Progressive Briefing for Thursday, August 23

Verizon confirms throttling internet in California during deadly wildfires, Michael Cohen won't accept a pardon from Trump, new poll shows Sanders would be Trump in 2020, and more.

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Michael Cohen’s lawyer says his client would never accept pardon from ‘corrupt’ Trump

Less than 24 hours after Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal counts — ranging from tax evasion to campaign finance violations — Donald Trump’s longtime attorney and fixer brushed aside the possibility of a pardon. In fact, Cohen’s own lawyer, Lanny Davis, said his client would outright reject one if it were granted.

“I know that Mr. Cohen would never accept a pardon from a man that he considers to be both corrupt and a dangerous person in the oval office,” Davis told NPR’s Morning Edition. “And [Cohen] has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump.”

By double-digit margin, poll shows Sanders mopping the floor with Trump in latest 2020 matchup

Polling results released Wednesday by Politico/Morning Consult show that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is widely speculated to make another run for the Oval Office in 2020, would beat President Donald Trump by double digits.

In a face-off between Sanders and Trump, the senator garnered a 12-point lead, with 44 percent of respondents favoring Sanders, 32 percent who said they would vote to re-elect the president, and 24 percent who didn’t know or had no opinion.

NYU School of Medicine announces free tuition for current and future students studying to be doctors

The School of Medicine at New York University just announced a solution to combat the high costs of becoming a doctor by offering current and future students with full scholarships to its doctor of medicine program. The announcement makes NYU the “only top 10-ranked” medical school in the U.S. to offer free tuition.

The program will cover 93 freshman and 350 current medical students.

California fire dept says Verizon throttling during deadly wildfire ‘has everything to do with net neutrality’

As California lawmakers prepared on Wednesday for a key committee vote on their state’s net neutrality bill – which, in its current form, would restore the protections repealed by the FCC in December – the Santa Clara County Fire Department accused the telecom giant Verizon of dramatically cutting its data speed as it recently fought the largest recorded wildfire in California’s history.

After Verizon admitted that it slowed the fire department’s data – a despised practice known as throttling – but claimed it was a simple mistake that “has nothing to do with net neutrality,” Santa Clara County Counsel James Williams responded in a statement on behalf of the fire department on Wednesday that “Verizon’s throttling has everything to do with net neutrality.”

Klansman gets 4 years in prison for firing toward black protester during Charlottesville rally

A member of the Ku Klux Klan who fired a handgun toward a black protester during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last year was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday.

Judge Richard Moore sentenced Richard Preston Jr., of Baltimore, Maryland to eight years in prison, with four of those suspended, and three years of supervised release on one count of shooting a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school, according to CNN. Moore pleaded no contest in May.

aul Manafort narrowly escaped an estimated 300-plus years in prison, according to one juror interviewed by Fox News Wednesday.

“It was one person who kept the verdict from being guilty on all 18 counts,” said juror Paula Duncan.

She noted that the team of prosecutors often seemed bored, taking a few catnaps during the trial. They’ve likely been overworked for the past year, however.

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