“Then tell me, Future Boy,” Emmett “Doc” Brown asks Marty Mcfly in the movie “Back to the Future,” “who’s president of the United States in 1985?” “Ronald Reagan,” Marty replies. “Ronald Reagan? The actor? And who’s his vice president? Jerry Lewis?”

Such a question, under the circumstances, wouldn’t be terribly likely, as any usual answer (like, say, “Jimmy Carter”) would be meaningless to someone in 1955. But it had to be asked for its inevitable comic value. After all, many of us watching the movie in the theatre back in 1985 (and I was one of them) still couldn’t quite believe it, that Ronald Reagan was in fact president of the United States. And he’d just begun his second term that very year.

Even so, were I to ask some visitor from the future the far likelier question of who’s president of the United States in 2025, and were I told, “Donald Trump,” I might be tempted, not as a joke but out of real horror, to ask, “And who’s his vice president? Marjorie Taylor Greene?”

Believe it or not, that’s the answer some Republicans (including Greene herself) are mooting just now. Particularly Greene. She is so drunk with the power she has recently stumbled her way into of late, that of (in her mind, anyway) de facto Speaker of the House, that she’s now contemplating one improbable future eventuality. Vice President Greene? And after that, why not President Greene?

Yes I know, brothers and sisters, I hated writing that last line just as much as you hated reading it. Greene even as veep would mean, as one conservative podcaster Jonah Goldberg puts it, “… you would actually have someone who would make you worried that Donald Trump might have a heart attack.”

I’m not in the business of predicting the future, I’m just in the business of writing sentences about what people are saying about the future. What some Republicans are saying about the notorious MJT is she might make one possible veep for the second coming of Donald Trump. Well, I’ve made the mistake of discounting Donald Trump before and I’m reluctant to do it again. In any case it wouldn’t be beyond him to pick Greene as his running mate.

However absurd this might be to contemplate, I’m in the tenuous position of having contemplated absurdities in the past, some of which came true. It’s what our beloved republic has come to. Ridiculous things continue to happen at an absurd rate. Therefore I tell you that, in the minds of some people, MJT has become a serious contender as Donald Trump’s Vice President.

Of course, it really is the case that Trump is under considerable criminal peril. But will America be in a position as a nation to contemplate a presidential bid from someone currently behind prison bars? As I say, I won’t discount anything. We will just have to see.

Another impediment to a Greene candidacy is that Trump is a snob. He sees the low rent MJT as being, well, low rent. A better reason is it would hurt his chances even more than they are hurting now. Trump doesn’t look like he’s making a comeback. A (if you’ll pardon the expression) Greene New Deal would make his candidacy a laughingstock even among some diehard MAGA fruitcakes.

There are eight million stories in the naked city of Republican stupidity. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s mooted candidacy as vice president is one of them. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

The post The nightmare of a Greene New Deal appeared first on Palmer Report.

Former President Donald Trump sits for August 10 deposition.

Insider

• Video footage obtained by Insider shows Trump being deposed in the NY AG’s investigation into his business.
• Trump repeatedly invoked the 5th Amendment and declined to answer questions.
• Trump previously questioned why an innocent person would plead the 5th.

Former President Donald Trump repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when he was deposed last summer as part of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into his business practices, according to footage obtained by Insider on Tuesday.

“This is the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country,” Trump began in his seven-minute opening statement on August 10. “There has never been another president, or perhaps even another politician, who has been persecuted, harassed, and in every other way, unfairly treated like President Donald J. Trump.”

“Anyone in my position not taking the Fifth Amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool,” he said.

“The United States Constitution exists for this very purpose,” Trump said. “And I would utilize it to the fullest extent and defend myself against this malicious attack by this administration, this attorney general’s office, and all other attacks on my family, my business and our country.”

Trump concluded his remarks by saying he “respectfully” declined to answer questions as he sat under oath. 

“For all other reasons provided in my answer, which is incorporated herein in its entirety, I decline to answer the question,” the former president said as questioning began, a phrase he repeated twice more before transitioning to the shorter response: “Same answer.”

Trump said “same answer” over and over again as he was pressed about the Trump Organization’s business dealings, asked about its top executives, and presented with financial documents.

At times, Trump appeared tired of the deposition, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. He announced last year that he had invoked the 5th Amendment in James’ investigation. The August statement was particularly noteworthy given Trump’s previous suggestion that only guilty people invoke the constitutional right against self-incrimination.

“You see the mob takes the Fifth,” he said in April 2018. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

Trump addressed his change of heart about invoking the 5th Amendment in his statement last August.

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?'” he said. “Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”

James’ investigation into the Trump Organization culminated in a massive fraud lawsuit in September against the former president, his three eldest children, and his business.

James is seeking to permanently bar the Trumps from conducting business in New York and pursuing $250 million in penalties. The state attorney general’s office is also seeking the appointment of an independent monitor to “oversee compliance, financial reporting, valuations, and disclosures to lenders, insurers, and tax authorities at the Trump Organization” for at least five years.

James said Trump “falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to further enrich himself and cheat the system” and “repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization.”

