caused by an intelligence or as part of a larger plan. Lots of people do it, and it is a key part of the intellectual development of children.

In some cases, like business ethics, it is a useful way of thinking. Until the scientific revolution, it defined a great deal of western thought about the natural world. Today, however, it is a scientific no-no.

Less positively, it is associated with the teleological fallacy, where the current use of something is taken as evidence of it being designed to fulfill that purpose.

A person who thinks this way might say things like “we have large noses so we can fit glasses on our faces” or “it is dry in the desert so cactus plants have a place to live.” Both statements assume a grand purpose for noses or areas with low rainfall that doesn’t exist or are unsubstantiated. It is an unscientific worldview that can get in the way of finding the real causes at work.

A tendency to teleological thinking is correlated with a belief in creationismR. This is intuitively reasonable since a tendency to think everything is part of a plan lends itself to trying to impose divine order on random biological events. Somehow, studies have not been carried out to see if the same correlation exists with similar beliefs; until now anyway.

Some people find meaning and larger purposes everywhere

Researchers in France have published a new study showing the relationship between teleological thinking and a belief in conspiracy theories. Their study, published in Current Biology, involved 2000 test subjects from the general public and university student bodies.

Their study consisted of a pen and paper test. The first part consisted of 100 questions. These were all true and false questions designed to determine how inclined the subject was to teleological thought. The statements were simple, such as “Bats hunt mosquitoes to control overpopulation.” In this case, a person answering “true” would reveal their tendency to teleological thinking.

Everything we know about physics in one neat infographic
The Mystery of Jesus’s Brother Gets Even Weirder
The most dangerous philosopher in the world

The rest of the questions focused on how well the subjects could judge an explanation’s plausibility and determined any biases in their answers.

The next part of the test focused on grand conspiracy theories of a general nature. Participants had to rate the likelihood that statements such as “the government is involved in the murder of innocent citizens and/or well-known public figures, and keeps this a secret” were correct. They then did the same thing for specific conspiracy theories, such as ones revolving around the assassination of President Kennedy.

Lastly, subjects were asked to rank images shown to them consisting of black and white squares on a grid on a scale of “certainly not random” to “certainly random.” As this picture shows, the answers are rather clear and can be used to determine if a person tends to assign meaning to random data.

The smiley face of randomness

As you can see in this chart. The images were both simple and complex, and either had a structure or were randomized. A person who thinks that there is a pattern to the top row's pictures is likely to ascribe meaning to random data. (Wagner-Egger et al.)

The second iteration of the experiment asked the same questions but added the subject’s belief in creationism to the analysis. The final version added a section to better asses[s] how being good at correct teleological thinking (e.g. thinking that pasta comes in different shapes to hold different sauces) factored into the conspiracy mindset.

What did they find?

As you might have guessed, the people who scored high on the teleological thinking test, those who see things as having a purpose even when they don’t, were more likely to believe in the general grand conspiracies. This held true, to a lesser extent, for those who only scored high on “correct” teleological thinking as well.

Subjects who believed in any of the conspiracy theories tended to believe in all of them, confirming previous studies that hinted at a “conspiracy mentality” which drives some people to see conspiracies everywhere. The authors suggest that the correlation between the three scales of teleological thinking they tested for; test, true and false casual, [“causal”?] suggests “the existence of a teleological mentality, that partly overlaps with the conspiracist mindset.”

What about the creationists?

When the belief in creationism was factored in, the researchers found a strong correlation between a belief in creationism, the conspiracy mentality, and teleological thinking. The results held true even when accounting for demographics, political views, and religious tendencies.

These findings expand on previous studies into how and why people come to hold extreme beliefs. They are also conceptually backed by the philosophy of Karl Popper, who suggested long ago that grand conspiracy theories were motivated by this kind of thinking, and even suggested that “Illuminati” conspiracy theories are the modern incarnation of divine intervention claims.

What use might this study have for us?

The authors remind us that “teleological thinking has long been associated with creationism and identified as an obstacle to the acceptance of evolutionary theory.”

With this in mind, they propose that we can start viewing conspiracies as creationistic, in that an intelligence purposefully created every socio-political event, and that we can view creationism as a grand conspiracy; in that it assumes everything was purposefully designed for specific reasons.

The findings could also be used to understand how anti-scientific worldviews are formed and how to best communicate with the people who hold them. It can also explain why both creationists and conspiracy theorists are both seemingly immune to evidence that refutes their worldviews- even the evidence against them can be viewed as part of a plan thanks to the power of teleological thinking.

Teleological thinking is a common thought process that we all use every once in a while. When it gets out of hand, however, it can cause some people to see patterns where none exist and to reject the idea that some things might not be the result of a master plan. While it might be some time before we finally learn how to educate people out of fallacious teleological thinking, we do have a better understanding of how it alters the way some people view the world.



THERE IS A NEW DNA DISCOVERY AT DENISOVA CAVE, BUT FIRST, GO TO THIS BBC WEBSITE AND LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPHS. THE VIEW FROM THE MOUTH OF THE CAVE DOWN INTO THE VALLEY BELOW IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. THE STORY THAT THIS DNA EVIDENCE TELLS IS EQUALLY SPECTACULAR. I REALLY LOVE STORIES LIKE THIS. THE GROWTH OF OUR PARTICULAR GROUP OF HUMANS, FROM THE AUSTRALOPITHECINE TO THE PRESENT IS SOMETHING AKIN TO GOD FOR ME. TIME AND THE AMAZING RESILIENCE OF LIFE ARE THE ULTIMATE MYSTERY. I AM GLAD THAT I HAVE LIVED IN THIS TIME PERIOD SO THAT I COULD LEARN OF SUCH THINGS.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45271644
Cave girl was half Neanderthal, half Denisovan
By Helen Briggs
BBC News
22 August 2018

PHOTOGRAPH -- Denisova cave in Siberia: Scene of an ancient liaison B VIOLA, MPI-EVA

Once upon a time, two early humans of different ancestry met at a cave in Russia.

