SUMMARY:Scandal has ensnared some of the nation’s top colleges, as prosecutors allege that wealthy parents conspired to help their kids cheat on college admissions tests and funnel bribes to college athletic coaches to secure admission into elite schools. William Brangham talks to Jeffrey Selingo, who covers higher education, about the stunning charges federal prosecutors brought on Tuesday.
SUMMARY:An explosive scandal around bribery and cheating in college admissions has prompted new questions about access, race and inequality in elite higher education. Judy Woodruff explores some of them with Daniel Golden, senior editor at ProPublica and author of a book on the unfairness of college admissions; and Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, an organization focused on racial justice.
SUMMARY:A federal judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors led by current Labor Secretary Alex Acosta broke the law when he was U.S. attorney in Florida. Acosta's team allegedly concealed a plea agreement from more than 30 underage victims who had been sexually abused by billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Amna Nawaz talks to Julie Brown of the Miami Herald about the troubling details she heard from victims.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks analyze the week in politics, including the uproar over a racist photo on the medical school yearbook page of Gov. Ralph Northam (D-Va) the furor erupting over state legislation related to third-trimester abortions, hope for resolving the border wall standoff and the widening 2020 field of Presidential candidates.
Judy Woodruff: (NewsHour): An update now to a story we reported earlier.
This evening, Virginia's Governor Northam acknowledged that he was in a photograph depicting blackface and a Ku Klux Klan outfit. The photo was made public today, and comes from his 1984 medical school yearbook.
Northam's statement this evening said, in part: "I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused, then and now."
And that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Judy.
Judy Woodruff: So, I want to begin, David, with this news that we reported earlier in the program, that the pictures of Governor Northam had surfaced. He was elected just a year ago, is seen as a progressive Democrat in the South, in Virginia.
But now there's this. Can he survive this?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, first, it just shocks you with how appalling it is.
1984, it was not like 1850. And it's his med school. It's not high school. It's not college. This is a full-grown adult. And so it's just shocking and appalling that this was the norm, that it was OK to do this.
I don't know if it survives — he doesn't — Virginia is a one-term state, so he never has to run again. But I really don't know. I — frankly, I was a little more appalled by his comments earlier in the week about letting babies die on tables when they're born in late-term abortions.
And that was sort of what got this ball rolling. And so I would say, these are two events that I find morally incomprehensible.
Judy Woodruff: Mark, what about this? And I do want to ask you about the abortion debate that David's referring to.
Mark Shields: Yes.
Judy, I think that Ralph Northam won a campaign last year in which race was the issue, and he was the pro-civil rights candidate, and was castigated by Republicans for sponsoring, supporting the removal of Confederate statues from public places to museums.
And that has been his public record. This is very much at odds with that. And I agree with David. It's offensive and it's indefensible, and the fact that he was a grown man.
I do not think it leads to resignation. It is a one-term state. But, I mean, it certainly, I think, inhibits his effectiveness as governor, and certainly from the moral level of a governor calling, summoning a people to sacrifice, a collective sacrifice.
Judy Woodruff: Well, we will certainly see. This is all literally breaking just as we're sitting here tonight together on the program.
But, David, just quickly, you referred to the dispute, the, frankly, outrage that poured out earlier this week. Virginia, there was just — in brief, a state legislator in Virginia was talking about expanding abortion rights into the third trimester, a lot outcry about that.
The governor was attempting to talk about it, as someone who was an OB/GYN, a doctor, a physician. But it made an even bigger story.
David Brooks: Yes, well it started with Andrew Cuomo in New York, where they passed a bill with full-length abortion.
And I — you can have pro-choice, pro-life — I thought Andrew Cuomo made a mistake in lighting up the tower on the World Trade Center. Abortion is a tough issue. You don't celebrate it, a full-term abortion, with lighting up a tower in celebration of your law.
Then the — there was a bill proposed in the Virginia legislature to do this, and the legislator was asked, would she — could you abort a baby just before it was in the birth canal? And she said yes.
And he was trying to explain it, the governor was, with — very medically, that the — if a child comes out with some problems, then the physician and the parents would decide whether or not to resuscitate.
And, to me, that's not my understanding of the Hippocratic oath. If a baby is on a table, it's not even abortion anymore. It's a baby breathing on a table. And that's a human being, whatever you think of the pro-life issue.
And so we're pushing new territory, I would say, in this debate, territory that almost no other country in the world endorses.
Judy Woodruff: Where do you see this?
Mark Shields: I think David makes excellent points.
I would add to this, Judy. Abortion is — Americans are collectively pro-choice and anti-abortion. You ask Americans, how do you feel about abortion, they don't like it.
But a woman forced to make a decision under difficult circumstances, in consultation with her confessor, her conscience and her physician, they're not going to — they're not going to criminalize it.
But, as long as the question is, what is being decided, as rather who is deciding, and when you're talking about what is being decided, what David has described, I think, frankly, it's now indefensible.
Abortion is a — is an issue that Americans, quite bluntly, have never resolved. I mean, it remains in every Gallup poll every year the plurality Americans think abortion is immoral. They — at the same time, they do not want to criminalize it.
But I do think that, when you get into the — as we talked about in Virginia, it's infanticide, when you say, make a child — have the child born, comforted, consoled, and then decide whether in fact — is it 24 hours, 12 hours, a week?
I think — I just think the Democrats have gone from being the pro-choice party in both those instances to being the no-choice party.
Judy Woodruff: Well, we should — we should point out that what the Democrats are trying to do in a number of states is talk about the health of the mother, the life of the mother, the health of the baby. And those issues are part of this as well.
But you're right. We're not going to resolve this, this evening. But it's an important thing to bring up.
Let's talk quickly about the border wall dispute, David. Here we are, a week later. The committee is meeting at the Capitol. The President is saying, it doesn't matter.
Does either — Republicans or Democrats on either side have more leverage? Where are we headed?
David Brooks: Yes, I assume we're not going to have a shutdown again on February 15, just because the Republicans, it would just be suicidal.
