The fight against fake news takes a turn for the better as Nick "just smilin at the drum man" Sandmann files lawsuit against the Washington Post seeking $250 million in damages.

The law firm Hemmer DeFrank Wessels on Tuesday wrote a post on its website that said attorneys Lin Wood and Todd McMurtry have filed the lawsuit on behalf of Nicholas Sandmann against the newspaper for "compensatory and punitive damages."
"This is only the beginning," the law firm said.
Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, was in Washington on January 18 for the annual March for Life rally wearing a red Make American Great Again hat. In a video that gained national attention, he was in an encounter with Omaha tribe elder Nathan Phillips, who was playing a drum and chanting at the Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial on the same day.

Another video that surfaced days later provided additional context for the encounter, but the first video had gone viral, touching off widespread accusations of bigotry as photos of the teenager spread across social media.

Major news outlets, including the Washington Post, the Associated Press and CNN covered the incident and its aftermath.
The lawsuit claims that the Post "wrongfully targeted and bullied Nicholas because he was the white, Catholic student wearing a red 'Make America Great Again' souvenir cap on a school field trip to Washington, D.C."
The complaint also accuses the Post of engaging in a "modern-day form of McCarthyism by competing with CNN and NBC, among others, to claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies which attacked, vilified, and threatened Nicholas Sandmann, an innocent secondary school child."


A WaPo spokeswoman told CNN Business that the paper is "reviewing a copy of the lawsuit and we are completely devestated, totally assblasted, and utterly BTFO by it, we're not sure we can recover"

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/media/nick-sandmann-washington-post-lawsuit/index.html

Former first lady Michelle Obama tied with former Vice President Joe Biden as the top choice among Democratic voters when asked who should be the party's nominee in 2020.

A Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday found that 25 percent of Democrats said they would back Obama in the party primary over nine other declared or potential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas).

Obama has said she is not running, and Biden has not announced whether he will launch another White House bid.

Harris came in third among Democratic voters, with 12 percent saying they would support her. Sanders was a close fourth, at 11 percent. O’Rourke, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Warren, and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) all failed to exceed 6 percent.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/430614-one-fourth-of-democratic-voters-say-theyd-support-michelle

Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee announced Tuesday they are launching an investigation into the Trump administration's dealings with Saudi Arabia after several whistleblowers expressed concern about efforts to sell the kingdom nuclear technology.

The announcement came in conjunction with the release of a report by committee staff that said senior White House officials pushed for the sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia despite warnings from ethics advisers and national security officials to stop.

"Based on this snapshot of events, the committee is now launching an investigation to determine whether the actions being pursued by the Trump administration are in the national security interests of the United States or, rather, serve those who stand to gain financially as a result of this potential change in U.S. foreign policy," the report said.

To continue the investigation, House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) sent letters to several people and organizations involved with promoting the plan, including the White House, the CIA, the Flynn Intel Group, IP3 and the departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, State and Treasury

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/430598-dems-launch-investigation-into-trump-administrations-dealings-with-saudi?amp

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/19/politics/donald-trump-new-york-times-russia-investigation/index.html

(CNN) — The New York Times published a 4,536-word opus on President Donald Trump's two-year-long (and running!) attempt to thwart the multiple investigations into his 2016 presidential campaign and its ties to Russia.

The entire thing is worth reading. It's chock-a-block with news -- like that Trump reportedly asked acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to install an ally to oversee the Southern District of New York investigation into Michael Cohen!! -- and insights into the world (and White House) of Donald Trump.

But amid all those words, one sentence in the piece stood out to me as deeply important when it comes to thinking about Trump, the investigation and what special counsel Robert Mueller knows.

Here's the sentence:
> "The episode was among the first of multiple ham-handed efforts by the president to carry out a dual strategy: publicly casting the Russia story as an overblown hoax and privately trying to contain the investigation's reach."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/19/bernie-sanders-announces-2020-run-presidency

Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont whose 2016 presidential campaign helped energize the progressive movement and reshaped the Democratic party, has entered the 2020 race for the White House.

