Going to the Dogs: Man’s Best Friend
JAMES THOMPSON • JANUARY 18, 2019 •

I do not have a dog in the fight about dogs. My dad said that there was a dog in every boy’s life, and so we had some dogs when I was young, and then in my own life, no dogs. I was living a town life, and working, and had neither need nor wish for them. I have nothing against dogs, other than that they should live in the country, not the town, and preferably do something useful. In towns they are captive and, when badly trained, frequently a nuisance. In the country, so long as they are not worrying sheep, they are more agreeable company.

I can see that dogs have very probably evolved with us, in a symbiotic relationship. They know how to flatter us, in return for food and companionship. Parasitism it may be, but it works for many people, and virtually all dogs. Dogs and their owners are reciprocally besotted.

Frankly, I doubted owner’s stories about the intelligence of their pooches. We are creatures of habit, and dogs learn from observation how we are to be handled. So, it was with some initial hesitation that I looked at the research on canine intelligence, and then came to see that, after due allowance for restrictions on which tests which could be used, there was a case for comparing the intelligence of dogs and of dog breeds. The fact that the clever breed were sheep dogs pleased me. We all have to earn our keep.

Here is Rosalind Arden on the intelligence of dogs:

http://www.unz.com/jthompson/dognitive-ability-in-university-level/

The other thing about dogs, is that they live shorter lives, so their generation pass more quickly, and can be observed as they evolve. Even more important, they can be bred through a selective process into different sorts, for different purposes. Assisted evolution in action. Hence, we can look at these close companions and make judgments about how characteristics and behaviours alter through evolution. We can even tamper so as to breed up dogs for our uses. Guide dogs, for example. Practically, dogs that can detect when we are about to have a fit. Perhaps even dogs that can detect our diseases before any other detection device can do so.

What can we find out from genetic analyses of dog behaviour and dog breeds?

Highly Heritable and Functionally Relevant Breed Differences in Dog Behavior
Authors: Evan L MacLean, Noah Snyder-Mackler, Bridgett M. von Holdt & James A.
Serpell

* Correspondence to: evanmaclean@email.arizona.edu & nsmack@uw.edu

http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/509315

Below I show the abstract verbatim, and have selected and abbridged the main points of the paper.

Abstract: Variation across dog breeds presents a unique opportunity for investigating the evolution and biological basis of complex behavioral traits. We integrated behavioral data from more than 17,000 dogs from 101 breeds with breed-averaged genotypic data (N = 5,697 dogs) from over 100,000 loci in the dog genome. Across 14 traits, we found that breed differences in behavior are highly heritable, and that clustering of breeds based on behavior accurately recapitulates genetic relationships. We identify 131 single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with breed differences in behavior, which are found in genes that are highly expressed in the brain and enriched for neurobiological functions and developmental processes. Our results provide insight into the heritability and genetic architecture of complex behavioral traits, and suggest that dogs provide a powerful model for these questions.

Studying aggression, fear, trainability, attachment, and predatory chasing behaviors on 14,020 individual dogs with breed-level genetic identity-by-state estimates from two independent studies we found that a large proportion of variance in dog behavior is attributable to genetic factors. The mean heritability was 0.51 ± 0.12 (SD) across all 14 traits (range: h 2 0.27-0.77), and significantly higher than the null expectation in all cases (permutation tests, p < 0.001).

Interestingly, the traits with the highest heritability were trainability (h 2= 0.73), stranger-directed aggression (h 2 = 0.68), chasing (h 2 = 0.62) and attachment and attention seeking (h 2 = 0.56), which is consistent with the hypothesis that these behaviors have been important targets of selection during the cultivation of modern breeds.

