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24 March 22
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Why Josh Hawley is below contempt
Lets’ be clear: Judge Jackson’s credentials are impeccable. She is the only Supreme Court nominee ever to have served as a public defender. She has handled civil and criminal cases, served on the federal sentencing commission, worked in private law firms and clerked for Stephen Breyer (the justice she’d be replacing). She has been a district court judge and a court of appeals judge. The American Bar Association has given her its highest rating. She is also the first Black woman nominated to serve on the high court.
But none of this has stopped senate Republicans from trying to turn her nomination into a cesspool of rabid partisan charges.
Yesterday, senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn claimed that Judge Jackson had called former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former President George W. Bush “war criminals.” In fact, she never used that phrase. Ted Cruz insinuated she was soft on child sexual abuse. After displaying several large color photos from a children’s book called “Antiracist Baby” by Ibram X. Kendi, Cruz asked her “Do you agree with this book that is being taught with kids that babies are racist?”
But the cesspool prize goes to Senator Josh Hawley — the senator who, you recall, fist-bumped those who were attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and voted against certifying Joe Biden as president. Hawley spent his entire 30 minutes questioning Jackson on a single case where he repeatedly referenced child pornography, sex trafficking, and pedophilia, after tweeting “Judge Jackson has opined there may be a type of ‘less-serious child pornography offender.’ … ’A ‘less-serious’ child porn offender?”
Utter rubbish. When she was vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Judge Jackson once asked a question about child pornography during a hearing on sentencing guidelines in 2012. She said she was surprised at a Justice Department expert’s testimony that some child-sex offenders may actually “not be pedophiles” but perhaps “loners” looking for like-minded company in child pornography circles. She then asked the expert: “I’m wondering whether you could say that there is a — that there could be a — less-serious child pornography offender who is engaging in the type of conduct in the group experience level?”
Hawley’s charge was made for the most cynical of political purposes. America’s extreme right seems to have a fetish about pedophilia. Remember the 2016 “pizza-gate” — when Russian operatives, Trump campaigners, Twitter bots, and the radical right manufactured the ‘news’ that Hillary Clinton ran a pizza-restaurant child-sex ring? It turns out that nearly a quarter of Republicans say they believe that the U.S. government, media, and financial sector are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.) But for a senate Republican to distort an eminent jurist’s record like this is below contemptuous.
So today’s Office Hours questions: Will Judge Jackson be confirmed? And will the Republicans’ despicable performance with regard to her nomination make a difference to voters (especially Independents and “moderate” Republicans) when they next go to the polls in the midterm elections?
What do you think?
Mark Pomerantz had investigated former President Donald J. Trump, but left after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, halted an effort to seek an indictment. (photo: Getty)
The following is the full text of the resignation letter by Mark Pomerantz, who had investigated former President Donald J. Trump, but left after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, halted an effort to seek an indictment.
I write to tender my resignation as a Special Assistant District Attorney and to explain my reasons for resigning.
As you know from our recent conversations and presentations, I believe that Donald Trump is guilty of numerous felony violations of the Penal Law in connection with the preparation and use of his annual Statements of Financial Condition. His financial statements were false, and he has a long history of fabricating information relating to his personal finances and lying about his assets to banks, the national media, counterparties, and many others, including the American people. The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes — he did.
In late 2021, then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance directed a thorough review of the facts and law relating to Mr. Trump’s financial statements. Mr. Vance had been intimately involved in our investigation, attending grand jury presentations, sitting in on certain witness interviews, and receiving regular reports about the progress of the investigation. He concluded that the facts warranted prosecution, and he directed the team to present evidence to a grand jury and to seek an indictment of Mr. Trump and other defendants as soon as reasonably possible.
This work was underway when you took office as District Attorney. You have devoted significant time and energy to understanding the evidence we have accumulated with respect to the Trump financial statements, as well as the applicable law. You have reached the decision not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges at the present time. The investigation has been suspended indefinitely. Of course, that is your decision to make. I do not question your authority to make it, and I accept that you have made it sincerely. However, a decision made in good faith may nevertheless be wrong. I believe that your decision not to prosecute Donald Trump now, and on the existing record, is misguided and completely contrary to the public interest. I therefore cannot continue in my current position.
In my view, the public interest warrants the criminal prosecution of Mr. Trump, and such a prosecution should be brought without any further delay. Because of the complexity of the facts, the refusal of Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization to cooperate with our investigation, and their affirmative steps to frustrate our ability to follow the facts, this investigation has already consumed a great deal of time. As to Mr. Trump, the great bulk of the evidence relates to his management of the Trump Organization before he became President of the United States. These facts are already dated, and our ability to establish what happened may erode with the further passage of time. Many of the salient facts have been made public in proceedings brought by the Office of the Attorney General, and the public has rightly inquired about the pace of our investigation. Most importantly, the further passage of time will raise additional questions about the failure to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his criminal conduct.