Some 50,000 years later, scientists have confirmed that they had a daughter together.

DNA extracted from bone fragments found in the cave show the girl was the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.

The discovery, reported in Nature, gives a rare insight into the lives of our closest ancient human relatives.

Neanderthals and Denisovans were humans like us, but belonged to different species.

"We knew from previous studies that Neanderthals and Denisovans must have occasionally had children together," says Viviane Slon, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany.

"But I never thought we would be so lucky as to find an actual offspring of the two groups."

Is everyone part Neanderthal?

Present-day, non-African humans have a small proportion of their DNA that comes from Neanderthals.

Some other non-African populations, depending on where they live, also have a fraction of their DNA that comes from an Asian people known as Denisovans.

Image copyrightB VIOLA, MPI-EVA
Image caption
Excavations at the cave

The fact the genes have been passed down the generations shows that interbreeding must have happened.

However, the only known site where fossil evidence of both Denisovans and Neanderthals has been found is at Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.

Furthermore, fewer than 20 so-called archaic humans (those belonging to species other than our own, Homo sapiens) have had their genomes sequenced.

"Out of this very little number we find one individual that has half-and-half mixed ancestry, " Dr Slon told BBC News.

When other studies are taken into account, "you start to get a picture that over all of our evolutionary history humans always mixed with each other".

When and where did Neanderthals and Denisovans live?

Neanderthals and Denisovans are known to have overlapped in time in Eurasia.

The two groups lived until about 40,000 years ago; Neanderthals in the west and Denisovans in the east.

As Neanderthals migrated eastwards, they may have encountered Denisovans at times, as well as early modern humans.

"Neanderthals and Denisovans may not have had many opportunities to meet," says Svante Pääbo, director of MPI-EVA.

"But when they did, they must have mated frequently - much more so than we previously thought."

What do we know about the girl and her family?

The girl's story has been pieced together from a single fragment of bone found in the Denisova cave by Russian archaeologists several years ago.

Image copyrightB VIOLA, MPI-EVA
Image caption --The cave is the only place where fossils of Neanderthals and Denisovans have been found

It was brought to Leipzig for genetic analysis.

"The fragment is part of a long bone, and we can estimate that this individual was at least 13 years old," says Bence Viola of the University of Toronto.

The researchers deduced that the girl's mother was genetically closer to Neanderthals who lived in western Europe than to a Neanderthal individual who lived earlier in Denisova Cave.

This shows that Neanderthals migrated between western and eastern Europe and Asia tens of thousands of years before they died out.

Genetic tests also revealed that the Denisovan father had at least one Neanderthal ancestor further back in his family tree.

Follow Helen on Twitter.



I HAD NEVER HEARD OF WEISSELBERG BEFORE THIS ARTICLE, BUT HERE HE IS – ONE MORE CHARACTER IN THIS DRAMA, AND IN ANOTHER POSITION THAT LOOKS TO BE MUCH TOO CLOSE TO TRUMP FOR HIS SAFETY. I THINK I’LL GO TO THE RACHEL MADDOW BLOG TO SEE WHAT FASCINATING THINGS SHE HAS TO SAY ABOUT HIM.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/top-trump-confidant-allen-weisselberg-granted-immunity-called-to-testify/
CBS NEWS August 24, 2018, 12:52 PM
Top Trump confidant Allen Weisselberg granted immunity, called to testify

Allen Weisselberg, one of President Trump's top private sector confidants, has been granted immunity in connection with the investigation that led to Michael Cohen's guilty plea earlier this week, CBS News' Jeff Pegues confirmed Friday. Weisselberg was called to testify before a federal grand jury.

The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Weisselberg, who has worked for Mr. Trump for decades, is the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization did not answer CBS News' request for comment.

Who is Allen Weisselberg?

Cohen pleaded guilty earlier this week to eight counts in connection with hush-money payments he orchestrated to two women who said they had sexual encounters with Mr. Trump before the 2016 election. Mr. Trump has been insistent that he had nothing to do with the payments and learned of them only after they were made. He also denies having a sexual relationship with either of the women, former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and and adult film star Stephanie Clifford, who is known as Stormy Daniels.

Commentary: Will Michael Cohen's guilty plea take Trump down?

As CFO of the Trump Organization, Weisselberg helped reimburse Cohen for his $130,000 payment to Daniels. According to the Journal, citing people familiar with Weisselberg's thinking, he did not know that the money was to go to Daniels. Weisselberg also arranged for Cohen to receive a $35,000-a-month retainer in January 2017.

Weisselberg once served on the board of the Miss Universe Organization, which Mr. Trump used to own. Mr. Trump sold it in 2015 after owning it for nearly two decades.

Despite his relatively low profile, Weisselberg did appear on one episode in the second season of Mr. Trump's "The Apprentice."

Weisselberg was also mentioned on a recording released last month by a lawyer for Cohen in which Cohen and Mr. Trump discuss paying for McDougal's story. "I've spoken with Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up," Cohen is heard saying on the tape. McDougal's story had already been purchased by American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, months before the conversation took place.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office has opened an investigation and is considering pursuing criminal charges against the Trump Organization, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News' Pat Milton on Friday. The DA's investigation comes in light of statements made by Cohen during his guilty plea proceeding in federal court this week.

The investigation in its preliminary stages would look into whether the Trump Organization falsified business records of reimbursements payments to Cohen. No determination has made made [sic] at this time whether criminal charges are merited.

