Jerry Jones vs. Roger Goodell: The battle for the NFL's soul

Jerry Jones is not backing down in his duel with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Long after a Super Bowl winner is crowned, these two NFL heavyweights may still be going at it.

And the battle could get messy.

Jones, the fiery, outspoken owner of the Dallas Cowboys, has threatened to sue the NFL and several team owners if the league agrees to a new contract with Goodell, the buttoned-down, highly-criticized commish whose contract will expire in 2018.

Video

NFL accuses Jerry Jones of 'detrimental' conduct

The NFL said the issue is settled. The owners already voted in May -- unanimously -- to extend Goodell's contact. Jones, however, said circumstances have changed.
The personalities and management styles of the men couldn't be more different.
Jones, an Arkansas-native, played college football before striking it rich in the oil industry. He's taken an active role in building his team. But his vocal approach and rags-to-riches success story haven't made him popular with his fellow owners.
Goodell was a New Yorker, born to a U.S. Senator, Charles Ellsworth Goodell. The suave and polished Washington & Jefferson graduate started working in the NFL in 1982 and rose to become commissioner by 2006. During the 2013-2014 season, he reportedly earned $44 million.
Jones blames Goodell for the escalation of national anthem protests that have divided Americans and drawn the ire of the fan-in-chief: President Trump. Jones also said “behavior policies” have been an issue since May.
It doesn't help that total viewership of NFL games is down, with Sports Illustrated reporting an eight percent decrease during the season's first six weeks.

Colin Kaepernick sparked the national anthem debate.  (AP)

Some of that decline is believed due to the controversial player protests during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner." The demonstrations were sparked last season when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem to protest what he believed was a rise in police violence against minorities. While few players initially joined Kaepernick on one knee, the quarterback's absence from the league in 2017 has apparently inspired others to take up the cause, and each week dozens of players -- sometimes nearly entire teams -- have joined in.
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The protests particularly escalated after President Trump said during a September campaign rally that players should be "fired" if they disrespect the flag. The Sunday after Trump made his remarks, Sept. 24, hundreds of players knelt together during the national anthem in a show of unity.
Even Jones participated -- but he knelt before the anthem played, standing up with the rest of the Dallas players when the music began.
Trump continued to criticize the NFL for its “lack of leadership,” and apparently the public agreed. Deadline reported last week’s “Monday Night Football” game viewership was nearly a season low.

Roger Goodell of NFL just put out a statement trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country.Tell them to stand!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017

But Goodell's response has been to downplay the situation or express his admiration of the NFL players who knelt to rebuke Trump.
“The way we reacted today, and this weekend, made me proud,” Goodell said after the league-wide display. “I’m proud of our league.”
The last straw for Jones seems to have come after his team’s star running back, Ezekiel Elliott, was suspended in August by Goodell.

Ezekiel Elliott gave up his legal fight and will begin serving his suspension.  (AP)

The NFL investigated for a year claims Elliott assaulted his former girlfriend in the summer of 2016. Elliott denied the alleged physical altercations and said the ex-girlfriend, Tiffany Thompson, was only trying to exact revenge. Elliot was never charged by police. But the NFL, which has shown considerable muscle in regards to domestic allegations since fumbling its response to the Ray Rice incident, concluded there were three incidents over the course of five days.
Jones said his objection to Goodell getting a new contract was not specifically due to the Elliott situation; however, the timing of Jones' opposition coincided with a court ruling last week, after several appeals, Elliot would have to begin serving the six-week suspension.
"I've been dealing with this commissioner for almost 28 years as an employee of the NFL," Jones said. "Zeke's been involved here a year, year and a half. Those are really separate issues as to Zeke. The policy we have that has impacted Zeke is more of my issue with the commissioner."
Jones' continued public fued with Goodell has achieved at least one thing: The New York Times reported several NFL owners sent a cease-and-desist warning to Jones.

Jerry Jones called it "laughable" that NFL owners would try to push him out of his ownership of the Cowboys.  (AP)

If he continues his vocal critique of Goodell, Jones could face suspension, fines or the loss of draft picks. Some owners have even discussed a "nuclear option" -- pushing Jones out as an owner, Pro Football Talk reported.
Jones called the threat “laughable.”
"I've had not one inkling of communication from the league office or any owner that would suggest something that laughable, ridiculous, and that's about where that is," Jones told 105.3 The Fan.
But the saga has continued, and the NFL is accusing Jones of attempting to sabotage contract negotiations with Goodell, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing a letter sent by the NFL to Jones.
In the document, the NFL said Jones’ “antics, whatever their motivations, are damaging the league.”
The letter, reportedly sent to all 32 NFL owners, also confirmed Jones had been booted as a non-voting member of the compensation committee due to his threats to sue.
NFL owners “said they were unhappy with Jones because he had circulated a three-month-old document with details of [salary and health benefit] requests from Goodell that Jones ‘personally knows to be an outdated historical artifact of no relevance whatsoever in the context of these lengthy negotiations,’” The New York Times reported.
Goodell, for his part, has had a less-than-sterling term as commissioner, often serving as a punching bag for fans and a useful foil for owners.

