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More than a year after President Barack Obamas transportation secretary appointed a trio of safety experts to Metros governing panel, the Trump administration will replace two of them with its own appointees this week.

The incoming members whose names could not be learned Sunday will take the place of Carol Carmody and David L. Strickland, the federal governments voting representatives on Metros board of directors, according to multiple board members with knowledge of the decision.

Carmody, a former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, presided over the panels safety committee. Strickland, the former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, headed the real estate committee, but was frequently absent over the past year because of health issues.

The third person appointed by then-transportation secretary Anthony Foxx, alternate member Robert C. Lauby, is expected to remain in his role.

[Foxx, saying no more excuses for Metro, replaces 3 board members]

The new appointees were expected to be announced as soon as Monday, those with knowledge of the decision said, and to take office as early as Thursday, when the full board will meet and consider key changes to its governing structure, which has come under scrutiny in recent years as the transit system has struggled with major financial and operational problems.

Board Chairman Jack Evans confirmed that he had been informed of the upcoming appointments over the weekend, but he declined to elaborate. The U.S. Department of Transportation declined requests for additional information.

The 16-member board consists of eight voting and eight alternate directors, with two votes each from the District, Maryland, Virginia and the federal government. Passing a resolution requires a yes vote by at least one director from each jurisdiction.

There is also the possibility of a jurisdictional veto, when both voting members from a single jurisdiction including the federal government align with no votes.

Board members from the deep-blue Washington region tend to be Democrats, and in some cases they have pressed for increased funding for Metro. The Republican presidents transportation agenda, in contrast, seeks a decrease in federal spending, with a larger reliance on private investment and potential public-private partnerships.

[On Metro board, another dispute, more strong words, and a rare veto]

Board members said they were not surprised that Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao would want to make her own appointments to the Metro board, even so soon into the current directors terms. Carmody was a year into a four-year appointment, while Strickland had two years remaining in his three-year term, Carmody said.

Im sorry to leave, Carmody said in an interview Sunday. But elections have consequences, as the saying goes, and if the new secretary wants to replace these jobs, she certainly has the right to.

Carmody said she had been informed that the replacements had already been selected and would be joining the board very soon. Until then, Lauby and alternate member Anthony E. Costa will vote on behalf of the federal government.

We have turned some corners as a board and made some big decisions and tough choices, Carmody said. Its a very good board, and over the past year, I think weve really come together and worked well together through a lot of soul-searching.

Stricklands tenure was marked by repeated absences, which he attributed in an interview last week to illnesses: his wifes battle with breast cancer and a life-threatening infection he had.

Strickland said he has made an effort to be physically present, adding that his fellow board members, including Evans, had been updated on the reasons behind his absence.

I have a full appreciation for the responsibilities of the board, he said last week. I plan to serve my term as long as the president has made the decision to allow me to stay.

According to public minutes of Metro board meetings, Strickland missed six out of the 12 board meetings since his appointment. Of the six he attended, one was by phone. He did not attend a special meeting of the board last month.

He attended four out of nine meetings of the Capital Program, Planning and Real Estate Committee, which he chairs.

Continued here:
Trump administration to replace Obama-era picks on Metro board - Washington Post

The New York Times blamed former Obama administration officials for releasing information that a U.S. general says allowed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi to slip away from American forces.

Gen. Tony Thomas, oversees Special Operations Command, told Fox News Catherine Herridge last week that his team was particularly close to al Baghdadi in May 2015 after killing a top ISISofficial,Abu Sayyaf, and capturing his wife, who reportedly providedintelligence to U.S. forces. The Pentagon announced Sayyafs death and the capture of his wife in a press release the same day.

The NYT published a storyon June 8, 2015 titled,A Raid on ISIS Yields a Trove of Intelligence,citing unnamed U.S. officials who shared confidential intelligence assessments with the NYT.

U.S. President Barack Obama (3rd L) and members of his delegation, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter (L) and Secretary of State John Kerry (2nd L), sit down to meet with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker alongside the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland July 8, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The NYT cited five senior American officials who provided additional details about the materials recovered from the house of Abu Sayyaf, a nom de guerre for a Tunisian militant whom American authorities have since identified as Fathi ben Awn ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi. The officials, according to the NYT, spoke only on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments.

Information obtained from the 2015 raid was a very good lead, Gen. Thomas said last week. Unfortunately, it was leaked in a prominent national newspaper about a week later and that lead went dead. Thomas did not name the NYT specifically, but Herridge noted that he appeared to be referencing the NYT story.

Following Fox News reporting on Gen. Thomass comments, President Trump said in a tweet that The Failing New York Times foiled U.S. attempt to kill the single most wanted terrorist, Al-Baghdadi. Trump accused the NYT of putting their sick agenda over National Security.

The paper ran a fact check articleon Sunday disputing Trumps claims. The NYT blamed instead the Obama officials who released the information. NYT reporter Michael Gordon noted that the information in the Times article on June 8 came from United States government officials who were aware that the details would be published.

Gordon also questioned then-Defense Secretary Ash Carters decision to publish a statement about the successful raid.