DA's consideration of pursuing charges against the Trump Organization was first reported by the New York Times.

In his 2005 book "Think Like a Billionaire," Mr. Trump lavished praise on Weisselberg. "Allen Weisselberg, my chief financial officer, has to be one of the toughest people in the business when it comes to money. When I was having some financial problems in the early 1990s, I called Allen into my office and told him there would be tough times ahead. The banks were about to cut off our funding. Allen said, 'No problem,' and went back to his office, where he proceeded to renegotiate almost every payment from that point forward," Mr. Trump wrote

"He did whatever was necessary to protect the bottom line -- and refused to succumb to the pressures of risk."

CBS News Eleanor Watson contributed to this story.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


THE COMPETITION BETWEEN ELIZABETH WARREN AND BERNIE SANDERS – TWO ARTICLES

http://theweek.com/speedreads/792008/presidency-tearing-former-bffs-elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-apart
BESTIES NO MORE
The presidency is tearing former BFFs Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders apart
August 23, 2018 2:59 p.m. ET

PHOTOGRAPH -- Win McNamee/Getty Images

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) used to be two progressive peas in a pod. But after some minor betrayal during the 2016 election cycle, the two senators are drifting apart, even as President Trump conveniently provides a unifying enemy.

From the moment Warren spoke at a 2008 Sanders town hall, the pair's politics have always been linked — that is, until Warren neglected to run for president in 2016 and Sanders stepped in, BuzzFeed News documents in a Thursday analysis. Everyone thought Warren, the far bigger star, would run, and Democratic strategist Bill Press told C-SPAN in 2016 that if she had, he's "pretty confident saying Bernie Sanders would never have run."

But Sanders did, and he became the hero of democratic socialism. Warren notably opted to stump for Hillary Clinton and has only distanced herself from Sanders and progressivism ever since. Take the logo of the Warren-aligned Progressive Change Campaign Committee. It's gone from touting the "Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party" to the "Elizabeth Warren wing of American politics," BuzzFeed News points out. Or when asked to describe how she's different from Sanders, Warren told CNBC last month that she's a capitalist who "believes in markets," while Sanders is a "socialist."

Now, both senators are contemplating a 2020 presidential run — something that could split progressives in a primary and cost both Warren and Sanders the nomination. But unlike in 2016, sources on both sides tell BuzzFeed News that today, neither senator would step down for the other.

Read more about Warren and Sanders' fading friendship at BuzzFeed News. Kathryn Krawczyk


THIS IS AN EXTREMELY INTERESTING ARTICLE, BUT TOO LONG. YOU MAY WANT TO READ IT WHEN YOU HAVE TIME. I REMEMBER ONE TIME DURING THE PRIMARY WHEN NEWS CAMERAS CAUGHT A LITTLE TELL-TALE SCENE. A REPORTER ASKED WARREN IF SHE WOULD CONSIDER RUNNING AS BERNIE’S VICE PRESIDENT, AND A LOOK CROSSED HER FACE LIKE “IN A PIG’S EYE!” SO, I HAVEN’T LIKED HER SINCE THEN, AND SHE THEN FELL IN BEHIND CLINTON AGAINST SANDERS.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-difference?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc
POLITICS
Think Elizabeth Warren And Bernie Sanders Are The Same? She Doesn’t.
They are friends, partners in the Senate, and leaders of a progressive movement. But Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are not the same. “He’s a socialist, and I believe in markets.”
Ruby Cramer
BuzzFeed News Reporter

PHOTOGRAPH -- BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders sit side by side at the front of the cafeteria, heads bent over matching yellow legal pads, taking notes in workmanlike silence. It’s April 2008 at Montpelier High School. Sanders is new to the Senate. And Warren, still a Harvard Law School professor, is his guest speaker at a series of town halls across Vermont. He gives a speech. She walks the crowd through a PowerPoint presentation. The national press ignores the event.

In 2014, they are colleagues in the Senate. Barack Obama is president. And Warren, leading the fight to push his administration on economic policy, is a progressive icon. Activist groups name her “the North Star” of the left, leader of the “Warren wing of the Democratic Party.” At one progressive conference, her face is superimposed on a life-size cutout of Katniss Everdeen, the hero of the Hunger Games series. She is a god. By the fall of 2014, organizers form not one but two “Draft Warren” campaigns. In interviews, she is asked again and again — some 50 times before the end of that year — if she will run in 2016. Every time, she says no. People were still asking the question months later, when Sanders announced his campaign at a small press conference.

In 2018, they are both considering a run for president. Donald Trump is in the White House. Sanders, 76, is the most popular politician in America. And Warren, 69, is suddenly navigating a progressive movement that revolves daily around Sanders and his “political revolution.”

Now, people like to put another question to Warren.

“What’s the difference between you and Bernie Sanders?”

Just four years ago, no one would have even thought to ask. With the 2020 primary months away, it’s one of the questions Warren gets most.

The new and pressing reality facing the Massachusetts senator is this: Elizabeth Warren, once a singular power on the left, is now a name that people conflate with Bernie Sanders.

The question, by its very existence, reflects a remarkable shift in progressive power from 2008, when both senators appeared at their sleepy town hall in Montpelier, Vermont, to the four-year span that marked the end of the Obama administration and ushered in the Trump era. Even some of her biggest supporters in the progressive community admit that the energy around Warren isn’t the same as it was four years ago, when she fashioned herself as a kind of mirror to Obama. Where he avoided confrontation, she picked big public fights on economic policy. That strategy, combined with a more tactical behind-the-scenes effort to “influence incentives,” as her team would put it, is no longer quite a natural fit in the chaos of the Trump administration — leading some progressives to ask if she missed her moment by forgoing a run in 2016.

