Clink, clink, bitch! That’s both the sound Roger Stone’s jail cell will make, and me, calling him a bitch as the door slams shut behind him.
Amidst a firestorm of criticism from Republican pundits and Trump, NBC News reports that Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison today for obstructing a congressional investigation. Alongside his sentence, he is also expected to serve two years of probation, pay a meager $20,000 fine, and complete 250 hours of community service. During sentencing, Judge Amy Jackson said: “He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.”
Judge Amy Jackson praised jurors for their “integrity” in prosecuting a person who committed a crime in service of his crime boss; shortly after, Trump gave a speech in Las Vegas claiming the jury forewoman was an “anti-Trump” person who unfairly meddled in his affairs. NBC News reports that Trump told audience-goers: “I don’t know if this is a fact, but she had a horrible social media account. She’s, I guess from what I hear, a very strong woman, a very dominant person, so she can get people to do whatever she wants,” he claimed.
Unfortunately, it does not look like Trump will commit any crimes to pardon Stone, telling the audience: “I am not going to do anything with the great powers bestowed on the President.” Or he might! Nothing makes sense anymore and everything is bad, so I wouldn’t be shocked if Stone’s prison sentence was served in a luxury penthouse somewhere with a non-extradition clause. [NBC News]
Monopolies held by private corporations are, as history has frequently shown, very bad. But following a wave of scrutiny on massive corporations like Google, Disney, and Facebook, the New York Times reports that Trump’s economic advisers don’t feel the need to “rewrite the federal government’s antitrust rules,” because they think big corporations are very successful and successful things are very good.
This new report from Trump administration implores the public not to use “antitrust enforcement and competition policy…to punish firms for their competitive success.” The Times reports that the administration’s stance on anti-trust policy is a direct response to a 2016 report from Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, who warned that “rising market concentration was hampering economic dynamism and exacerbating inequality.”
Nonetheless, the administration is keen on keeping anti-trust policies as billionaire friendly as possible, approving mergers between Sprint and T-Mobile alongside AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner. When Disney acquired Fox in 2018, the Department of Justice, under Trump’s jurisdiction, simply required the new conglomerate shed Fox’s regional sports stations. At the time, many were skeptical why the deal had slipped through without much fuss from the government. This new report from Trump’s economic advisers should clear that up! [New York Times]
Poor little Pete Buttigieg is getting desperate!
- Warren received an endorsement from a group started by one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter [Axios]
- Sad man Bloomberg is also getting desperate. [New York Times]
- March For Our Lives co-founders have endorsed Sanders. [The Hill]
- Warren bought an ad explaining how much a Republican billionaire newspaper owner would pay in taxes were she elected president! [Business Insider]