And the Senate Republicans are a little more active this time. But I don't quite see how it gets resolved. Trump has said, the negotiations don't matter, I want my wall. Nancy Pelosi is still at the position a wall is immoral.
And it's — the obvious exit route is, they find some money for border security, and Donald Trump gets to call it a wall, whether it's a wall or not.
But it — the other — but they don't seem to have a route to get there. And they seem — both have decided, I can't let the other side seem to have won.
And so, even symbolically, they can't share a victory here. And so I don't see a way out. It's certainly not evident right now.
Judy Woodruff: The — Senator Shelley Moore Capito was on the program this week, Mark, and she said they're talking about, among things, fences, maybe levees, as one definition of a barrier.
Mark Shields: Yes. That's right.
Judy Woodruff: So, it could very well come down to some construction or definition.
Mark Shields: Yes. I agree. I agree with David's — David's point.
Judy, I think that, whether it's border security or whatever, the President is not being helpful. I mean, there seems to be, on the part of Republicans, Senator Capito, but Senator Cornyn, Senator Thune, an understanding that a — they got hurt, and they have got to resolve this, and they want to get it resolved.
And, at the same time, they're being increasingly frank about the President's unhelpfulness in it. I mean, John Cornyn said, we're trying to figure out where he stands. And John Thune, the senator from South Dakota, said, we cannot say that these meetings are fruitless. We're trying to get something.
It's almost — what President Trump is doing is making the congressional branch of our system more positive, I mean, that we're turning to them in hopes. We always thought the executive was very efficient.
But, I mean, now the hope for resolving this really, frankly, is with the conference of senators and House members.
Judy Woodruff: Even as the President pronounces it a waste of time.
SUMMARY: Former White House adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman refuted President Donald Trump’s claim Monday that she signed a nondisclosure agreement, saying she never agreed to keep quiet about her work as a senior administration official.
Trump tweeted Monday that Manigault Newman, who is promoting her new book “Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House,” which is highly critical of the president, signed a nondisclosure agreement though he didn’t specify when.
Manigault Newman said Monday she signed a nondisclosure agreement, known as an NDA during her time starring alongside Trump on the reality television show “The Apprentice” in 2003, and again when she worked for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. But Manigault Newman, who was fired from the White House last year, said she did not agree to sign a nondisclosure agreement after Trump took office.
“I never signed that draconian NDA that they presented to me when I walked into the White House,” Newman told the PBS NewsHour anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff.
NDA: In the case of the Trump White House, means 'keep the truth hidden from the American people or lawyers.' This is not a national security issue. It is a 'Trump scared sh**less issue.'
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The Trump campaign is suing former staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman for allegedly violating a nondisclosure agreement she signed when she joined the campaign. The Trump administration has also reportedly tried to get White House staff to sign similar agreements. What is an NDA and how are they used in the federal government? William Brangham gets analysis from attorney Mark Zaid.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including President Trump choosing John Bolton for his third National Security Adviser, the departure of John Dowd from the President’s Russia probe legal team, plus former model Karen McDougal sues to be able to tell her story of an affair with Trump.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And that brings us now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.
That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
So, gentlemen, I’m actually going back to what we were talking about earlier in the program, Mark, and start with John Bolton.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: OK.
Judy Woodruff: The President making a lot of news, making news on his own, tweeting last night the surprise announcement that H.R. McMaster was out, John Bolton’s in, and this on top, as you just heard from Yamiche, one change after another at this White House.
What are we to make of this?
Mark Shields: Well, first of all, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of Nancy McEldowney, who was on the show. I think she’s absolutely right about John Bolton.
John Bolton is not just ideologically fixed where he’s been. Unlike his apparent foes within the administration, Jim Mattis, secretary of defense, and Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he [Bolton] has never comforted anybody dying in battle. He’s never written to a next of kin.
He avoided military service himself, yet it’s his prescription for virtually every situation that arises, whether it’s North Korea or Iraq, for which he has never apologized, for which he was a relentless advocate, and wrong.
So, I just think, temperamentally, Judy, he is the worst possible choice that Donald Trump could make. He is brutal to people who work with him. And I just think, what he is, is he’s a flatterer. And Donald Trump, we know, is incredibly susceptible to flattery.
Judy Woodruff: David, what do you make not only of Bolton, but just the sequence of changes, almost one right after the other, at the White House?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, first, on Bolton, I think, ideologically, Trump probably should have picked him first. I think a President should pick the sort of person who shares their world view.
And if there is anybody in the Republican foreign policy galaxy who shares President Trump’s world view, it’s John Bolton. In the administration, he came up with the — he was talking about America first long before Donald Trump ever was.
When he served earlier in the earlier Bush administration, he was a relentless foe of sort of the Republican establishment, the Colin Powells. He was a relentless foe of the conservatives — of the neoconservatives, who believed in democracy and human rights.
He was an old-style what we call paleocon, power vs. power kind of conservative. So, Trump at least got somebody he agrees with.
Temperamentally, I agree with Mark. He was famously thought of as a kiss-up, kick-down kind of guy. He was famously thought of as someone who didn’t look at issues honestly, look at intelligence honestly, but came with a highly ideological predisposition.
I don’t think he’s the worst thing in the world. He comes across a lot of issues that I do think seriously increases the chance that we will have some military action in North Korea and Iran. But he’s not a complete loon. He just has a bellicose, old style, we need just to be more powerful than anybody else around, and we need to threaten that power all the time, which, when you take — combine it with a temperamentally unstable President, that’s a dangerous combination.
Judy Woodruff: Dangerous combination?
Mark Shields: Dangerous, dangerous combination. And I think David is — suffers from an excess of charity.
(LAUGHTER)
Mark Shields: No, I agree with his analysis, up to the point.
Donald Trump, if you will recall, ran on a foreign policy, all by himself, that he had opposed the war in Iraq, that he was the only Republican who had, just as Barack Obama was legitimately the only Democrat in 2008 who had opposed the United States going into Iraq, won the nomination and won the Presidency.
I’m not saying it was the sole reason, but it certainly gave him a uniqueness and distinction that he claimed for himself. The evidence for it wasn’t necessarily overwhelming that he had been a dove from the outset.
