Ilhan Omar

The president and his cult of followers have embraced white nationalism and excused racist tropes being directed at liberal members of Congress. Will that fact and such attacks prevent legitimate criticism of anti-Semitic statements and associations where they exist on the left?

* Eugene Scalia, a partner at Gibson Dunn, will be nominated as the next Labor secretary to replace Alex Acosta. If that last name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s son. [NPR]

* “I disagree with it.” President Trump now claims that he was “not happy” with a crowd chanting “send her back” in relation to Somali-born Representative Ilhan Omar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, at one of his re-election campaign rallies. This, after Trump tweeted that Omar and three other congresswomen of color should “go back” to their countries, despite being American-born citizens. [New York Times]

* According to recently unsealed court records, per the FBI, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides were very much involved in a series of hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump, of course, has very publicly denied having knowledge of such payments. [USA Today]

* The House of Representatives passed a bill to gradually hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. Don’t get too excited, because this has little to no chance of passing in the Senate. [CNBC]

* In case you missed it, you shouldn’t really be surprised by the fact that a judge turned down bail for convicted sex offender and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He’ll remain in jail until trial. [New York Law Journal]

* Disgraced former Case Western law school dean Lawrence Mitchell (now known as Ezra Wasserman Mitchell) was quietly let go without a contract renewal at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, where he’d been working as a visiting professor, after an investigation into his alleged misconduct. [Cleveland Scene]

* It’s been five years since FSU Law Professor Dan Markel was murdered in his own home, and we’re still waiting for his killers to be brought to justice. [Tallahassee Democrat]

* President Trump had a hell of weekend on Twitter, where he implied that Democractic Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley — all women of color — weren’t American citizens and told them to “go back” to their home countries. [CNN]

* Federal prosecutors have now accused Jeffrey Epstein of witness tampering, alleging that the sex-trafficking defendant paid out six figures to buy the silence of those who could testify against him. [New York Times]

* Speaking of people related to Alex Acosta’s resignation as labor chief, Patrick Pizzella, formerly of K&L Gates legacy firm Preston Gates Ellis, an associate of Jack Abramoff who notably wasn’t charged and convicted of corruption, has been named as acting labor secretary. [Big Law Business]

* The D.C. Circuit didn’t really seem all that receptive to Trump’s attempts to block Congress from subpoenaing records from one of his accounting firms. Picture Judge Patricia Millett asking this with a raised brow: “When it comes to a president’s conflict of interest, there’s nothing Congress can do … to protect the people of the United States?” [Washington Post]

* How did Justice Clarence Thomas go from being a “Black Panther type” in law school to being the Supreme Court’s “conservative beacon”? [NPR]

* According to Citi Private Bank, law firm leaders are feeling a little less confident about the second half of the year, but no one is expecting a recession just yet. In fact, they seem downright “optimistic” about the rest of 2019. Yay! [American Lawyer]

The 'controversy' surrounding Congresswoman Ilhan Omar illustrates a pressing need to break the mental cuffs that keep so many in our society encased within hypocritical and dangerous tribal cults.

There is some good news.