Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater. (the previous edition can be found here if you are super behind).
House-keeping:

1. How to read: the headings will guide you through this piece. The Main Course covers the “big” stories and The Sides covers the “smaller” stories. IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS CLOSELY: you likely know about the stories in the Main Course section, so you will be best served by scrolling down to The Sides portion.
   
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Let’s dig in!

MAIN COURSE

Trump’s war on the intelligence community: 10 days under an authoritarian administration

I wrote a stand-alone piece covering the biggest news from last week: Over the past 10 days, we've seen Trump fully indulge his authoritarian impulses in an attempt to stamp out any inkling of facts that he dislikes - whether that be for personal, egocentric reasons or to shore up political strength. This began with a briefing given to the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is seeking to re-elect Trump. In response, Trump purged the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of officials he perceived to be disloyal, installing loyalists in their place.
Also covered: how Trump gets away with a cabinet full of acting officials, Richard Grenell’s numerous dis-qualifications, a pardon offered to Julian Assange, and the hunt for “Never Trumpers” in the administration.

Sunday night update

On Sunday, Trump made a veiled threat toward House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff while claiming without evidence that the Democrat had leaked information from the Russia briefing on Feb. 13: “Somebody please tell incompetent (thanks for my high poll numbers) & corrupt politician Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff to stop leaking Classified information or, even worse, made up information, to the Fake News Media. Someday he will be caught, & that will be a very unpleasant experience!” tweet
Later, while speaking to reporters, Trump called for an investigation into the leak - more concerned about the public learning of the briefing than he is about Russia’s repeated interference in U.S. elections. “They leaked it, Adam Schiff and his group. They leaked it to the papers and - as usual - they ought to investigate Adam Schiff for leaking that information,” Trump said.
Schiff responded: “Nice deflection, Mr. President. But your false claims fool no one. You welcomed Russian help in 2016, tried to coerce Ukraine’s help in 2019, and won’t protect our elections in 2020.”

Pardon-palooza

Authoritarians also dispense largesse, but they do it by their own whims, rather than pursuant to any system or legal rule. The point of authoritarianism is to concentrate power in the ruler, so the world knows that all actions, good and bad, harsh and generous, come from a single source. (The New Yorker)

Last week, Trump granted pardons and commutations to 11 people with one thing in common: connections. Trump bypassed the process of formal procedures typically used to determine who is given a pardon, instead relying on connections to his wealthy friends and political allies.

• Former governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted of soliciting bribes from candidates to replace Barack Obama in the Senate after Obama was elected president, knew Trump personally from his appearance on The Celebrity Apprentice. Trump falsely claimed that former FBI Director James Comey was involved in Blagojevich's prosecution; Comey did not take over at the FBI until years after the Blagojevich case.
  
  • Illinois' entire GOP congressional delegation—Darin LaHood, John Shimkus, Adam Kinzinger, Rodney Davis, and Mike Bost: "Blagojevich is the face of public corruption in Illinois, and not once has he shown any remorse for his clear and documented record of egregious crimes that undermined the trust placed in him by voters...Blagojevich is the face of public corruption in Illinois, and not once has he shown any remorse for his clear and documented record of egregious crimes that undermined the trust placed in him by voters." (source)
• Former San Francisco 49ers team owner Eddie DeBartolo, who was convicted of “failing to report a felony” in 1998 after he paid a $400,000 bribe for a casino license, was pardoned as a result of the lobbying of New England Patriots owner and frequent Mar-a-Lago guest Robert Kraft.
  
• Michael Milken, the so-called junk bond king who was convicted in 1990 of securities and tax fraud, knew Trump personally and frequently spent time with him at Mar-a-Lago. In his first memoir, Trump called Milken “a brilliant guy.” Many of Trump’s inner circle also lobbied for a pardon for Milken, including Rudy Giuliani, Jared Kushner, Steven Mnuchin, and developer friends Howard Lorber and Richard LeFrak. In fact, last year Mnuchin “flew on Mr. Milken’s private jet from Washington to Los Angeles and helped secure a real estate tax break that could benefit Mr. Milken.” A key backer of Milken’s pardon, hedge fund manager (and executive of Wendy’s) Nelson Peltz, held a record-breaking fundraiser for Trump’s re-election campaign at his home just 3 days before Milken was pardoned.
  
  • John K. Carroll: “As one of the lead prosecutors on the Milken case, I am outraged — not at the specific result here but at what the pardon process says about the way justice is served in our country...What outrages me, and what I think should outrage others, is the process that brought about the pardon. In as guileless an admission as I have ever seen of rich man’s justice, the White House bolstered its decision by listing a murderer’s row of Republican donors and billionaires who provided “widespread and long-standing” support for Milken’s pardon. Sheldon Adelson, Tom Barrack, my old boss Giuliani and others are listed as supporters of the pardon. If I had to prove that the scales of justice tilt toward the rich, I would offer that list and then sit down and wait for the jury to convict.”
• Former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was convicted in 2009 of lying to federal investigators and committing tax fraud, knew Trump personally and had Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera sign a letter on his behalf requesting a pardon from the president. In 2004, Trump called Kerik “a friend of mine” and “a great guy.” Rudy Giuliani also supported the request, as Kerik once served as a senior vice president at Giuliani Partners.
  
  • "The pardon cancels out $103,300 in restitution that Kerik still owed the Internal Revenue Service as part of his sentence, according to a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan." (source)
• Paul Pogue, a construction company owner who pleaded guilty to underpaying his taxes by $473,000, did not know Trump and did not have any Fox News personalities lobby on his behalf. Instead, Pogue’s family appears to have purchased a presidential pardon. Pogue’s son and daughter-in-law made over $200,000 in contributions to the Trump Victory Committee last year. The couple also made several large donations to the Republican National Committee and each donated $5,600 to Donald Trump for President Inc.,” according to FEC filings.
  

