This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, April 5th, 2023.
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https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-could-sentenced-more-100-years-prison-1792487
Donald Trump Could be Sentenced to More Than 100 Years in Prison
Donald Trump could be sentenced to more than 100 years in prison if found guilty of the over 30 charges of business fraud in the indictment from a Manhattan grand jury for which he’ll be arraigned on Tuesday in New York, according to attorney Lisa Bloom.
According to an exclusive report by Yahoo News correspondent Michael Isikoff on Monday, the former president will face 34 class E felonies for falsification of business records in the case which revolves around the $130,000 payment of hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels by Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing and called the probe a political “witch hunt.”
“If this report is correct, Trump will be arraigned tomorrow on 34 FELONIES. Each carries a possible prison term of 4 years. Bragg would not bring this case without strong evidence,” she wrote about the Manhattan District Attorney leading the grand jury investigation, Alvin Bragg.
“Remember, this is the same DA’s office that recently convicted the Trump Org for criminal fraud.”
Bloom, who since 2015 has been a vocal critic of Trump and in 2016 represented pro-bono four women accusing him of sexual harassment or sexual assault, said she’s convinced that the case against Trump is strong, going to the point of calling it “a prosecutor’s dream” because there’s a record of the former president giving conflicting versions of the story.
Based on these premises, Bloom expects the 34 felony charges to be about Trump’s attempts to “cover up evidence of an underlying crime, in this case the campaign nondisclosures.”
Most experts looking at the case against Trump expect the chance of Trump actually serving prison time if found guilty close to zero. The charges against him would also not disqualify him from running for the presidency in 2024.
It’s also uncertain whether Bragg would actually recommend Trump serve time in prison. The sentence will be eventually decided by the judge.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/04/jolts-february-2023-.html
Job openings tumbled below 10 million in February for the first time in nearly two years
Job openings fell below 10 million in February for the first time in nearly two years, in a sign that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow the labor market may be having some impact.
Available positions totaled 9.93 million, a drop of 632,000 from January’s downwardly revised number, the Labor Department reported Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Wall Street had been looking for 10.4 million, according to FactSet.
It was the first time vacancies fell below 10 million since May 2021.
The Fed has targeted the red-hot labor market in its quest to bring down inflation, which had been running at a 41-year high in the summer of 2022. The central bank has raised benchmark interest rates nine times since March 2022, but those moves had been appearing to have little impact on the jobs situation.
Prior to the February data, job openings had been outnumbering available workers by nearly 2 to 1. The latest figures bring that ratio down to less than 1.7 to 1.
Treasury yields fell following the release as the data could help dissuade the Fed from further rate hikes. Stocks moved lower.
“The labor market is starting to loosen as the number of job openings declined in most sectors. As the economy slows, firms will likely cut openings and workers will be less likely to quit in search of better hours and higher pay,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial. “The Fed could consider pausing rate hikes at the next meeting but only if the upcoming employment report shows signs of material weakness and the March [consumer price index] report reveals lower inflation.”
Though the numbers run a month behind, the Fed watches the JOLTS data closely for signs of labor slack.
Along with the decline in job openings, hires and separations also decreased slightly. Quits, a sign of labor confidence in the ability to switch jobs, rose by 146,000 to just over 4 million.
Professional and business services saw a slide of 278,000 job openings on the month, while trade, transportation and utilities decreased 210,000. Accommodation and food services, an important sector to gauge consumer demand, dropped 125,000.
On the positive side, there were 129,000 new construction jobs available, though that was the only category that saw a noticeable bump.
The JOLTS release comes three days ahead of fresh nonfarm payroll numbers for March. The Friday Labor Department count is expected to show a gain of 238,000, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.6%.
Wisconsin Voters Head To The Polls To Decide Balance Of State Supreme Court
Voters in Wisconsin head to the polls on Tuesday to decide the balance of the state Supreme Court in one of the most expensive court races in history.
Neither candidate running for the open seat belongs to a political party. Conservative candidate and former Justice Dan Kelly, backed by most Republicans, is facing off against liberal candidate Judge Janet Protasiewicz (Pro-Tuh-Say-Witz), the preferred candidate of most Democrats, with the winner determining the ideological slant of the divided court and earning a 10-year term on the court.
Protasiewicz has reportedly been backed by donations from left-wing billionaire George Soros and Gov. J.B Pritzker (D-IL), while Kelly has received support from groups like Fair Courts America, a conservative judicial organization. Total spending has exceeded $40 million, an astronomical amount compared to previous years when total spending was only around $10 million.
Hollywood has even thrown its weight behind Protasiewicz, with director Steven Speilberg contributing to her campaign and actor Mark Ruffalo encouraging voters to “change the future of Wisconsin by electing Janet Protasiewicz & flipping the state supreme court.”
Both candidates have suggested that the other is unfit to serve, with Kelly pointing to Protasiewicz’s left-wing ties and claiming she has a soft-on-crime sentencing history, while Protasiewicz linked Kelly to attempts to challenge the 2020 presidential election in the Badger State.
