'Dirty Little Secrets' of a Fusion GPS Sleaze Slinger RealClearInvestigations As a journalist in 1996, Glenn Simpson co-wrote an idealistic book decrying the dark arts of opposition research. Two decades later, the Fusion GPS co-founder emerged as the craft's most prominent practitioner by producing the scurrilous Trump-Russia dossier. What explains his passage? Tim Cavanaugh explores the mystery -- one that seems to have rendered many ex-Simpson colleagues mute. How Obama-Era Bank Settlement Funds Help Fight Trump New York Post When big banks settled lawsuits with the Obama Justice Department after the financial crisis, they paid out money to liberal nonprofits as part of the agreement, even though the groups were not parties to the complaints. Now, with those substantial windfalls at their backs, at least three of the groups are opposing GOP efforts like repealing Obamacare and reining in illegal immigration. An estimated $640 million has been diverted into what critics say is an improper, if not unconstitutional, "slush fund" fed from the settlements. A Campus-Rape Official Who Disses Men Online RealClearInvestigations A Northwestern University aide responsible for training staff on how to handle campus-rape complaints has an online side-project with dubious content: One post says, "I'm not sorry that cishet alpha men are trash to me until proven innocent." Lawyers say such material could be evidence against the school in a Title IX lawsuit. So Much for 9/11: U.S. Aircraft Registration Still Lax Boston Globe In a new Spotlight series, the Boston Globe reports that the United States remains an easy mark for drug dealers, terrorists and others who prize anonymity when registering aircraft or getting licensed to fly. Kushner Used Private Email for White House Business Politico Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December, Politico reports, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business. Desperate Venezuelans Turn to Prostitution Miami Herald At a squat, concrete brothel in Colombia on the muddy banks of the Arauca River, Gabriel Sánchez rattles off the previous jobs of the women who now sell their bodies at his establishment for $25 an hour: teachers, doctors, a petroleum engineer, other professional women. And all of them came from Venezuela, whose economy continues to collapse. |