Editor-in-chief: David Suissa
June 5, 2018
Can a president pardon himself? It’s not clear but experts have been weighing in on this hypothetical question ever since Giuliani announced that Trump could probably do so if he wanted to. As Mueller’s investigation of Russia collusion and obstruction of justice continues, the question of a president’s power to pardon is likely to become more than just hypothetical.
…as is the case with so much involving Trump, the “unthinkable” gets an inordinate amount of thinking. There is, in fact, a case for the president to issue a blanket #RussiaGate pardon, and the case is getting stronger, thanks to the irrational hatred of his opponents… While cable news continues its obsession with the #RussiaGate story and every tweet, text or eyebrow-twitch related to it, President Trump and his allies have a strong and simple argument to make: They literally have more important things to do.
Trump’s power grab could be checked by a Democratic victory in the midterms, or, should Mueller pursue a subpoena against Trump, by the Supreme Court. But justice is very far from guaranteed. We’re 500 days into this waking nightmare of a presidency, and Trump has now claimed the powers of an autocrat. Assuming he serves out his term, there are almost 1,000 days left.
In a legal opinion issued just four days before Nixon stepped down, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel concluded that a president can’t pardon himself. The opinion was written in response to concerns that he might try to do so.”Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself,” wrote Mary Lawton, who was then acting assistant attorney general.
Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo has leveled an accusation against Prime Minister Netanyahu, saying that Netanyahu wiretapped Pardo and other security officials throughout the years. For many, the accusation is less than shocking and is rather a predictable move from a PM who often feels besieged by those close to him. But is the story true? And if so, was Netanyahu acting within his rights?
Suspicion and hostility have reigned between Netanyahu and Israeli generals as far back as his first term of office (1996-1999), but now he has stooped to a new low… wiretapping the telephones of intelligence heads had never been done before. There is evidently no limit to Netanyahu’s paranoia, no red lines when it comes to the basic trust that is supposed to exist between the prime minister and the people entrusted with Israel’s security.
Was there or was there not an order from the prime minister to wiretap the head of the Mossad and the chief of staff? This question has stirred the public and the political system since the news first hit on Thursday. It should be said – there is no Watergate affair here. Netanyahu, as prime minister, is authorized to order Israeli citizens to be placed under surveillance (with the attorney general”s counsel) for a period of several months, and to continually renew the order.
The impression one gets is that anyone who thinks differently from Netanyahu, and not just on security issues, is immediately suspected of sabotaging him, and in the prime minister’s view, all means of acting against such people are legitimate. After all, Netanyahu also frequently and irresponsibly throws out hints of “coups” and accusations that he’s being undermined by the police, the police commissioner and the judicial system.
Should a Christian baker have to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding? The Supreme Court has delivered an answer. Kind of. In a narrow 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Masterpiece Bakery, which (the Court argues) was treated unfairly by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission on the basis of the bakery owner’s religion. Because of the focus on the very specific facts of this case, the ruling does not mean that bakeries can now refuse cakes for gay weddings. But it does mean that the focus of such cases will have to be discrimination, not religion. More at Vox.
Why, then, did the baker win? The court found that in this particular instance, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had evinced hostility to religion… What’s critical is that this reasoning is a one-time ruling for this case only… In fact, Charlie Craig and David Mullins could go right back into Masterpiece Cakeshop today and request a cake to celebrate their wedding anniversary…
Those who urge us… toward government-imposed conformity, reject the reasoning of the First Amendment Lawyers Association and, more importantly, the U.S. Supreme Court. A tolerant society, they say, is one whose citizens uniformly embrace the socially popular view. Those who government officials consider “outliers” — like Jack — are not valued members of our diverse national community, but rather social outcasts that must be re-educated or removed.
Phillips declined to make a cake he found offensive where the offensiveness of the product was determined solely by the identity of the customer requesting it… When a couple contacts a bakery for a wedding cake, the product they are seeking is a cake celebrating their wedding — not a cake celebrating heterosexual weddings or same-sex weddings — and that is the service Craig and Mullins were denied.
On NBC’s Today show Bill Clinton stood by the way he handled his affair with Monica Lewinsky and expressed that he doesn’t feel he owes Lewinsky a personal apology. It’s true that Clinton apologized publicly, but is that good enough? More at New York Post.