Roger Stone going to prison

Perhaps not coincidentally, Trump’s pardoning of corrupt public officials like Blagojevich occurred just two days before Roger Stone’s sentencing for lying to investigators, obstructing a congressional investigation, and witness tampering. Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months - or 3.3 years - in prison, much lighter than the original 7-9 year sentencing recommendation made by career prosecutors who withdrew from the case in protest of AG Barr’s intervention.
Lawfare has a great line-by-line breakdown of the sentencing hearing, if you’d like the nitty-gritty details. But if you only have time to read one excerpt from the hearing, I suggest the following:

Judge Jackson: “The truth still exists. The truth still matters. Roger Stone's insistence that it doesn't, his belligerence, his pride in his own lies are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy...The dismay and the disgust at the attempts by others to defend his actions as just business as usual in our polarized climate should transcend party. The dismay and the disgust with any attempts to interfere with the efforts of prosecutors and members of the judiciary to fulfill their duty should transcend party.
"Sure, the defense is free to say: So what? Who cares? But, I'll say this: Congress cared. The United States Department of Justice and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia that prosecuted the case and is still prosecuting the case cared. The jurors who served with integrity under difficult circumstances cared. The American people cared. And I care."

Judge Jackson pushes back
During the hearing, Judge Jackson said that the jurors in the case "served with integrity." Stone’s lawyers took this statement and moved to disqualify the judge from the case, claiming that her remarks “rendered her unable to fairly rule on his bid for a new trial.”

"Stone’s Motion for New Trial is directly related to the integrity of a juror. It is alleged that a juror misled the Court regarding her ability to be unbiased and fair and the juror attempted to cover up evidence that would directly contradict her false claims of impartiality," his lawyers argued.
"The premature statement blessing the “integrity of the jury” undermines the appearance of impartiality and presents a strong bias for recusal," they added.

As expected, Jackson denied the motion to have her disqualified...
A pardon for Stone?
But the goal may be to reach the ears of the president instead. According to Politico, a former senior administration official who remains in contact with Trump and his senior advisers says about a pardon for Roger Stone: “It’s not a question of if; it’s when.” Following the sentencing, Trump argued that Stone’s jury was “tainted” and said that “Roger has a very good chance of exoneration.”
On Sunday, Trump was asked about the possibility of a pardon for Stone and instead took the opportunity to attack the jury forewoman, again:

"That juror is so biased and so tainted, that shouldn't happen in our criminal justice system… You have a juror that is obviously tainted. She was an activist against Trump. She said bad things about Trump and bad things about Stone," the President claimed without evidence. "She somehow weaseled her way onto the jury and if that's not a tainted jury then there is no such thing as a tainted jury."

More info on Stone’s lenient sentence

In the week since four prosecutors withdrew from Stone’s case in protest of AG Barr’s interference, we have gotten a slow drip-drip of new information. A piece by The New York Times Sunday summed it up nicely: Timothy Shea, appointed to replace Jessie Liu as head D.C. attorney, was sent to the office specifically to steer cases to the president’s benefit after previous efforts failed.

A new boss, Timothy Shea, had just arrived and had told them on his first day that he wanted a more lenient recommendation for Mr. Stone, and he pushed back hard when they objected, according to two people briefed on the dispute. They grew suspicious that Mr. Shea was helping his longtime friend and boss, Attorney General William P. Barr, soften the sentencing request to please the president.
...The tensions between the office, the Justice Department and the White House date back further than the tumult in the Stone case. They have been simmering since at least last summer, when the office’s investigation of Andrew G. McCabe, a former top F.B.I. official whom the president had long targeted, began to fall apart.
Mr. Shea’s predecessor, Jessie K. Liu, a lawyer whom Mr. Trump had appointed to lead the office in 2017, pressed the McCabe case even after one team of prosecutors concluded that they could not win a conviction. After a second team was brought in and also failed to deliver a grand jury indictment, Ms. Liu’s relationship with Mr. Barr grew strained, people close to them said. She left the position this year, though she and Mr. Barr have both stressed to associates that her departure was amicable.

Undoing Mueller’s work

Trump’s efforts to derail the sentencing of Stone can be seen as part of a larger campaign to rewrite history, and specifically, erase the findings of the Mueller investigation. Roger Stone’s indictment shows that Stone was acting on Trump's personal order to find Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails stolen by Russia. In order to cover-up his role in the Russia-Wikileaks-Trump network, Stone lied to investigators and threatened a witness. By claiming that Stone did not commit a crime, Trump is attempting to reverse the findings of the Mueller report and make himself the victim.
Last week, Trump embarked on a rambling Twitter thread calling for all cases stemming from Mueller’s probe to be “thrown out.” He continued, saying: “If I wasn’t President, I’d be suing everyone all over the place.......BUT MAYBE I STILL WILL. WITCH HUNT!”
Hours later, while discussing the spate of pardons he had issued that day, Trump made the astounding assertion that he is “the chief law enforcement officer of the country” and thus has the “legal right” to interfere in criminal cases. “I’m allowed to be totally involved,” the president added. While technically he is incorrect - the Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer - in practice Trump has been proven right. A lawless chief executive is in fact in charge of enforcing the law when the Attorney General acts as his personal fixer.

