The Daily Moth 7-17-19
Update: House Votes to Condemn Trump, Articles of Impeachment Invoked; El Chapo sentenced to life in US prison; Feds end probe on Trump hush money payments; Passing of Dr. Harlan Lane, outspoken advocate for the Deaf community
[Transcript] Hello, welcome to the Daily Moth! It is Wednesday, July 17th.
I’m Christian Young again replacing Alex today. Are you ready for today’s top stories?
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Update: House Votes to Condemn Trump, Articles of Impeachment Invoked
Last night, the US House of Representatives voted 240-187 to condemn President Trump’s racist tweets against the 4 Democratic congresswomen of color.
Four Republican representatives including Reps. Will Hurd (Texas), Fred Upton (Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Penn.) and Susan Brooks (Ind.) voted in favor with all the House Democrats and 1 Independent, Justin Amash (Mich.) who recently left the Republican party.
Right after the House vote, Rep. Al Green (Texas) introduced the articles of impeachment. He said he would force a House floor vote before the Representatives leave for break in August.
The House must decide how to proceed within two days. They could either do a vote, table it, kill it or send it to a committee.
This will be Green’s third time doing so and during his first two attempts, the Republicans controlled the House both times and tabled (postponed) the measure. The difference now is the Democrats now control the House of Representatives.
According to The Hill, 84 House Democrats along and Justin Amash (Mich.) from the Independent Party, a total of 85, have publicly endorsed impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is still opposed to it because she wants more public support first.
The House must accumulate 215 votes to pass the bill. If the House does vote to charge that official with a crime, then the Senate holds the trial. However, the Senate will be controlled by the Republicans until the 2020 elections.
On some of President Trump’s latest tweets, he insists that he is not a racist, that his tweets were not racist and that he “doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.”
Sources:
https://www.axios.com/house-condemns-trump-racist-tweets-c71d9579-0973-4c80-817a-76e1a15732a3.html
https://apnews.com/36f5e67a145c4f0eb7661f2ca453b0a9
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-green-impeachment-articles-vs-trump-texas-democrat-introduces/
https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/articles-of-impeachment/
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/453334-pro-impeachment-democrats-wary-of-al-green-forcing-floor-vote
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El Chapo sentenced to life in US prison
Today, in Brooklyn, a federal judge sentenced Joaquin Guzman (62), known as “El Chapo”, to life plus 30 years at an US prison. Guzman is also ordered to forfeit $12.6 billion.
Guzman had been convicted back in February for 10 counts including drug trafficking more than 14 billion dollars’ worth of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis from Mexico to the United States over 25 years. The prosecutors called the Sinaloa cartel, which Guzman ran, the largest drug-trafficking organization in the world.
Witnesses testified that Guzman has ordered torture and murder of his cartel enemies. He also sometimes did them himself.
Guzman did not receive the death penalty because, when he was extradited from Mexico to the US in 2017, a part of the agreement was that the US would not pursue a death penalty.
When Guzman gave his statement for the first time during the trial before the sentencing, he said he was denied a fair trial because the judge did not investigate possible juror misconduct after the judge ordered them to not read about the trial outside of the court proceedings.
Also, Guzman also complained about his current living conditions. He had applied for more comfortable conditions, but it was denied because the prosecutors were concerned it could be a part of a ploy to escape from prison for the third time.
Guzman’s request for a new trial was denied and he will be sent to the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado where some of the most dangerous and high-risk prisoners are often kept.
Sources:
https://www.apnews.com/2b16e1b751b044f3a7581df96ed41ef3
https://www.wsj.com/articles/joaquin-el-chapo-guzman-sentenced-to-life-in-u-s-prison-11563373522?mod=hp_lead_pos6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/joaquin-el-chapo-guzman-to-be-sentenced-in-new-york/2019/07/16/00e2544a-a813-11e9-86dd-d7f0e60391e9_story.html?utm_term=.85be55531332
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742601114/el-chapo-is-sentenced-to-life-plus-30-years-in-prison-for-drug-crimes
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Feds end probe on Trump hush money payments
Today, US District Judge William Pauley said that the Southern District of New York has concluded their investigation into Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, who violated campaign finance laws.
