Radio America Online News Bureau

Archives for November 2018

U.S. Geological Survey Details Alaska Quake

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On Friday, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck near Anchorage, Alaska, buckling roads and causing considerable damage to homes and businesses, but thus far there are no reports of deaths or serious injuries.

Alaska is the most seismically active U.S. state, according to U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist John Bellini.  He says 4.0 magnitude earthquakes are a daily occurrence in the state and 5.0 magnitude quakes happen roughly once a week.  But events this powerful near a population center are far less common.

The earthquake’s epicenter was just 8.5 miles from downtown Anchorage.  As of 5 p.m. ET Friday, the USGS had noted 50 aftershocks of magnitude 2.5 or greater.  The most intense aftershock registered at 5.7.

Listen to the full podcast as Bellini goes into much more detail about this earthquake, earthquakes in Alaska and around the Pacific’s “ring of fire,” and what important lessons can be learned from the data gathered from Friday.

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2020 Dem Infighting Begins, Trump & Cohen, The Girl Named Abcde

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America start popping the popcorn as Democrats start squabbling with each other over 2020.  Rahm Emanuel calls Beto O’Rourke a “loser” and many Democrats are very frosty with New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand for leading the charge against Minnesota Sen. Al Franken last year.  They also shake their heads in the wake of Michael Cohen’s guilty plea as the president who says he only selects the best people winds up calling Cohen weak and not very smart.  And they react to the story of a Southwest Airlines employee mocking a girl named Abcde but also point out the girl’s mom is setting her daughter up for a lifetime of teasing and frustration.  They also share some of their favorite stories about unusual names.

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McCarthy: Mueller Building Collusion Case Without A Crime

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It’s been a rough week for former allies of President Trump, with Special Counsel Robert Mueller scrapping the plea agreement with former campaign chairman over allegations of  lying and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pleading guilty once again to lying under oath – this time to congressional investigators about Trump’s business dealings in Russia.

And while Trump critics lick their chops in hopes of bringing him down and the president’s defenders point out there is still no one in Trump’s orbit accused of malfeasance in the 2016 campaign, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says Mueller is not letting the lack of a crime slow him down.

“What Mueller is trying to do here is build a collusion case without a crime,” said McCarthy, who is also a contributing editor at National Review Online and a Fox News contributor.  He led the successful prosecution of those responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist plots against New York City landmarks.

But McCarthy says Mueller sure makes it seem like there was underlying criminal behavior.

“Despite the fact he doesn’t have a crime that would turn that into a criminal conspiracy, he’s camouflaging that with a bunch of false statements pleas that he has taken from people in Trump’s orbit and also the fact that he has these two indictments against Russians,” said McCarthy.

“So the Press reports that Mueller is investigating collusion between Russia and Trump and many people have pleaded guilty in the investigation.  And they leave out the inconvenient fact that the guilty pleas of the Trump associates have nothing to do with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the indictments of the Russians have nothing to do with the Trump campaign,” said McCarthy.

But McCarthy also points out that despite not having an underlying crime, Mueller has unearthed deception from former Trump associates, including Michael Cohen’s admission that he lied about talks between Trump’s people and the Russians about a Trump Tower in Moscow cut off in January 2016 as he entered the primary season when those talks went until June, by which time Trump had already clinched the nomination.

McCarthy says Mueller can now use statements like that to discredit public statements Trump has made to the contrary.  He also finds it interesting that Trump cut off talks with Russians about the real estate project just days after the Russians promised but failed to hand over damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

Listen to the full podcast as McCarthy explains how rare it is to withdraw a plea agreement but also how Manafort is in a very unusual position.  He also details the “perversity” of the special counsel position that allows those prosecutors to keep hunting for targets even when there is no underlying crime.

“Mueller has been allowed to essentially cast his line wherever he chooses to and fish around for a crime until he finds one,” said McCarthy.

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SCOTUS & Property Rights, Flake Foils Confirmations, Stormy Blasts Avenatti

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America cheer Neil Gorsuch and other Supreme Court justices for blasting civil asset forfeiture in an Indiana case that may soon limit the government’s ability to seize property from suspected and convicted criminals.  They also sigh as Jeff Flake forces the cancellation of committee votes on two dozen judicial nominees because he can’t get a floor vote on legislation to protect special counsel Bob Mueller.  They also imagine the sanctimony primary between Flake and John Kasich as both seem interested in launching irrelevant 2020 presidential campaigns.  And they react to Stormy Daniels revealing that attorney Michael Avenatti has filed suits and made statements in her name that she never approved and that Avenatti won’t tell her how he’s spending the money many people have donated to her legal cause.

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Criminal Justice Reform: Is ‘FIRST STEP’ the Right Step?

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President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan are leading the push to enact the bipartisan FIRST STEP Act, which supporters say will do much more to help prepare convicts to benefit society upon re-entry and address sentencing guidelines for some non-violent offenders.

The House has already passed the bill and a strong majority of senators are expected to support it if it comes to the floor in this lame duck session.  Senators still have to address overall spending, a farm bill, and many nominations in those remaining days.  But conservative supporters warn that if this doesn’t happen in the next two weeks, it may not happen for years since Democrats are poised to take control of the House in January.