Ray Rice was captured on video knocking out his then-fiancee Janay Palmer.  (Reuters)

Goodell was highly criticized for his reaction to Rice’s domestic violence case involving Rice's then-fiancee Janay Palmer in 2014. With only reports of the alleged assault leaking to the media, Goodell initially suspended the Baltimore Ravens running back for two games. But then a video of the assault was released showing Rice knocking Palmer unconscious in a hotel elevator with a single, vicious punch. Rice was then seen dragging Palmer’s unconscious body from the elevator.
The leak prompted Goodell to suspend Rice indefinitely and Rice hasn't played in the NFL since. Critics, however, bashed Goodell and the NFL’s handling of the case -- and other domestic violence cases. Some have argued Goodell and the NFL may have known the stomach-churning details of the Rice assault even before the horrific video was leaked, The New York Times reported.
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“The NFL is absolutely its own worst enemy,” David Gregory, the executive director of the Center for Labor and Employment Law at St. John’s University, told The New York Times. “If you’re going to have a commissioner’s office, you need to step up. This guy thought he could bluster his way through.”
Goodell has also been criticized for the number of penalties, the types of penalties and the timing of the penalties he's implemented. After the NFL was criticized for not doing more to prevent players from getting concussions -- a conclusion the NFL was slow to recognize and tried to downplay -- Goodell eventually said he would suspend athletes for helmet-to helmet hits.

Roger Goodell has been applauded for making the NFL profitable.  (AP)

On the other hand, Goodell has been applauded for turning the league into the money machine it is.
In 2013, the NFL was worth $9 billion. In 2017, the league was expected to generate about $14 billion, NBC Sports reported. Goodell said previously he hoped the NFL would be able to reach a staggering $25 billion in annual revenue by 2027.
Jones has been equally successful at monetizing his team. The Cowboys were worth $4.2 billion in 2017 -- the most valuable team in the world, according to Forbes.
The fight between Goodell and Jones seems to be nowhere near over, at least until Goodell’s contract is -- or isn't -- extended.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe dismissed as country's leader

Zimbabwe’s ruling party fired President Robert Mugabe on Sunday, ending his 37-year reign as the African country’s leader after being placed under house arrest days ago, a party official said. 

Recently fired Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was appointed as the new leader of the ZANU-PF party and is expected to lead a new government. Party members said Mugabe must resign by 12 p.m. Monday or will “definitely” face impeachment. Innocent Gonese with the MDC-T party said they had been in discussions with the ruling ZANU-PF party to act jointly.

"If Mugabe is not gone by Tuesday, then as sure as the sun rises from the east, impeachment process will kick in," Gonese said.
Senior figures of the party gathered early Sunday for an emergency meeting of the party's Central Committee to discuss calls to expel the 93-year-old leader. First lady Grace Mugabe was also recalled as head of the women's league. The now-former leader’s talks with army commander Constantino Chiwenga are in the second round of negotiations on an exit as the military tries to avoid accusations of a coup.
Mugabe remained under house arrest with his wife and resisted calls to step aside. Vast throngs of demonstrators turned Zimbabwe's capital into a carnival ground on Saturday in a peaceful outpouring of disdain for their longtime leader and calls for him to quit immediately. People in Harare clambered onto tanks and other military vehicles moving slowly through the crowds, danced around soldiers walking in city streets and surged in the thousands toward the building where Mugabe held official functions.
“The old man should be allowed to rest,” former Zimbabwe finance minister and activist Tendai Biti told South African broadcaster eNCA.
On Friday, all 10 of the provincial branches of the Zanu-PF party demanded Mugabe’s resignation.
Meeting chair Obert Mpofu said party members were gathering with “a heavy heart” because Mugabe had served the country and contributed "many memorable achievements." However, he added that the leader’s wife “and close associates have taken advantage of his frail condition” to loot national resources.
Mugabe’s decision to fire his deputy set in motion his abrupt fall from power.
The military intervened when Mugabe decided to fire his deputy, setting in motion his abrupt fall from power. Without the military's intervention, first lady Grace Mugabe likely would have replaced him as vice president and been in a position to succeed her husband.
But the 52-year-old first lady is unpopular among many Zimbabweans for her lavish spending on mansions, cars and jewels. Last month she went to court to sue a diamond dealer for not supplying her with a 100-carat diamond that she said she had paid for.