For those on the left, the difference between Warren and Sanders has less to do with policy or ideology. Really, they say, it’s a question about progressive power — about two vastly different theories of change. It’s “the preacher vs. the teacher,” as one former Sanders adviser put it.

Now, when Warren gets the question, she has her answer ready.

“He’s a socialist,” she’ll say, “and I believe in markets.”

Warren speaks during a protest in front of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year.
Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Warren speaks during a protest in front of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year.

If Bernie Sanders is leading a political revolution, then Elizabeth Warren is waging a different kind of fight. It’s more tactical and methodical. It’s robust, specific government regulation and oversight — on your student loans, your credit card fees, your banks. In every case, her objective is the same: to change the way Democrats think about economic policy and reshape it in the process.

In Warren’s office, she and her aides make plans in the span of months and years, not weeks. “Impact,” a word you hear a lot from the people around the senator, is a constant pursuit, achieved through a careful combination of public confrontation and private negotiation. When critics accused her of grandstanding, picking fights with bank regulators in Senate hearings — exchanges that her office would circulate in YouTube clips that garnered millions of views — Warren was energizing supporters from groups like MoveOn.org and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which in turn grew her platform, which in turn grew her leverage.

In 2011, the strategic approach helped her create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In 2013, her push to expand Social Security functioned as a broader effort to shift the “Overton window” on the issue — making “chained CPI,” shorthand for a proposal opposed by progressives to change the way the government accounts for cost of living, a less tenable option among mainstream Democrats. And in 2014, Warren and her aides were already engaged in a plan to influence Hillary Clinton’s campaign early on and in private, creating pressures and incentives that might sway Clinton’s thinking on the economy — all in an effort to shape the eventual makeup of the advisers in her 2017 transition team and administration.

“He is trying to create a movement. She approaches so many of these policy issues as a good lawyer or powerful cross-examiner would."

“Her view was that people are policy,” said John Podesta, who served as Clinton’s campaign chair and talked frequently with Warren and her team throughout the election. “To the extent that she was expressing her perspective and point of view, it was generally about people: Who would be the head of the National Economic Council? Who would be treasury secretary? Her [priority] was that we wouldn’t immediately turn to a bunch of Wall Street insiders.”

On Nov. 9, 2016, of course, Warren woke up to an administration she didn’t plan for.

In a political moment dominated by Trump on one side and Sanders on the other, how Warren now defines her own brand of politics, and to how wide an audience, is a question that will also shape the future of the progressive movement. Warren and Sanders are two enigmatic leaders who work as strategic partners toward shared policy views, but with almost opposite tactics.

“As much as people try to lump them together, they are stylistically very different,” said Anita Dunn, a longtime Democratic operative who got to know Warren after her 2012 Senate run. “He is trying to create a movement. She approaches so many of these policy issues as a good lawyer or powerful cross-examiner would. She looks for ways where the laws can be improved.”

Compared to four years ago, Warren’s role in the Trump era can, even now, seem somewhat muddled. There is no Democratic administration to shape. There are none of the same major Democratic policy fights. (Under Trump, the talk of shifting the Overton window to the left has been replaced with slack-jawed outrage at the president’s rhetoric and policy agenda.)

Warren has so far stayed close to Sanders, cohosting livestreamed town halls and Facebook discussions. Last year, she and her aides worked closely with his office to hone the details of his Medicare for All bill, though her name, like other cosponsors who worked on the bill, were just part of what was perceived as his effort. And when asked about the difference between her and Sanders, it is usually only in private that she chooses to reply, “He’s a socialist, and I believe in markets.”

Still, the response is an indication of how she would differentiate herself from the Vermont senator. “I am a capitalist,” she told CNBC in an interview last month. “Come on. I believe in markets.” (Or as one former aide put it, “She believes in markets. She loves markets.”) Last week, she introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act to encourage corporate profit-sharing. Vox called it “a plan to save capitalism.”

Next to Sanders, though, Warren is often described as a less transformative force inside the party. “Both of them have really changed the way we think,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who describes himself as a sort of student of progressive politics. “We wouldn't be here if they both hadn’t done what they did.” But it was Sanders, de Blasio said, who “put such a sharp point on the fact that something entirely different was possible, including different language.”

“I really, literally, think it literally redefined American politics.”

“Both of them have really changed the way we think,” but it was Sanders who “put such a sharp point on the fact that something entirely different was possible."

Even for Republicans, Warren is not quite the same potent political foil as in 2014. “We view Sanders as the purist and Warren as his chief mascot,” said Alexandra Smith, executive director of America Rising, a Republican research group focused on the 2020 Democratic field.

In the view of progressive operatives, it’s not that the senators themselves have changed: They are still the same duo leading the Montpelier town hall 10 years ago — Sanders at the podium, Warren flipping through slides on median family income. But after Trump’s election, as one longtime progressive strategist put it recently, “it was like Warren couldn’t meet the dimensions of how giant the crisis had become. She wasn’t as big as the moment, unlike before 2016.”

“The problems have become more existential,” the strategist said.

Ahead of 2020, there are no plans to reboot the Draft Warren campaign — an effort that started as a grassroots Facebook page in 2013, just nine months into her first term in the Senate, before spanning two major progressive groups, MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, with full-time field staffers installed in Iowa and New Hampshire. After the draft campaign ended, much of the would-be Warren team migrated to the Sanders operation, forming new loyalties.

Four years later, “there haven’t been any conversations on 2020,” said Ilya Sheyman, the executive director of MoveOn.org’s political arm. The lead-up to 2016, Sherman said, was in part about “making sure that economic inequality was at the center of the political conversation.” Another cofounder behind the Draft Warren campaign, Charles Lenchner, said that after the first draft campaign, there’s no inherent need for a second: “The point of ‘Draft Warren’ was to say to her, ‘If you run, you have support.’ The message was received. Why do it again?”