This is in the style of autocrats across the globe, who weaponize the law to help themselves and their friends and hurt their enemies. The nation’s legal system is now run by a man who has spent his life mocking it. (NYT Editorial Board)

Meanwhile, the president’s allies have reportedly been urging him to fire anyone who was involved in Mueller’s investigation:

The MAGA punditry’s outsized influence over the president means their campaign against the so-called Mueller “holdovers” is likely not falling on deaf ears, especially given Trump’s fixation with what his defenders and detractors are saying about his administration in their frequent appearances on his favorite TV programs.
“It's totally unclear to me why any members of the Mueller team need to remain in the Trump DOJ,” the pro-Trump conservative blogger Will Chamberlain wrote after news broke of the Stone sentencing recommendation.
...GOP operative Arthur Schwartz, a close friend of Donald Trump Jr. who has been described as the eldest son’s “fixer,” said of the career officials in question: “I think they should all be investigated.”
...John Dowd, a former Trump lawyer who remains in touch with the White House, characterized the line attorneys in the Stone case as “insubordinate,” and “the same crowd of prosecutors wedded to the Mueller agenda” who need to be “cleaned out” from DOJ. “And Bill Barr is doing that,” Dowd said.

What can be done about the politicization of the DOJ? In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School suggests that “Congress should transform the Justice Department into an independent agency, legally immunized from the president’s day-to-day control.”

Public charge rule takes effect

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the government to implement new “wealth test” rules making it easier to deny immigrants residency or admission to the United States if they might depend on public-assistance programs. Legal challenges will continue in lower courts in the meantime. Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless Immigration who formerly worked on immigration policy in the Obama White House, estimates that as many as 400,000 people every year could be denied green cards or visas because of the new rules.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a written dissent that was sharply critical of both the federal government and her conservative colleagues, warning that they are “putting a thumb on the scale in favor of” the Trump administration. Read her full seven-page dissent here.

The justice wrote that granting emergency applications often upends "the normal appellate process" while "putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won." Targeting her conservative colleagues, she said "most troublingly, the Court's recent behavior" has benefited "one litigant over all others."
"Claiming one emergency after another, the Government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases," Sotomayor said. "It is hard to say what is more troubling," she said, pointing to the case at hand, "that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it." CNN

THE SIDES

Justice Department’s new rules benefit Giuliani

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, the DOJ indicated that the agency has implemented another layer of approval that would make it difficult for prosecutors to widen their probe into Rudy Giuliani:

The Justice Department revealed Tuesday that law enforcement officials running Ukraine-related investigations must seek approval before expanding their inquiries — a move that could have implications for Rudolph W. Giuliani, as President Trump’s personal attorney pushes for scrutiny of the president’s political foes while facing a federal probe into his own conduct.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote to Nadler that the department had tapped two U.S. attorneys to assist in the process — Scott Brady in Pittsburgh to receive and assess new information, and Richard Donoghue in Brooklyn to help coordinate personnel throughout the Justice Department involved in Giuliani’s case and others with a focus on Ukraine. An accompanying internal memo, circulated by Rosen in January, says that he and Donoghue must approve expansions of any inquiries.

Related: The Hill admits John Solomon’s columns were misleading

The Hill’s review of Solomon’s work can be found here. I have found the review itself to be overly generous to the publication (no surprise), so I will quote from a WaPo summary of the review:

In effect, the Hill said Solomon amplified an inaccurate and one-sided narrative about the Bidens and Ukraine that was fed to him by Giuliani, “facilitated” by businessman Lev Parnas, who was working with Giuliani at the time, and reinforced by Solomon’s own attorneys, who also represented clients embroiled in U.S.-Ukraine politics.
But the Hill stopped short of retracting or apologizing for Solomon’s articles, nor did it say it shouldn’t have published them. It also didn’t characterize Solomon’s motives in presenting what appears to be a largely debunked conspiracy theory about Ukraine.
“In certain columns, Solomon failed to identify important details about key Ukrainian sources, including the fact that they had been indicted or were under investigation,” said the internal investigation, which was overseen by the newspaper’s editor, Bob Cusack. “In other cases, the sources were [Solomon’s] own attorneys” — Victoria Toensing and Joseph DiGenova, who have also represented President Trump and Giuliani, who was also a key source for Solomon’s columns.
Solomon didn’t disclose this connection in his columns nor did he disclose to his editors that he shared drafts of his stories with Toensing, DiGenova and Parnas, the review noted.

Trump tries to block Bolton book

The Washington Post reports that Trump is attempting to block the release of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book, instructing aides that it should not be released until after the November election.

Trump has told his lawyers that Bolton should not be allowed to publish any of his interactions with him about national security because they are privileged and classified, these people said. He has also repeatedly brought up the book with his team, asking whether Bolton is going to be able to publish it, they said.
Trump told national television anchors on Feb. 4 during an off-the-record lunch that material in the book was “highly classified,” according to notes from one participant in the luncheon. He then called him a “traitor.”
“We’re going to try and block the publication of the book,” Trump said, according to the notes. “After I leave office, he can do this. But not in the White House...I give the guy a break. I give him a job. And then he turns on me,” Trump added during the West Wing lunch. “He’s just making things up.”

Susan Rice tells Bolton the truth

During a panel discussion at Vanderbilt University on Wednesday, Bolton shared the stage with Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice. Bolton made excuses for his failure to testify in Trump’s impeachment trial, blaming the House for committing “impeachment malpractice.” Rice challenged Bolton repeatedly, denigrating his decision to promote his book instead of testify:

"I thought a lot about if I had been in that position how would I have approached it, and I'll be honest: It's inconceivable to me that if I had firsthand knowledge of gross abuse of presidential power that I would withhold my testimony from a constitutional accountability process.”
"I can't imagine withholding my testimony, with or without a subpoena," Rice said. "I also can't imagine, frankly, in the absence of being able to provide the information directly to Congress, not having exercised my First Amendment right to speak publicly at a time when my testimony or my experience would be relevant. And, frankly, when my subordinates ... were doing their duty and responding in a fashion consistent with their legal obligations to provide information."
"I would feel like I was shamefully violating the oath that I took to support and defend the Constitution."