Draining the Swamp Cartoons

Crackdown on MS-13 gang nets more than 200 arrests

More than 200 MS-13 gang members were arrested in a major sweep called "Operation Raging Bull," the Trump administration announced Thursday.  (Reuters)

Underscoring its promise earlier this year to crack down on a brutal gang, the Trump adminstration on Thursday announced the arrests of dozens of members of MS-13.

“Operation Raging Bull,” conducted Oct. 8-Nov. 11 across the United States, resulted in 214 arrests, officials said.

The operation was led by the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in conjunction with local and federal officials.
It was the second phase of a two-part operation. Authorities made 53 arrests in Venezuela in September after an 18-month investigation.
"We will not rest until every member, associate and leader of MS-13 has been held accountable for their crimes," said Thomas Horman, director of ICE.
More than 1,200 gang members have been convicted so far this year, and about 4,000 have been arrested and charged, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.
Sessions promised an all-out assault on the violent gang last month, designating it a "priority" for the Department of Justice's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
“They leave misery, devastation and death in their wake. They threaten entire governments. They must be and will be stopped," the attorney general said in Philadelphia last month.
In the most recent roundup, charges included murder, aggravated robbery, racketeering, narcotics trafficking, firearms offenses and assault, with roughly 60 arrests being illegal border crossings by unaccompanied children, officials said.
The gang originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s, then entrenched itself in Central America when its leaders were deported.
MS-13’s motto is “mata, viola, controla” – which means "kill, rape, control," according to Robert Hur, a Justice Department official.

Mueller subpoenas Trump campaign for Russia-related documents, source says

Letting the Alligators run the swamp? 

Robert Mueller's investigators subpoenaed more than a dozen Trump campaign officials requesting Russia-related documents last month.  (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators have subpoenaed the Trump campaign for documents from a number of people as part of his probe of Russian interference in last year's election campaign, a source with knowledge of the investigation told Fox News late Thursday.

The subpoena, which was issued last month, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reported that the special counsel's office is seeking documents and emails from more than a dozen campaign officials that reference certain Russia-related keywords. The paper described it as Mueller's first official order for the Trump campaign to produce information.
The source described the subpoena to Fox as a "cleanup operation" aimed at collecting any missing information and ensuring that Mueller had the same documents as the three congressional committees conducting their own investigations.
Separately, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said earlier Thursday that White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner -- President Trump's son-in-law -- hasn't been fully forthcoming with the panel's probe into Russian election interference, asking him to provide emails sent to him involving WikiLeaks and a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite."
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sent a letter to Kushner's lawyer saying the collection of documents he has provided the committee is "incomplete." The committee gave Kushner a Nov. 27 deadline to provide the additional documents, including the emails and Kushner's security clearance form that originally omitted certain contacts with Russian officials.
The senators noted they have received documents from other campaign officials that were copied to or forwarded to Kushner, but which he did not produce. Those include "September 2016 email communications to Mr. Kushner concerning WikiLeaks." Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., corresponded with WikiLeaks that month and, according to The Atlantic, sent an email to several Trump campaign advisers to tell them about it.
Grassley and Feinstein wrote that other parties have produced documents concerning a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" that Kushner forwarded but has not given to the committee. It is unclear what overture and dinner invite they are referring to.
The senators are also asking Kushner for correspondence with former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is a subject of an investigation by Mueller.
Abbe Lowell, Kushner's lawyer, said in a statement that Kushner has been "responsive to all requests."
"We provided the Judiciary Committee with all relevant documents that had to do with Mr. Kushner's calls, contacts or meetings with Russians during the campaign and transition, which was the request," Lowell said. "We also informed the committee we will be open to responding to any additional requests and that we will continue to work with White House Counsel for any responsive documents from after the inauguration."
The new request is a sign that the panel is still moving forward with its probe into the Russian interference and whether Trump's campaign was involved.
In the letter to Kushner, the senators noted they had asked him to provide documents to, from, or copied to him "relating to" certain individuals of interest to investigators, but Kushner responded that no emails had been found in which those individuals were sent emails, received emails, or were copied on them.
"If, as you suggest, Mr. Kushner was unaware of, for example, any attempts at Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, then presumably there would be few communications concerning many of the persons identified in our second request, and the corresponding burden of searching would be small," the senators wrote.
The committee also asked for the additional documents related to Flynn, detailing a long list of search terms, and rebuffed Kushner's lawyer's arguments that his security clearance is confidential and unavailable because it has been submitted to the FBI for review.
The Senate and House intelligence committees interviewed Kushner in July. The Judiciary panel has also sought an interview with Kushner, but his lawyers offered to make the transcripts available from the other interviews instead, according to the letter. The senators say those panels haven't provided them with those transcripts, and ask Lowell to secure that access.
Then "we will consider whether the transcript satisfies the needs of our investigation," Grassley and Feinstein wrote.