But that is the polar opposite of John Bolton in that sense. And Trump wanted a less aggressive, a less assertive American military presence. And I think the voices of restraint in this administration have been diminished. And I think that it’s down to Mattis and Dunford.
And I’m just grateful the two of them are there.
David Brooks: I still think it’s far from a sure thing that it will be super bellicose, super militaristic.
The foreign policy school that Trump has somehow glommed onto and then John Bolton definitely subscribes to really goes back into ancient pre-World War II Republican history, which was much more heartland, much more isolationist almost, but no sense of foreign policy idealism, no sense we want to make the world a better place, that we want to give people dignity, we want to give them human rights.
That’s not part of the equation. It’s much more, we’re in a great power struggle, and they’re tough and we’re tough. And that’s just the way they see the world. It’s an old-fashioned, more, as I say, pre-Cold War style of Republican foreign policy. But it did tend to be non-adventurist.
And so there was some restraint even back in the early America first days.
Judy Woodruff: So you don’t see them being quick on the trigger?
David Brooks:As I say, more quick on the trigger than with Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t say we’re necessarily marching off to war.
I do think Trump still — his instinct is, I don’t want to spend blood and treasure abroad. His constituency doesn’t want to fight another war. I think he would be slow to want to commit troops anywhere, just by his instinct. He’s a domestic policy guy.
Mark Shields:John Bolton’s application for the job was his most recent piece in The Wall Street Journal advocating the legal case for the United States attacking North Korea preemptively and unilaterally.
That is not World War — pre-World War II Republicanism, which was, if anything, isolationist.
I mean, the National Security Adviser, Judy, has to be, to be successful, an honest broker between Defense and Treasury and State and all the competing interests, and present to the President the distilled views and honest options that are advocated by his appointees.
And there’s no evidence at all that John Bolton is equipped temperamentally or experientially for that role.
David Brooks: Yes, I totally agree with that. He doesn’t fit this job at all.
And I guess the one fear you would add is not so much what you believe, but just a swirl of machismo.
Mark Shields: Yes.
David Brooks:This is an administration which is — whose masculinity is on high decibel, while being extremely unstable.
And so that would be the — the whipping up in a frenzy would be the part I would emphasize, I would worry about.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the week’s news, including allegations of sexual misconduct against and very different responses by Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore and Sen. Al Franken, President Trump’s criticism of Franken despite his own history being accused by women, plus the GOP tax plans.
Hari Sreenivasan (NewsHour): But first to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
It’s a bit like Groundhog’s Day here. We’re going the cover some topics you probably have never thought of before, sexual harassment and taxes. But there are developments, after more and more developments of both of these stories. And we will get to some more stuff, too.
But this week, we saw new women coming out and alleging sexual misconduct by Roy Moore, some of them underage. And then we had Al Franken’s behavior in 2006, including a disturbing photograph that nobody can deny.
They are not parallel incidents, but the responses have been very different.
David Brooks, New York Times:Yes, I mean, I guess it’s inevitable, death, taxes, and harassment these days.
It seems to me the one failure that we’re seeing among a lot of people is how partisan the reaction would be, starting with the President. Sexual harassment is not a Republican thing, or it’s not a Democratic thing. It’s just a thing. And it’s amazing how many people are reacting depending on which party the person is in, the guy is in, how their reaction is.
I personally, overall, still think this is a good thing. Our standards are raising. People who have done misconduct are being punished, an we’re cleaning out the swamp, as they — we’re supposed to say.
Alongside that, I think it’s important to make some distinctions among the different levels of sin here. It seems to me what Harvey Weinstein did and what Roy Moore did has the highest level of vileness, and should be career-enders.
Then there are other levels of sin which probably should be career-enders, setting a predatory environment, whether it’s Bill Clinton or the guy — some of the journalists who have been involved.
And then I would put Al Franken so far in a different category, frankly. What he did was callous and narcissistic and insensitive and just pathetic. But if it’s one time, and if he can apologize, and then do real penance, my first instinct is that it shouldn’t be a career-ender for him.
Hari Sreenivasan: But, Mark, oftentimes it’s not one time. Oftentimes, we start to reveal a pattern of behavior that might be in the background, as more people feel empowered to speak up.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: No, and that’s what we have found so far in these instances. It’s not usually a single, solitary event.
But I think David makes a very persuasive point about what we have with Roy Moore, quite frankly, the reaction, in the opening news summary, when the governor, Kay Ivey, of Alabama says she has no reason not to believe the women, but she’s still going to vote for Roy Moore.
Now, there is a disconnect there. And the only explanation can be just blind, unyielding, total partisanship, and I don’t care.
Let’s be very blunt about it. There were feminists who rallied to Bill Clinton’s support during his long, complicated lying to the American people about a disproportionate power relationship that he had with a 21-year-old intern and adulterous behavior, who rallied to his support because Bill Clinton was pro-choice on abortion.
And there are those now who are ready to skewer Roy Moore — and I’m not going to deny that he needs skewering — for ideological reasons, and because he has proved he’s anti-woman by his political positions.
But if we’re just talking about behavior here, and not blind partisanship, I don’t think that Al Franken’s behavior rises to the level of eviction from the Senate or anything of the sort.
That is not — but for a party that has based an awful lot of its appeal on identity politics, that we are the women’s party, that we believe in women’s rights, that we respect women, and that Republicans don’t, this is a body blow.
And Al Franken has been a major fund-raiser for Democrats, and he has been an aggressive inquisitor on committees and — representing the Democrats. So, I think it is serious.
I don’t know where it’s going to stop, and — but I think, in the final analysis, we have to come to grips. It is power. And it’s been men exercising power, generally speaking, with — almost overwhelmingly speaking, and the women in the position of supplicant, without the resources, without the means of protesting or just bringing to justice to these people.
David Brooks: If I could add one thing on the — first on the Clinton thing, I think it’s — we just have to look back and say the people who ignored the testimony of Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick helped set the stage for this.