Overall, we identified 131 unique SNPs that were significantly associated with at least one of the 14 behavioral traits (Bonferroni p ≤ 0.05, Fig 2). Forty percent of these SNPs (n= 52) were located within a gene – none of which encoded for changes in the amino acid sequence of the protein. On average, the top SNP explained 15% of variance in the behavioral trait. Thus, while we identify multiple variants with moderately large effects, the variance explained by individual SNPs is far less than that explained by additive variation across the genome (heritability), suggesting that as in humans, behavioral traits in dogs are highly polygenic. However, the variance explained by the top SNPs in our analysis across breeds was, on average, more than 5 times higher than that from within-breed association studies.

Many of the gene-level associations with dog behavioral traits include (i) candidate domestication genes, (ii) genes mapped to phenotypes implicated in domestication, (iii) genes implicated in behavioral differences between foxes bred for tameness or aggression, and (iv) genes that underwent positive selection in both human evolution and dog domestication. For example, PDE7B, which is differentially expressed in the brains of tame and aggressive foxes has been identified as a target of selection during domestication, and is highly expressed in the brain where it functions in dopaminergic pathways. In our analyses, SNPs in this gene were associated with breed differences in aggression, which is consistent with data from experimentally bred foxes, as well as hypotheses that selection against aggression was the primary evolutionary pressure during initial domestication events.

The gene-trait associations identified in our study also align closely with similar associations in human populations. For example, breed differences in aggression are associated with multiple genes that have been linked to aggressive behavior in humans. Molecular associations with breed differences in energy include genes previously linked to resting heart rate, daytime rest, and sleep duration in humans. Lastly, breed differences in fear were associated with genes linked with temperament and startle response in humans, and several of the genes implicated in breed differences in trainability have been previously associated with intelligence and information processing speed in humans.

If the variants in genes identified in our analyses make major contributions to behaviour and cognition, then the associated genes should be (i) involved in biological processes related to nervous system development and function, and (ii) primarily expressed in the brain. Indeed, we found that behavior-associated genes (as identified through meta-analysis) were enriched for numerous nervous system processes. These processes include neurogenesis, neuron migration and differentiation, axon and dendrite development, and regulation of neurotransmitter transport and release.

Breed differences in behavior covary strongly with relatedness between breeds, and for several traits, genotype accounts for more than 50% of behavioral variation across breeds – up to 25x higher than heritability estimates from genetic studies within breeds. Individual SNPs that are associated with behaviors tend to fall in genes that are disproportionately expressed in the brain, and are involved in pathways related to the development and expression of behavior and cognition. In addition, the variants associated with breed differences in behavior are found in genes with sequence or brain-expression differences in foxes artificially bred for tameness or aggression, and are implicated in human behavioral genetics, suggesting that these genes may play important roles in modulating behaviour across species.

You might like to compare these assessments with numbers of humans killed by dogs in the US. As you can see, the rates differ considerably. There are a longer list of breeds at the bottom of the table I have not included for brevity because they all killed one person, but the top killers are shown here.

We are different from dogs, but it appears that some genes in dogs and some genes in humans have the same functions, and affect the brain in the same way. We are closer to our hounds than we imagined. One could say that there is a Great Chain of Being, though this one brings us closer to animals than angels.

Of course, dogs are dogs and not humans. There have been population bottlenecks which simplify their genetic architecture. Dogs do not have a culture in the normal sense of that word, so cannot transfer libraries of knowledge nor be influenced by editorials in the New York Times. However, it is thought-provoking that dog breeds differ in their behaviours in ways that can be traced to their genetics, and as in the case of homo sapiens, those genes express themselves in brain. Some dogs breeds bite us more than others for non-cultural reasons.

The implications are clear: in a species which we can to some extent control, and which partly controls some of us, we see a similar genetic pattern, and a genes based difference in behaviour between breeds.

