To the Slammer: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced to less than four years in prison for his conviction on financial crimes, far less than the 19-24 years recommended in federal sentencing guidelines.

  Noting that Manafort had once led an exemplary life, Judge T. S. Ellis III of the US District Court in Alexandria, Va., said the guidelines were too harsh.

  Manafort was found to have hidden millions of dollars in income from paying taxes and lying to banks to obtain loans. His sentence is surprisingly lenient, but it’s not unusual for white collar criminals to get off easy.

  The 69-year-old Manafort arrived in court wearing a green prison jumpsuit and in a wheelchair because he has gout in one foot. Pleading for leniency, he read from a prepared statement to the court saying, “To say I feel humiliated and ashamed would be a gross understatement.” 

 Manafort is the biggest fish convicted in the Special Counsel investigation, although this case had nothing directly to do with Russian election meddling. It was about financial fraud.

 Manafort is up for sentencing again in two weeks for his guilty plea of conspiracy in a federal court in Washington. There, he could be sentenced to five years that might run end-to-end with his first sentence.

Lawyering Up: President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen is suing the Trump Organization for $1.9 million in legal costs that went unpaid after he agreed to cooperate with the feds.

  Cohen had a contract that said the Trump company would pay his legal bills for anything involving his employment. He’s also suing for $1.9 million in restitution for fines and forfeitures incurred when he pled guilty to breaking the law on Trump’s behalf.

   A trump company statement said, “This is a desperate money grab by a desperate convicted felon.”

  There’s a lot of that going around.

Tolerance Ad Absurdum:The first Muslim woman member of Congress said something offensive to Jews and supporters of Israel and Congressional Democrats scrambled to condemn it without naming the offender. Before you knew it, the measure of condemnation included all kinds of intolerance including “African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others” targeted by bigotry. 

  The dustup was created when Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who said that pro-Israel activists were pushing “for allegiance to a foreign country” — a remark that critics in both parties said played into the anti-Semitic trope of “dual loyalty.”

  The House resolution states that “whether from the political right, center or left, bigotry, discrimination, oppression, racism and imputations of dual loyalty threaten American democracy and have no place in American political discourse.”

  Omar declared it a victory because the measure includes Muslims.

  Republicans laughed at it. “We left out the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we left out Wiccans, we left out Jehovah’s Witnesses, we left out disabled people!” said Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

Big Brother:Journalists and immigration activists who’ve gone to Mexico in recent months to visit the migrant caravans have noticed that they’ve been singled out for special attention when returning to the US. They say they’ve been subjected to secondary screenings and questioning. 

  Now theNBCtelevision station in San Diego has broken the story that customs enforcement has kept lists and compiled dossiers on the reporters and activists who’ve gone into Mexico.

  A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told NPR, “It is protocol following these incidents to collect evidence that might be needed for future legal actions and to determine if the event was orchestrated.” As if they would be orchestrated by American journalists.

  KNSD’s source at Homeland Security said the government is overstepping its authority. “We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the source is quoted as saying. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”

The News Roundup:A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by porn actress Stormy Daniels to be released from her agreement not to talk about her affair with Donald Trump. The judge said the issue is moot because the agreement has not been enforced. In case you haven’t noticed, Daniels has talked about it. — The SpaceX crew capsule has separated from the International Space Station to complete its experimental round trip to Earth. The only passenger is the robot Ripley. — Most of Venezuela has lost electricity in a giant power outage. President Nicolás Maduro has blamed his political opponents of sabotage.

Mansplaining:In recognition of International Women’s Day, the recruiting arm of the Russian Army distributed a picture of its soldiers posed in combat gear with ballerinas dressed in white. The picture did not include any Russian women serving in the military. 

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