PBC News & Comment: Serial Extortionist Jeff Bezos Fights Tabloid’s Extortion Attempt

Amazon has extorted cities for tax concessions, now Bezos exposes National Enquirer’s offer to hide dick pix for Bezos falsehood…--Enquirer got photos and Bezos’ texts with mistress, tried to use them to leverage shutdown of WashPost investigations that could unravel plea deal in Cohen case
--read Bezos’ remarkable statement here
--Greenwald notes that Bezos is making big bucks from surveillance, and may have been outed by NSA or other spooks
--Amazon threatens to cancel “2nd HQ” in Long Island
--and the Enquirer’s propaganda work for Saudi Prince MBS may be a factor
--Manafort’s plea deal may also fall apart, as he is accused of lying to increase prospects of Trump pardon
--acting Attorney General Whitaker appears before House committee, says he didn’t talk to Trump about Mueller investigation
--in new book, former FBI #2 McCabe says Rosenstein was really pissed that Trump made him write memo used to fire Comey, then appointed Mueller 5 days later
--Trump slams Adam Schiff for meeting with Fusion GPS boss, and cites Sen. Burr’s comment, “no collusion so far”
--Chief Justice casts swing vote to temporarily block Louisiana pretextual law to shut abortion clinics
--Greg Palast, who covered the US-backed coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002, exposes the racism that drives the new coup attempt
--NY Times report admits that the new sanctions will hammer the poor, and are not likely to drive Maduro from power
--The Guardian breaks ranks from world media, posts honest report on the real leader of the coup, Leopoldo Lopez
--and at The Nation, Peter Kornbluh confirms that Maduro is only the first target of Bolton’s scheme
--corporate Dems aren’t too excited by Green New Deal, and the Justice Democrats who got AOC elected plan to primary some of them
--your smart phone constantly reports your location, and scumbag bounty hunters have been able to track their targets to a chilling degree of accuracuy
--NY Times highlights Democrats’ divisions over Israel and also reports on recent wave of attacks on Palestinians by armed Jewish settlers
--new Israeli anti-BDS campaign calls us “terrorists in suits”
--and one reason is that BDS is having a measurable impact