December, 11 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Michael Cohen Sentence Shows Seriousness of the Crime and Clear Links to President Trump
Statement of Common Cause V.P. for Policy & Litigation Paul S. Ryan
WASHINGTON
Today's sentencing of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen speaks to the seriousness of the crimes committed, which is why we filed complaints with the Department of Justice alleging these violations earlier this year. Our complaints also alleged that then-candidate Donald Trump violated campaign finance laws and DOJ filings at Cohen's sentencing identify a co-conspirator, "Individual-1," who is clearly none other than President Trump. Despite the Republican apologists in Congress making light of Trump's involvement, these are serious crimes with significant penalties associated with them as Cohen's sentence reflects. These laws are in place to protect the integrity of our elections and they must be enforced. No American is above the law, not even the President.
Clearly Cohen knew that he was breaking campaign finance laws--he pleaded guilted to "knowing and willful" violations of the law. And as a lawyer, Cohen would have advised his client, Donald Trump, that what Trump was directing him to do was illegal. This makes it probable that Trump also met the "knowing and willful" standard committing his campaign finance law violations, which makes those violations crimes, as opposed to civil violations. The remaining question is whether President Trump will be held accountable for these violations.
To read the original complaint, click here.
To read the amended complaint, click here.
To view this statement online, click here.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
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Iran Launches Drone Attack Against Israel Over Consulate Bombing
"Netanyahu will use it as the pretext for another provocation, because he's bent on starting this war," one writer predicted.
Apr 13, 2024
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Iran on Saturday launched several drones and missiles toward Israel in retaliation for the nation's deadly bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month.
According toCNN, this statement from Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps was read on Iranian state-owned Press TV: "In response to the Zionist regime's crime in attacking the consular section of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, the IRGC's air force hit certain targets in the territories of the Zionist regime with dozens of drones and missiles."
"The United States should avoid taking any military action in connection with the Israel/Iran conflict."
Israeli and U.S. officials also
confirmed the IRGC launch, estimated by Israel to involve over 100 drones.
"A short while ago, Iran launched unmanned aerial vehicles from its territory towards the territory of the state of Israel," the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement. "The air defense array is on high alert at the same time as the air force planes and navy ships that are on a mission to protect the country's skies."
"The IDF is monitoring all targets," added the IDF, which has been waging war on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas-led attack on Israel October 7. "We ask the public to adhere to and follow the instructions of the Home Front Command and the official IDF announcements regarding the matter."
Iran's drone launch by comes after Iranian officials have reportedly been sending a message to the Biden administration through back channels: "We will attack the forces that attack us, so don't fuck with us and we won't fuck with you."
Further fueling fears of a new regional war, U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday: "We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel."
An American defense official said Saturday that "U.S. forces in the region continue to shoot down Iranian-launched drones targeting Israel... Our forces remain postured to provide additional defensive support and to protect U.S. forces operating in the region."
As the death toll in Gaza has mounted—the Israeli assault, which the International Court of Justice has determined is plausibly genocidal, has killed at least 33,686 people—Biden has faced intense pressure to condition or even cut off military aid to Israel.
In response to Iran's attack on Israel, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, said in a statement that "the United States should avoid taking any military action in connection with the Israel/Iran conflict or further entangle U.S. armed forces in unauthorized and dangerous fighting in the Middle East."
"The Biden administration should call on Israel to immediately announce a cease-fire in Gaza and to refrain from using U.S. weapons in any further unlawful attacks against other countries' embassies and diplomatic facilities," she added.
On top of the nearly $4 billion in military aid that the U.S. gives Israel annually, the Biden administration has been shipping arms to the IDF since October and pushing for new package worth over $14 billion that requires congressional approval.
U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Saturday that "in light of Iran's unjustified attack on Israel, the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable."
Appearing on Al Jazeera Saturday, Sultan Barakat, a professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked the Iranian consulate to secure more U.S. weapons and try to silence anti-war critics.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights group, argued that "the Biden administration emboldened the far-right Israeli government to manufacture this crisis by repeatedly giving it carte blanche to violate international law without any accountability—from murdering journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, to expanding illegal settlements, to committing a genocide in Gaza, to bombing an Iranian embassy complex in Syria."
Sana Saeed, a media critic with
AJ+, said on social media Saturday that there will be "lots of incoming analysis for the next several hours, but there's really just one thing to know: None of this was inevitable nor did it start with Iran. This is U.S.-Israeli belligerence; this is Joe Biden's foreign policy and Israel's war expansionism as it conducts a genocide."
Trita Parsi, an expert on Iran and the Middle East and EVP at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, also weighed in on social media, pointing to a specific example from over 25 years ago "that shows that the Iranian retaliation against Israel could perhaps have been evaded."
"The U.S., U.K., and France prevented the U.N. Security Council from condemning the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus despite it being a flagrant violation of international law," Parsi highlighted. "The Iranians have hinted that had the UNSC strongly condemned Israel, Iran might have refrained from retaliating against it."
"Certainly, the 1998 episode does not prove that Iran's retaliation against Israel today could have been prevented. But it does suggest that there was an opportunity to de-escalate that the U.S./U.K./FR ignored or dismissed," he added. "Then again, that fits perfectly with Biden's record of the past seven months as opportunity after opportunity to de-escalate and end the war in Gaza has been actively dismissed by him."
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Google Slammed for 'Playing Games With California's Democracy' by Blocking News
"This is an extraordinarily inappropriate time for Google to experiment with which voters might or might not see news about elected officials and candidates for office."
Apr 13, 2024
California reporters and union leaders are calling out Google for blocking news content for some users amid consideration of a landmark proposal that would make tech giants pay media outlets for links they share—which some experts warn won't solve the journalism industry's financial problems.