Bill Clinton should have resigned after Lewinsky affair, New York Democrat says

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., listens to testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 28, 2009.  (Associated Press)

Recent news about prominent men facing allegations of sexual misconduct apparently has some Democrats reassessing the presidency of Bill Clinton.

The second-guessers include at least one Democrat who has long been considered a Clinton supporter.

On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., asserted that, in retrospect, Clinton should have resigned from the presidency after the disclosure of his extramarital affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.
“Yes, I think that is the appropriate response,” Gillibrand told the New York Times, when asked if Clinton should have left the White House.

"Yes, I think that is the appropriate response."

- U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., on whether President Bill Clinton should have resigned.

Gillibrand’s remarks were reported on the same day that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other prominent lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill called for U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., to face a Senate ethics investigation into his 2006 conduct with a Los Angeles radio host during a USO tour.
On Thursday, Gillibrand announced that she would donate $12,500 she received from Franken’s political action committee to Protect Our Defenders, a group working to end rape and sexual assault in the U.S. armed forces, the Hill reported.
Gillibrand’s comments Thursday made her the most prominent Democrat to link this year’s increasingly low tolerance for mistreatment of women to the Clinton years. The senator noted, however, that sexual misconduct was regarded less harshly in the 1990s than today.
The senator added that perhaps President Donald Trump’s past behavior and comments about women also deserve more scrutiny.
“And I think in light of this conversation, we should have a very different conversation about President Trump, and a very different conversation about allegations against him,” she said.
Gillibrand has been a U.S. senator since 2009, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.
On Wednesday, Gillibrand and U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., introduced legislation to improve the prevention and reporting of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill, PBS NewsHour reported.

Senate panel OKs tax bill, drawing Trump, GOP closer to major legislative win

The Senate Finance Committee voted late Thursday in favor of the House GOP tax bill, paving the way for the first major legislative victory for the Trump administration.

The panel's 14-12 vote means the bill will likely reach the Senate floor sometime after Thanksgiving.

Earlier Thursday, the House passed its bill in a 227-205 vote.
"For the millions of hard-working Americans who need more money in their pockets and the chance of a better future, help is on the way," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement.

"For the millions of hard-working Americans who need more money in their pockets and the chance of a better future, help is on the way."

“When the Senate returns after Thanksgiving, I will bring this must-pass legislation to the floor for further debate and open consideration," he added.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), slightly altered by Finance Committee Chairman and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during the four-day markup, would temporarily cut taxes for individuals and ax the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.
It would also include a repeal of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, adding an estimated $338 billion in revenue over 10 years. Earlier this year, Republicans failed to repeal the ACA, the 2010 health care measure commonly called ObamaCare.
“This is a good bill that delivers on our promise to provide middle-class tax relief and grow our economy,” Hatch told reporters before the Senate panel's vote, according to the Hill.
The earlier House vote drew praise on Twitter from President Donald Trump. “Big win today in the House for GOP Tax Cuts and Reform, 227-205. Zero Dems, they want to raise taxes much higher, but not for our military!” Trump tweeted.
Republicans celebrated the potential tax overhaul, claiming it would support the middle class in America, and denied Democratic Party lawmakers' accusations that the bill favors the wealthy and big corporations and will potentially leave millions of Americans without health insurance.
“I come from the poor people," said Hatch, 83, who was the first member of his family to attend college. "And I’ve been working my whole stinking career for people who don’t have a chance. And I really resent anybody saying I’m just doing this for the rich. Give me a break.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., meanwhile, called the bill “indefensible, partisan legislation," the Hill reported. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said the bill was “flawed.”
"It’s not surprising that a flawed process has produced a flawed product, but we can change course," Carper said in a statement, according to Business Insider. "I implore Chairman Hatch and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Let’s go back to the drawing board and start anew on a real bipartisan basis."