Trump corruption update

President Donald Trump’s choice to stay at his own Las Vegas hotel each night during the western states swing that wraps up Friday likely cost taxpayers a million extra dollars as well as diverted thousands of them into his own cash registers.

Breaking with precedent, Trump flew back to Vegas to stay every night at his Trump International Hotel, despite his day activities taking place in California, Arizona, and Colorado.

Had Trump held the same events but done so in a geographically logical order ― starting in Beverly Hills and finishing in Colorado Springs, but overnighting each day in the city where he would begin the following morning ― Trump would have spent four fewer hours aboard Air Force One, thereby saving taxpayers about $1.1 million.
...Indeed, the repeated overnight trips to Las Vegas may have forced the Secret Service and other support personnel to keep a motorcade there for a full four days, rather than move it to the site of an upcoming presidential trip

This week, Trump has a whole new country to focus on: India, home to the largest portfolio of Trump real estate projects outside North America, according to the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. According to The Washington Post, since the elder Trump’s last trip to India in 2014, two of his business partners have encountered massive legal and financial trouble.
During Trump’s time as president, the Trump Organization has vigorously promoted their properties in India, earning millions of dollars in royalties:

In 2018, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. — who runs the Trump Organization with his brother, Eric Trump — spent several days in India promoting the family’s developments, attending a champagne dinner with condo buyers who plunked down $39,000 deposits and bringing in millions of dollars in new sales. While there, he also met with Modi behind closed doors. The next year, Trump’s Indian business partners flew 100 early buyers of his luxury condos near Delhi to visit Trump Tower and Trump Ferry Point golf course in New York City as a way to generate interest in the properties in India. One attendee gushed afterward about meeting the son of a U.S. president on the trip.

Trump 2020: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

President Donald Trump’s campaign is bringing on an alum of the controversial data firm Cambridge Analytica...Matt Oczkowski, who served as head of product at Cambridge before it went bankrupt and shut down in 2018, is helping oversee the Trump campaign’s data program...Oczkowski, who also worked on Trump’s 2016 effort, joined the reelection campaign in January, and payments to his company, HuMn Behavior, are expected to show up on Trump’s next campaign finance disclosure later this month. (Politico)

An Axios report revealed where most of Trump’s re-election campaign is spending its advertising budget: on Facebook ads. “Last fall, the campaign urged Facebook to keep the same tools for political advertisers that they make available to companies...Facebook ultimately decided not to change its policies around microtargeting.” However, unlike in 2016, the campaign is also diversifying, “testing new strategies on several dozen platforms, including YouTube, Google, ad exchanges, publisher networks and conservative podcasts.”

• Side note: The IRS is suing Facebook for $9 million in back taxes, alleging the social media company undervalued intellectual properties when selling them to an Irish subsidiary in 2010. Ireland has lower corporate tax rates than the United States, so the move reduced the company’s tax bill.

Erik Prince investigations

There is apparently another investigation into Blackwater Founder - and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos - Erik Prince. The FBI is reportedly investigating Prince “for his 2015 attempt to modify two American-made crop-dusting planes into attack aircraft — a violation of arms trafficking regulations...The planes became part of private military services Prince proposed to sell or use in mercenary operations in Africa and Azerbaijan.”
This new investigation adds to Prince’s legal problems, though he insists that he is untouchable “under this guy,” referring to Trump. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department is “in the late stages of deciding whether to charge” Prince for allegedly lying to Congress in its Russia probe and violating U.S. export laws in his business dealings overseas.

Trump blocking prominent climate change warning

The United States is against mentioning climate change in the communique of the world’s financial leaders, G20 diplomats said, after a new draft of the joint statement showed the G20 are considering including it as a risk factor to growth...G20 sources said the United States was reluctant to accept language on climate change as a risk to the economy. Reuters

On Sunday, it was announced that the U.S. ultimately agreed to a less-prominent placement for the risks of climate change. It will now appear in language referencing the Financial Stability Board’s work examining the implications of climate change for financial stability.

One of the G20 sources said it was the first time a reference to climate change had been included in a G20 finance communique during Trump’s presidency, even though it was removed from the top of the joint statement. U.S. officials have resisted naming climate change as an economic risk since Trump took office in 2017. One of his first acts as president was to announce Washington’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

Rightwing threats

Last week, two men were arrested in separate incidents involving threats to President Trump’s perceived opponents.
A Michigan man, Brittan J. Atkinson, was arrested on Thursday for sending death threats to Mark Zaid, an attorney for the Ukraine whistleblower. Atkinson sent the threats in November, on the day that Trump held up a photo of Zaid and read some of his tweets at a rally in Louisiana.

"All traitors must die miserable deaths," Atkinson's email read in part, the indictment says. "Those that represent traitors shall meet the same fate[.] We will hunt you down and bleed you out like the pigs you are. We have nothing but time, and you are running out of it, Keep looking over your shoulder[.] We know who you are, where you live, and who you associate with[.] We are all strangers in a crowd to you[.]"

On Wednesday, Salvatore Lippa of New York was arrested for threatening to assault and murder Rep. Adam Schiff and Sen. Chuck Schumer in voicemails last month.

Lippa started the threatening message by calling the congressman "Schiff, Shifty Schiff," invoking the nickname used by President Donald Trump for Schiff, the lead House manager during Trump's impeachment trial.
...When questioned by U.S Capitol Police, Lippa admitted to making the threatening calls to Schiff and Schumer because he said he was upset about the impeachment proceedings, prosecutors said.

State news

• Washington Post: A second court has temporarily blocked North Carolina’s new voter identification law on the argument that it discriminates against African Americans. The ruling reduces the likelihood that the rule will be in effect in a key swing state during November’s elections. A three-judge panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that intent to discriminate was a “primary motivating factor” behind the voter ID law, which passed the Republican legislature in late 2018.
  