To prepare for potential passage of the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), Google is "beginning a short-term test for a small percentage of California users," Jaffer Zaidi, the tech giant's VP for global news partnerships, explained in a Friday blog post.
"The testing process involves removing links to California news websites, potentially covered by CJPA, to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience," he wrote. "Until there's clarity on California's regulatory environment, we're also pausing further investments in the California news ecosystem, including new partnerships through Google News Showcase, our product and licensing program for news organizations, and planned expansions of the Google News Initiative.
In response, Jon Schluess, president of the NewsGuild-CWA; Matt Pearce, president of Media Guild of the West TNG-CWA Local 39213; and Annie Sciacca, president of the Pacific Media Workers Guild TNG-CWA Local 39521 collectively called on state legislators and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to "stand united against Google's undemocratic threats to censor the work of California's journalists by shutting off news access in the middle of an election year."
"Every voter's access to information counts; California's journalists are covering an ongoing congressional election in the 16th District, where two candidates received an equal number of votes," they noted. "This is an extraordinarily inappropriate time for Google to experiment with which voters might or might not see news about elected officials and candidates for office."
While Zaidi claimed that "we've been engaging with California publishers and lawmakers throughout the legislative process and have proposed reasonable and balanced alternatives to CJPA," the trio said "Google is not engaging with California lawmakers in good faith."
"During a December informational hearing related to that bill, amid discussion about the prospect of Google banning journalism from its services in California, Google News executive Richard Gingras testified to committee Chair Sen. Tom Umberg that Google had 'no desire to stop including news in Search,'" they pointed out.
"Given today's events, obviously Google's testimony to our elected leaders was not true," the union leaders added. "Google must stop playing games with California's democracy."
However, not all Big Tech critics support the CJPA and similar legislation, including those passed in Australia and Canada.
Journalist and professor Jeff Jarvis wrote Wednesday for Nieman Journalism Lab—summarizing his lengthy white paper commissioned by the California Chamber of Commerce—that "like its federal cousin, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA)," the CJPA "is the latest in a century's attempts by the newspaper industry to diminish fair use and extend copyright for the benefit of publishers against competitors."
As The Guardianreported on the California measure:
A study conducted by Free Press Action, a media reform advocacy group, found that more than 80% of websites that would benefit from reimbursement mandated by the bill are owned by just 20 major firms. Because of this, major media companies have lobbied heavily against the legislation.
"It's a Google versus corporate media fight, and in the end California residents are the ones being harmed," said Mike Rispoli, senior director at Free Press Action. "It speaks to real challenges facing local news today when how the news is created and how it is accessed is controlled by these large corporations that are just looking after themselves."
When Canada passed its law last year and Meta—the parent company of Facebook and Instagram—announced its plans to pull content from the platforms, Free Press senior director of strategy and communications Tim Karr warned Common Dreams of the "real world impacts" while also criticizing the legislation.
"It feels to me oftentimes that the impetus of the support for the bargaining code bills in Australia, Canada, and the United States is merely to punish Big Tech—and, of course, there are things that Big Tech does that deserve to be punished, but the real goal here is not punishing Big Tech," Karr said.
"Unless we take a serious look at the shifting economics of news production and create legislation meant to address that, we're going to just be kind of bailing water out of a sinking ship," he also stressed.
Google similarly threatened to block news content over Canada's law but struck a deal with the government in November. similar threats to block content in Canada over its online news legislation before reaching a deal there with the government.
Politico noted that Meta "permanently erased news content from its social feed in Canada and has threatened to do the same if Congress and California advance similar legislation."
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US Official Says Iran's Message Is: 'Don't F*ck With Us and We Won't F*ck With You'
Israeli and U.S. leaders are bracing for what officials in both countries believe will be Iran's imminent retaliation for this month's bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Apr 12, 2024
As Israel's recent attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus and Iran's anticipated retaliation threaten to draw the United States into a wider Middle East war, Tehran has reportedly been warning Washington to stay out of the escalating conflict—or face attacks on U.S. troops in the region.
Multiple U.S. officials speaking to Axios on condition of anonymity said this week that Iran's leaders have been sending back-channel messages to the Biden administration via several Arab countries warning against more intervention.
"The Iranian message was we will attack the forces that attack us, so don't fuck with us and we won't fuck with you," one U.S. official said.
Pentagon officials said Friday that the U.S. is "moving additional assets" to the Middle East to boost regional deterrence and force protection.
When asked during a Friday press conference what his message to Iran was "at this moment," Biden replied with one word: "Don't."
"We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel," the president subsequently said. "And Iran will not succeed."
Biden's remarks came as the Middle East and beyond brace for Iran's promised retaliation for the April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed 16 people including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps senior commander Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi and other IRGC officers, as well as civilians.
Some Iranians called the attack a "declaration of war" against the Islamic Republic.
Biden administration officials maintain the U.S. had nothing to do with the consulate bombing. However, Iranian officials have said that they hold Washington responsible for the strike.
The U.S. president has already ordered attacks on Iran-linked militias in Syria and Iraq, and along with the U.K. has led a sustained bombing campaign against Tehran's Houthi allies in Yemen.
On Thursday, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem issued a security warning and restricted its staffers' travel in anticipation of a possibly imminent Iranian response to the Damascus attack. According toPolitico, U.S. officials believe that "Iran is calibrating its plans for a major retaliatory strike against Israel to send a message—but not spark a regional war that compels Washington to respond."
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday that "a direct Iranian attack will require an appropriate Israeli response against Iran."
On Friday, Hezbollah militants launched dozens of rockets and armed drones from southern Lebanon into Israel, with most of the projectiles destroyed by Israeli air defenses. Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed Hezbollah sites in Lebanon in response.
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