Source: CNN

(CNN)Paul Manafort is in the hospital after suffering a heart ailment while in prison, a source familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The former Trump campaign chairman is serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence in a Pennsylvania prison for financial crimes that stemmed from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

He was admitted to the hospital on Thursday, lawyer Todd Blanche said. Blanche said Manafort was in stable condition, though he said that he, along with Manafort's family, was being kept in the dark about the full extent of Manafort's medical condition.

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to comment, citing safety and privacy concerns for inmates.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/politics/paul-manafort-hospital/index.html

Source: Bloomberg

For decades, the U.S. has required banks to steer a portion of their money to people in poor neighborhoods. Now, under proposed rule changes, banks may finance upgrades to sports stadiums, call it helping the poor -- and potentially even get a generous tax break.

That scenario might seem oddly specific, but it’s what two regulators appointed by President Donald Trump said last week they may allow as they undertake the most significant rewrite of the Community Reinvestment Act in a quarter-century. The agencies drafted a long list hypothetical ways banks could seek to meet their obligations, including this sentence on page 100 of their proposal:
“Investment in a qualified opportunity fund, established to finance improvements to an athletic stadium in an opportunity zone that is also an LMI census tract.” (LMI refers to low- or moderate-income.)

There are well over a dozen NFL venues nestled in so-called opportunity zones. They include M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, home of the National Football League’s Ravens, which this year completed $120 million in upgrades such as a new sound system. In Denver, there’s Empower Field at Mile High, where the Broncos play. And in Las Vegas, a new stadium is being built for the Raiders. There also are facilities for professional baseball, basketball, soccer and hockey teams in the zones.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-16/banks-may-call-nfl-stadium-financing-aid-to-poor-in-rule-change

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Roughly 300 Saudi Arabian military aviation students have been grounded as part of a “safety stand-down” after a Saudi Air Force lieutenant shot and killed three people last week at a U.S. Navy base in Florida, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

The FBI has said U.S. investigators believe Saudi Air Force Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, 21, acted alone when he attacked a U.S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday, before he was fatally shot by a deputy sheriff.

The shootings have again raised questions about the U.S. military relationship with Saudi Arabia, which has come under heightened scrutiny in Congress over the war in Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year.

Still, U.S. military leaders have sought to portray this as a localized issue which would not affect the overall U.S.-Saudi relationship.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-military-exclusive-idUSKBN1YE2GY

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/pensacola-florida-shooting-saudi-students.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Source: theguardian.com

A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”.

This is the second time practising obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to tell the Ohio legislators that the idea is currently medically impossible.

The move comes amid a wave of increasingly severe anti-abortion bills introduced across much of the country as conservative Republican politicians seek to ban abortion and force a legal showdown on abortion with the supreme court.

Ohio’s move on ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants on the mother’s fallopian tube rather than her uterus rendering the pregnancy unviable – is one of the most extreme bills to date.


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/29/ohio-extreme-abortion-bill-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Just my own fear. Is that even possible?

Last night on CNN at their Climate Change Town Hall, a student asked Joe Biden, who had months ago pledged to take NO fossil fuel money, why he was having an NYC fundraiser tonight hosted by Andrew Goldman, the founder of the natural gas co Western LNG. Biden denied Goldman had anything to do with fossil fuels and tried to change the subject. Anderson Cooper wouldn’t let him. Cooper told Biden exactly who Goldman was. Biden pretended to be surprised. Cooper then asked him if he was still going to attend the fundraiser. Biden said if it’s true, then he’d have to reconsider. Cooper said it was true and now CNN is reporting that Biden is indeed attending the fundraiser tonight. Wow. This is so stunning — and I’m sure depressing for the good people who like Biden.
Listen— We can NOT go through this again, my friends. As with Hillary taking GoldmanSachs $$ and then trying to pretend nothing happened, we can NOT risk this again. Our base will stay home once more if Biden is the candidate and it’s politics as usual. If they see he’s in cahoots w/ Fossil Fuel, that he has lied,
they will not say, “So what — Trump’s a bigger liar!” They will just give up. Trust me on this. We need a completely honest and authentic candidate, the Anti-Trump, a street fighter, someone who when they say they’ll take NO fossil fuel $$, they not only keep their promise, they will go after tooth-and-nail and put somebody like Andrew Goldman out of business. They don’t attend a fundraiser of his fat cats!
Joe — you’re driving there right now! For God’s sake, turn your limousine around immediately and apologize to the American people.
You think u can beat Trump. So what! Hillary beat him! Didn’t matter! We need a candidate who will CRUSH him because that candidate has INSPIRED a tsunami of voters with her or his INTEGRITY and his/her progressive vision of what the 21st century should be. That, Joe, isn’t you.
Finally, last night you said that we are only 15% of the climate change problem — “85% of it is the rest of the world’s (fault).” Are you serious? Wall Street, Corporate America, the poor everywhere who make our goods for us, our exploitation of the entire planet — please, Joe, stop.