Hillary Clinton 2017 Cartoons

Senate Confirms Mark Esper as Army Secretary

OAN Newsroom

The Senate confirms President Trump’s pick for the Army’s top civilian post.
In an 89-to-six vote, senators approved the nomination of Mark Esper as army secretary.
Esper is a West Point graduate who retired as a lieutenant colonel after serving more than 20 years in the Army.
He also worked under the George W. Bush administration as deputy assistant defense secretary for Negotiations Policy.
Esper mostly recently worked at Raytheon, and was a top lobbyist for the defense contractor.
He has promised to recuse himself from all Raytheon matters as he fills the key Pentagon post.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: The incredible new chapter in the Hillary Clinton chronicles

The Department of Justice will soon commence an investigation to determine whether there should be an investigation (you read that nonsense correctly) of a scandal involving the Clinton Foundation and a company called Uranium One. It appears that FBI decisions made during the time that Hillary Clinton was being investigated for espionage will also be investigated to see whether there should be an investigation to determine whether she was properly investigated. (Again, you read that nonsense correctly.)

Only the government can relate nonsense with a straight face. Here is the back story.

When President Donald Trump fired FBI Director Jim Comey last spring, the attorney general’s stated purpose for recommending the firing was Comey’s dropping the ball in the investigation of Clinton's email when she was secretary of state. After a year of investigating her use of her own computer servers to transmit and store classified materials instead of using a government server to do so -- and notwithstanding a mountain of evidence of her grossly negligent exposure of secret and top-secret materials, which constitutes the crime of espionage -- the FBI director decided that because no reasonable prosecutor would take the case, it should be dropped. Weeks later, the DOJ ratified Comey’s decision.
At the same time that Clinton was failing to safeguard state secrets, she was granting official State Department favors to donors to her family’s charitable foundation. There are dozens of examples of this so-called “pay to play,” the most egregious of which is the Uranium One case. This involved a Canadian businessman and friend of former President Bill Clinton's, Frank Giustra, who bundled donations from various sources that totaled $148 million, all of which Giustra gave to the Clinton Foundation.
At the same time that Giustra made this extraordinary donation, he was representing a client that needed federal permission to purchase a 51 percent stake in Uranium One, which then controlled about 20 percent of America's licensed uranium mining capacity. Secretary Clinton freely gave Giustra’s client the State Department’s approval, and it soon acquired the remaining approvals to make the purchase. Giustra’s client is a Russian corporation controlled by the Kremlin.
When the FBI got wind of the Giustra donation and Secretary Clinton’s approval and the Kremlin involvement, it commenced an investigation of whether Clinton had been bribed. At some point during former President Barack Obama’s second term, that investigation was terminated. We do not know whether the investigating FBI agents learned that the Clinton Foundation was not even registered as a charity by the states in which it was doing business or authorized by them to receive tax-free donations.
At the same time that the FBI was looking into Uranium One, American and British intelligence agents were surveilling Donald Trump. The belated stated purpose of that surveillance was to ascertain whether the future president or his colleagues were engaged in any unlawful activity by accepting campaign favors from foreign nationals or were improperly assisting foreign intelligence agents to interfere with the presidential election.
One of the foreign nationals whose communications were captured during that surveillance was Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the United States. He spoke with Michael Flynn, then the national security adviser to President-elect Trump. Mysteriously, portions of a transcript of those intercepted communications were published in The Washington Post.
Another foreign national who caught the FBI’s attention is a former British intelligence agent named Christopher Steele. Steele had compiled a dossier about, among other things, alleged inappropriate behavior by Trump in a Moscow hotel room years earlier. After offering Steele $50,000 to corroborate his dossier, the FBI backed down.
After being confronted by irate Republican members of the House and Senate judiciary committees, who demanded to know why the investigations of these matters had been terminated, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed that he has asked career DOJ lawyers to commence an investigation of all of the above to determine whether an independent counsel should be appointed to investigate all of the above.
This is the investigation to determine whether there should be an investigation. This is also the DOJ's reluctance to do its job.
Can the government investigate itself? The short answer is yes, and it has done so in the past. But it hardly needs an investigation to determine whether there should be an investigation. The job of the DOJ is to investigate probable violations of federal law. Sessions should not shy away from this and should not push it off to another independent counsel.
We have one independent counsel already because his target -- let’s be candid -- is the president of the United States. That is a potato too hot for the DOJ. But Hillary and Bill Clinton, the FBI's tampering with the political process, and the use of intelligence-captured communications for political purposes are not. It is profoundly the duty of the DOJ -- using its investigatory arm, the FBI -- to investigate all this.
Whatever Comey’s motive for not prosecuting Hillary Clinton and the DOJ’s ratification of it, the current DOJ is not bound by these erroneous decisions.
The evidence in the public domain of Clinton’s espionage and bribery is more than enough to be presented to a grand jury. The same cannot be said about FBI involvements with the Steele dossier or the use of intelligence data for political purposes, because we don’t yet know who did it, so we need aggressive investigation.
But none of this presents the type of conflict that exists when the president is a target, and none of this requires an independent counsel. All of this simply requires the DOJ to get to work.
That is, unless the lawyers in the leadership of this DOJ are fearful of investigating their predecessors for fear that their successors might investigate them. Whoever harbors those fears has no place in government.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel.

