Cartoon

Summer Solstice

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Tim Eagan)

In other news, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the D.C. police department for arresting innocent protesters during Trump's inauguration.

Meanwhile, DeVos has chosen a private student loan CEO to run the education department's student loan system. I'm sure that's fine.

Finally, the Wall Street Journal has fired their chief foreign reporter over his involvement with a foreign arms dealer. That arms dealer was put in the spotlight this morning by an AP report that's hard to follow even after reading it twice.

Over decades, Azima has glided among different worlds, flying weapons to the Balkans, selling spy gear to Persian Gulf nations, dealing with a small Midwest bank and navigating Washington’s power circles.

If he enjoyed a loose, informal immunity during those years, it is being tested now. Authorities in the U.S. and abroad are investigating Azima as part of a global corruption case. Specifically, they are examining whether Azima, now 75, paid a kickback to a former United Arab Emirates official to reap the profits from a hotel sale in Tbilisi, Georgia.

That was of interest to U.S. law enforcement because Iranians involved in the deal were later blacklisted by the Treasury Department, accused of helping Iran avoid sanctions over its nuclear program.