• CBS News: Florida cannot bar felons who served their time from registering to vote simply because they have failed to pay all fines and fees stemming from their cases, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
  
• CNN: Mississippi's law banning abortions at the detection of a fetal heartbeat -- as early as six weeks into pregnancy -- will remain blocked, a panel of circuit judges ruled on Thursday...The three-judge panel on the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's ruling that the Mississippi law unconstitutionally prohibited pre-viability abortions.
  
• Tampa Bay Times: A curious request arrived in the inboxes of Florida tax collectors last week from an employee of the Republican National Committee. He asked for “all email addresses that have been collected and are in the possession of the Tax Collector’s Office.” He also wanted any names, property addresses and phone numbers connected to those emails in their records. If the tax collectors had complied, the Republican Party would soon have a valuable trove of personal information for millions of Floridians as it gears up for the 2020 election: A detailed database of many taxpayers’ emails plus the name, address and phone number tied to that email.
  
• Associated Press: Most Republican lawmakers refused to attend a Tuesday night session of the Oregon House of Representatives amid a slowdown over anger at a sweeping bill on climate change. Earlier, Republican lawmakers, who are a minority in the House, insisted that bills coming to the floor be read in their entirety instead of being summarized, which slowed things down substantially. The 2020 session of the Legislature lasts only 35 days, being an even-year short session.
  
• Q13 Fox News: Efforts to expel a controversial state representative from the Washington Legislature are likely over after no Republicans would sign a letter calling for state Rep. Matt Shea’s expulsion. The Spokesman-Review reports that all 98 members of the state House of Representatives were asked Thursday to sign a letter calling for the expulsion of Spokane Valley Republican. All 56 Democrats signed the letter, but no Republicans did.
  

CONTINUED BELOW

Subreddit	Title	Brand
IAmA	Hi Reddit! We are Kevin Hunter & William Chergosky from the Toyota Calty team behind today's Concept-i announcement. Ask us anything about how we're helping to build the future of transportation!	Toyota
mildlyinteresting	Dawsonville. Home of NASCAR, the McDonald's with live music, and "THEM THERE HOTDOGS".	McDonald's
todayilearned	TIL Russia bans mailing "information about the Earth's interior" from the United States	United
videos	Brutal fox attack - London United Kingdom	United
worldnews	Chicago Police captured 4 black teens who tortured and cut a white boy on Facebook Live, while screaming fuck Donald Trump	Facebook
pics	Dicks out for Google Streetview! Google Blurred this officer's hand an now it looks so much worse than it is.	Google
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: Why are synonym suggestions on Microsoft Word tend to be bad or just way off?	Microsoft
Art	Coco Chanel painting	Chanel
tifu	TIFU by breaking the Verizon representative.	Verizon
videos	An Original Song About How Facebook Sucks	Facebook
mildlyinteresting	My friend accidentally drew the perfect Nike Swoosh on me	Nike
Jokes	Did you hear about the kid who drowned at the Pepsi bottling plant?	Pepsi
Jokes	4 in custody after young man tortured on Facebook Live	Facebook
AskReddit	What's the difference between Microsoft Encarta and Microsoft Bookshelf?	Microsoft
todayilearned	TIL that Angela Merkel chancellor of Germany is the only G7 leader that doesn't has a Twitter account	Twitter
gaming	Decided to hook up my old Xbox today. Bought it on launch day and never had a red ring of death! Haven't really played since 2009! Is CoD still a thing?	Xbox
mildlyinteresting	My Taco Bell sauce packet was blank.	Bell
funny	Inspiring Facebook advice	Facebook
WritingPrompts	WP The power of Google is used to defeat the riddles of an ancient magical guardian	Google
WritingPrompts	WP 99% of the worlds athletes have mysteriously disappeared. After a year long search the governments have finally decided to give up. You, a 30 year old Uber driver and single father, are suddenly the worlds most talented player in every major sport.	Uber
pics	Francis Ford Coppola's draft cast for The Godfather	Ford
Futurology	The Amazon e-commerce effect: Macy's restructures, closes stores	Macy's
WritingPrompts	WP The year is 2050 and the world is coming to an end. Google has unexpectedly shut down its servers.	Google
gaming	Desperate father can't get EA to give access to game for son on Xbox One	Xbox
gaming	Suggestions for New Xbox One owner?	Xbox
Futurology	The Toyota Concept-i team are doing an AMA over in /IAmA right now	Toyota
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: What causes that texture in your mouth when you drink classic Coca-Cola or eat cooked spinach?	Coca-Cola
explainlikeimfive	ELI5:How does Facebook get away with stealing other companies' core platforms, and just adding them to their site e.g. FourSquare check-in, Periscope live streaming, etc.?	Facebook