Huawei, 5G and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Shooting Two Feet With One Bullet
GODFREE ROBERTS • JANUARY 29, 2019 •

Wireless carriers around the world are sprinting to adopt 5G networks to power self-driving cars, virtual reality and smart cities. We’re talking about billions of devices on the same network, not just millions. First-adopter countries embracing 5G could sustain more than a decade of competitive advantage. Countries that adopt 5G first are expected to experience disproportionate gains in macroeconomic impact compared to those that lag. China’s Five-Year Plan calls for investing a further $400 billion in 5G and consequently, China may be creating a 5G tsunami, making it near impossible to catch up. Deloitte.

5G is a national productivity tool whose benefits, like those we derive from our railways, are less noticeable to end users yet critical to industry and commerce. 5G is 20 times faster than 4G, serves as the fast backbone of the “Internet of Things”(IoT), handles a million connected devices/km2 simultaneously with millisecond latency and uses power and radio frequencies more effectively with downloads of 20 gb/second, enabling smart factories and smart cities.

Gear based on the 5G stand-alone specifications, the standard China is pushing, is designed to run independently of 4G networks so operators will need to rebuild their core networks and buy new 5G base stations to provide higher data speeds and greater capacity, as well as ultra-reliable, low-latency services to support machine-to-machine connection and autonomous driving. Today, many new technologies like IoT and AI are ready for broad application and 5G technology itself is remarkably well developed. Once implemented, a 5G system provides an almost unimaginable increase in the capabilities of all internet-connected devices. Instead of new devices being standalone, they will create an internet-connected web of things to integrate their activities into an almost-living machine-machine and machine-human environment.

Imagine thousands of apps, billions of printable RF identifiers, millions of machine controls, automobiles and many processes that 5G’s low latency alone makes possible. 5G’s one millisecond reaction time is ten times faster than the human experience,which gives the man-machine interface a reactive ‘living’ feel. After a surgeon in China conducted the world’s first remote operation via a 5G network, Dr Michael Kranzfelder told the German Surgical College, “5G networks constitute a trend-setting technology which will play an important role in surgery and open many new applications for which the previous mobile data transmission standard was simply not fast enough.”

The 5G infrastructure market, $528 million in 2018, will grow at a 118 percent CAGR, reaching $26 billion in 2022. Direct and indirect outputs will reach $6.3 trillion and $10.6 trillion by 2030, according to IDC.


In return for millisecond latency, 10cm locational accuracy, blinding speed and wide bandwidth, 5G requires five times more cell sites than 4G. This is how installations stood at the end of 2018:


A crucial element of 5G deployment is the installation of new wireless sites, many of which must be placed on lamp posts and utility poles in densely populated areas. China dominates on that front. During 2017, China Tower, the state-owned cell phone tower operator, added 500 cell sites daily and now has two million wireless sites, compared to approximately 200,000 in the United States. “This disparity between the speed at which China and the United States can add network infrastructure and capacity bodes well for China’s prospects in the race to 5G,” Deloitte said.


Remarkably, only one company owns significant 5G intellectual property, controls its own silicon from end to end, produces all the elements of 5G networks–including proprietary chips–assembles and installs them affordably on a national scale: Huawei.

Non-Huawei customers must integrate more costly, less functional, less compatible and less upgradeable elements, pay twice as much, take twice as long to implement 5G and experience inferior service because Huawei produces every element of 5G systems and assembles turnkey networks–from antennas to the power stations needed to operate them to chips, servers and handsets–at scale and cost. It is literally unrivalled in enhanced mobile broadband.

Huawei employs 700 mathematicians, 800 physicists, 120 chemists and 6,000 fundamental researchers. Among its 87,805 patents, 11,152 core patents were granted in the US and the company has cross-licensing agreements for patents with many Western companies. Your Huawei phone is assembled with just 28.5 seconds of human labor in a high-end automated plant spread over 1.4 square km. Automation and technology upgrades have reduced the staff to 17 yet its more than 30 production lines produce 2 million smartphones every month:


In 2018 Huawei unveiled the world’s first 5G Base Station Chipset, Tiangang, which enables simplified 5G networks and large-scale network deployment. It makes breakthroughs in integration, computing capability and spectral bandwidth and supports the 200 MHz high spectral bandwidth required for future networks while running 2.5 times faster than existing products. Tiangang improves active antenna units (AAU) in a revolutionary way and cuts the weight of 5G base stations by half. Huawei has shipped over 25,000 5G base stations worldwide, deployed 5G networks in more than 10 countries and will deploy 5G in 20 countries in 2019.

