Family Shown the Video, Charity at Home

Black Lives: Tulsa, Okla. police Off. Betty Jo Shelby has been charged with manslaughter “in the heat of passion” for the shooting death of an unarmed

black motorist. Shelby killed 40-year-old Terence Crutcher, who was walking away with his hands up when she fired. A charging affidavit says Shelby had become “emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted,” and that she fired even though she “was not able to see any weapons or bulges indicating” Crutcher had a gun.

In Charlotte, NC, where the National Guard was called out to keep the peace, a man who was shot during demonstrations over the fatal police shooting of Keith Scott has died.

Scott’s family was shown the videos of his shooting by the police and they said they came away with more questions than answers. They said it was not clear that Scott was holding a gun, as police have claimed, and they want to videos publicly released. E Chief of Police Kerr Putney, agreed, saying, “It is impossible to discern from the videos what, if anything, Mr. Scott is holding in his hands.”

Yahoo: The internet company Yahoo says that half a billion customer accounts were hacked by what they call, a “state-sponsored actor.”  This was two years ago.

The information accessed included names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and encrypted passwords. Yahoo says the hackers didn’t get bank account and credit card numbers.

They advise Yahoo users to change all passwords and beware of odd email requests for information.

Charity Begins at Home: Donald Trump is fighting back against a report in the Washington Post that he used $258,000 from his charitable foundation “to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.” Reporter David Farenthold wrote that, “Trump may have violated laws against ‘self-dealing’ — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.”

Farenthold reported that Trump’s foundation paid $100,000 to a veteran’s charity to settle a personal fine racked up by his Mar-a-Lago Club. The payment was expected to have come from Trump himself. Farenthold documented other similar uses of Trump Foundation money.

The Trump campaign said the Post got its facts wrong, without saying which facts and, “The Post’s reporting is peppered with inaccuracies and omissions from a biased reporter who is clearly intent on distracting attention away from the corrupt Clinton Foundation, a vehicle for the Clintons to peddle influence at the expense of the American people.”

A senior aide to Trump told the Des Moines Register that a lot of it is really his money because he gave it to the foundation or diverted a speaking fee directly to the foundation. Lynne Patton told the Register, “That’s money that otherwise would’ve been in his personal account, right?” So, she reasoned, that when Trump sends a check from his foundation, “it is his money, no ifs, ands or ways about it.”

Well, actually, probably even the overnight cleaning crew at the IRS would tell her, no, it isn’t.

Promises, Promises: Evan Osnos writes in The New Yorker that you can’t dismiss Donald Trump’s campaign promises as meaningless noise just to get him elected. The Wall, barring Muslims from the country, repealing Obamacare. Osnos says, “Campaigns offer a surprisingly accurate preview of Presidencies. In 1984, the political scientist Michael Krukones tabulated the campaign pledges of all the Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Jimmy Carter and found that they achieved seventy-three per cent of what they promised. Most recently, PolitiFact, a nonpartisan fact-checking site, has assessed more than five hundred promises made by Barack Obama during his campaigns and found that, to the irritation of his opponents, he has accomplished at least a compromised version of seventy per cent of them.”

The Pasta Connection: Federal corruption charges were announced yesterday against two former close aides of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The late Gov. Mario Cuomo, the current governor’s father, used to refer one of the indicted men, Joseph Percoco, as “my other son.”

Percoco and his knuckle-dragging friends liked to refer to money in their email messages as “ziti,” and evidently he liked his pasta. He’s accused of taking $300,000 worth of “ziti.”

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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