Trump Claims Obama Tapped His Phone

Tapped: President Trump went on a Twitter tirade from Florida this morning, claiming that President Obama had Trump’s phones tapped. “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” Trump tweeted.

An hour later he tweeted, “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

Trump offered no evidence that this actually happened and so far there’s no independent confirmation of it.

Uber Outlaws: The ride sharing-service Uber for years has used software to avoid law enforcement in cities where the service is unapproved or outright illegal, the NY Times reports.

Uber uses a programming tool called Greyball to identify and avoid enforcement officers in Boston, Paris, and Las Vegas, as well as the countries Australia, China, Italy and South Korea. The Times says the scheme was described to them by current and former employees.

The program identifies patterns of app use and credit cards connected to government. In some cases, Greyball actually puts phantom Uber cars on the screen of a potential customer who’s been identified as law enforcement trying to trap an Uber driver.

With Interest: Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen says that, barring any major economic bumps, the Fed will raise interest rates this month. Interest rates are still at an historic low and officials say they need to start inching them toward normal.

The Needle: Arkansas announced plans to execute eight prisoners between April 17 and 27 before one of the state’s lethal injection drugs expires. They plan to execute two men each on four dates. Arkansas, which has 34 inmates on Death Row, has not executed anyone for 12 years.

Hate Bust: A 31-year old St. Louis man has been accused of making threatening calls to eight Jewish centers as part of cyberstalking a former girlfriend. Juan Thompson once worked for NPR, and the website The Intercept, which fired him for making up stories and sources.

The case does not appear to be connected to what appears to be a more organized wave of threats phoned in to Jewish centers across the country.

Oh God: President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visited a private religious school in Florida yesterday as part of their campaign for school choice. Trump described the St. Andrew Catholic School in Orlando as “one of the many parochial schools dedicated to educating some of our nation’s most disadvantaged children.” He said, “Education is the civil rights issue of our time.”

Mass: Irish authorities have uncovered at least one mass grave for children and infants on the grounds of a former home for unwed mothers. Local residents say they have long-suspected something was there. The home in the town of Tuam was run by the Bon Secours nuns from the 1920s and until the 1960s.

A statement from investigators says, “The remains are between 35 fetal weeks and 2 to 3 years of age. From carbon dating it has correlated the age of these samples with the time period during which the home was in operation — between 1925 and 1961.”

He Quits: Arnold Schwarzenegger has quit as host of the “The New Celebrity Apprentice,” the show on which he replaced Donald Trump as host. Schwarzenegger said he was fine working with NBC and producer Mark Burnett and “I would absolutely work with all of them again on a show that doesn’t have this baggage.” The baggage is Trump, who mocked Schwarzenegger’s low ratings. Schwarzenegger said, “When people found out that Trump was still involved as executive producer and was still receiving money from the show, then half the people [started] boycotting it.”

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Friday, March 29, 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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