“Claiming to have money that you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal,” James said, referencing the title of Trump’s 1987 memoir and business-advice book. “It’s the art of the steal.”

Concerns about whether an email sent by Tim Cook in 2021 was legal have merit, according to the federal agency charged with protecting private sector workers.

Apple

• A federal agency said it found evidence that Apple executives and company policy broke labor laws. 
• The decision stems from cases filed by former employees who say Apple violated their rights. 
• The NLRB will prosecute if Apple doesn’t settle with former employees who have raised complaints.

A companywide email sent by Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2021 may have violated federal law, according to The National Labor Relations Board. 

In the email, Cook reportedly wrote that “people who leak confidential information do not belong here” and that Apple didn’t “tolerate disclosures of confidential information, whether it’s product IP or the details of a confidential meeting.” 

The federal agency confirmed to Insider that it found merit that charges concerning statements by high-level executives at Apple, as well as company policies, violated the National Labor Relations Act.

A merit ruling means the agency has investigated complaints and found sufficient evidence to support them. 

The NLRB also said some of Apple’s company policies tended to “interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their right to protected concerted activity,” meaning the right to address work-related issues with coworkers.  

According to Bloomberg, the federal agency’s assessment stemmed from cases brought by two former Apple employees, Ashley Gjovik and Cher Scarlett. 

In an email to Insider, Gjovik asserted that Apple’s NDAs and policies about confidentiality and talking to the press “coercively silence Apple employees and chill them from engaging in protected activity through over-broad and vague terms, as well as through an implication of constant surveillance.” 

Scarlett, who brought a separate complaint to the NLRB, told Insider, “Apple’s culture of secrecy encourages a toxic workplace that suppresses workers from organizing.” 

Since the NLRB, a federal agency that protects the rights of private sector employees, found merit to these former employees’ complaints, its next step is to prosecute those charges if Apple doesn’t first settle with former employees who raised the objections. 

Apple did not respond to Insider’s request for comment. 

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When I heard the horrific news of the synagogue attack in East Jerusalem on Friday, my mind instantly flashed back to a similar massacre at another Jerusalem synagogue nine years ago.

In 2014, as today, I didn’t know any of the victims. But I still paid shiva calls to each of the families of the four men killed. Israel is a small place, and something about an attack like this — on people in a sacred space — always feels so personal.

I spent this past Shabbat in Beit Shemesh, a town some 30 miles from Jerusalem, at the home of a friend whose husband works for Hatzalah, the volunteer ambulance corps. They are Orthodox, but their emergency radio is always on, even on Shabbat.

During the meal, a call came in about “multiple injuries” in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish neighborhood of 25,000 people. As details trickled through, I thought about the people close to me who live there. My family has spent many Shabbat weekends at the homes of our cousins there over the years. My fiance’s nephew lives there with his young family.

I thought of the synagogue there where I attended a family brit milah just months ago. Was that the synagogue the shooter targeted? Or was it the one we often went to years ago for Shabbat with family? The neighborhood is not just a place on a map for me, but a real place that I know and have been to so many times.

It wouldn’t be until Shabbat ended, 24 hours later — an agonizingly long wait — that I learned that the people close to me were OK. Exhausting, painful days like that are part of the bargain of living in Israel — but that doesn’t make them less devastating.

I grew up in America, living in Monsey, New York, and then Boca Raton, Florida, before making aliyah 20 years ago to the Gush Etzion settlement of Neve Daniel, then moving to Tekoa, before finally settling in Jerusalem. That sense that we all experience the pain of these attacks together is part of why, a decade into my life in Israel, I attended those shivas in Har Nof. I didn’t know any of the mourners, and yet I felt connected to them in a way that’s hard to explain outside of Israel, where total strangers are at the funeral of every terror victim.

I learned during those shiva visits that I had many connections with a few of the Har Nof families. But even if that wasn’t the case, the fact is that attacks like this hit all of us. Hard.

Israel’s concrete barrier separating the Jewish settlement of Neve Yaakov (foreground) in the northern part of east Jerusalem and the Palestinian area of al-Ram (background) in the West Bank. (Oct. 2020). (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images) Image by

And, of course, they’re particularly difficult for the many of us who have worked toward peace.

Some Palestinians and their supporters dismiss all who live in such settlements as colonizers or worse. (Neve Yaakov is in East Jerusalem, an area that Israel seized in the 1967 War and later annexed, a move the United Nations Security Council said defied international law. While I do not share this view, many people call Jewish communities in these areas and other parts of the West Bank settlements.)

I have lived in settlements, and I, like some of the people I’ve met in them, have always worked toward coexistence with our Arab neighbors. I’ve studied Arabic, participated in programs with Israelis and Palestinians (like the organization Shorashim) that highlight unity, and supported pro-peace organizations (like Kids4Peace and Blue & White Human Rights) that promote coexistence among Jews and Arabs in Israel.