Even Guy Saperstein, the California-based donor who provided seed money for the 2014 effort, said he now isn’t sure he would support Warren over Sanders in 2020. “I think she realizes she made a mistake,” Saperstein said of the opportunity to run against Clinton. “I wouldn't say her time has passed, but she’s not quite the bright star that she was. Timing is so much in politics.”

After 2016, Warren had to rethink her role in the Trump era. What she landed on, people around the senator say, was a focus on energizing the party — leaning into the “fighter” persona she’s always embraced as a politician. (Last year, Warren followed her first memoir, A Fighting Chance, with a second political book, This Fight Is Our Fight, which catalogs the fights therein via a lengthy index entry for “fighting back,” organized into sub-entries like “value of.”)

“I think she realizes she made a mistake ... I wouldn't say her time has passed, but she's not quite the bright star that she was."

Warren got a taste of the role during the last presidential election when she emerged as Clinton’s best Trump antagonist on the trail. At rallies, Warren would sprint up to the podium, pump her firsts, clap her hands, jump on the balls of her feet — and call Trump names. He was a “loser,” a “bully,” a man “driven by greed and hate” who will “crush you into the dirt to get what he wants.” At turns, Warren seemed to find the spats both thrilling (the response from voters at one rally, she recalls in her book, “was like an explosion”) and ridiculous (“I started going after him on Twitter,” she writes, before adding in a parenthetical: “Good grief, that sounds lame”).

But Warren also realized the power of the platform. In her 2017 book, This Fight Is Our Fight, she includes screenshots of her own tweets to Trump, noting that at least 46 million followed the exchanges. (It’s a lesson she learned well before she arrived in Washington, in 2003, when she and her daughter appeared on Dr. Phil McGraw's syndicated talk show to promote their book, The Two-Income Trap. “I’d been fighting as hard as I could — doing research, writing papers, giving interviews,” Warren writes in her first memoir. But after a few minutes on Dr. Phil’s show, speaking to an audience of about 6 million viewers, “I might have done more good than in an entire year as a professor,” she says. “Maybe that was a better way to make a difference.”)

Warren has found some success translating that role to the resistance movement that took hold after Trump’s inauguration. She turned a confrontation on the Senate floor last year into her own ubiquitous rallying cry — “Nevertheless, she persisted” — putting the word “PERSIST” across campaign bumper stickers and placards, in digital ads and new stump speech lines.

On the left, the prospect of a Warren–Sanders primary fight in 2020, with one progressive giant up against the other, is already a source of angst and apprehension and sometimes dread.

“There’s gonna be a splintering of support for candidates,” said Lenchner. “The question I’m asking is how do you cultivate maximum unity between supporters of Bernie and Warren so that they will enter the race planning and hoping to be on the same side in the final run.”

Warren speaks during a Clinton campaign rally at Saint Anselm College in 2016.
David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images

Some Bernie voters will always remember 2016 as the year that Warren betrayed a fellow progressive. During the primary, she declined to endorse Sanders, remaining neutral until Clinton had already amassed an insurmountable lead in the delegate count. At the Democratic National Convention, when she took the podium, chants of “We trusted you! We trusted you!” filled the Wells Fargo Center. “There’s a looming danger of Bernie supporters saying she’s just as bad as the corporate Democrats,” Lenchner said. “She’s our best hope if Bernie can’t do it.”

For some progressives, Warren is a 2020 candidate who could draw a broader swath of support. The late Joel Silberman, a legendary operative on the left who passed away this month, liked to describe the Massachusetts senator as a “leading” actor and Sanders as a “character” actor. “He’s the Spencer Tracy of the movement,” Silberman said earlier this year. “She’s the Katharine Hepburn. She’s a leading player. That’s the distinction for me when I look at the two of them.”

Podesta, the former Clinton campaign chair who founded the progressive think tank Center for American Progress, said Warren could play better with some of the voters who backed his candidate over Sanders in 2016: “traditionally liberal Democrats,” he said. “I think Bernie’s thing plays better with younger voters, because he’s so angry. I’m not talking about being angry at Trump. I’m talking about being angry at the world. She doesn’t carry that with her.”

“They’re overlapping bell curves,” Podesta said, “but they’re not the same.”

Sometime last year, the progressive group most closely aligned with the senator, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, changed its logo: “I’m from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party” became “I’m from the Elizabeth Warren wing of American politics.”

“The question I'm asking is how do you cultivate maximum unity between supporters of Bernie and Warren so that they will enter the race planning and hoping to be on the same side in the final run."

The subtle but significant tweak, according to PCCC cofounder Adam Green, reflects a shift in the “center of gravity in American politics shifting in a more economic populist direction.” For PCCC members, he said, that movement is still most closely associated with Warren. “We’re the Warren people,” said Green. “Her credibility as a leader within the progressive movement is as high as it was four years ago, but Bernie is certainly a new major force. That’s fair.”

See the two together, and it also becomes obvious.

A few months ago, in February, Sanders walked into the Macaroni Grill near Gate K2 in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Inside, Warren was already seated at a nearby table, finishing her meal, according to a person present. When he approached to say hello, the scene turned. Passersby erupted into applause and cheers. “Progressive food fantasy!” one yelled.

A few weeks later, at a training for progressives hosted by PCCC, both senators spoke to a crowd of activists and candidates at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Organizers passed out “Elizabeth Warren wing of American Politics” T-shirts at the start of the event. But it was Sanders whom attendees chased outside the ballroom. When he moved to the courtyard behind the hotel, people crowded the double doors overlooking the patio, their faces pressed to the glass.

“Can I snap a photo?” one woman asked, staging a selfie from inside the hotel.