Tipping point? Conservative media outlets bailing on Roy Moore

'MediaBuzz' host Howard Kurtz explains how and why journalists and reporters in recent stories like the Roy Moore and Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandals get sources to go on the record.

The media tide is turning against Roy Moore as even some prominent voices on the right are urging him to drop out of the U.S. Senate race in Alabama.

The mounting allegations against the former judge have already undermined his attempts to paint himself as the victim of runaway reporting by the Washington Post. And whoever set up a robocall in Alabama from fictional Post scribe named "Bernie Bernstein," offering money for dirt on Moore, is a moron.

The real Post, meanwhile, reports on two more accusers describing unwanted overtures by Moore when they worked at the local mall. One, a high school senior, said Moore pursued her at Sears, called her while she was in trig class, and eventually got "a date that ended with Moore driving her to her car in a dark parking lot behind Sears and giving her what she called an unwanted, 'forceful' kiss that left her scared."
Alabama Media Group quotes another woman as saying that in 1991, when Moore was a married attorney, he grabbed her buttocks when she went there with her mother as part of a custody case. "He didn’t pinch it; he grabbed it," the woman said.
Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, told the AP: "There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children. I've yet to see a valid explanation and I have no reason to doubt the victims' accounts."
All this is unfolding as there is a pronounced shift on the right. The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page, no fan of the Republican establishment, says Moore should drop out:
"Mr. Moore's credibility has fallen below the level of survivability ... The sensible move would be for Mr. Moore to step away from the campaign and allow Alabama’s Republicans to put forth a more credible candidate to run as a write-in against Democrat Doug Jones."
And if he doesn't, and President Trump doesn't try to force him out, says the Journal, "then the GOP will be better off if Mr. Moore loses ... Democrats and the media will make Mr. Moore the running mate of every Republican in 2018."
Sean Hannity, who had withheld judgment on Moore—and conducted the only interview with him on his radio show—sounds ready to jump ship.
"For me, the judge has 24 hours," Hannity told Fox viewers Tuesday night. "He must immediately and fully come up with a satisfactory explanation for your inconsistency ... You must remove any doubt. If you can’t do this, then Judge Moore needs to get out of this race."
Hannity noted that when he asked Moore whether he had dated teenage girls, he said "not generally."
But the tipping point may have been the presser held by Beverly Young Nelson, who said Moore locked her in a car and sexually assaulted her when she was 16. For one thing, we saw a woman on television choking back tears as she recounted what happened. But perhaps more important, Moore said he had never met Young—and yet he had signed her yearbook, at a time when he was 30: "To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas. Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore, D.A."
For Alabama Media Group, publisher of the Birmingham News and two other papers in the state, this is a tipping point.
"Roy Moore simply cannot be a U.S. senator," an editorial declares. "Even if his party and many of its adherents still think it possible, it is unthinkable--for his state, and his country.
"Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a consideration for the courtroom, not the ballot box. When choosing our representative before the rest of the world, character matters."
So what does it mean that Moore has lost most of the media, the RNC, and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan?
No one can force Moore out of the race. He's on the ballot for the Dec. 12 special election. He owes nothing to Beltway Republicans who opposed him in the primary in favor of the appointed senator, Luther Strange. He's still popular in Alabama and the latest poll has him a few points ahead of Democrat Doug Jones.
But does there come a point where so much of the media and political universe is aligned against you that it makes no sense to soldier on? Especially when McConnell is saying the Senate might refuse to seat him?
At a public appearance the other day, Moore asked: "Why do you think I'm being harassed from media and by people pushing forward allegations of the last 28 days of this election?"
The answer is that there are inconsistencies in his account. And Moore is losing even media figures who ordinarily would be staunchly behind him.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Trump to lift ban on importing elephant trophies from Africa

Foreign tourists in safari riverboats observe elephants along the Chobe river bank near Zimbabwe.