Just as Americans are getting their first full view of the Democratic candidates for president, President Donald Trump put on a startling performance on the global stage, a stark reminder of the enormity of the 2020 stakes.

Trump's trip to Asia brought the relentless torrent of appalling statements that we have come to expect, but to which we should never become accustomed. At every stop, with every tweet, he scattered petals upon tyrants, praised himself and claimed to have achieved great triumphs. Perhaps the accomplishments will come. Perhaps the praise that he so hungers for reflects the needs of other leaders with whom he identifies, and will ultimately pay off. But not yet.

Instead, the world saw the now-familiar display: criticism of allies, love for tyrants and lies. There was an added feature this time, presidential daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, whose vaguely defined portfolio does not include top-level diplomacy, weirdly positioned, again and again, between world leaders, who could scarcely conceal their irritation. Ivanka was everywhere, prompting raised eyebrows and puzzled glances. In a video released by the French presidency, Ivanka awkwardly joins a conversation with the leaders of France, the UK, Canada and the IMF. IMF chief Christine Lagarde's eyes tell the story. Watch the video

But it was Trump's behavior that was most disturbing. Speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump could hardly contain his envy of Putin's mostly successful efforts to silence critical journalists. Many of Putin's critics have turned up dead. "Get rid of them," Trump said, on the first anniversary of the massacre of journalists at the Annapolis Capital Gazette.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/opinions/trump-asia-trip-g20-behavior-ghitis/index.html

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)The federal government now owns condo 43G in Trump Tower because of the Mueller investigation, a judge certified Thursday.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson's order was the final move seizing the apartment from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his wife Kathleen after he admitted to illegal foreign lobbying and money laundering and was convicted by a jury of fraud and other financial crimes during the Mueller probe.

Snip:

Manafort bought the 1,500-square foot, 2-bed, 2.5-bath Fifth Avenue condo more than a decade ago for $3.675 million through a shell company that hid his riches from US authorities. He used it as a home base for years when he traveled to New York and when he led the Trump campaign. His residence there was even part of Manafort's pitch to Trump to hire him in 2016, according to The New York Times.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/30/politics/paul-manafort-condo-trump-tower/index.html

So all the “fake news” was true. A hostile foreign power intervened in the presidential election, hoping to install Donald Trump in the White House. The Trump campaign was aware of this intervention and welcomed it. And once in power, Trump tried to block any inquiry into what happened.

Never mind attempts to spin this story as somehow not meeting some definitions of collusion or obstruction of justice. The fact is that the occupant of the White House betrayed his country. And the question everyone is asking is, what will Democrats do about it?

But notice that the question is only about Democrats. Everyone (correctly) takes it as a given that Republicans will do nothing. Why?

Because the modern G.O.P. is perfectly willing to sell out America if that’s what it takes to get tax cuts for the wealthy. Republicans may not think of it in those terms, but that’s what their behavior amounts to.



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/opinion/trump-republican-party.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytopinion

If the house votes to obtain Trumps tax returns - does he legally have to comply? And if he doesn't what are the consequences?