Tiangang is not the company’s only trick. Andrei Frumusanu says Huawei’s semiconductor division, HiSilicon, is the only company to provide high-end competition with Qualcomm and, in some areas, is comfortably ahead. Its 7 nm Ascend 910 chipset for data centers is twice as powerful as Nvidia’s v100 and the first AI IP chip series to natively provide optimal TeraOPS per watt in all scenarios. Its 7nm ARM-based CPU, the Kunpeng 920 boosts the development of computing in big data, distributed storage, and ARM-native application scenarios by 20%. Its Kirin 980 CPU is the world’s first commercial 7nm system-on-chip (SoC) and the first to use Cortex-A76 cores, dual neural processing units, Mali G76 GPU, a 1.4 Gbps LTE modem and supports faster RAM. With 20 percent faster performance and 40 percent less power consumption compared to 10nm systems, it has twice the performance of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 and Apple’s A11 while consuming 40% less power. The Kirin 980 fits 6.9 billion transistors on a chip no larger than a thumbnail. Huawei’s patented modem has the world’s fastest Wifi and its GPS receiver taps L5 frequency to deliver 10cm positioning and supports speeds up to 1.4Gbps and 2,133MHz LPDDR4X RAM.

Huawei’s 5G phone will launch in June this year. Apple will release its first 5G handset in September, 2020.

Beijing’s four telcos are spending 30 billion yuan (US$5.4 billion) on a 5G network in the city by 2022 and applying the technology to infrastructure like the new airport, the new satellite city and the 2022 Winter Olympics. The city, home to many of the country’s top tech companies, plans to achieve 200 billion yuan of 5G related revenue by 2022. Beijing has set up product innovation centers, special projects and manufacturing bases for developing the key components, including radio frequency parts and chips. The city aims to have its tech companies reach a 10 percent share in the global 5G component market. “Obtaining breakthroughs on developing core components for the 5G network and putting them into industrial use is the primary task for developing the 5G industry in the city,” says the mayor’s plan.

Xiongan New Area, a brand new city of six million located sixty miles from Beijing, which will welcome its first residents in 2020, is being wired for 5G. Residents will find no traffic lights, many autonomous vehicles, face recognition providing seamless access and be able to reach the capital via a driverless maglev train costing the same to build and operate as regular subways but traveling silently at 120 mph, with no moving parts. A literal city of the future, courtesy of 5G, Xiongan is designed to deliver the same relative productivity gains for its residents that the Industrial Revolution gave England’s in the 19th century.

The US labels Huawei a ‘security risk’ because Huawei gear protects the confidentiality of users’ communications: “Most of the personal data you store on your Huawei device (such as your photos, call logs, mailing list, messages, frequently visited websites, and so on) will be strictly protected. In addition, you will be clearly notified of any personal information being collected, and have complete control over the collection, processing, and sharing of your personal data. Without your authorization, your personal data will not be disclosed with any third parties.”

Snowden’s revelations suggest Huawei is more sinned against than sinning. The NSA’s ‘Tailored Access Operations’ unit broke into Huawei’s corporate servers and by 2010 was reading corporate emails and examining the source code in Huawei’s products.“We currently have good access and so much data that we don’t know what to do with it,” boasted one NSA briefing. Slides also disclosed that the NSA intended to plant its own backdoors in Huawei firmware. In 2014 the New York Times, Time and Reuters revealed that the NSA had infiltrated Huawei headquarters, monitored all of its executives and gone through the company’s entire data infrastructure.