Showerthoughts	There should be a professional sports league that changes what sport it plays every season. They could do all of the sports from ESPN 8 The Ocho.	ESPN
explainlikeimfive	ELI5 why Facebook cares so much about live videos.	Facebook
Documentaries	National Geographic _ US Marine Corps Boot Camp Training 2016 Women - BBC Documentry	BBC
news	CNN: 4 arrested in Facebook Live beating	Facebook
personalfinance	Budgeting with Google Sheets	Google
funny	somebody is still recovering from NYEs drinkathalon at Southwest Airlines.	Southwest
Jokes	Why did the Chase employee cross the road?	Chase
WritingPrompts	Wp You're proposing to your girlfriend in a McDonald's half way through your big Mac.	McDonald's
movies	The state of Sony Pictures.	Sony
LifeProTips	LPT: Have a security system at home with cameras? Invest in a UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply to keep your cameras working when the power goes out.	UPS
videos	Chicago Police: 4 in custody after man tied up, tortured on Facebook Live	Facebook
pics	I wanted a rolling briefcase for Christmas to bring a laptop, notebook and possibly lunch to and from my white-collar job. My wife decided to farm it out to my parents and this is the Kohl's monstrosity I got...	Kohl's
todayilearned	TIL: You can still use the Facebook search bar to search for unknown mobile telephone numbers, if Facebook knows it, it shows the person connected to the number regardless of privacy settings.	Facebook
videos	This will probably get taken down, but here's the video of the guy that got tortured on Facebook Live as an apparent hate crime.	Facebook
gaming	Eye in the Sky :O	Sky
AskReddit	What importance of Google in your life?	Google
funny	My cat enjoyed No Man's Sky more than me	Sky
worldnews	Marine Le Pen cheers Ford move out of Mexico as win for protectionism	Ford
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news	Secretary of State Nominee Rex Tillerson to receive $180 Million Severance Package from Exxon Mobil as he steps down as CEO	Exxon
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gaming	Girlfriend Rages And Smashes Boyfriends Xbox After Losing!	Xbox
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worldnews	Warning, graphic video: Man tortured in Facebook live post	Facebook
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explainlikeimfive	ELI5: Why does it feel more comfortable to say Sony Playstation than Microsoft Xbox, in terms of company name added on?	Sony
explainlikeimfive	ELI5: Why does it feel more comfortable to say Sony Playstation than Microsoft Xbox, in terms of company name added on?	Playstation
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food	Knockoff KFC chicken homemade	KFC
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pics	Mug shot of Brittany Herring one of the Chicago kidnappers who went live on Facebook to abuse the special needs boy.	Facebook
WritingPrompts	WP You are traveling to away from Earth at more than 99% the speed of light. Rather than spend the trip in cryosleep you decide to stay awake and check Facebook and Reddit, but due to time dilation every time you refresh months or years have passed.	Facebook
AskReddit	If you were to make a website, what service would you use? AWS, Google Cloud Platform or different?	Google
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WritingPrompts	WP It's 4591 Archeologists everywhere are digging up ruins from what they believe are huge temples for ancient gods. Every big city had multiple gods Like the god Yankees or the god Mets or the god United in the city of Manchester.	United
todayilearned	TIL Antarctica is owned by seven countries under a joint treaty formed together by Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom.	United
pics	My compensation from Delta Airlines after being stuck on a plane for 3.5 hours without taking off, and then being told we were going back to the gate to wait for a different flight the next day. Tiny water bottle for scale.	Delta
worldnews	Two Moroccan troops killed in Central Africa convoy attack: United Nations	United
todayilearned	TIL Facebook alters newsfeeds to sway political opinions	Facebook
Music	Gabby Gaborno of Orange County punk royalty has died.	Orange
sports	Nike+ Apple Watch2	Apple
gaming	Who's Waiting For Them Top 20 Upcoming Next Gen Open World Games Realistic Graphics On PS4 Xbox One PC In 2017	Xbox
Futurology	Ke Jie, the world's best Go player, says he still has "one last move" to defeat Google Deepmind's AlphaGo AI	Google
todayilearned	TIL I learned a 2015 report by the Nomura Research Institute concluded that half of all jobs in Japan could be performed by robots by 2035.	Nomura
Jokes	I've been using my current version of Microsoft Word so long, we finish each other's...	Microsoft
funny	Finishing touches to your moms custom McDonald's order being made	McDonald's
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personalfinance	I'm currently banking with JP Morgan Chase as a Private Client, but, I've been unhappy with their customer service lately. What are comparable banks that offer specialized customer service for select clients?	JP Morgan

