Michael Cohen's former lawyer urges Biden to support Trump pardon – Raw Story
Sarah Burris is a long-time veteran of political campaigns, having worked as a fundraiser and media director across the United States. She transitioned into reporting while working for Rock the Vote, Future Majority and Wiretap Magazine, covering the Millennial Generation's perspective during the presidential elections. As a political writer, Burris has had bylines at CNN, Salon.com, BNR, and AlterNet and serves as a senior digital editor for RawStory.com.
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The ex-lawyer of Donald Trump's former fixer turned vehement enemy Michael Cohen made a surprise request Wednesday — that Trump be pardoned.
Writing for the conservative Real Clear Politics, attorney Lanny Davis began by comparing Trump to Hunter Biden, who was just convicted of lying to purchase a gun.
Biden's crime, Davis argued, "Occurred in the middle of his addiction. It was not part of any planned criminal scheme."
The opposite was the case for Trump, however. A New York jury found that Trump was involved in a broad conspiracy to conceal a payoff to a woman to keep quiet about sexual relationship that he feared would damage his election chances.
Read Also: How Donald Trump could run for president — and lead the nation — from prison
But Davis thinks both men should be pardoned.
"I was once angry with Gerald Ford when he pardoned Richard Nixon for his Watergate crimes days after assuming the presidency in 1974," Davis confessed. "With the benefit of hindsight, I (and many leading historians) believe President Ford made the right decision."
Ford famously announced, "Our long national nightmare is over" as he handed Nixon the pardon.
Davis thinks that Ford knew the country would never "heal" so long as Nixon was the subject of criminal prosecution.
Gallup polling showed in 1974 that about 38 percent of Americans supported Nixon's pardon. The decision was so toxic that after taking over the presidency, Ford never had a chance at successfully running again, even with a number of successes under his belt, Gallup explained in a retrospect.
But Davis argues, "Incarcerating Trump would undermine that message by making him a martyr to his followers."
So, he wrote begging Biden to "show grace" to the ex-president "by announcing his support for a pardon and commutation for his opponent by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul."
For the son of President Joe Biden, the message from his family has been consistent: "We believe in the rule of law."
But Davis went on to say that he hopes Trump would grant Hunter Biden the same grace, "Were he to win in November."
He argued that in "announcing his support for a Trump pardon, Joe Biden will also be upholding another fundamental principle: that the most important decision in our Republic — the election of the president of the United States — should be decided at the ballot box and not in a courtroom."
Bright yellow, black, red and blue, Alexanor butterflies once fluttered abundantly on southwestern Albania's flowery slopes. Now, like many related species, scientists say they are disappearing due to human impacts, including climate change.
Increasingly absent from the picturesque district of Zvernec, the Alexanor is one of 58 of the Balkan country's 207 butterfly species that researchers say are at risk.
"Sensitive to changes, they are a true mirror of the conditions of the ecosystem in which they live," said Anila Paparisto, an entomologist at Tirana University.
In Zvernec, Paparisto leads a team of researchers and students working to identify the country's remaining butterfly species along with those that are now extinct.
Numerous scientific studies have measured the impact of climate change on butterfly populations, though researchers also cite other environmental factors.
They blame a combination of rapid urbanization, pesticides and warming temperatures for the decrease.
"Human activity and climate change have had major impacts on nature," said biology student Fjona Skenderi, who was helping conduct research in Zvernec.
In the nearby Divjaka Natural Park, Albanian agronomist Altin Hila points to the disappearance of the Giant Peacock Moth and the Plain Tiger as another worrying sign.
"It's a disaster marked by climatic disruptions, an early spring and excessively high temperatures in January and February," explained Hila, who is also a passionate collector and oversees a butterfly museum in Divjaka.
"It encouraged the eggs to hatch and the butterfly larvae to grow, but in April the temperatures were too low" for them to survive, he added.
– 'Butterfly effect' –
The butterflies' decline also affects other species.
"It will impact the entire food chain and biodiversity, which is also essential for humans," Paparisto said.
"When there are fewer butterflies, you expect… the butterfly effect."
Like large swaths of Albania, coastal areas near Zvernec have become increasingly overrun with resorts and apartment blocks, built with little oversight.
Scientists say the rapid urbanization in the area, along with overfishing and climate change, has also played a part in the dramatic drop in migratory bird populations.