One goal was to find links between Huawei and the PLA and the other was to find vulnerabilities so that the NSA could spy on nations through computer and telephone networks Huawei sold, as it did through Cisco’s, which had installed ‘back doors’ for the CIA. The Times said its story of operation Shotgiant was based on NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden. The NSA planned to unleash offensive cyber attacks through Huawei if ordered by the President, “Many of our targets communicate over Huawei-produced products. We want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products,” the Times quoted an NSA document as saying, to “gain access to networks of interest” around the world.

Bien Perez and Li Tao say, “The Chinese government wants every industry to use the most advanced infrastructure to upgrade productivity. This is a strategic agenda, and they think that 5G will help. China has very ambitious plans to promote the industrial internet of things, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), the capabilities of which require the support of brand-new 5G networks. For example, self-driving cars require sensors, AI and roadside base stations for fast and reliable connectivity to allow vehicles to talk to each other to avoid collisions and avoid pedestrians. Today’s 4G networks cannot meet those quick response times.

China’s plan for an aggressive 5G roll-out is in line with the Made In China2025 road map. Initially, this focused on the domestic telecoms sector’s ability to increase broadband penetration nationwide to 82 per cent by 2025 as part of a push for industrial modernisation. Another objective was to see local suppliers making 40 percent of all mobile phone chips used in the domestic market. Under an updated version published in January, Beijing now wants China to become the world’s leading maker of telecoms equipment.

Smart factories will integrate the entire factory production process, arranging the smooth transfer from minimal energy, raw materials and water inputs and the just-in-time delivery of subcomponents to the optimised assembly line production of custom-designed-and-ordered by customers to the effective delivery of these products to the user and the continual (and maybe continuous) product reporting of its use, effectiveness and location. Smart cities will have driverless cars, buses and delivery trucks and ports and airports. The smart economy will have very fast HST intercity services, along with transparent data on the operation of mines, energy generation, transport, communications and government. Medical monitoring and the rise of the extended healthspan technology will free China from the dependency trap because people are likely to remain healthy all their lives using continuous medical assessment through an internet bangle.

President Trump has attacked the Made In China 2025 policy because the US, stuck in neoclassical macroeconomics, is committed to a system which not only does not produce the goods but also can’t afford the essential infrastructure required for the next major advance in the ongoing industrial revolution. The decision will put the Five Eyes countries ten years behind China in 5G and its associated technologies. The Germans correctly describe their version of China2025, Industrie04 as “the fourth industrial revolution.” The 5G stakes are so big that, if Germany rejects Huawei it risks committing economic suicide.

The problem is neither the rich nor the sick, lame and lazy. The poor have always been with us and the rich are doing nothing more than they have ever done. Their wealth is derived from investments not the sweat of their brow. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and if I had been more successful in those endeavors I would gladly have exchanged my form of labor.

The problem lies with a government that has given control of our money to a private for profit
Cartel and reduced us to a nation of neer-do-well borrowers and beggars. The incessant over-budget spending necessitates borrowing and the interest on those borrowings acts to devalue the money the wage earner receives. A hundred dollars in 1960 is equivalent in purchasing power to $848.76 in 2019, a difference of $748.76 over 59 years.

The government is culpable in removing all legal restraints on these banking Cartels and in essence, allowing them to gamble with their depositor's funds. When they lost their gambles, instead of bearing the pain and going out of business we, the taxpayers were saddled with their losses. We did not share in any of their profits however; those were the property of the stockholders and investors.

Another factor is the exportation of jobs. Trade Agreements like NAFTA were immediately obvious in their effects. It did not take rocket science to understand that industry will move to where the labor and other costs of doing business are less. Businesses have an obligation to their owners to produce maximum profits; they have no national loyalty. Couple this with the insane rules and regulations to make what industry remained "Green" and you have eliminated their ability to compete in the marketplace thus driving them out of existence.