He also said that he apologized “to everyone in the world.” But these attempts to justify himself show he doesn’t understand the very real, long-lasting harm he did to a young woman… Somehow, Clinton seems even decades later to have a persecution complex around his own mistakes (as does our current president). Yes, his legacy was tarnished… He was punished, but Lewinsky was punished far more harshly — because she’s a woman whose sex life was made public.
Clinton admitted he has never privately apologized to Lewinsky, though he said he has issued public apologies… Lewinsky was 22 years old and considered an adult when their affair started. But the power disparity between the two was perhaps the largest disparity possible — he was the leader of the free world, whereas she was an intern when the affair started. Those power dynamics are ripe for abuses of authority and power, both of which make consent a much more gray area than usual. And it would have been refreshing and admirable for Clinton to acknowledge that.
Melvin said that, off-camera, Clinton acknowledged standards had rightly changed since 1998. Why can’t he say so publicly? If a Democrat behaved today as Clinton did then, it wouldn’t be dismissed as “bimbo eruptions.” He’d be drummed out of office, as former senator Al Franken was for his behavior. But this is larger than #MeToo. Back then, when Clinton disgraced the office with personal misconduct and lies, we didn’t pause to think what might happen if an utterly unscrupulous man were to attain that position someday. Now we know.
A California “Jungle Primary,” in which candidates of both parties face off, could end up backfiring for Democrats. In Jungle primaries, the top two vote-getters (regardless of party) move onto the general elections. But with a slew of Democratic candidates and only two Republicans, Democratic infighting could keep any one candidate from getting enough votes to move on. Will Jewish candidate Mike Levin distinguish himself enough to win? More at FiveThirtyEight.
…the candidates have to survive California’s notorious “jungle primary,” in which the top two candidates, regardless of party, move on to the November general election… In the Forty-ninth, the rush to replace Issa has produced a wide primary slate. Three Democrats—the former marine Doug Applegate, the nonprofit founder Sara Jacobs, and the environmental-compliance attorney Mike Levin—have bobbed within a few percentage points of one another; the race is so close that the Democratic Party has issued no endorsement.
Democrats received some potentially disaster-avoiding news when a recent poll showed Democratic candidate Mike Levin leading in the much-watched race to fill Rep. Darrell Issa’s Southern California seat… There are about 26,000 Jews in the area, making up nearly four percent of the population. Skelley said Jewish voters in the southern part of the district closest to San Diego could help swing the general election for Levin if he gets past the primary. Levin has emphasized his Jewish roots, tweeting about his grandparents’ experience overcoming anti-Semitism.
National operatives are increasingly worried no Democrat will advance to the general election in a key U.S. House district in Southern California, blaming a self-funding candidate’s attacks on other Democrats… [Paul Kerr] has spent over $5 million of his own money on the race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Darrell Issa… Democrats are blaming Kerr because he’s paying for direct mail and television ads attacking another Democratic candidate, environmental lawyer Mike Levin, as a stooge for ExxonMobil and Countrywide Financial ― two companies that are widely loathed by the party’s base.
The New York Times revealed on Sunday that Facebook has been sharing user data with mobile phone companies like Apple and Blackberry. The data sharing deals are allegedly designed to allow phones to better integrate with Facebook, for instance by allowing phone users to post a photo to Facebook directly from their phones without entering the Facebook app. But after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, people are fed up with indiscriminate data sharing and this may be the last straw.
The takeaway from this complex, technical story is this: The Times exposed a new way user data could be transferred out of Facebook’s hands. That doesn’t mean that every—or any—phone manufacturer used this data in a nefarious way or handed it off to the Trump campaign. Your data or your friends’ data is not any more insecure today than it was yesterday (unless you use a very old device). But the story is yet another indication that in the rush to win the mobile wars, technology companies were able and willing to offer user data as a negotiating chip.
It’s potentially a very big problem for Facebook. Firstly, it may violate the “consent decree” deal that Facebook struck with the FTC in 2011. That settlement followed complaints from users that Facebook wasn’t allowing them to keep their information on the social network private—Facebook promised to get consent from users before sharing their data with third parties, and to avoid making deceptive claims about its privacy practices.
In a blog post on Sunday, Facebook’s VP of product partnerships, Ime Archibong, said the company disagreed with the implications of the Times’ reporting… Writes Archibong: These partners signed agreements that prevented people’s Facebook information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate Facebook-like experiences. Partners could not integrate the user’s Facebook features with their devices without the user’s permission.