And the Democrats who defended Clinton in those Clintons, they helped set the atmosphere for what we’re seeing and for the behavior that Harvey Weinstein and the rest can get away with.
The second thing to be said is, there is a word for what defenders of Roy Moore are doing, the people who said they were vote for him nonetheless, and — well, two words. One word is idolatry, and the other word is heresy, because the people who are putting — who are going to sacrifice morality for politics are making an idol out of politics.
They’re saying politics is higher than morality. And no honest person can possibly believe that. And if you’re putting politics above personal morality, above the way we treat each other, above the nature of your own soul, you’re just — you’re making an idol out of it.
And that is the ultimate in heresy. And to see — I saw a tweet from Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, defending Moore, you know, sort of, oh, they’re all a bunch of hypocrites up there.
It’s just appalling. It’s just — it’s almost mind-boggling that people who — especially people who have been steeped in any faith could make this kind of fundamental error, which is warned against again and again in the Bible, and to be heretics. They’re heretics. ----- Hari Sreenivasan: Let me ask you if you are surprised about something else that’s happened this week, which is the progress of the Republican tax plan. Do you think that it — what do you think happens in the Senate?
Mark Shields: I would say, first of all, I think that Paul Ryan, whom I have criticized, certainly did perform as speaker. He got it through. He rallied his Republicans, mostly, to it.
There’s just a couple things about it. I have been going to Republican Conventions since 1976. I have heard the party time and again solemnly pledge in its compact and covenant with the American people that we will support and fight for a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
I hope that never appears again, because they have proved that they don’t care about that. All this tax cut is about, this tax thing, is cutting the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. That’s all it is.
Everything else is window dressing. And there are other factors to it that are important, that touch people’s lives.
And, usually, when there’s a tax cut, there is some behavior is required. For a charitable deduction, you have to give — make a donation to a charity. For a child care credit, you have to have a child, and there has to be some — there is nothing required of these corporations.
There is not a nickel they have to spend in investment. There’s not a nickel they have to spend in retraining. There’s not a nickel they have to spend in anything for their own workers.
And the idea that they’re going to pass this on and increase wages goes back to John Galbraith’s theory of economics, which is, if you stuff enough oats into the horse, that, eventually, a little will pass through to the road, and the sparrow will be fed. And I just find it absolutely mind-boggling.
And the only other aspect to it that I found fascinating is the Republican Party that has stood for states’ right, and the states that have actually taxed themselves to improve their education and to improve their health care are going to be punished.
Hari Sreenivasan: Yes.
Mark Shields: That’s been in the tax code since 1913 that it was inducted. They’re going to remove it.
Hari Sreenivasan: So, David, that analogy of trickle-down economics, I have not heard before.
David Brooks: Still following the biology of that thing.
(LAUGHTER)
David Brooks:No, I wish it was only a corporate tax cut, because I think there’s a lot of good economic evidence that, if you give corporations tax cuts, they have more cash on hand, they do invest, and that there’s a fair bit of data on this. And so I wish it were that.
And I think there are other good things in the bill. Capping the mortgage interest deduction is a good thing. I think maybe adjusting the state and local taxes is a good thing, because 90 percent of the benefit goes to people making over $100,000 a year.
The problem with it is, first, it explodes the deficit. Second, it is a raw piece of political exploitation, taking the tax code and benefiting our people, at the expense of blue states. And we shouldn’t turn the tax code into a spoils system.
And, third, it’s taxes the universities and the nonprofits in a way that I think is unconscionable. So, I’m against it. But there are some good things in it. If they fell back to a corporate tax cut, which had sympathy in the Obama administration, it would be a little happier story.
IMHO: I find it typical that people tend to disbelieve women who make such allegations against men. It's the chauvinistic prejudice of a male society. The women's allegations are credible and Roy More's denial typical.
As for the timing, it's the #MeToo movement that has freed women to face their attackers, which is never easy, the strength given by the numbers.
SUMMARY: The Senate's top Republican Mitch McConnell told reporters that he believes the women who have accused Roy Moore of inappropriate actions and that Alabama's GOP candidate must step aside. While the former state Chief Justice insists he is innocent, McConnell’s condemnation comes as another woman has spoken up. Lisa Desjardins reports that voters appear to have mixed opinions.
SUMMARY: Another woman came forward on Monday to accuse Senate candidate Roy Moore of assaulting her when she was 16, sparking additional political backlash from his own party. But allegations of sexual misconduct against teenage girls haven’t seemed to shake Moore supporters in his home state. Judy Woodruff gets an update from Don Dailey of Alabama Public Television.
SUMMARY: GOP lawmakers have called for Roy Moore to step aside from the Alabama Senate race amid allegations of sexual misconduct toward teens. How does that tension fit into a larger party rift? John Yang talks to Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union and Karine Jean-Pierre of MoveOn.org, about what’s at stake with the special election and how the GOP tax reform plans are shaping up.
SUMMARY: College basketball is embroiled in yet another scandal. Ten people, including NCAA assistant coaches, an agent and a top executive at Adidas, have been charged with bribery involving thousands of dollars used to influence student athletes. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss what these accusations reveal about the “dark underbelly of college basketball.”
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week's news, including President Donald Trump's trip abroad, fallout over a June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer, and the latest version of a GOP Senate health care bill.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): But first to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
So, Mark, welcome back.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Thank you, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We missed you last week.
The Donald Trump Jr. story. We have now learned that he had a meeting a year ago, Trump Tower, with a lawyer who had some connection to the Russian government. How does this change our understanding of the Russia collusion allegation?
MARK SHIELDS:Well, I think it's fair to say, Judy, that the White House lost any benefit of the doubt that it could claim on this story.
The shoes continue to drop, like it's a Zappos warehouse or Imelda Marcos' closet. I mean, it just — each time, they're amending their story, they're appending or extending their story.
And so I just think the fact that there were such denials and accusations of a Democratic plot, all of those are gone, and they stand naked and they stand exposed as shams.
I mean, they were actively engaged, at least welcoming Russian involvement in the 2016 election, in behalf of Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David, does this change your assessment of what may have been going on?