Town after town that had a single dominant employer has gone to wrack and ruin when that employer was forced to close their doors. These were the jobs that anyone could go get. If that labor didn't suit you the next town over had other work. Now we talk about the "rust belt and flyover country" and speak of its citizens as deplorable. In reality they were our neighbors who worked for their daily bread, supported their families, churches and community and were the individuals who provided the fighting men and women, for our more or less, just wars.

All of this desolation of Middle America is the result of government intervention. The mountains of regulations that were economically impossible to implement killed them off. New startups by entrepreneurs nose-dived because these regulatory burdens required mountains of cash just to prove compliance with the rules. This left next to no new innovations to keep our technology pre-eminent. The only notable exception has been Elon Musk but he is more adept at getting government grants and subsidies than producing jobs or useful product.

This over regulation is the same rock Socialism founders on. No Central Planning (Socialism) can ever be as prescient as the operations of the unfettered Free Market Place. Socialism inevitably leads to Totalitarianism and Serfdom. It cannot deliver the goods and services, in abundance, at affordable prices, as does free-market Capitalism.

The final knife in the back is the immigration problem and as you might have guessed this too is contrived by our government. Starting with Kennedy's laws establishing chain migration as well lottery immigration we have created a free-for-all climate. We are permitting unlimited immigration under the ridiculous guise of asylum when these people are seeking economic betterment. Everyone seeks this but in our case, their betterment is taken directly out of our pockets whether we wish it or not. These people have survived and grown into adulthood in their native countries so why the sudden necessity of going to the United States? They have all heard of the free lunch that allows them to live as well without the necessity of working.

In addition to not being able to afford the support of the masse of people who are entering legally and illegally we also have the distortion of our labor markets. These invaders monopolize all of the low paying jobs and the employers do not care that they are illegal. They work cheap and in the restaurant industry, can be hired for a couple of hours, then sent home to be called back later and used for another couple of hours. We have failed to demand and implement a system to prevent illegals from working at all and more specifically off-the-books.

These illegals eventually develop skills that make it profitable for the employers to use them in better work but at depressed wages. Ultimately some will progress into the ranks of the skilled, still at a lower wage and they will compete with citizens who have trained and educated themselves for the jobs. When the citizens are not fired and replaced with cheaper illegal labor, they have reduced incomes because the presence of so much low cost labor drives wages down.

The H1B programs were intended to allow employers who could not find sufficient American technical employees to hire foreigners and get them temporary green cards. What has actually happened is that these H1B people do not go home, they stay here and occupy the top echelon of high-tech good paying jobs. It is not simply too much competition. Companies like Disney have wholesale fired Americans an replaced them one-for-one with cheaper H1B’s even going so far as to require the Americans to train their replacement or lose their severance benefits. Our Government again, working at doing things to make your life better.

Not hate, just logical follow through. Babies are murdered because their existence is inconvenient so why not people like Slapsy Maxi and Pelosi?

What you need to be more concerned about is if the molten ferrous core moves too far will the planet flip over to match. The gyroscope that is planet earth may have to find a new stable rotational axis.

Considering the extortion, it would seem Rod is just another corrupt pol. Perhaps the long sentence will set a trend and every politician can look forward to long hard time instead of a one year vacation in Club Fed followed by an "Ego Te Absolvo."

Bet you didn't know I don't care what an Ockers is or was.

The house was not controlled by the Republicans for six years of Obama's Presidency. If the minimum wage was not hiked it was because the Democrats wanted it that way.

And there you have the reason why illegal immigrants need to be kept out of the country. They compete for lower paying jobs and depress wages for citizens. These illegals eventually become better at their jobs and are given more responsibility but not commensurate wages because they are illegal and exploitable.
This then begins to encroach on those who spent time and money to learn their trade and the better paying positions now become wage depressed as well.