During a debate earlier this year, Protasiewicz claimed that she was “running against probably one of the most extreme partisan characters in the history of the state.”
Though officially non-partisan, the candidates have nearly polar opposite views, with Protasiewicz openly championing her support for abortion and Kelly receiving the endorsements of key pro-life groups in the state. Protasiewicz had an ad featuring a woman celebrating an abortion because the child could have been born with disabilities.
The election could be a deciding factor in a case over Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban, which became relevant after Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer.
The candidates could also play a key role in deciding the fate of other laws in the state, including election integrity measures, election maps, and gun laws. Last year, the state made a bombshell ruling, saying that Wisconsin voters could not turn their ballots into unmanned drop boxes and that voters would not be allowed to give them to others to drop off for them. This case, decided 4-3, would likely have been different with a different balance on the court.
Republicans currently control the state’s general assembly, but Democrat Gov. Tony Evers won re-election in November, meaning lawmakers are limited in what laws they can get passed.
Los Angeles floats ‘decarceration’ policy to release large number of inmates
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is floating a “decarceration” policy that would drastically reduce the number of people in jails, releasing many current inmates.
The agenda item , added to Tuesday’s meeting, is titled “Los Angeles County to Take Actionable Next Steps to Depopulate and Decarcerate the Los Angeles County Jails: Granting Local Authority, Advocating for Court and State Support, and Legislative Changes.”
The proposal, to be discussed during the meeting, would “declare the State of mental health services and overcrowding in the Los Angeles County jails a humanitarian crisis, requiring the County to move with all deliberate speed on meaningful solutions; and prioritize decreasing the number of individuals entering the Los Angeles County Jails” through a number of measures.
In order to “reaffirm the Board’s commitment to depopulate and decarcerate,” the proposal would require law enforcement to “cite and release individuals with aggregate bail amounts set at $50,000 or below” and “adopt a zero-bail schedule for individuals accused of low-level offenses, infractions, misdemeanors, and some felony offenses.”
The push comes as crime, including violent crime, has risen in the past few years, particularly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic . An analysis found that crime increased 11% in 2022, with 60 reported crimes per 1,000 residents, compared to 2021, which saw 54 crimes per 1,000 residents. In some areas, crime has skyrocketed; downtown experienced 372 crimes per 1,000 residents in 2022.
The vice president of the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys, Eric Siddall, denounced the proposal, speaking with Fox News, arguing that it would make crime in the city even worse.
“The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ motion to gut parts of the criminal justice system without input from stakeholders is dangerous and recklessness,” he told the outlet. “The authors sought no advice from those who know and understand public safety issues. They seek to lower the jail population without addressing the root causes of crime or protecting the public.”
He condemned the “catch-and-release” part of the proposal.
Now this!
‘Gone with the Wind’ to include trigger warning, intro that addresses ‘white supremacy’ in latest print
The publishers of the classic American novel “Gone with the Wind” will include a “harmful” trigger warning and an introduction that addresses “white supremacy,” the Telegraph reported.
Pan Macmillan, a publishing house based in London, has decided to affix a trigger warning to Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel. The book, which takes place in 1861, follows the story of Scarlett O’Hara, the daughter of a southern plantation owner, and her romance with Captain Rhett Butler during the Civil War.
The cautionary note at the front of the new edition of the book will warn readers that it contains “racist” themes that could be “hurtful or indeed harmful.”
“Gone with the Wind is a novel which includes problematic elements including the romanticisation of a shocking era in our history and the horrors of slavery,” the trigger warning states. “The novel includes the representation of unacceptable practices, racist and stereotypical depictions and troubling themes, characterisation, language and imagery.”
Pan Macmillan noted that the new edition of Mitchell’s novel would remain original. New editions of works from Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming were recently altered to remove potentially offensive passages with racial references.
“The text of this book remains true to the original in every way and is reflective of the language and period in which it was originally written,” the cautionary note continued. “We want to alert readers that there may be hurtful or indeed harmful phrases and terminology that were prevalent at the time this novel was written and which are true to the context of the historical setting of this novel.”
“Pan Macmillan believes changing the text to reflect today’s world would undermine the authenticity of the original, so has chosen to leave the text in its entirety.”
Pan Macmillan added, “This does not, however, constitute an endorsement of the characterisation, content or language used.”
The cautionary note affixed to the start of the novel was written by Philippa Gregory, the author of “The Other Boleyn Girl.” According to the publisher, Gregory was chosen to pen the introduction because “we believed it was important that no author from a minority background should be asked to undertake the emotional labour of being responsible for educating the majority.”
Gregory argued that Mitchell’s novel “effectively promoted the racist planter view of the history of the South.” She claimed it “defends racism” and “glamorizes and preaches white supremacy.”
According to Gregory, “It tells us, unequivocally, that African people are not of the same species as white people.”
“This is the lie that spoils the novel,” Gregory adds.
All I can say to the publisher is, Frankly my dear… I don’t give a damn.