Two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, claimed they had sex with Trump before he became president and Cohen paid them to keep this a secret during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Cohen is currently serving 3 years in prison for these payments as well as other financial crimes and for lying to Congress.
Judge Pauley also ordered that materials related to the investigation to be released and has also heavily limited a request by the prosecutors to black out some parts for privacy reasons.
Judge Pauley said it was a “matter of a national importance” and that “it is time that every American has an opportunity to scrutinize the Materials.”
Those materials include a status report and a copy of the search warrants used to search Cohen’s office, previously sealed, will be made public in US District Court in Manhattan at 11am ET on Thursday.
Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said they are pleased that “the investigation surrounding these ridiculous campaign finance allegations is now closed.”
He also added that “we have maintained from the outset that the president never engaged in any campaign finance violation.”
You can read the official 3-page court document written by Judge Pauley in the transcript:
http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/07/17/18-cr-602.pdf
Sources:
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/17/trump-hush-money-payments-probe-over-1418074
https://time.com/5628390/documents-stormy-daniels-cohen/
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/feds-end-probe-of-hush-money-that-trump-ex-lawyer-michael-cohen-directed.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/trump-organization-hush-money-filing/index.html
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Passing of Dr. Harlan Lane, outspoken advocate for the Deaf community
Dr. Harlan Lane, a hearing American psycholinguist, who advocated for the rights of deaf people, passed away at the age of 82 on July 13th.
Dr. Lane’s contribution was mainly important for deaf studies and disability studies. He was best known for his published books “When the Mind Hears” and “A Journey Into the Deaf World” co-authoring with Dr. Ben Bahan and Dr. Robert J. Hoffmeister.
Dr. Lane was the founder Center for Research in Hearing, Speech, and Language. His research was focused on psychology, linguistics, neurolinguistics, speech processing, and signed languages.
He was a professor of Psychology at Northeastern University in Boston. He was often the outspoken advocate for the Deaf community and used his research to oppose cochlear implant for the deaf.
His research has shaped our Deaf community in many ways.
The Daily Moth reached out to Dr. Octavian Robinson, disability studies scholar and historian, to explain the impact of Dr. Lane’s work in our community. Dr. Robinson mentioned that it is a bittersweet feeling of Dr. Lane’s departure. Dr. Lane was a long time ally for the Deaf community. He was one of the earliest scholars to discuss audism. Dr. Robinson said that the Deaf community has always been around for a long time, Dr. Lane did not create something new or discovered something new about the Deaf community, but he used his privileges (i.e. his degree, his status) as a platform to help frame what being deaf means. Dr. Lane discussed about how deaf people should not be categorized as “disabled.” While Dr. Robinson respects Dr. Lane’s work, he mentions that Dr. Lane offered only one type framework of what being deaf means. Dr. Robinson says today, we can see how diverse our deaf people are with many different backgrounds in our community, this means we can revisit Dr. Lane’s framework and expand this framework to be more inclusive.
We reached out to MJ Bienvenu, a friend of Dr. Lane to share a comment.
{TEXT}
Harlan Lane was a fighter for the rights of Deaf people, not only in the USA but also in Burundi and several other places, and a well known advocate all over the world. He believed in ASL and gave Marie J.Philip, Ella Lentz and others an opportunity to teach ASL at Northeastern University and it grew over the years. His books changed many people’s perspective on Deaf people. I appreciate the lunches we had while he was doing his research at Gallaudet. I watched his presentations and they were always strong and true. He is already missed by many of us. Rest in Peace, Harlan.
Ben Jarashow is a Deaf Studies professor and he shared a comment about Dr. Lane’s work in the Deaf studies field.
{TEXT}
Harlan Lane’s work was not only seen in the Deaf history field, but also seen in the fields of Deaf Studies, oppression, disability politics, and so much more. His work really covered a lot of areas. I thank him for being a great ally of our community. - Ben Jarashow, Deaf Studies professor.
Dr. Lane was awarded the Commandeur de l’Ode des Palmes, Académiques the highest level of honor given by the French Government.
Deaf Life magazine will do a tribute on Dr. Lane for the September issue.
https://my.gallaudet.edu/intranet/announcements-archive/passing-of-dr-harlan-lane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Lane
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That’s all the stories for today. See you tomorrow and remember to stay with the light!
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