With that background, scrolling through social media and seeing evidence of Palestinian celebrations of our pain was particularly disheartening. The gunman had attacked worshippers leaving a synagogue, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, during Shabbat. It’s an unthinkable crime. And yet: There were images of festive fireworks in the streets, people giving out candies … all to literally celebrate murder.

Just a day before, Israeli forces had gone into Jenin on an emergency operation to capture Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives. Nine Palestinians were killed in the raid. Looking at those searing images of celebration, I wondered: Was the synagogue shooting a revenge attack? It’s the kind of moment that reminds me that the road to peace is long, indeed.

Years after the Har Nof attack I became friendly with the brother of one of those killed that awful day. He sent this statement to me after the Neve Yaakov massacre. “The people killed and hurt in last night’s attack, as well as their families, have had their lives ended or changed forever, for no fault of their own,” he wrote.”The cowardly person who carried out this attack … knew full well he was probably not coming back from this, yet decided this was his optimal action — killing and hurting innocent people and forever maiming their families.

“Even more than I blame him, I blame the education he was raised with, that would allow and even justify such an inhuman and immoral act against innocent unarmed people.”

My heart hurts for my friend who has to relive his own personal hell through the news of this latest attack. And it hurts for all of us.

I went through a grocery store checkout a few hours after Shabbat. As the cashier was scanning my items, she looked down at her phone, distracted, and mentioned something about the Dead Sea. The customer behind me understood immediately — there was another attack near there.

Luckily, this time no one was hurt. But the stranger behind me, the cashier, and I, all shared a moment of grief, of fear — and of determination. We’re all in this together. And we’re not going anywhere.

The post I have loved ones in Neve Yaakov. The synagogue attack is a reminder that the road to peace is long appeared first on The Forward.

(NewsNation) — A former high-ranking member of the Sinaloa drug cartel and one of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s top aides has pleaded guilty to a drug charge in Chicago federal court.

Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, also known as “The Engineer,” is just the latest Sinaloa cartel member to find himself in the headlines. Just two weeks before Sarabia’s Jan. 20 guilty plea, Mexican security forces captured Ovidio Guzman, an alleged drug trafficker and one of the sons of El Chapo.

Sarabia is set to be sentenced on July 7. Here’s what we know about him.

Who is ‘The Engineer’?

Sarabia, 51, was arrested on criminal charges in Mexico on Dec. 23, 2011. He was later extradited to the United States from Mexico in June 2020.

Originally, Sarabia was charged along with Sinaloa cartel boss Guzman in a 2009 indictment in Chicago, but Guzman was ultimately prosecuted in New York.

In 2015, the U.S. Treasury described Sarabia as a “longtime lieutenant” of Ismael Zambada Garcia, a Sinaloa cartel leader, who is the single remaining fugitive on Mexico’s most wanted drug lords list from 2009.

The Treasury said Sarabia controlled “large-scale marijuana and poppy” operations and was responsible for the transportation of marijuana and heroin into the United States.

“There’s no doubt he was directly responsible for killing many, many people there in Mexico,” former U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte told NewsNation. “The reason he was responsible is because he was one of the bosses, he ordered these killings.”

To what did he plead guilty?

Earlier this month Sarabia pleaded guilty in Chicago federal court to distributing more than 150 kilograms of cocaine and more than 30 kilograms of heroin.

In a November 2008 incident, prosecutors say an individual posing as a courier for law enforcement delivered $715,000 to another courier working with Sarabia as payment for 13 kilograms of heroin. Sarabia was later heard on the phone confirming the transaction, the plea deal says.

Sarabia also acknowledged that a firearm was used in connection with the crime.

In other phone conversations with associates, Sarabia was heard discussing the “poor quality” of the heroin some had received, according to the plea deal.

What happens next?

Sarabia is scheduled to be sentenced on July 7. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and a possible life sentence.

Prosecutors will argue for an enhanced sentence because they say Cabrera “was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants,” according to the plea deal. Sarabia intends to dispute that enhancement.

During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman earlier this month, Sarabia said through an interpreter that he had “always made a living as a cattle rancher,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The government plans to argue for an additional enhancement because a dangerous weapon was involved.

If applied, those enhancements could lead to a stiffer prison sentence.

What is the Sinaloa cartel?

The Sinaloa cartel is one of the most powerful transnational criminal organizations in Mexico and has hubs in nearly 50 American cities, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The cartel’s influence in the United States stretches as far south as Miami and as far north as Spokane, Washington.

The DEA says the Sinaloa cartel is most likely the “primary fentanyl” threat to the United States due to their “demonstrated ability to run clandestine fentanyl synthesis labs” throughout Mexico.

Data suggests that threat has been growing.

Since October, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seized more than 9,400 pounds of fentanyl. Over the same time period last year, CBP seized around 2,700 pounds of fentanyl.

What is El Chapo’s status?

The former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, El Chapo, is serving a life sentence for an international drug operation that spanned decades. He’s currently being held at a maximum-security prison in Colorado.

Earlier this month, the 64-year-old asked Mexico’s president to help him return home.

The drug lord’s attorney cited poor living conditions as the reason for El Chapo’s request. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the request will be reviewed.

 

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