And while some butterfly populations are in decline, other similar species are prospering — to the detriment of the environment.
The arrival of a non-native moth through imports of ornamental plants from China has ravaged more than 80 percent of Albania's boxwood forests since 2019, according to experts.
"It is very aggressive, it can reproduce three to four times a year, and it is a real misfortune which reduces entire areas to nothing," said forest engineer Avdulla Diku.
With their distinct neon green and black bodies, the larvae are easily spotted when clinging to the boxwoods' leaves and stems.
On the road along Lake Ohrid to Pogradec in northwestern Albania, the once vibrant green rows of boxwoods are reduced to husks after being devoured by the moths' larvae.
"It is a firm reminder of the fragility and subtle balance of the environment in which we live," said Sylvain Cuvelier, an entomological researcher who co-authored the first Albanian butterfly atlas.
"It is obviously urgent to unite our efforts to find solutions, to rethink in depth our use of natural resources and the way forward for the protection and restoration of our environment."
Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) is trailing his Donald Trump-endorsed challenger John McGuire in a razor-thin Republican primary race that shows how tightly the former president holds the party in his grip.
McGuire won Trump's endorsement last month and made his campaign a referendum on who was most loyal to the presumptive GOP nominee, and the Republican challenger claimed victory Wednesday although Good had closed the gap to 309 votes out of 62,445 votes cast, which would put the House Freedom Caucus chair within the margin to qualify for a recount paid for by the state.
"It's MAGA-on-MAGA violence," conservative Charlie Sykes told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "It's hard to choose between these two guys. I think it was Adam Kinsinger who said it's like choosing between dysentery and flu. What is interesting is, look, Congressman Good is about as right-wing as you get. He's the head of the Freedom Caucus and is not good enough. It all comes down to loyalty to Donald Trump. He committed the sin of endorsing Ron DeSantis, so this is not about issues. It is not about policy. It is not about RINOs versus MAGA, it's all about Donald Trump's absolute complete demand for loyalty, and he's about to blow up this congressional race, spending hundreds of thousands on a seat they didn't have."
ALSO READ: The shocking truth behind the GOP's MAGA lie machine
"We ought to notice how fall the Republican Party used to be fallen," Sykes added. "This used to be represented by Denver Riggleman, a man of real integrity and principle, and he was defeated by Bob Good because he committed the unforgivable sin of presiding at a same-sex wedding. So we've gone from Denver Riggleman to god-knows-what in this particular district."
Watch the video below or at this link.
MSNBC 06 20 2024 05 57 10youtu.be
Japan's tourism chief said Thursday its ambitious goal of luring 60 million foreign tourists a year — more than double the current level — is well within reach, despite surging overtourism concerns.
Japan last year attracted over 25 million tourists from abroad, in part buoyed by the lifting of pandemic-era border restrictions, from countries such as South Korea, Singapore and the United States.
Ichiro Takahashi, head of Japan's tourism agency, acknowledged the previously announced target of 60 million remains "tough", but stressed it is within the realm of possibility.
"It is a figure that we can very much achieve by making the right efforts", Takahashi told a briefing in Tokyo.
"There are still many little-known places in Japan that are left unexplored by tourists from overseas — I belive Japan has infinite tourism resources," Takahashi said.
Over three million foreign tourists visited Japan for a third consecutive month in May, according to government statistics released Wednesday.
But an influx of tourists to Japan has reignited concerns over overtourism in recent months, with local residents complaining of their sometimes unruly behaviour and etiquette breaches.
The city of Himeji, in western Japan, was among the latest local governments to express frustrations.
The municipality famous for Himeji Castle is mulling making the World Heritage site's admission fees for overseas tourists four times as expensive as those for local residents, local media reported.
"A wooden structure will be worn out and become more brittle after many people climb up and down", mayor Hideyasu Kiyomoto told Japanese media, stressing the need to "curb overtourism".
Local citizens using the castle as a community hub shouldn't be charged the same amount as "people who only come here once in around 10 years for sightseeing purposes", he said.
Another flashpoint around overtourism is Mount Fuji, where a new, crowd-control gate was erected Monday along its popular trail.
The measure followed a rare step taken last month by an exasperated Japanese town to deliberately block a view of the volcano with a large black barrier, in a bid to deter photo-hungry tourists.
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