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: Yes.
My colleague Ross Douthat wrote that any time you give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, he always lets you down.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS:And that's true. That's true for his business clients and it's true for those of us who thought, they couldn't have been some stupid, to walk right into collusion with the Russian meetings.
And yet they were not only that stupid, but I think what is striking to me is the complete amorality of it, that Donald Trump Jr. gets an e-mail saying the Russian government is offering you this, and he says, “I love it.”
And it reminded me so much of some of the e-mails that came out of the Jack Abramoff scandal, that came out of the financial crisis scandal, where they're just — they're like frat boys who are gleefully going against the law and are going against all morality. And they're not even overcoming any scruples to do this.
They're just having fun with it. And then, in the days since, we have had on — Donald Jr. on Sean Hannity's show, again, I did nothing wrong, just incapable of seeing that there might have been something wrong about colluding with a foreign power who is hostile with you.
And then Donald Trump himself saying, he's a wonderful guy, again, not seeing anything wrong, and then even last day lying about how many people were in the meeting, a completely inconsequential lie.
And so we're trapped in the zone just beyond any ethical scruple, where it's all about winning.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Beyond any ethical scruple, Mark, is that where we are?
MARK SHIELDS:Yes, I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump was born without the embarrassment gene or the moral reservation gene.
He just — he doesn't — when he says that most people would take that meeting, Judy, I mean, this is not — I have been around for a while, and been to the Dallas Fair twice, and all the rest of it. People wouldn't do that.
In 2000, Al Gore's campaign got ahold of, was delivered George Bush's briefing book. They turned it over to the FBI. That's what you do when you're honorable in politics.
This isn't a meeting with a foreign power. This isn't Canada or the Swiss Family Robinson. This is Russia. This is a country that has supported, propped up the worst of anti-democratic regimes in the Middle East, that has practiced — mistreated its own press, mistreated its own civil society, and economic intimidation of its neighbors, including invasion of its neighbors.
I mean, this is the one country on the face of the earth with the capacity to obliterate the United States. This is serious stuff. And to do it so casually and, as David said, without moral reservation, is — I guess it should be stunning, but, sadly, it isn't.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But some of the Trump team, David, in their response to this are sounding almost offended that people would even think that they were doing something wrong.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, well, they just don't — they don't get it.
My pal Mike Gerson had a good line in his column today. If you make losing a sin, you make cheating a sacrament. And that is true. If it's all win-loss, then you do whatever you can to win and to make money and to beat the deal.
And so I do think you have entered the zone where they don't quite see what they have done wrong. But cheating with a foreign company — country is — as Mark keeps saying, is a grave sin.
And then there's just the scandal management of it, of letting it drip out, letting it drip out today and today and today. And then there is almost just a cluelessness like a color blindness about how the rest of the world is going to go react to this.
And this has been a leitmotif for the Trump administration.
SUMMARY: How are Americans on both sides of the aisle reacting to revelations about a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer? Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union and Karine Jean-Pierre of MoveOn.org join Judy Woodruff to discuss how the developments are shaping what lawmakers and voters think.
SUMMARY: How do the bombshell revelations in Donald Trump Jr.'s emails affect the Russia investigation? That was the big question across Capitol Hill, after it was revealed the President's son tried to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton, provided by the Russian government. John Yang reports on how lawmakers and others are responding.
SUMMARY: Donald Trump Jr.'s release of his Russia-related email exchange reignited a legal debate about whether members of the Trump campaign engaged in unlawful activity. Former White House Counsel Bob Bauer and Jed Shugerman of Fordham Law School join Judy Woodruff to offer different perspectives on the legal questions surrounding the controversy.
SUMMARY: More than a dozen women have filed lawsuits against Baylor University saying the institution ignored or mishandled claims dating back several years. The school's Board of Regents has acknowledged that 19 football players were accused of criminal, sexual or physical assault. John Yang speaks with Paula Lavigne of ESPN about the ongoing NCAA investigation.
SUMMARY: For 20 years, the man at the helm of Fox News was it's CEO and founder Roger Ailes. On Thursday, Ailes stepped down after former anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against him. Jane Hall, associate professor at American University's School of Communication, and Ken Doctor, media analyst for Newsonomics and Columnist for Politico, sit down with Judy Woodruff to discuss.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): It all unfolded quickly, in a matter of weeks, after former FOX anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against Roger Ailes, longtime head of FOX News.
Ailes denied the charges. But 21st Century Fox, the cable network's parent company, hired a law firm to conduct an investigation. According to Carlson's lawyers, 20 or more other women then came forward with claims about Ailes' conduct, including Megyn Kelly, one of the network's star anchors.
Publicly, many other prominent on-air personalities at FOX, including Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Greta Van Susteren, backed Ailes and said they were unaware of any inappropriate behavior.
Rupert Murdoch issued a statement late yesterday without referring to the harassment charges, saying that: “Roger Ailes has made a remarkable contribution to our company and our country. Roger shared my vision of a great and independent television organization and executed it brilliantly over 20 great years.”
Roger Ailes, now 76, has been an influential figure for decades in Republican politics, as an adviser and strategist to Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. He created FOX News 20 years ago and built it into the most-watched cable news channel.
BRIT HUME, FOX News: More news is on the way, fair, balanced and unafraid.
JEFFREY BROWN: Promoted as an alternative to traditional mainstream media. It has been a huge moneymaker for its parent company, and a target for critics of its conservative tone and team.
Ailes said this in a 2004 interview with C-SPAN'S Brian Lamb:
ROGER AILES, Former FOX News Executive: Well, we have changed the business a little bit. I think FOX News has come on the scene and identified itself as fair and balanced. We try to do that every day. I think others, instead of trying to get more fair and balanced, probably are offended by that or worried about it.
JEFFREY BROWN: Rupert Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, will now decide on a successor to Roger Ailes and the future of the network he built.
And joining me now, Jane Hall, a journalism professor at American University who previously served as a media reporter for The Los Angeles Times and commentator at FOX News, and Ken Doctor, who writes on the media business for Politico and on his blog, Newsonomics. ----- JANE HALL, American University: Well, he is a brilliant television producer. And he created the jazzy graphics on the screen. He hired Bill O’Reilly. He brought in a number of people. He brought Megyn Kelly on board.