“I just want to look at him,” another said.

Sanders earlier this year in Memphis.
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Sanders earlier this year in Memphis.

For the first time since she entered politics, mapping out each step in her plans for the Senate, Elizabeth Warren is facing an uncertain strategic fork: the 2020 presidential race.

It’s a possibility she’s approached like any other tactical pursuit: with careful, incremental planning meant to give herself the option to run a strong campaign should she decide to get in the race. She’s done the travel, speaking to Democrats in early-voting states like Nevada. She’s done the party-building, setting aside $5,000 earlier this year for every state party. And she’s treated her Senate reelection this year as a staging ground for something bigger. (The sizeable campaign staff in Massachusetts, according to two people familiar with the operation, notably includes a team of researchers combing through reams of material, positive and negative, on Warren herself: “self-research,” as it’s called — a prerequisite for any presidential candidate.)

The prep work, at the least, is a sign that Warren is pursuing the idea of 2020 primary more seriously than she ever did in 2016. Four years ago, she says in her new memoir, “my heart wasn’t in it.” (As she tells in that book, the closest she got was a late-night conversation with her husband, Bruce Mann. They were at home in Cambridge, sitting on the couch in their bedroom under a blanket. “I asked him: Would you be okay if I ran?” she recalls. “Bruce said yes, and I smiled in the dark. I didn’t believe him, but it was the right answer. And I knew what the right answer was for me too. Talking with Bruce and asking the question out loud had settled it.”)

But for neither Warren nor Sanders is that “fantasy” partnership a major part of the other’s plans for the Senate and beyond. They refer to one another as “my good friend.” It’s a warm relationship, and one that goes back more than a decade, but it is most of all a working relationship. (“You remember the people who were nice to you before [when] you didn’t matter,” one veteran Democrat said. “Elizabeth Warren was nice to him when he didn’t matter.”)

If anything, their allies say, the two senators view one another as a source of validation. For Warren, Sanders’ success is proof of what she and her team told Clinton early on in 2016: that she should heed voters’ real thirst for progressive populism. And for the Vermont senator, Warren is a close partner who understands the grassroots better than most Democrats.

Four years ago, at least for Sanders, it was different.

Bill Press, a longtime Democratic strategist who hosted a series of planning meetings for Sanders and his top aides when he was weighing a primary challenge against Clinton, has said the senator’s main concern at the time was putting progressive issues “front and center.”

“And if somebody else did it, fine,” Press said in a 2016 interview with C-SPAN.

“And of course the other person at the time, everybody thought, would be Elizabeth Warren. If Elizabeth Warren had run, I’m pretty confident saying Bernie Sanders would never have run.”

Two years later, ask the question again — if one of them runs in 2020, would it be enough for the other to get out of the way? — and for people on both sides, the response is the same.

The answer, for now, is no.



I REALLY DON’T LIKE ARPAIO AT ALL, NOT ONLY BASED ON THE THINGS I KNOW OF HIS ACTIONS, BUT HIS ARROGANCE AND HARDNESS IN REGARD TO THE WORLD IN GENERAL. OF COURSE, MAYBE HE LOVES HIS FAMILY AND IS WARM AND KIND TOWARD THEM. I DON’T WANT HIM IN CONGRESS OR THE SENATE, THOUGH. HE’LL BE JUST ONE MORE ANGRY OLD MAN WHO WILL TRY TO BLOCK EVERY BILL THAT HELPS PEOPLE FROM GOING THROUGH.

https://www.mail.com/news/politics/8696664-joe-arpaios-long-goodbye-redemption-kamikaze-missi.html#.7518-stage-hero1-3
P Joe Arpaio's long goodbye: Redemption or 'kamikaze' mission?
FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz. (AP) — It was five days before ballots will be counted in his bid for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, and former Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio had no idea what he was doing.OLITICS NEWS
August 24, 2018

PHOTOGRAPHS 1 – 7 -- U.S. senatorial candidate and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio walks to his campaign tour bus Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018, in Fountain Hills, Ariz. Arpaio's Senate run will likely be the former sheriff's last political act, as he is expected to finish well outside the running in the GOP Senate primary.

The final days of a campaign are usually frantic, with candidates' every moment scheduled to ensure they meet as many voters as possible. But Arpaio had nothing planned Thursday until a 4:30 p.m. meeting.

"I ought to go to a Mexican restaurant and see how they treat me," Arpaio, 86, said as he sat in his strip mall office. So he and his aides piled into the newly-rented campaign bus in the latest stage of what is likely to be the controversial lawman's long goodbye.

Arpaio served six terms as sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix. He won national acclaim and condemnation for his hardline policies. He jailed inmates in tents in the desert heat. He directed deputies to hunt people in the country illegally, a practice a court found to be racial profiling. He lost his 2016 re-election bid after being convicted of contempt of court for continuing that profiling. He was pardoned by President Trump last year.

Now he's disappointed some supporters with his erratic GOP Senate primary bid in which he lags badly in polls behind U.S. Rep. Martha McSally and former state Sen. Kelli Ward. Arpaio's legacy, they fear, will be splitting the conservative vote Tuesday, letting McSally, the favorite of establishment Republicans with whom Arpaio has long feuded, win the nomination.

"It is a kamikaze mission," said Constantine Querard, a political strategist and former Arpaio supporter who supports Ward. "The only question is, is it malpractice, or is the candidate in on it?" The Republican nominee will most likely face Democratic U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Synema, a formidable opponent whose party hopes can flip the seat from the GOP. Arpaio, analysts say, has become a mere sideshow.

"No one really understands why he's in the race," said Stan Barnes, a Republican lobbyist. "The whisper around Arizona political circles is this is the kind of thing that an 86-year-old egomaniac would do because no one can control him."