To the extent you have raised issues as to the legal and factual sufficiency of our case and the likelihood that a prosecution would succeed, I and others have advised you that we have evidence sufficient to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and we believe that the prosecution would prevail if charges were brought and the matter were tried to an impartial jury. No case is perfect. Whatever the risks of bringing the case may be, I am convinced that a failure to prosecute will pose much greater risks in terms of public confidence in the fair administration of justice. As I have suggested to you, respect for the rule of law, and the need to reinforce the bedrock proposition that “no man is above the law,” require that this prosecution be brought even if a conviction is not certain.
I also do not believe that suspending the investigation pending future developments will lead to a stronger case or dispel your reluctance to bring charges. No events are likely to occur that will alter the nature of the case or dramatically change the quality or quantity of the evidence available to the prosecution. There are always additional facts to be pursued. But the investigative team that has been working on this matter for many months does not believe that it makes law enforcement sense to postpone a prosecution in the hope that additional evidence will somehow emerge. On the contrary, I and others believe that your decision not to authorize prosecution now will doom any future prospects that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted for the criminal conduct we have been investigating.
I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes. I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice. I therefore resign from my position as a Special Assistant District Attorney, effective immediately.
Sincerely,
Mark F. Pomerantz
In Ukrainian city of Mariupol about 30,0000 civilian shave fled the fighting. (photo: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
Snow covers the body of a dead Russian soldier near a highway outside Kharkiv, Ukraine, a day after the invasion began. (photo: The New York Times)
The Supreme Court took issue with decision to add an additional Black-majority state assembly district in the Milwaukee area. (photo: Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
On the morning of March 16, 2022, over sixty Amazon workers at three delivery stations in New York and Maryland walked off the job. (photo: Amazonians United New York City)
First two months of 2022 alone have seen more than 300 manatee deaths as major conservation effort to rescue population. (photo: Eva Maria Uzcategui/Getty)
One thing wildlife officials have learned during the winter experimental feeding program to help manatees avoid starvation is that if you feed them, they will come
Manatees have eaten virtually all of the estimated 160,000 pounds (72,500 kilograms) of lettuce provided at a warm-water power plant site where manatees typically congregate during cold months, officials said Wednesday during a virtual news conference.
“They've eaten every scrap of food we've put out,” said Scott Calleson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
By the time the operation winds down in a few weeks, Calleson said the lettuce total will probably reach 200,000 pounds (90,700 kilograms) — almost all paid for by donations from people across the country.
It wasn't clear the manatees would eat the lettuce when the unprecedented program began in December. But officials say that since Jan. 20 the slow-moving marine mammals have feasted on the food made necessary after more than 1,100 manatees died largely from starvation last year, the worst year for the threatened species on record.
Through March 11 of this year, about 420 manatee deaths have been confirmed, still an alarmingly high number. But as warm spring weather continues, the manatees are beginning to leave the feeding site to find natural food elsewhere.
“Manatees are spreading out to the warm weather sites, which is a good thing,” said Tom Reinert, south regional director for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
As successful as the feeding program has been, officials say people must remember it remains illegal for individuals to feed manatees on their own.
About 7,500 manatees, also known as sea cows, live in Florida waters. They are listed federally as a threatened species, although there are efforts to give them the heightened endangered designation.
Many of the animals face starvation because their favored seagrass food is disappearing due to chronic water pollution from agricultural, sewage, urban runoff and other sources. Efforts are ongoing to restore the crucial seagrass beds, especially along the state's East Coast where the problem is most acute.
Dealing with the long-term pollution and water quality issues will take much more time and effort, officials have said.
Still, there's cautious optimism that the lessons learned this first year will make a similar effort envisioned for next winter much smoother and easier to operate, from setting up a command structure to finding refrigerated trucks to carry the lettuce.
“When we begin to ramp up for next winter, we know all these things,” said Jon Wallace of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Still, sick and dead manatees are still being spotted, mostly by people who see them in Florida waters and call an FWC hotline to report them. Dozens of rescued manatees are being cared for at SeaWorld in Orlando, which announced an expansion of its manatee facilities Tuesday.
On completion by July, SeaWorld said it will add a three-pool, 200,000-gallon (757,000-liter) complex that also includes a new lift floor to an existing pool. SeaWorld says it will be able care for 60 ill manatees at a time once finished, the largest capacity in the U.S.
“That larger space, together with our sizable, highly specialized and experienced manatee care team means that we are able to mobilize quickly and effectively to help save the lives of these animals and in doing so help save the species from extinction.” said Jon Peterson, vice president of Zoological Operations at SeaWorld in Orlando who works closely with the rescue effort.
Manatees are also being cared for at other aquariums and zoos, including the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. The Clearwater Marine Aquarium, meanwhile, announced it will construct new manatee rehabilitation pools and will invest in a $10 million manatee hospital being financed by donations.
Anyone who sees a distressed or dead manatee should call FWC’s wildlife hotline at 888-404-3922.
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