Ex-Gov. Blagojevich officially asks Trump to commute his prison sentence
By Sophie Tatum, CNN
Updated 7:32 PM ET, Tue June 5, 2018


Blagojevich lawyer: He said stupid things

Washington (CNN)Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is officially asking President Donald Trump to commute his prison sentence, filing the clemency paperwork on Tuesday, a spokesman for Blagojevich's legal team, Adam Farragut, confirmed to CNN.

Blagojevich, a Democrat, is serving a 14-year sentence after being convicted on 18 felony corruption charges in 2011.

The move comes days after Trump told reporters he was considering commuting Blagojevich's sentence, as well as pardoning Martha Stewart. Trump said the former governor was convicted "for being stupid and saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say."
"I am seriously thinking about -- not pardoning -- but I am seriously thinking of a curtailment of Blagojevich," Trump said.

Currently, there isn't a pending case with the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney for Blagojevich, however, "It can take a couple of weeks, if not a few months, for new clemency cases to be accepted for review and added to our system as 'pending cases,'" according to the Justice Department website.

One of Blagojevich's attorneys, Leonard Goodman, released a statement on Tuesday, which was provided to CNN by Goodman's legal assistant, Robert Mamet, regarding the filing.

Goodman's statement said the petition for commutation argues that Blagojevich's sentence is unfair, among other points.

"No other elected official has been held to this standard with respect to campaign fund-raising. Few if any politicians could convince a jury that there was 'no connection' between campaign contributions and official acts, as Blagojevich was required to do," the statement said.

According to Farragut, Blagojevich also filed clemency paperwork in November 2016 while President Barack Obama was in office.

Blagojevich's conviction also has connections to ex-FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired in 2017. A member of Comey's legal team, Patrick Fitzgerald, was US attorney when Blagojevich was arrested in Chicago in 2008.
CNN's Marlena Baldacci and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.



Illinois Republicans Urge Trump Not To Commute Rod Blagojevich’s Sentence
Seven congressmen warned that freeing the former governor could encourage public corruption.
By Nina Golgowski

Illinois’ Republican congressmen are speaking out against commuting former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence, telling President Donald Trump that such clemency would be detrimental to thwarting public corruption.

In a letter sent to the White House on Monday, the seven lawmakers urged Trump not to free Blagojevich, 61, who formally asked the president to commute his sentence last week. The ex-governor, a Democrat, has been in prison since 2012.

The letter was signed by all seven of Illinois’ GOP congressmen: Reps. Darin LaHood, John Shimkus, Peter Roskam, Randy Hultgren, Adam Kinzinger, Rodney Davis and Mike Bost.

“While we understand that as President, you have the right under our Constitution to consider and grant pardons and clemency as you determine fit, we ask that you consider very carefully the precedent this may set, in the future, and the impact it will have on acts of public corruption,” the letter says.

Trump told reporters last month that Blagojevich, who was a contestant on his reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, was harshly punished for making what the president dismissed as a “foolish” statement.

President Donald Trump has called Rod Blagojevich's prison sentence unfair several times in the past.
LEAH MILLIS / REUTERS

President Donald Trump has called Rod Blagojevich’s prison sentence unfair several times in the past.
“Eighteen [sic] years in jail for being stupid and saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say,” Trump said, getting the length of Blagojevich’s sentence wrong. “Plenty of other politicians have said a lot worse. He shouldn’t have been put in jail.” (Trump made similar comments in 2012.)

The president was referring to Blagojevich having discussed essentially selling a Senate seat. As governor of Illinois in 2008, Blagojevich had the power to temporarily fill the seat vacated by Barack Obama after he was elected to the White House.

The House lawmakers pointed out in their letter that it wasn’t one “foolish” statement that landed Blagojevich behind bars. Over two trials he was convicted of 18 counts of public corruption, only five of which were successfully appealed. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his appeal for the second time in 2016.

“Two examples include withholding $8 to $10 million in reimbursement money from Children’s Memorial Hospital until they agreed to contribute over $50,000 to his campaign,” the letter states. The second example was Blagojevich “withholding the signing of a piece of legislation beneficial to race tracks until one of the racetrack owners agreed to a $100,000 campaign contribution.”