As he climbed onto the bus emblazoned with his face and a classic Arizona desert landscape, Arpaio dismissed the criticism. He fumed that McSally, an Air Force Colonel, the country's first female combat pilot and a onetime Trump critic turned supporter, has gotten all the money and attention.

"They're going for her rather than me - the loyalty I showed these people, endorsing them, getting them jobs," Arpaio said in his gravelly monotone. "Anybody in their right mind, if they were hiring, somebody would hire me, not these two novices," he added of McSally and Ward.

The bus was largely empty. The driver was the campaign manager, Chris Hegstrom, Arpaio's former spokesman at the sheriff's department. In the back were a handful of volunteers, including a former Republican candidate for Missouri's U.S. Senate who finished eighth in that primary race and brought his pistol along during the ride.

Hegstrom angled the bus into a nearby Costco parking lot. He needed to pick up hot dogs for a campaign barbecue, and the former sheriff wanted to look for votes. Arpaio climbed down, removed his snap-on tie and immediately caused a traffic jam.

Victor Antablian, 77, stopped his black Mercedes and climbed out to shake Arpaio's hand. "What a guy!" he cried. He coaxed his wife Jan out -- she discovered Arpaio had grown up in a western Massachusetts town near her own. Both pledged to vote for the former sheriff.

As Arpaio's aides snapped pictures other cars slowed down. Arpaio waved at the gawkers. "Don't wave to me, I don't wave to felons," shouted a man in another Mercedes before driving past. (Arpaio's conviction of contempt of court was a misdemeanor.)

Most onlookers were thrilled to see Arpaio. One took a sheet of campaign stickers to give to her extended family. Another said his parents owned a horse ranch near Arpaio's house. Leonardo Venegas, 38, gave Arpaio a straw hat to sign, saying it was in the style of his hometown of Puebla, Mexico.

Delighted, Arpaio told Venegas in broken Spanish that he lived in Mexico for four years while working for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Venegas, an immigrant in the country legally, dismissed complaints that Arpaio has been racist to Latinos. "We have to recognize that a country or state without laws becomes like Mexico,' Venegas said in Spanish.

John Dach had just moved to Arizona from California, drawn by the state's reputation. "When I think of Arizona and the politicians and the voters, Joe Arpaio is one of the local celebrities you think of," he said.

Dach, 34, was surprised that the former sheriff was an underdog now. "He might be more popular outside the state than inside," Dach said. As sheriff, Arpaio became an icon for hardline immigration supporters and raised millions of dollars nationwide. He traveled to Iowa and flirted with a presidential run. But his margins of victory back home shrunk as his legal troubles grew.

Maricopa County paid tens of millions of dollars in settlements against Arpaio's agency, which piled up unsolved sex crime cases as it focused on enforcement against people in the country illegally. Arpaio arrested one Republican county supervisor who criticized him (ultimately, no charges were filed). Much of the county's growing Latino population and others mobilized against him. Arpaio lost his re-election bid in 2016 by 12 percentage points even as Trump won Arizona.

"The longer he stayed, the more people grew tired of his antics," Barnes said. Republican voters now wonder whether the former sheriff is too old -- he'd be the oldest person ever elected to a first term in the U.S. Senate and would be 92 when his term would end.

Scott Reed, 57, a contractor, shook Arpaio's hand and said: "You should be on a beach somewhere taking it easy." "I'll race you around the block," Arpaio countered. Reed revealed he was a Democrat. "I'll get your vote in November," Arpaio said.

Reed looked at the sheriff sympathetically. "Good luck to you, Joe," he said. Energized by the largely supportive crowd, Arpaio climbed back on the bus. It headed for the Mexican restaurant. The bus arrived too late for a big reaction - the lunch rush had ended. The owner greeted the sheriff warmly and asked what he wanted.

"Spaghetti and meatballs," Arpaio quipped. He got a bean and cheese tostada. The scene inside was muted, a far cry from the Costco frenzy. A few people stopped to thank the former sheriff and snap pictures. Others averted their eyes.

After eating, Arpaio and his entourage piled back into the bus. Time to head back for that scheduled meeting. "I don't feel like I'm in my 80s," a contemplative Arpaio said as the bus cut through the afternoon heat and haze. "I work continuously. I don't have any hobbies."

"I've got one more shot."


Subjects General news, Government and politics, Senate elections, Immigration People Martha McSally, Joe Arpaio Locations Mexico, Missouri, United States, North America Organisations United States Senate, U.S. Republican Party, United States government, United States Congress



AS LONG AS ONE MORE VOICE IS RAISED, THEN ANOTHER, THE DEBATE ISN’T OVER!! FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR ATHLETES STILL LIVES.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doug-pederson-philadelphia-eagles-coach-national-anthem-debate-memoir/
CBS NEWS August 24, 2018, 9:32 AM
Eagles coach Doug Pederson says it's the players' "right" to protest during anthem

In an interview on "CBS This Morning" Friday, Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson addressed the ongoing debate over whether NFL players should be allowed to protest during the national anthem. Asked how he's approached the controversy with his players, Pederson said it hasn't "divided our team whatsoever."

"You know, it's something I started my first year and it's obviously a subject that can be – I don't want it to be divisive or split our team in two and the thing is our team is very cohesive. We're a one sort of a one-mind team and I understand that our players honor the flag and they honor the men and women of the military and the armed forces and sometimes with these players, and guys like Malcolm Jenkins, who has been a tremendous leader of our football team, not only on the field but also off the field and what he's done in creating awareness to a lot of social injustices that plague our players. Our players are not immune to the things that are going on in society. It's obviously an ongoing debate with the league and the players association and it's still their right to do that," Pederson said.