Sanders, a self-styled Democratic socialist who spent much of his nearly 30-year congressional career as an outsider on the political fringe, cast his candidacy as way to accomplish the mission he started three years ago when he ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

“Together, you and I and our 2016 campaign began the political revolution,” he said in an email to supporters on Tuesday morning. “Now, it is time to complete that revolution and implement the vision that we fought for.”

Sanders, 77, running as a Democrat again, believes he can prevail in a crowded and diverse field that includes several female and minority candidates, then beat Donald Trump, whom he called in the email “the most dangerous president in modern American history”.

Asked in an interview on CBS on Tuesday morning what would be different about his 2020 campaign, Sanders replied: “We’re gonna win.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/evidence-in-plain-sight-of-trump-collusion-with-russia-schiff-says/ar-BBTHT0B

> Rep. Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, said Sunday that there is ample evidence Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians.

> In an interview on CNN, Schiff rejected Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr’s statements from earlier this month that evidence to date shows no collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia.

> “Chairman Burr must have a different word for it,” Schiff told Dana Bash on “State of the Union” and pointed to communications involving Russia and Trump aides Donald Trump Jr., George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn.

> “You can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence,” Schiff said, but added that “there is a difference between seeing evidence of collusion and being able to prove a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.”

> Schiff also said special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on potential Russian government influence in the 2016 election might not be the final word on the matter.

> “We may also need to see the evidence behind that report,” he said.

> And Schiff said that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should be held accountable if he indeed lied to investigators — something he also said should be true of any former Trump staffers who did so.

> Last year, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog found that McCabe inappropriately authorized the disclosure of sensitive information about the Clinton investigation to a reporter and repeatedly lied about it to investigators. The Justice Department on Thursday referenced McCabe’s dismissal from the bureau for his dishonesty with federal authorities in its statement disputing his claims.

> “He should be held to the same standard anyone else that the Justice Department has looked at in this investigation or any other,” Schiff said.

Less than a week since President Donald Trump declared a national emergency to divert funds to build a border wall, multiple groups are already challenging the move in court.

During the Rose Garden speech announcing his plan, Trump detailed in a sing-song voice the path he expected the emergency declaration to take through the court system, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

> “We will have a national emergency,” he said. “And we will then be sued, and they will sue us in the 9th Circuit, even though it shouldn’t be there. And we will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we’ll get another bad ruling. And then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully, we’ll get a fair shake, and we’ll win in the Supreme Court.”

The central issue at play is a constitutional question: whether Trump’s emergency declaration violated Congress’s constitutional authority to appropriate funds. But the “they” in Trump’s scenario— “they will sue us”— turned out to be several groups with specific concerns about the effects of building a border wall.

Here’s a look at four court challenges Trump’s emergency declaration will likely face.

http://time.com/5532449/donald-trump-emergency-declaration-lawsuits/

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/02/16/sources-brothers-released-bought-rope-used-in-jussie-smollett-attack/
February 16, 2019

Jussie Smollett Case: Brothers Questioned By Police Were Paid $3,500 To Stage Attack, Which Was Rehearsed Days Before, SourcesSay

CHICAGO (CBS) — Jussie Smollett paid two brothers to stage an attack against him, directed them to buy items used in the alleged assault and actually rehearsed it with them, sources say.

Sources say at least one of the brothers bought the rope used in the incident at Smollett’s request. The sources also say the “Empire” actor paid for the rope, which was purchased at the Crafty Beaver Hardware Store in the Ravenswood neighborhood the weekend of Jan. 25.

The brothers, who were questioned by police this week before being released, were paid $3,500 before leaving for Nigeria and were promised an additional $500 upon their return.

They left for Nigeria later in the day on Jan. 29, after the attack.

Sources said one of the brothers held the rope and poured bleach while the other wore a plain red hat and yelled slurs at Smollett.

The sources say the red hat was bought at an Uptown beauty supply store and that the attack was supposed to happen before Jan. 29. The brothers told detectives the three men rehearsed the attack days prior to it happening.

Smollett claims two men attacked him in Streeterville early Jan. 29 as he was heading to his apartment. He said they yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him, poured a chemical on him and put a rope around his neck.

cont.