He had a great eye for talent. What I think has happened is his fair and balanced slogan is really not accurate. They have pounded home lines like government takeover, Obama is soft on terrorism, Hillary is crooked. As I said in the piece, I don’t think we would have Donald Trump if we didn’t have Roger Ailes.
But the network is absolutely a reflection of his vision. The only other person I can think of is Roone Arledge, who created ABC News and ABC Sports, who has had the same kind of impact. He merged politics, though, and a kind of bifurcated take-no-prisoners style that I think has hurt our discourse.
COMMENT: In my 22yrs in the U.S. Navy I had training and dealt with classified material up to, and including, Top Secret. What is missing in all discussions on security classifications it WHO classifies a specific communication or document. The originator of any communication or document is responsible for classifying it according to the rules, and those rules are many and obscure, and change (what is not-classified today may be Top Secret 2 days later).
In the case of emails, the original author is the responsible person. So if Hillery Clinton received email that WAS NOT marked classified, she or her staff would likely NOT know. Also, she or her staff, could originate an email with classified material because they were unaware that it should be classified, given the complexity and obscurity of the rules.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: In investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state, the FBI found no wanton wrongdoing to make criminal charges stick. FBI director James Comey made that announcement today, chastising the Democratic presidential candidate and former top diplomat. Judy Woodruff reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): For Hillary Clinton today, a recommendation and a rebuke from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It came after a year-long investigation into her use of a private e-mail server when she was the nation's top diplomat.
JAMES COMEY, Director, FBI:No charges are appropriate in this case.
JUDY WOODRUFF: With those seven words, FBI Director James Comey all but lifted the legal threat to the Democrats' presidential nominee-to-be. He said, in essence, investigators found no wanton wrongdoing to make criminal charges stick.
JAMES COMEY: Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But Comey also spoke in blistering terms about Clinton's use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state.
JAMES COMEY:Although we didn't find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Clinton has acknowledged it was a mistake to use a private e-mail system, but she's asserted that classified material was never handled improperly.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), Former Secretary of State: I didn't e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Today, however, the FBI found that 110 e-mails contained information that was classified when it was sent or received. And the FBI also found it is — quote — “possible” that hostile actors got access to the secretary's account.
JAMES COMEY: Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.
SUMMARY: Despite the finding by investigators that Hillary Clinton's emails were handled in an extremely careless way, FBI director James Comey said they wouldn't recommend a criminal prosecution. Judy Woodruff talks with Carrie Johnson of NPR; then gets reaction on the political fallout from Sean Spicer, chief strategist of the Republican National Committee; and Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.
SUMMARY: Both FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta said they would not recommend or pursue charges against Hillary Clinton for her email practices as secretary of state. To examine the law they used to make that decision, Judy Woodruff talks to Shannen Coffin, former counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney; and Stephen Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law.
"RUSSIA SLAMMED IN WADA DOPING REPORT" by REBECCA R. RUIZ (New York Times writer), San Diego Union-Tribune 11/10/2015
NOTE: This is from the online version, therefore no link.
Members of Russia’s secret service intimidated workers at a drug-testing lab to cover up top athletes’ positive results. They impersonated lab engineers during the Winter Olympics in Sochi last year. A lab once destroyed more than 1,400 samples. Athletes adopted false identities to avoid unexpected testing. Some paid to make doping violations disappear. Others bribed the anti-doping authorities to ensure favorable results, and top sports officials routinely submitted bogus urine samples for athletes who were doping. Those allegations were among hundreds contained in a report released Monday by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Across 323 pages, it implicated athletes, coaches, trainers, doctors and various Russian institutions, laying out what is very likely the most extensive state sponsored doping program since the notorious East German regime of the 1970s.
In addition to providing a granular look at systematic doping, the group that drafted the report made extraordinary recommendations, including a proposal that Russia be suspended from competition by track and field’s governing body and barred from track and field events at next summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“It’s worse than we thought,” Dick Pound, founding president of the World Anti-Doping Association and an author of the report, said at a news conference in a Geneva hotel. “This is an old attitude from the Cold War days,” he said. Russian officials responded with defiance, disputing the investigation’s findings. “Whatever we do, everything is bad,” Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s sports minister, told the news agency Interfax. “If this whole system needs to shut down, we will shut it down gladly. We will stop paying fees, stop funding the Russian anti-doping agency, the Moscow anti-doping laboratory. We will only save money.”
Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, director of the Moscow lab whom Monday’s report accused of having solicited and accepted bribes, dismissed the suggestions. “This is an independent commission which only issues recommendations,” he said. “There are three fools sitting there who don’t understand the laboratory.”
Pound said he had presented the group’s findings to Mutko before they were released publicly. “He’s frustrated to some degree,” he said. “He certainly knew what was going on. They all knew.”
The report also recommended WADA impose lifetime bans on five Russian coaches and five athletes, including the gold and bronze medalists from the women’s 800 meters at the 2012 London Olympics.
“The Olympic Games in London were, in a sense, sabotaged by the admission of athletes who should have not been competing,” the report read.
Bans from competition are not all that could come of the inquiry. Pound said the agency had negotiated a cooperation agreement with Interpol and handed over extensive documents and evidence. Interpol confirmed that cooperation with its own announcement Monday, noting that related inquiries stretched from Singapore to France.
Last week, French authorities announced they had opened a criminal investigation into the former president of track and field’s world governing body, Lamine Diack of Senegal, for having allegedly accepted bribes to allow at least six Russian athletes to compete, including in the 2012 Olympics.
The former director of the medical and anti-doping division of that governing body is also under investigation, the International Association of Athletics Federations, French authorities said, along with Diack’s legal counsel.
Russian athletes, in soaring numbers, have been caught doping in recent years. Russia had far more drug violations than any other country in 2013: 225, or 12 percent of all violations globally, according to data from WADA. About a fifth of Russia’s infractions involved track and field athletes, the focus of Monday’s report.