Eagles players Malcolm Jenkins and Michael Bennett remained off the field during the national anthem in their game against the Cleveland Browns Thursday night. Earlier this month, President Trump renewed his attacks on NFL players who protest the national anthem, tweeting that "most of them are unable to define" what they are demonstrating against.

Pederson has been called one of the most innovative and dynamic coaches in the NFL. Last season, after losing star quarterback Carson Wentz to injury, Pederson led the "underdog" Eagles to their first Super Bowl victory in franchise history against the New England Patriots. He's out with a new memoir inspired by that experience called, "Fearless: How an Underdog Becomes a Champion."

"For me it was just about staying the course, staying true to who I believe that I am, being open, being honest, being transparent with the players, being firm with the players but at the same time listening to the players. And I think that's been the difference for me, is listening to the guys and that's what helped us win this championship… It was just the connection that our team had all season long that helped us win," Pederson said.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



THIS DRUG SCANDAL HAS A LONG HISTORY THAT INVOLVES MANY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE MEMBERS, FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP. THE WOMAN INVOLVED HERE IS THE LOW HANGING FRUIT, EASIEST TO PICK AND LEAST ABLE TO PULL RANK. SHE DOES HAVE A LAWYER WHO SEEMS TO BE ASSERTIVE, SO MAYBE SOME OF THE OTHERS INVOLVED WILL BE PINPOINTED AS TIME GOES ON ALSO.

THE MEN AND THOSE IN THE UPPER RANKS HAVE BEEN LEFT ALONE. COINCIDENCE? I DON’T THINK SO. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE COMPLEX STORIES THAT I’M NOT GOING TO DIG INTO RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE I’M SURE IT WILL EXPLODE IN THE NEWS FOR WEEKS AND MONTHS TO COME WITHOUT MY HELP. BESIDES, CORRUPTION IN POLICE DEPARTMENTS SADLY IS NOT NEWS. THERE’S NO MAN BITES DOG HERE, AT LEAST SO FAR.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/state-police-probe-clears-leaders-in-hiring-of-trooper-with-drug-dealing-past/ar-BBMp7hG?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
State Police probe clears leaders in hiring of trooper with drug-dealing past
By Andrea Estes and Shelley Murphy
AUGUST 25, 2018 7 HOURS AGO

PHOTOGRAPH -- © Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff Leigha Genduso was an unindicted co-conspirator in a marijuana trafficking case.

An internal Massachusetts State Police investigation has cleared agency officials of wrongdoing for hiring a trooper with a drug-dealing past, and blamed her for not disclosing her role as a key witness in a high-profile trafficking case.

Trooper Leigha Genduso resigned Friday afternoon upon reviewing the internal investigation, which her attorney called “a coverup from day one.” She received a dishonorable discharge, which she said she will appeal.

. . . .

Neither appeared to have been questioned as part of the internal probe, according to the 44-page report. Neither Risteen nor Hughes could be reached for comment Friday.

“For them to completely absolve themselves is disingenuous,” Genduso’s attorney, Daniel Moynihan, said of State Police officials. “They went along with it. Now they act shocked.”

State Police spokesman David Procopio said Friday that the internal probe found Genduso didn’t disclose her past to any member of the agency, and she made “demonstrably false statements regarding her past involvement in criminal activities” on her application.

“Under the leadership of Col. Kerry Gilpin, the Massachusetts State Police recently created a new checklist for the background check process, and broadened the questionnaire for recruit candidates to include questions about involvement in any criminal investigation, even if the candidate was not charged with a crime,” Procopio said in a statement.

Questions about how Genduso, an unindicted co-conspirator in a major marijuana trafficking case, became a civilian dispatcher in 2008 and then a trooper erupted earlier this year as the law enforcement agency was embroiled in a series of scandals.

Moynihan has maintained that Genduso’s involvement with her former boyfriend, convicted drug trafficker Sean Bucci, was well-known across the State Police ranks, even before she was hired as a dispatcher.

“Our investigation has revealed that it was clear that numerous members of the command staff, both past and present, were aware of the Bucci matter before Ms. Genduso’s hiring even as a dispatcher, much less a trooper,” Moynihan wrote in an Aug. 6 letter to Gilpin. He called Genduso an exemplary employee and noted she received positive evaluations and a commendation.

Following her resignation Friday, Genduso said she decided to “walk away with some dignity rather than keep battling.”

“Nobody wants to talk about how I did the job the best I could,” she added.

A year before becoming a State Police dispatcher, Genduso testified in federal court in 2007 in a case investigated by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and State Police. Genduso admitted that she helped Bucci cut up bales of marijuana and delivered gift-wrapped, 10-pound packages of marijuana to a customer of her own.

The internal investigation minimized the fact that details of the Bucci case — and even a transcript of her testimony posted on the court website — were readily available at the time she was hired.

Her former North Reading address, cited on her application, was a house owned by Bucci and forfeited to the government following his 2007 conviction, according to a press release from the US attorney’s office that was posted on the Internet.

The internal State Police probe, conducted by Detective Lieutenant David J. McQueeney, indicates that Genduso withheld information or lied nine times — including failing to disclose her involvement with drugs and lying when she said she had never been with someone who committed a crime and that she had never been accused of committing a crime.

The investigation also concluded that she was untruthful during her internal affairs interview in April, saying among other things that she didn’t know why she was granted immunity before she testified in 2007.

In the April interview with investigators, Genduso said she didn’t believe anyone on the State Police was aware of her past drug dealing or testimony.

But investigators don’t appear to have asked anyone directly whether Genduso’s background check was less rigorous than usual because she was involved with Risteen.

. . . . The department was in a “hiring crunch,” the report said, so a “modified background investigation” was conducted. . . . .