If the military wanted to exploit the information from Umm Sayyaf about Mr. Baghdadis movements, why did the Pentagon rush to announce her capture on the day of the raid? Gordon asked.

The NYT article stated as fact that the papers reporting hadnt foiled an attempt by the United States military to kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State.

Continue reading here:
NYT Blames Obama Officials For Foiled Attack On ISIS Leader - The Daily Caller

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Westchester Beats Obama Wall Street Journal (subscription) Westchester County Chief Executive Rob Astorino spent seven years fighting Obama-era Department of Housing and Urban Development accusations that his county's zoning laws are racist. Now HUD has conceded that the suburban New Yorker was right ...

Original post:
Westchester Beats Obama - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

In March of 2016, President Barack Obama granted Carol Denise Richardson a commutation of the life sentence she received in June 2006 after being convicted on two counts of conspiring to distribute crack cocaine and other drug-related charges. Her long criminal history included two previous felony drug offenses, which brought her a lifetime sentence for her later convictions.

Richardson was one of 1,715 federal inmates, including 567 others serving life sentences, selected by the Obama administrations far-reaching clemency program. A major focus of the clemency effort was easing punishments meted out to nonviolent drug offenders serving lengthy sentences.

When she was released through the clemency program from a federal prison for women in Aliceville, Alabama on July 28, 2016, Richardson had served almost 10 years of her sentence. A condition of her release was that she remain under court supervision for the next 10 years.

But less than a year later, on April 13 this year, Richardson was arrested in the Houston suburb of Pasadena for allegedly stealing $60 worth of laundry detergent. Her court-appointed lawyer said she planned to sell the detergent to buy drugs, since she had relapsed into addiction to crack. In addition to the theft arrest, federal prosecutors said Richardson had violated five other conditions of her release among them failing to tell the court of her arrest or her change of address, and having been fired from a job for not showing up for work.

Now 49, Richardson lives in the Galveston area and has four children and two grandchildren. Her former husband, Eskico Garner, 37 years her senior, died in prison after drawing a 30-year sentence (later reduced to 20 years) for heading up a drug operation.

At a June 8 hearing, federal district Judge Keith Ellison voiced disappointment that Richardson had squandered the new opportunity she had received when her former sentence was commuted. He ordered her back to prison for 14 months, to be followed by a five-year supervised release. The judge also noted that he would make successful completion of a drug rehabilitation program a condition of her release.

Richardsons lawyer requested that she be referred to a drug rehab program and questioned why she had not been allowed to take part in a 500-hour residential program offered in prison. The judge replied that, as an inmate serving a life sentence, she had not been eligible for that drug rehabilitation program while she had been incarcerated, under Federal Bureau of Prisons policy.

According to CAN-DO, a pro-clemency activist group which worked to gain clemency for Richardson and others, while incarcerated, the Texas grandmother completed a 40-hour nonresidential drug abuse program less than a year before receiving her presidential grant of clemency.

Amy Povah, the groups founder and herself a clemency recipient who spent over nine years in prison due to her husbands ecstasy-manufacturing operation, notes Richardson suffers from bi-polar disorder, has twice attempted suicide, and may have lost access to her medications after being released. Reportedly, after being released, she also became involved with a man who was a bad influence on her, resumed using drugs, and stopped keeping in contact with her family.

Richardson's case underscores the need for rehabilitative approaches to incarceration, and raises the question as to whether the simple use of illicit drugs should result in a prison sentence. Povah says clemency was not wasted on Richardson, because she "did not hurt anyone but herself," and asserted that society's attitudes toward addiction must change, unless we're willing to lock up tens of millions of addicts for the behavior associated with addiction. The current drug war, she says, is further fuelled by racial bigotry. "If Carol had been born into a white, affluent family, its doubtful she would be in this current situation," Povah wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed.

Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com and PrisonerResource.com.

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Texas Grandmother Freed by Obama Heading Back to Prison - HuffPost

Long before he became President Donald Trumps White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci was a simple hedge fund manager getting shut down by Barack Obama.

In 2010, as the nation was digging its way out of the 2008 financial collapse, Scaramucci took the microphone at a CNBC town hall to ask the then-president a former Harvard classmate and sometimes opponent on the basketball court whether he planned to stop whacking at the Wall Street piata.

Scaramucci didnt get the answer he was looking for.

I have been amused over the last couple years, this sense of somehow me beating up on Wall Street, Obama said. I think most folks on Main Street feel they got beat up on.

The line was met with applause.

In a four-minute response to Scaramuccis question, Obama discussed the need to nurture a vibrant financial sector, but to do so in a responsible way and took aim at critics who compared his practical financial reform efforts to Adolf Hitler storming Poland.

Me saying, Maybe you should be taxed more like your secretary, when youre pulling home a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars a year I dont think is me being extremist or me being anti-business, Obama said.

The White House appointed Scaramucci to the role of White House communications director on Friday. He had previously made donations to Obama, and has made anti-Trump comments in the past.

In a Twitter rant early Saturday morning, Trump said Scaramucci would have endorsed him early on if the hedge fund manager had known he was running.

Here is the original post:
Scaramucci once asked Barack Obama on live TV if he'd be softer on Wall Street. It didn't end well. - Mic