Another crazy news day, and more scandals than you can count. I’m reminded of the iconic vendor cry at every baseball game: “Program! You can’t tell the players without a program!” I almost titled this “The Punctuation Gone Awry Edition” because, well, you’ll see.
It’s early, and before we get into all the weirdness, one news item everyone can understand.
Another Lyin’ Ryan: Zinke claims to be a geologist, and you won’t believe how he picked his major.
Okay, put down whatever you are drinking, and read the following carefully. It’s not what we wish it were but still worth celebrating.
Broadband advisor arrested for fraud:
A broadband advisor selected by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to run a federal advisory committee was arrested last week on claims she tricked investors into pouring money into a multi-million dollar investment fraud scheme, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The advisor, Elizabeth Pierce, is the former chief executive of Quijntillion, an Alaska-based fiber optic cable provider operating out of Anchorage. In her capacity as CEO, Pierce allegeledy [sic, because I would never type this] raised more than $250 million from two New York-based investment companies using forged contracts with other companies guaranteeing hundreds of millions of dollars in future revenue. Pierce resigned from Quintillion in August of last year, and she stepped down from her role in Pai’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) the following month.
Pai picked Pierce last year to chair his newly[-]created broadband [these writers really need to study hyphenation rules] advisory group[. and punctuation]
“As it turned out, those sales agreements were worthless because the customers had not signed them,” US attorney Geoffrey Berman said in prepared remarks, as reported by the WSJ. “Instead, as alleged, Pierce had forged counter-party signatures on contract after contract. As a result of Pierce’s deception, the investment companies were left with a system that is worth far less than Pierce had led them to believe.” Pierce was trying to raise money to help build out a fiber optic system that would wire Alaska with high-speed internet and better help connect it to networks in other US states. Pierce was charged with wire fraud last Thursday and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. [However, kudos to the writers for correctly italicizing publication names.]
Another day, another Scott Pruitt paranoid fantasy. Now you all know I have always linked to reputable news sources. I’m making an exception here because their wrap-up is stellar. Just know I have verified the story with reputable mainstream sources.
Charlie Dent decides not to let the door hit him:
Republican Rep. Charlie Dent announced Tuesday that he plans to resign from Congress next month instead of retiring at the end of the current session, as originally announced.
"After discussions with my family and careful reflection, I have decided to leave Congress in the coming weeks," the Pennsylvania Republican said in a statement. His office said he will step down in May.
"It is my intention to continue to aggressively advocate for responsible governance and pragmatic solutions in the coming years," added Dent, who had said in September that he would retire from Congress at the end of 2018.
Deportation law “too vague”:
The Supreme Court said Tuesday that part of a federal law that makes it easier to deport immigrants who have been convicted of crimes is too vague to be enforced.
The court's 5-4 decision — in an unusual alignment in which new Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the four liberal justices — concerns a catchall provision of immigration law that defines what makes a crime violent [sic; you should delete those spaces around those em dashes]. Conviction for a crime of violence makes deportation "a virtual certainty" for an immigrant, no matter how long he has lived in the United States, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her opinion for the court.
The decision is a loss for President Donald Trump's administration, which has emphasized stricter enforcement of immigration law. In this case, President Barack Obama's administration took the same position in the Supreme Court in defense of the challenged provision. President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday evening that the court's decision "means that Congress must close loopholes that block the removal of dangerous criminal aliens, including aggravated felons." He ended by saying "Keep America Safe!"
FBI leaker pleads guilty: Folks, this is the textbook definition of civil disobedience and if we’re going to put up a statue to anyone it should be this man. He is the FBI at its finest and a patriot. I’d give him a medal if I could, but I can’t, so here’s a little free publicity celebrating his disobedience.
A former counterterrorism agent at the F.B.I. who gave classified documents to the news media in an effort to reveal how the bureau treated minority communities pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the unauthorized disclosure and retention of national defense information.
[...]
In his plea, Mr. Albury acknowledged that the facts outlined by the government were accurate and that he had acted with the knowledge that he was breaking the law. His lawyers, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, said in a statement that he viewed his disclosures as “an act of conscience” in the face of racism at the F.B.I.