Blagojevich, seen at a party for "The Celebrity Apprentice" in 2010,was sentenced to 14 years in prison for public corruption
MOISES DE PENA VIA GETTY IMAGES

Blagojevich, seen at a party for “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for public corruption.
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) released a statement to HuffPost on Tuesday that also urged Trump to keep Blagojevich behind bars.

“The President has a responsibility to use his pardoning and commuting power only in the interest of justice, to bestow mercy, or in service of great public aims. I do not support the commuting of Rod Blagojevich’s sentence, and I believe that such action would constitute yet another abuse of power on behalf of a president who only has his self-interest in mind,” Quigley said.

The congressman expressed concern that Trump ― who recently suggested pardoning celebrity businesswoman Martha Stewart as well ― is using the power of clemency as a “political tool to undermine the legitimacy of our legal system.” Quigley mentioned Trump’s recent suggestion that he can pardon himself as he is investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

A spokesperson for Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) told HuffPost on Tuesday that the congressman is likewise opposed to Blagojevich’s early release.

That is probably where he got those billions he put on the plan for Iran.

Twenty seven years is a ridiculously long time. Something needs to be done to expedite these Death Row appeal cases so that this kind of stretch out cannot occur.

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DC ANTIFA LEADER ARRESTED FOR MULTIPLE VIOLENT FELONIES OUT OF A JOB AT PROGRESSIVE NONPROFIT AFTER HIS RADICAL IDEOLOGY WAS EXPOSED
9:07 PM 01/29/2019 | INVESTIGATIVE GROUP
Andrew Kerr | Investigative Reporter


Washington, D.C. Antifa leader Joseph “Jose” Alcoff, also known as “Chepe,” has been out of a job working for a progressive nonprofit since December, his former employer told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday.

Alcoff was arrested in Philadelphia on Jan. 10 and charged with multiple felonies, including aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and terroristic threats, in connection to the Antifa mob attack against two Marines in November. One of the Marines, Alejandro Godinez, testified in December that he shouted “I’m Mexican” at the mob, which allegedly led the attackers to call him a “spic” and “wetback.”

TheDCNF’s reporting on Alcoff’s fanatical personas, “Chepe” and “Jose Martin,” and his connection to violent Antifa groups were integral factors leading to his arrest, according to an affidavit filed in his case. (RELATED: DC Antifa Leader Charged With ‘Ethnic Intimidation’ Related To Attack On Marines)

TheDCNF unmasked Alcoff on Dec. 18, but his former employer, Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), ignored numerous requests for comment in the ensuing six weeks inquiring whether it was aware of Alcoff’s extreme and violent rhetoric or if it planned on taking any action in regards to the radical’s statements.


Joseph Alcoff mugshot (Philadelphia Police Department)

Instead, AFR attempted to obscure references to Alcoff on its website on Dec. 19, only to reverse the modifications less than an hour after TheDCNF caught onto the changes.

As campaign manager for AFR, Alcoff was quoted in press releases from Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, appeared at an event with Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia outside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in March and has been pictured alongside Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters.






While rubbing shoulders with powerful Democrats in Congress, Alcoff was living a second life as an organizer of Smash Racism DC, the Antifa group responsible for mobbing Fox News host and TheDCNF co-founder Tucker Carlson’s house in November.

AFR broke its silence on Alcoff after being informed of his arrest Tuesday.

“As of December, Mr. Alcoff no longer works for AFR,” said AFR spokesperson Carter Dougherty in an email.

Dougherty didn’t respond when asked if Alcoff was fired from AFR, nor would he provide the exact date when Alcoff left.

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Your pellucid polemics cause putrefaction of the intellect and your maundering scribbles are devoid of sense or purpose.

Why 18? I would like to abort Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Chucky Schumer.