This is a post I originally did under another username on Metal Gear Wiki, and someone suggested putting it up here. So here's my idea: Basically, it'd be called Metal Gear Solid V: Dispatches From Outer Heaven. A giant conclusion to V, made by a bunch of us working together to come up with a giant game plan and story line and such, detailing the events from the recovery of Sahelanthropus to Venom Snake's final defeated moments before heading off to fight Solid Snake in Outer Heaven. Also flashbacks, subplots, you name it. I'm thinking big, like Sergio Leone's original 10-hour cut of Once Upon A Time In America, but exponentially bigger. Who knows, we could even send it to Konami and see if they make it. Is anyone here interested? Oh, and I'm happy to be on this fine sub-reddit. Now for stuff I posted at the MG wiki.
Basically a bunch of changes and additions that could have been done, a subject that I'm sure makes everyone here just want to snap and kill Kojima or Konami for the game. So before I start, no acidic anything, please.
1) Major expansions to the story. The core is already there, but to use an analogy, it is a draft or a scriptment instead of a thousand page novel it could have been. The story could be put into as much as five chapters (so that it'd be "Revenge, Race, Peace, Pain, and something involving how blood and national feuds carry on to the next generation). They could have gone into Skulls Face's backstory a lot more, for example. And adding several additional missions for before Mission 51. And more exploration of themes, for example how low humans can sink in certain conditions. One element can be switching between Venom Snake and Big Boss on their separate stories.
2) Locations, a lot more and much more detailed. I got to thinking about this while playing the Uncharted series recently, like they have a lot more variety to their locations. And also these locations are much bigger in scale, like they actually feel like you're there. For example, a sequence set in a Colombian city has lots of people, like it's being used, instead of say the Mfinda oilfield in MGSV. Or even like in the old Mercenaries game for PS2, I don't know. There is a tiny sense of this in the hospital escape sequence. Here are some locations I'd add: A rail yard or two, a few whole cities and lcoations that are fully explorable. I'm going to probably go overboard here, but bear with me. Locations such as London, Tokyo, Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Chicago, Baltimore, Barcelona, Beirut, Belfast, Boston, Copenhagen, Dallas, Washignton DC, Delhi, Detroit, Dublin, Haiti, Havana, Istanbul, Kignston, Las Vegas, Texas, Long Island, Los Angeles, Manila, Mexico City, Miami, Mumbai, New Orleans, Paris, Pittsburgh, Portland Oregon, Rome, Singapore, Stockholm, Tehran, tel Aviv, Trinidad, Rio de Janiero, Brussels, Addis Ababa, Baghdad, Bogota, Lagos, and Montevideo, Uruguay. And some other ideas too(plurals just to be safe): Hotels and motels, train stations, nightclubs, marketplaces, Indonesia, mangrove swamps, settlements, caves, mines, back alleys, research facilities, hydroelectric dams, crash sites, skyscrapers, trains, construction sites, lush forests, mills, R&D places, sewer systems, military forts, depots, refineries, tropical resorts, ship fleets, small town main streets, suburbs, farmland, churches, black markets, concrete walled checkpoints, slums, building ruins, subways, office buildings, schools, refugee camps, flooded areas, mountain ranges, Wyoming-like forests, universities, megastores, lakeside resort towns, snowy forests, highways and freeways, icy wastelands, desert expanses, prisons, mansions, amusement parks, Chernobyl, theaters and opera houses, tanker ships, ruined castles, casinos, island resorts, mental asylums, national parks, Cold War bunkers, Korean Demilitarized Zone, submarine bases, nuclear plants, savannas, jungle guerrilla camps, gulags, Cambodian-Vietnamese border, Sino-Vietnamese border regions, Guatamela (mountain forests and cities), Shining Path bases, Malaysia, Kashmir, Iran-Iraq border, Ethiopia, swamps, mountain peaks and lodges, American deserts, island bases, rain forests, the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego (it's a very nice hotel) and villages.
3) More characters, and those already there get much more personality and backstory. For example, characters such as the Spetznaz commander and the CFA executive would get names, and new characters could be some such as US agents outside of Cipher's controls, looking to continue the Cold War espionage status quo and take out both Diamond Dogs and XOF. More factions too, such as battling UNITA instead of just their private forces.
4) Missions. A lot more, and not the done-in-three-minutes ones that are in the game. Again, some inspiration from the Uncharted series and the hospital sequence (as well as some sequences in Code Talker and Metallic Archaea missions), as well as the first four Solid games. More variety, lot more connected to the story, and the lengths expanded, to almost the time for an MGS4 act for each. And get rid fo the ranking system at the end of each mission, it takes away from total strategic freedom in completing the missions. And more "set piece missions" like the REX usage in Guns of the Patriots. Some examples of missions and mission types to include: Firefights with XOF, infiltrating the middle of an open battlefield, sneaking through a hotel to avoid XOF scouts within, surviving a white phosphorus mortar strike (taken from Spec Ops The Line), more boss battles, psychological operations on a client's behalf, coverly helping Big Boss find materiel to build Outer Heaven, assassination missions, sabotage, recon, search and destroy, anti-air battles, using anti-air turrets for a long time (like in Jak II), stowing away on a C130 supply aaircraft, intel retrieval, street long firefights (two examples to come to mind Three Leaf Clover in GTA 4, and that Hue City mission in Call of Duty Black Ops), Lone Wolf and Cub-style sub-story of revenge (it's not what Kojima envisioned, but would be awesome to include), smuggling, torture missions, acquiring of field safe houses, COINTELPRO-like stuff, raids, hsotage rescue, hijacking and fighting on a moving train, convoy rail shooter, more detailed village capture, economic warfare, finding out about the CIA's Special Activities Division, covert action paramilitary operations, nuclear espionage, helping Amanda against the Contras, battling body-snatchers develoepd by the USA or USSR or someone, using a humanitarian organization to gather info on XOF, counterterror ops, interrogating XOF soldiers with methods such as waterboarding (as Ocelot), searching places where Cipher is experimenting on humans, terrorist attacks and methods (such as conventional, urban bombings, and unconventional, bioterror), wanton destruction, hostage taking, fighting a force engaged in genocide and rape, leading a massacre in a civilian building to take out several high-ranking Cipher officials (mirroring that of XOF in Cyprus), escorting an HVT through a trap-filled forest or city, sabotaging an ammunition depot, return too Camp Omega to steal files regarding Cipher's covert strike forces, escaping a Soviet bloc prison and then state secret police in the streets, escaping Kowloon Walled City from an XOF ambush, vigilante actions against crime lords and such (Batman or Punisher style, you pick), and rescuing a young Naomi and Frank Hunter.
5) Gameplay. Make it not so expensive to use stuff. Add new stealth modes.