“It has long been a critique of the F.B.I. that it consists of and reflects a predominantly white male culture, which, as a result, has often treated minority communities with suspicion and disrespect,” the statement said. It added that Mr. Albury — who was the only African-American field agent in the Minneapolis office — had decided to act after he was assigned to the bureau’s counterterrorism team and “was required firsthand to implement F.B.I. investigation directives that profiled and intimidated minority communities in Minnesota and other locations.”
Most Starbucks stores will close May 29th:
Starbucks will close all its company-owned coffee shops in the U.S. and its corporate offices during the afternoon of May 29 to conduct racial-bias training for employees following the arrest of two African-American men at one of its locations in Philadelphia last week.
The anti-discrimination training at the more than 8,000 company-owned shops is "designed to address implicit bias, promote conscious inclusion, prevent discrimination and ensure everyone inside a Starbucks store feels safe and welcome," according to the company announcement Tuesday.
Nearly 175,000 employees in the U.S. will receive the training.
Controversial statue moved:
A statue of the surgeon J. Marion Sims was removed from its pedestal bordering New York City’s Central Park on Tuesday, after calls for its removal peaked in the summer of 2017. The city’s Public Design Commission voted Monday to remove the Sims statue, and on Tuesday the statue was taken down; the city plans to move it to the cemetery where Sims is buried.
[...]
With Sims, the controversy is not about the merits of his medical achievements, but how he accomplished them. Though Sims founded New York’s first women’s hospital and innovated new surgical techniques, his success came at the cost of unethical medical treatment of enslaved women in the antebellum era.
In the 1840s, to master the technique that earned him the title of “father of modern gynecology” — a cure for vesicovaginal fistula, which closed dangerous openings between the bladder and vagina, often caused by giving birth — he practiced on enslaved women whom he purchased. During the incredibly painful process, they were deprived of anesthesia, according to a recent NPR interview with Vanessa Northington Gamble, a physician and medical historian at George Washington University. Sometimes other physicians were invited to watch him in action.
Cosby jury will hear drug testimony:
The judge in Bill Cosby's indecent assault trial ruled Tuesday a jury can consider as evidence the comedian's 2005 admission that he procured Quaaludes for women he wanted to bed.
Accuser Andrea Constand is one of dozens of women who have said the former TV star drugged and sexually assaulted them, an allegation Cosby denies.
Judge Steven O'Neill's decision came amid a more than hour[-]long [these hyphenation rules really trip people up] hearing, during which the jury was not present. The hearing dealt with attorney-client privilege, Fifth Amendment concerns and Cosby's defense team's plans to call one of Constand's civil attorneys to the stand, as well as a toxicologist who will dispute her account of how the drugs affected her.
Consumer pressure to do the right thing really works:
In an effort to reduce its environmental impact, Anheuser-Busch has announced its U.S. 2025 Sustainability Goals. The largest beer brewer in the world is aiming to become the industry leader in sustainability efforts in part as a means to influence other companies to follow suit. These goals focus on four key areas: renewable electricity and carbon reduction, water stewardship, smart agriculture and circular packaging.
This commitment comes alongside the announcement that Budweiser will employ the 100% Renewable Electricity symbol on its packaging beginning on April 22 (Earth Day). This symbol will be used to promote Anheuser-Busch's partnership with Enel Green Power which has aided the company in securing 50% of its purchased electricity from renewable resources.
Boulder, CO files suit over Climate Change.
Even on their worst days, scientists are pretty amazing:
Researchers unintentionally manipulated the enzyme, making it more successful at breaking down polyethylene terephthalate – PET – the material from which millions of plastic bottles are constructed and one of the most common pollutants in the environment. PET was patented as a plastic in the 1940s and is not biodegradable.
The University of Portsmouth said in a press release that the discovery could result in a recycling solution for millions of tons of plastic bottles that currently persist for hundreds of years in the environment.
And on good days:
NASA's Orion spacecraft, which is set to launch next year for a journey around the moon, will mark the first time that a deep-space craft has been built using 3-D-printed parts.
The space agency wants to conduct a new set of lunar missions, as well as exploration to other destinations including Mars. The Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) will send Orion, an un-crewed module, on a three-week voyage around the moon.
The Orion craft is set to use more than 100 3-D-printed parts jointly engineered by Lockheed Martin, Stratasys, and Phoenix Analysis & Design Technologies. It will be the first time that 3-D parts have been certified for deep space use. Deep space, or outer space, represents the physical universe beyond Earth's atmosphere.