“This level of corruption attacks sport at its core,” Richard McLaren, a Canadian lawyer and an author of the report, said in an interview. In contrast to corporate governance scandals like those roiling world soccer, he said, drug use by athletes has distorted the essence of professional games. “Bribes and payoffs don’t change actual sporting events,” McLaren said. “But doping takes away fair competition.” The report released Monday was the result of a 10 month investigation by an independent commission of WADA. Its inquiry stemmed from a December documentary by the German public broadcaster ARD, which drew on accounts from Russian athletes, coaches and anti-doping authorities, who said the Russian government had helped procure drugs for athletes and cover up positive test results.
Further allegations emerged in August, when ARD and The Sunday Times of London released another report more broadly focused on the leaked results of thousands of international athletes’ blood tests dating to 2001, showing decorated athletes in good standing with suspicious drug tests. Those allegations — which drew significant suspicion to Kenya — are also being investigated by the independent commission, but the results were not included in Monday’s report, as the inquiry is continuing, the agency said.
The three-person commission, chaired by Pound, also included McLaren, who teaches law at Western University in Ontario, and Gunter Younger, head of cybercrime for the police in the German state of Bavaria.
WADA’s foundation and executive board will decide whether to act on the commission’s recommendations; they are scheduled to meet next week in Colorado Springs, Colo., an event that motivated the timing of the release of the commission’s report, Pound said.
In a statement Monday, the International Olympic Committee called the report “deeply shocking,” and said it trusted the judgment of the IAAF, which would decide whether to bar Russia from competition.
Pound did not offer any time frame for the recommended suspension. If Russia did not fight the prescriptions — to enact rigorous and specific drug-testing controls — he said he thought it could be possible for the country’s track and field athletes to compete in the summer Olympics.
The commission also recommended that the Russian anti-doping authority be declared non-code-compliant, indefinitely; that the director of the Moscow laboratory be removed from his job; and that the lab, which was provisionally banned in 2013, lose its accreditation.
The above is roughly what 8.5 Trillion dollars would look like... and those are $100 bills. Take another look and let that sink in for a bit... I find it absolutely astonishing that the pentagon could lose track of this much money and for there to be no MSM coverage of this scandalous amount of mismanagement and fraud. Where is the demand for accountability? Why is the first question to ANY candidate for president not "What would you do about the massive fraud and waste at the Pentagon?" Where are the hearings, nay indictments, that are warranted when a sum equal to 1/2 of our national debt can be sent to the pentagon to never be accounted for.
We progressives need to work this scandal into every political conversation we engage in, especially when we talk to conservatives. Cutting government spending and accountability are supposed to be core GOP values.
Combine "Known" Pentagon waste (like the 1.5 Trillion dollar F35) with missing pentagon money and you have a good chunk of our entire national debt represented.
"What's that? Body cameras for all cops will be too expensive? How bout we find 1/10,000th of the money we sent to the pentagon."
"Oh really? There's 500 million in provable food stamp fraud going to poor people how bout the 8.5 TRILLION the pentagon can't account for?"
"Oh really? You think Obama care is going to cost us almost a trillion dollars over 15 years? How about the 8.5 Trillion that just disappeared into the ether at the pentagon? What's you're take on that?"
"Oh really, you're concerned about deficit spending and the debt? Fully 1/3 of the national debt it is money we sent the Pentagon and they can't tell us where it went. It's just gone."
"College for everyone will cost too much? You must be really pissed at the 8.5 Trillion, with a 't', dollars the pentagon's spent and can't tell us where it went."
Bringing up this "open secret" exposes their hypocrisy, and draws attention to the lack of corporate media attention to this HUGE SCANDALOUS level of waste by the Military/Industrial/Media complex ownership of government. It seems for few hundred million in "be all you can be" ad buys the MSM will keep it's mouth shut. We need to press so called journalists to bring this issue front and center. No candidate should be allowed to talk about government waste or big government with out being asked the follow up "What would you do about the massive 8.5 Trillion dollars the pentagon can't account for?"
In short; nothing reinforces our position that the money for valuable social and infrastructure programs (that have provable returns on investment) is actually there than this scandal. We need to harp on this until we get some answers and we need to leverage it more to shut down debate about desperately needed social program spending.
This chart, which has been updated, was originally published February 15th, 2012.
From phone hacking to bribery, the corruption at News International has involved many players -- increasingly, ones close to Rupert Murdoch. We’ve mapped out the players involved in this growing debacle, organized by their proximity to Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and other senior staff. Keep in mind that in the United Kingdom, officers can make arrests without a formal charge (this Slate explainer provides more details on the British system).
Update (June 24, 2014): Former editor Andy Coulson was found guilty of conspiracy to hack phones, while Rebekah Brooks was found not guilty of all charges. Also acquitted were Brooks' husband Charlie, her secretary Cheryl Carter, head of security Mark Hanna (all found not guilty of conspiracy to "pervert the course of justice") and retired managing editor Stuart Kuttner (found not guilty on phone hacking charges). The jury has not yet reached a verdict on further charges against Coulson and former royal editor Clive Goodman relating to paying police officers.
Update (October 30, 2013): A London court was told that Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup, and Greg Miskiw had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to intercept communications, and Glenn Mulcaire had pleaded guilty to hacking a mobile phone.
Update (June 19, 2013): Nick Parker, the Sun’s chief foreign correspondent, was charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.
Update (May 3, 2013): David Johnson, a former security guard for Rebekah Brooks, was charged Friday with concealing potential evidence relating to phone hacking.
Update (Mar. 21, 2013): The Crown Prosecution Service announced that Neil Wallis, a former executive editor of the News of the World who was arrested in July 2011, would face no further charges, due to "insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction."
Update (Mar. 20, 2013): Geoff Webster, the deputy editor of the Sun, was charged on Wednesday with two counts of conspiring to commit misconduct in public office by authorizing payments to public officials.
Update (Feb. 13, 2013): Six more journalists were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept telephone communications. They were former News of the World editors Jules Stenson, Rav Singh, Polly Graham and Matt Nixson, and Sun editors Rachel Richardson and Jane Atkinson.