6) Restore all the stuff that was cut from the game (list from NeoGaf): - "80's Filter": Removed for being system-intensive. - Camp Omega Special Mission (E3 2013 Trailer): Unused for unknown reasons. - P.T Active Decoy ("Lisa") (2014 TGS gameplay presentation): Presumably cut for relationship to the cancelled "Silent Hills" project. - Missing Delivery Point Invoices (missing locations?): Removed for unknown reasons. - Usable Battle Gear during free-roam (Piggyback Collector's Edition strategy guide): Removed for balance reasons. - "Burned/Skull Boss" Model (Kojima 2015 Launch Trailer): Unused for unknown reasons. - Africa Burning Village Cutscene (E3 2014 trailer): Removed for unknown reasons. - Africa Child Soldier Training Cutscene: Unused for unknown reasons. - TGS 2014 Africa Mission (TGS 2014 gameplay presentation) - Mission 46 Unused Dialogue (found in game files) - "Mission 51" Unused Mission (found on CE Blu-Ray disc) - Unused/unknown alternate costumes from the leaked script, including "Foxtrot". "Sandstorm", "Realtree", "Panther", "MGS3 Naked", "MGS3 Sneaking" and "MGS3 Tuxedo", along with buddy uniforms like "Horse_Parade" and "Horse_Western". Removed for unknown reasons.
And some more stuff I forgot to add to that list: Gameplay: Some mechanics that could've been in the game and improved from Peace Walker, and in general, such as the ability to lead a team of soldiers on stealth missions in the field, arena-like heavy combat, sneaking through a whole giant structure like in the first two Solid games, and even more CQC moves. More gadgets and tools that are automatically taken into the field, or not, such as a prototype grapple, charger, flashlight on the chest, upgradebale backpack, gas mask, first aid kits, and a Swiss Army Knife. Destructible environments, and a mechanic that shows the world around you degrading in relaton to destruction and resource farming you cause (for example, using missile launchers instead of tranq guns menas a forest area will be bombed out for a while). Bringing back lockers to hide bodies in. Bringing a sense of scale on top of the already large world, like say a Call of Duty game , or the Uncharted series, where it looks really big. Hiding in rafters, blind fire ability, other stuff. Lot more enemy types (based on things like Digimon, X-Mne legends, Jak and Ratchet series), but also more individual and unique personalities for them. "Demon Mode", a mode where a hallucinating Venom Snake is able to inflict much more damage on the environment and people around him, while taking on a bloodstained apearance similar to Demon Snake, and the environment looks like fire and hell on earth. Use of environmental hazards to take down enemies, such as windows about to burst in a storm, and bashing an enemy into a generator to kill them, and also ledge takedowns. Ability to pick up bricks and bottles for distraction or combat, and basball bats, pipes, crowbars, old boards, machetes, hatchets and swords for combat uses. More climbale walls and cliffs, alogn with building climbing and wire hanging. Play as Ocelot, and thinking of Mortal Kombat X where Troy Baker played Erron Black, a whole roster of playable characters available once you complete certain missions, each with a wholly different playign style to Snake (not like Mortal Kombat where everyone has the same health and button control scheme). Exponentially more options of how to complete a mission to make it "total strategic freedom". Bringing back health and stamina bars. And the ability to swim. More airstrike variety too. Ability to lure certain factions into the same area and have them fight it out. Mother Base's customization increased exponentially, and the ability to have to defend it rather than the FOBS in person. Get rid of the Extreme versions of missions, but since doen correctly they're kind of cool, make them into challenge mode kind of thing. Some original Subsistence missions, or something like surviving on limited supplies like in The Last of Us. Creatures like kaiju. "Skull mode" where Venom hallucinates himself as Skull Face, as a method of covering his own guilt at his actions.
Missions: Some possibles: Raiding a UNITA or MPLA camp to free child soldiers; assassinaitng a country's minister of something; huntnig down XOF and Cipher officials and hight value targets (for example an enforcer for Cipher who ensures. through blackmail or force, that a certain nation will secretly stay in Cipher's good graces); escorting a group of injured POWs deep in an enemy forest to an LZ due to losing your stash of Fulton devices; destroying jammers in a city area so an airstrike can be called in; clearing out a port in a war zone city for a client; escaping from a city in the midst of a serious riot; sabotaging guard towers and ICBM launchers ar a missile site; destroying a series of tunnel entrances; infiltrating a remote base where Cipher is developing new weapons of mass destruction and superguns; crossing through a trench line to sabotage soemthing; explore the Cyprus hospital once again to find some intel XOF did not know about before they realize it; infiltrate a nuclear reatcor complex; Venom heading out into the Afghan desert to find any sign of Quiet's remains, all while trying to hold in his pain at losing her; boss battle with a parasite-infected lizard that escaped from one of Skull Face's facilities;
Story: For one, lot of themes, such as gangsterism of big nations in history; the roles and purposes of nations; causes of wars such as greed and arrogance and revenge; the loss of original reasons for wars over time until they just exist; economic troubles; authoritarianism; drugs usage; the seeds of chanegs that contribute to the end of the Cold War; America's superpower status and moral self-righeousness (like in the original story plan); fatalism and nihilism at a world secretly controlled by forces and thugs beyond anyone's control; desperation of humanity to survive; the cusp of a much more techno world, as seen in the rest of the games set after this. Go more into the Metal Gear universe, its history, topics such as Skull Face's corruption and how Diamond Dogs helped shape world history. A lot more going into the themes of PAIN and RACE AND REVENGE, as well as how the first Big Boss becomes a giant prick, woven into the story structure. A lot of subplots to add to the main story, and I'll go hog wild here if I can with some ideas: 1)The return of the biological son of the original Bog Boss and a local prostitute from a brothel trip made by Jack and some of his friends before he shipped off to Korea, now intent on finding and meeting his father. 2) Diamond Dogs finds itself teaming up with a splinter group form Cipher, "the Purifiers", who believe in the original goal of Cipher but not the methods and what ever it's become nowm and a fragile alliance begins (and does eventually end). 3) Diamond Dogs goes up against another Cipher-controlled organization, this one much more like a covert mafia or corrupt multinational corporation, using blackmail, bribes, graft, threats, even hiring private military contractors in war zones who officially work for actors in the regions, but ultimately answer to the organization's economic and power interests (kind of like the RDA and mercs in Avatar). 4) A new mutation of the parasite emerges after the Shining Lights incident, which produces even more zombie-like effects, and the Dogs get into conflict with a rogue PF army that is looking to take it and use it themselves. 5) Flashbacks to such things as Kaz's flashbacks set before the game, in places like Grenada and Northern Ireland. 6) More confrontations with Skull Face, including sneaking into on of his bases, in the process learning a lot mroe about his earlier self. 7) Small short non-missions showing how Diamond Dogs and its obsession with destroying XOF and Cipher is having adverse consequences on members, their lives, etc.