Marc Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation says the bill really just takes successes from the state level to the federal level.

“It really builds on the success in many states – especially conservative states like Texas, Georgia, South Carolina – where we’ve basically shown it’s possible to both reduce the prison population and increase public safety,” said Levin.

The sentencing changes are getting the most headlines, especially for non-violent drug offenders.  Levin says no one is going easy on those offenders, but there is an effort to make productive citizens out of them.

“There are people now, for a drug offense, ending up with life in prison.  This (bill) reduces that mandatory minimum to 25 years.  I’d say that’s still pretty tough, but it is moving in the direction of saying, ‘We have to lock up people we’re afraid of, not those we’re mad at,” said Levin.

Critics of the bill, like Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton see provision like inmates being able to earn credits and transition to halfway houses ahead of schedule as likely to put the public in greater danger.

Levin says the credit system does not even apply to violent offenders and some non-violent criminals.  He also says the system does not reduce the sentence but does provide an avenue for those prisoners to undergo a more gradual transition back into society.

Listen here for the full podcast, as Levin details the many different programs the bill would facilitate to address why different inmates committed their crimes and to prepare them for productive lives instead of just “warehousing” them and throwing them back on the streets.

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Schumer & the Wall, Media & Obama, MSNBC & Nooses

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are cautiously optimistic that at least some border wall funding could be coming in the lame duck spending bill.  They also applaud National Review’s David French for blasting the media’s perpetual outrage at President Trump, even as his administration carries out some actions and policies of the Obama administration, which the media adored.  And they enjoy the GOP win in the Mississippi Senate race while also slamming MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace for suggesting that nooses found on the state capitol grounds were a form of racial intimidation until her own guest explained Democrats put them there to protest Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.

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Manafort & Assange, Beto & 2020,Trump & General Motors

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America serve up all crazy martinis Tuesday.  They begin with a report from the UK Guardian newspaper that Paul Manafort met multiple times with Julian Assange in London, including early 2016 when Manafort was about to become chairman for the Trump campaign.  They also get a kick out of Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke abandoning his pledge never to run for president in 2020 just three weeks after making it.  And they wonder whether taxpayers will wind up on the hook again as President Trump tries to stop General Motors from shuttering five plants and laying off thousands of workers in the U.S.

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Judges, Flakes, and Lame Ducks

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Just a few days remain for Congress to tackle major issues before the end of the year, and Judicial Crisis Network Chief Counsel Carrie Severino says the Senate can do the nation a great service by confirming at least three dozen more judicial nominees and easing a massive backlog of vacancies on the federal bench.

Severino says 14 percent of the federal judicial positions are vacant, which is even higher than when Trump took office.  Trump and the GOP-led Senate have placed 84 new judges on the federal courts, including a record number of appellate judges for a two-year span.

But she says 158 vacancies remain.  Severino says three dozen are all set for a final Senate vote.

“Some of these people have literally been waiting a year from having their hearing and being done.  So some of them have gotten very, very backed up,” said Severino.

Why are these nominees gathering dust when they’ve already been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee?  Severino says Democrats are maximizing their efforts to delay and possibly derail the nominations by demanding 30 hours of floor debate for each nomination.  The debates cannot take place simultaneously.

“It forces them to go through a single file line, which is, historically, not at all how judges were confirmed.  It used to be you would get people going in batches.  You would just have voice votes and move on.  This is something that’s requiring them to do a lot more procedure, even for judges who are not controversial,” said Severino.

The Republican majority will be bigger in January.  The GOP will have either 52 or 53 seats next year depending on the results of the run-off in Mississippi.

Right now, the Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority, and retiring Ariz. Sen. Jeff Flake may gum up the works even more.  Flake is vowing to oppose any nomination in committee or on the floor unless the Senate votes on legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller.  Severino is baffled by the move.

“To connect that to judges in anyway just doesn’t add up.  (The Mueller probe) is not something that has to do with judges,” said Severino.

Severino believes Trump has chosen excellent judicial nominees but needs to pick up the pace.

“We simply need to be able to speed this up to keep up with the process or you’re going to have Trump leaving office with more vacancies than he came in with,” said Severino.

Listen to the whole podcast to hear more about the efforts to get judges confirmed and what options are available to counter efforts by Democrats to slow down the process.

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Senate Showdowns, Kasich’s Quixotic Quest, Twitter’s Latest Purge

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David French of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America pop some popcorn as Democrats will likely have to eliminate one of their members from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the one with the least seniority – California’s Kamala Harris – is furiously fighting to stay on the panel.  Of course, all of this is assuming Republicans will win the Mississippi Senate runoff Tuesday, in a race that has Republicans increasingly nervous.  They also roll their eyes as Ohio Gov. John Kasich is seriously considering another White House bid and David explains why Kasich is the answer to a question no one is asking.  And they shake their heads as Twitter starts banning users for “misgendering” or “deadnaming” transgenders online and perpetuates efforts to stifle all debate on the issue.

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Black Friday Political Gifts

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America observe Black Friday by listing three gifts each of them would give to people in office or connected to politics.  Recipients of these special gifts include Jim Acosta, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and more.

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