Update (Jan. 22, 2013): Virginia Wheeler, the Sun’s defense editor, was charged Tuesday with conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office. We've also added the recent arrest of Anthony France, a crime reporter at the Sun.
Update (Nov. 20): David Cameron's former media chief Andy Coulson and former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were charged Tuesday for conspiring to pay bribes to public officials. Two other journalists were also charged: John Kay, former chief reporter at the Sun, and Clive Goodman, a former News of the World reporter. We've also added a previous arrest: former News of the World crime editor Lucy Patton, who was arrested last December on suspicion of paying police officers.
Update (August 30): Former News of the World legal manager Tom Crone was arrested Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept communications. We've also added two previous arrests: former Times journalist Patrick Foster, who was arrested August 29th over suspected computer hacking, and former News of the World Scotland news editor Douglas Wight, who was arrested and charged August 17th with perjury and conspiracy to hack telephones.
Update (August 29): Bob Bird, former Scotland editor of News of the World, was arrested and charged Wednesday with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Update (July 31): Nick Parker, the Sun's chief foreign correspondent, was arrested Monday on the suspicion of gathering data from stolen mobile phones. He has since been released on bail. This was his second arrest.
Update (July 24): British prosecutors brought 19 conspiracy charges against eight major figures in the Murdoch scandal. The accused include Rebekah Brooks, who oversaw News International and served as a top editor of Murdoch's News of the World, Andrew Coulson, another former editor of the Murdoch paper, and Stuart Kuttner, Glenn Mulcaire, Greg Miskiw, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup. All eight have previously been arrested, but these criminal charges represent a major escalation in the ongoing scandal because the indicted could now face prison time.
Update (July 19): Rhodri Phillips, a news reporter at the Sun, was arrested Thursday morning.
Update (May 15): Rebekah Brooks, her husband, and four others were charged Tuesday with conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The other suspects include head of security Mark Hanna, Brooks' former personal assistant Cheryl Carter, her security guard Daryl Jorsling, and her chauffeur Paul Edwards. These are the first charges filed in the ongoing News Corp investigation.
Update (April 19): Duncan Larcombe, the royal editor of the Sun, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and conspiracy to cause misconduct in a public office.
Update (March 15): Neville Thurlbeck, a former chief reporter at The News of the World, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of intimidating a witness. This is his second arrest.
Update (March 13): Six more people were arrested Tuesday, including Rebekah Brooks, her husband Charlie Brooks and News International Head of Security Mark Hanna. This is Rebekah Brooks' second arrest. We'll be updating this chart with more names as they become known.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): The Veterans Affairs Department today released a new audit documenting widespread delayed patient care.
It’s based on a nationwide review of 731 of its hospitals and outpatient clinics. According to the internal report, 57,000 veterans have been waiting 90 days or more for their first medical appointment; 64,000 others appear to have fallen through the cracks, after enrolling with the agency and requesting medical care.
And in another major finding, 13 percent of schedulers said their supervisors had asked them to falsify appointment schedules to make the wait times appear shorter. The audit also found that a 14-day target for scheduling appointments wasn’t attainable.
Joining me to discuss the report are Dr. Sam Foote, whose complaints about wait times and bookkeeping in Phoenix led to an investigation in that area’s VA system. He was a VA doctor for 24 years. And Ralph Ibson, national policy director of the Wounded Warrior Project, which provides services to veterans. He previously served as the VA’s deputy assistant general counsel.
Donald Sterling has signed the Los Angeles Clippers over to his wife Shelly, a source close to the team confirmed today to ABC News.
Shelly Sterling, who previously shared ownership of the beleaguered NBA franchise with Donald, is now in talks with the NBA over selling the team, the source said.
ESPN reports that Donald has agreed to allow Shelly to negotiate the sale.
The NBA banned Donald Sterling for life from all league events after an audio tape became public that recorded him uttering racist comments to his assistant, V. Stiviano. He told her not to post photos of herself with black people on Instagram or bring them to his basketball games.
On Monday, ESPN reported that the NBA had charged Sterling with damaging the league with his racist comments and set a hearing for June 3, after which other team owners will vote to decide the future of his ownership of the Clippers.
Sterling initially planned to fight to retain ownership but changed his mind this week, ESPN reported.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): The Vatican has long been criticized for its handling of sexual abuse cases, but today’s report from a United Nations panel was especially harsh.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child said the Vatican had not adequately acknowledged past crimes, and cultivated a code of silence that provided immunity for perpetrators. The Vatican calls the report distorted and unfair, in that it ignores corrective actions taken by the church.
Here to flesh out those arguments are Reverend Thomas Rosica, chief executive officer of Canada’s Catholic Salt and Light Television Network and an English-language spokesperson for the Vatican, and Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): The military has increasingly been racked by scandal, as three of its five branches face allegations of cheating and fraud.
Just as the U.S. military is winding down 12 years of high-tempo operations, three of its services are ramping up investigations into some of the most serious scandals in a generation. The latest involves charges that Navy trainers cheated on certification exams to teach at a nuclear reactor school in Charleston, South Carolina.
ADM. JONATHAN GREENERT, Chief of Naval Operations: To say that I’m disappointed would be an understatement.
GWEN IFILL: The chief of naval operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, spoke at a Pentagon briefing yesterday.
ADM. JONATHAN GREENERT: We need to and we will remain vigilant. We will continue to drive home to our people the importance of integrity, the fact that it is the foundation of all that we do in the U.S. Navy.
GWEN IFILL: The Air Force, meanwhile, is conducting its own investigation in the nuclear ranks, one that grew out of a drug probe. It’s alleged that nearly 100 missile officers cheated on proficiency tests at a base in Montana.
The Pentagon’s top spokesman said Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel sees a troubled road ahead.
REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, Navy: I think he definitely sees this as a growing problem. And he’s concerned about the depth of it. I don’t think he could stand here and tell you that we — that he has, that anybody has the full grasp here. And that’s what worries the secretary.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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