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced that it will issue permits for elephant trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe, reversing a 2014 ban under President Obama.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official told ABC News that the agency received new information from the countries that the move would benefit conservation in the area.

“Legal, well-regulated sport hunting as part of a sound management program can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation,” the FWS statement said.
The same department, under Obama, determined in 2015 that importing the trophies would not benefit the species in the area.
The National Rifle Association praised the FWS decision Wednesday, the New York Post reported. The paper reported that elephants — valued for their tusks — have been on the “threatened” species list since 1978.
“By lifting the import ban on lion trophies in Zimbabwe and Zambia, the Trump administration underscored the importance of sound scientific wildlife management and regulated hunting to the survival and enhancement of game species in this country and worldwide,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action.
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Human Society of the United States, called the Trump administration’s decision jarring, the Post reported.
“Remember, it was Zimbabwe where Walter Palmer shot Cecil, one of the most beloved and well-studied African lions, who was lured out of a national park for the killing. Palmer paid a big fee even though it did irreparable damage to the nation’s reputation.”
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have been known to hunt for big game. Several years ago, Trump Jr. was criticized for posting a photo of himself with a dead elephant’s severed tail.
“Reprehensible behavior by the Trump Admin,” tweeted the Elephant Project.
“100 elephants a day are already killed,” the group said. “This will lead to more poaching.”

Papa John's NFL Cartoons

Papa John's issues Twitter apology for 'divisive' NFL, anthem remarks

Papa John's Pizza is the fourth largest take-out and pizza delivery restaurant chain in the United States.

 Taking Supporting NFL Kneeling?

The Papa John’s pizza chain apologized Tuesday for comments made by CEO John Schnatter, who had blamed the NFL and protesting players for its sales struggles during football season.
In a three-tweet mea culpa, the Louisville-based company did a reversal and said it now supports players’ right to protest.
During an earnings call two weeks ago, Schnatter lashed out at kneeling players and league officials for not solving the controversy.
“The statements made on our earnings call were describing the factors that impact our business and we sincerely apologize to anyone that thought they were divisive. That was definitely not our intention,” Papa John’s tweeted.
“We believe in the right to protest inequality and support the players’ movement to create a platform for change. We also believe, as Americans, we should honor our anthem. There should be a way to do both.”
The pizza powerhouse ended with, “We will work with the players and league to find a positive way forward. Open to ideas from all. Except neo-nazis.”
The chain then used an emoji for the middle finger, “those guys.”
Some on Twitter weren’t buying Papa John’s apology.
“You don’t need to `work with’ them. They want to protest. They don’t need your permission or to compromise to benefit you,” according to Hollywood writer Rachel Kiley.
One Twitter user wanted to know if Schnatter had any role in flipping off Nazis.
Papa John’s responded: “He helped write this post – yes.”
In a conference call with investors, Schnatter – who appears in many TV ads for his company – blamed NFL leadership for not taking decisive action.
“Leadership starts at the top, and this is an example of poor leadership,” Schnatter said. “The NFL has hurt Papa John’s shareholders.”
He said NFL brass has had plenty of time to get ahead of the protests.
“This should have been nipped in the bud a year and a half ago,” Schnatter said. “The controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country.”

House passes $700B defense bill amid North Korea threat

WASHINGTON –  House Republicans and Democrats joined forces Tuesday to decisively approve a defense policy bill that authorizes $700 billion to restock what lawmakers have described as a depleted U.S. military and counter North Korea's advancing nuclear weapons program.

Lawmakers voted 356-70 to pass the legislation, with 127 Democrats backing the measure. Once the defense bill clears the Senate, which is expected this week, the bill will be sent to President Donald Trump for his signature.

The defense bill for the 2018 fiscal year allots some $634 billion for core Pentagon operations and nearly $66 billion for wartime missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The funding boost pays for more troops, jet fighters, ships and other weapons needed to halt an erosion of the military's combat readiness, according to the bill's backers.

Trump's 2018 request sought $603 billion for basic functions and $65 billion for overseas missions. But securing the higher amounts remains contingent upon Congress reaching an agreement to roll back a 2011 law that set strict limits on most federal spending. That's a lot harder than it sounds, however. Lifting the budget caps will face resistance from Democrats who also are seeking to increase the budgets for domestic agencies.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, voted for the bill while also criticizing Congress for refusing to come to grips with its out-of-control approach to budgeting. Smith said it's inconsistent for Republicans to push for billions of dollars more in defense spending while also advocating tax overhaul legislation that will deepen federal deficits over the next decade.

Even if Congress had a "fit of fiscal responsibility" and decided to raise revenue instead of cutting it, Smith said, "we're still looking at needs within the national security budget ... that are wildly beyond the amount of money that we have."

Republicans insist tax cuts will essentially pay for themselves by spurring economic growth. But the Armed Services Committee chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, urged his colleagues to focus on the military's immediate and substantial needs.

"It is morally wrong to send men and women out on missions with our military, for which they are not fully supported, fully trained, (and) equipped with the best equipment our country can provide," he said.

The defense legislation includes $12.3 billion for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency and orders a more rapid buildup of the nation's missile defenses as Pyongyang has refused to back away from developing nuclear missiles capable of striking the United States.

The bill includes money for as many as 28 additional Ground-Based Interceptors, which are anti-missile missiles that would be launched from underground silos in Alaska in the event the U.S. decided to try to shoot down a North Korean missile heading toward the United States. The interceptors are designed to directly hit the enemy missile outside the Earth's atmosphere, obliterating it by the force of impact.

Lawmakers also have required Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to develop a plan for increasing the overall number of so-called GBIs from 44 to 104. The bill also directs the Pentagon to procure more ship-based interceptors and missiles for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, a U.S. mobile anti-missile system.

North Korea's U.N. ambassador, Ja Song Nam, said in a letter Monday to Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres that the unprecedented deployment of three U.S. aircraft carrier groups "taking up a strike posture" around the Korean peninsula has made it impossible to predict when nuclear war will break out. The carriers are participating in joint naval exercises with North Korea.

"The large-scale nuclear war exercises and blackmails, which the U.S. staged for a whole year without a break in collaboration with its followers to stifle our republic, make one conclude that the option we have taken was the right one and we should go along the way to the last," Ja's letter reads.

The policy bill also grants U.S. troops a 2.4 percent pay raise, which is slightly higher than the wage increase the Pentagon had proposed.

Lawmakers also approved an increase of more than 20,000 active-duty and reserve troops from last year's level. The Army gets the largest boost and will receive 7,500 more active-duty Army soldiers and 1,000 additional reserve troops.

The defense bill provides money for 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, 20 more than Trump asked for, as well as 24 F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighters, 10 more than requested. The budget also includes three Littoral Combat Ships, two beyond the budget request. The ships are new to the fleet and operate in congested areas near the shore against small boats and mines.

China sending top envoy to North Korea, week after Trump visit pushing for action

China is sending a high-level special envoy to North Korea. The move follows President Donald Trump’s visit to China last week, where he pushed Beijing to use its influence to pressure Kim Jong Un into stopping his nuclear war threats.

China's official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday that Song Tao, director of the ruling Communist Party's International Liaison Department, would travel to North Korea on Friday.

The announcement did not mention Trump or the U.S.
China remains the sole protector of the North Korean regime, a relationship that has been a source of friction between officials in Washington and Beijing. Trump has previously criticized China, saying its leaders were not using their influence in Pyongyang to help the U.S. convince North Korea to tone down its rhetoric and end its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
“North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success,” the president said in September.
Following last week's meetings -- which were part of Trump's five-nation Asia tour -- the president sounded optimistic in a Twitter message.
“President Xi of China has stated that he is upping the sanctions against #NoKo. Said he wants them to denuclearize. Progress is being made,” the president tweeted.
Song would become the first high-level Chinese official to visit North Korea since October 2015, when a member of the Communist Party Politburo committee met with Kim.
The International Liaison Department, in charge of the Chinese communist party’s relations with foreign political parties, has effectively taken the lead in conducting China's diplomacy with North Korea, Reuters reported.

'If You Can't Do This Then Get Out': Hannity Gives Roy Moore 24 Hours To Explain 'Inconsistencies'

Sean Hannity said Tuesday that, in light of inconsistencies in his recollection of sexual misconduct allegations against him, Judge Roy Moore (R-Ala.) should be given 24 hours to fully explain the situations or bow out of his Senate race.
"You know I do not and will never rush to judgment, because we have seen the media and politicians get it wrong so many times," he said.
But, he said that in light of new information from an accuser of Moore's, the public should be troubled by a few things in the case.
Hannity said he had to ask Moore several times about whether he dated teenage girls as a man in his 30s, until the judge answered concisely.
Also, Hannity played tape of Moore saying an accuser who was flanked by attorney Gloria Allred made allegations about him that were "absolutely false," adding that he did not know the woman.
Hannity said a subsequent report showing the woman's old yearbook containing a note and signature from Moore appeared to corroborate the woman's allegation.