Beet L. Jooz

One day after Axios White House Correspondent Jonathan Swan sent markets reeling by reporting that Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had "verbally resigned" in a conversation with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Swan is back with what he claims is the text of the resignation letter that the DOJ sent to the White House on Rosenstein's behalf.

The letter, which was reportedly written in the voice of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, declared that Sessions was "confident" that Noel Francisco, the solicitor general who is said to be more amenable to Trump, would dutifully carry out the oversight of the Mueller probe.

Importantly, Axios said the statement's veracity was confirmed by three sources. Read the brief statement in full below:

Rod Rosenstein has served the Department of Justice with dedication and skill for 28 years. His contributions are many and significant. We all appreciate his service and sincerely wish him well.

Matt Whitaker, my Chief of Staff for the last year, will instill confidence and uphold the integrity of the Department as the second highest law enforcement officer in the Nation.

Finally, I am confident that Noel Francisco will oversee the special counsel with a commitment to justice as Acting Attorney General for this matter. As I have said before, the American people deserve an expeditious resolution of this investigation consistent with the rule of law.

According to Axios, talks over Rosenstein's resignation were effectively foiled after Axios published its misleading report, setting off a frenzy of media speculation that forced the White House to reconsider its tactics after markets tanked and allies of Trump warned against letting Rosenstein leave. Rosenstein initially offered his resignation to Kelly on Friday, and negotiations had been ongoing over the weekend.

Still, there's one important piece of the puzzle that Axios doesn't yet know:

What I don't yet know: How exactly the conversation between Rosenstein and Kelly changed on Monday. I don't know what terms he had demanded and how, if at all, his demands changed from Friday to Monday. As of now, it's possible that he remains Deputy Attorney General for the foreseeable future. He meets with President Trump on Thursday.

With Rosenstein expected to meet with Trump on Thursday, his fate remains uncertain. On the one hand, a New York Times report published Friday claiming that Rosie had been pushing cabinet officials to invoke the 25th amendment in what would have been a palace coup made the Deputy AG look not just bad, but biased in his oversight of the Mueller probe. On the other hand, many Trump allies have warned that firing Rosie would be "a trap" for the president.

Whatever happens, we should know more by the end of the week, as the White House will likely be looking to seize control of the narrative to avoid another bout of chaos like what investors experienced on Monday.

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As rumors continue to swirl about the job status of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Alan Dershowitz is convinced his ouster is just a matter of time.

Appearing on Fox & Friends Tuesday, the Harvard Law professor emeritus isn’t certain that Thursday’s meeting between Rosenstein and President Donald Trump will be the end. But if it’s not, Dershowitz believes the end will come shortly thereafter.

“He is not going to be the deputy attorney general after the election,” Dershowitz said. “The question is only now timing. Whether or not the president wants to fire him, whether he would prefer to have him resign, whether he wants him to become an election issue, what happens in terms of succession, who replaces him, what impact it has on [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller. But if you ask me who is the deputy attorney general of the United States starting in January of next year, it will not be Rod Rosenstein.”

Dershowitz went on to blast Rosenstein for — as reported by The New York Times — the consideration he gave to invoking the 25th Amendment.

“The 25th Amendment was intended for president who was shot, a president who had a stroke, a president who is incapacitated,” Dershowitz said. “Not a president you disagree with, or you think is creating havoc in the White House. That, you have an election for.

“But you don’t use the 25th Amendment promiscuously. And even mentioning the 25th Amendment — The New York Times stand by its story that it was not a joke. It was a serious discussion. That is disqualifying.

Watch above, via Fox News.

[featured image via screengrab]

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128 people were arrested at Capitol Hill on Monday during a highly organized protest against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, reports ABC News. 

Capitol Hill police said 128 people were arrested for "unlawfully demonstrating" outside of senators' offices and in the main rotunda of the Russell Senate Building. About half as many protesters were arrested for protesting Kavanaugh on Thursday.

The protests were organized by various groups, including the Women's March, Planned Parenthood, NARAL and others who strongly oppose Kavanaugh's nomination. -ABC  

Protests against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh escalated on Monday with more than 120 people arrested on Capitol Hill. https://t.co/wx1uRiAz4n pic.twitter.com/xDBXsqKyoj

— ABC News (@ABC) September 25, 2018

The protests come just one day after a second Kavanaugh accuser emerged, claiming the Judge waved his penis in her face during a drunken Yale dormitory party. Ramirez made her claim after six days of "carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney" despite having significant alcohol-induced memory gaps. 

It is unclear if Monday's protest included members of SPAN, the Colorado women's rights group that Ramirez helps lead.  

DEVELOPING: New Kavanaugh accuser Debbie Ramirez helps lead a left-wing "social justice" nonprofit group in Boulder, CO, that believes that "violence against women is systemic" and that "women are an oppressed group." Also believes that "heterosexism" is "an act of violence."

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) September 24, 2018

Meanwhile, professors at Yale law school canceled classes Monday, as men and women clad in black staged walkouts with the message that everyone should believe women who claim to have been victims of sexual misconduct, and that Brett Kavanaugh's nomination should be stopped. 

Students walking out of Yale Law School building as part of their protest demanding investigation of accusations against Kavanaugh pic.twitter.com/3gBFaRAfjK

— Rebecca Lurye (@RebeccaLurye) September 24, 2018

Emails obtained exclusively by Campus Reform show that as many as 20 Yale Law School faculty members canceled or rescheduled up to 31 classes on Monday because of the Kavanaugh hearing. 

Yale Law School spokeswoman Debra Kroszer told Campus Reform on Monday that "Yale Law School did not cancel all classes," but, she added, "many faculty members chose to reschedule or cancel their own classes today. And some held classes as usual." 

“While I respect the right of the students protesting to make their voices heard, I disagree with professors’ decisions to cancel classes at the request of those protesters,” Emily Hall, a student at Yale Law school, told Campus Reform in a statement. “It effectively encourages students to participate in the protests and penalizes those who choose not to by disrupting the class schedule," Hall added. -Campus Reform

After repeatedly denying the accusations, Kavanaugh lashed out at them again on Monday, calling them "false," and declaring that he would not withdraw his nomination. 

"I’m not going to let false accusations drive us out of this process and we’re looking for a fair process where I can be heard and defend my integrity my lifelong record. My lifelong record of promoting dignity and equality for women starting with the women who knew me when I was 14 years old. I’m not going anywhere," he said in an interview with FOX News.

Protesters filled the office of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa on Monday, sharing their own stories of sexual assault and calling on senators to "stand with survivors." 

"He raped me as he choked me," she said in a video that later circulated Twitter with thousands of retweets. "And when I heard Professor Ford say that Kavanaugh had his hand over her mouth, I believed her. You do not forget someone choking you, you do not forget someone putting their hand over their mouth and you thinking they're going to die," she said, her voice quaking.

"For God sake, for all the boys and girls who have been assaulted over the years, for God sake, when will you stand up for the American people, for democracy?" the woman said, a plea to the senators on the Judiciary Committee, as a fellow protester put a hand on her shoulder. -ABC

Happening Now: thousands in hall of congress - demand @JeffFlake vote not and #CancelKavanaugh. Women from across the country share their horror stories of sexual assault

Cc: @AdyBarkan @lsarsour @AnaMariaArchil2 @popdemoc @CPDAction @womensmarch pic.twitter.com/KY54lA3rfT

— JESUS GONZALEZ (@JesusGonzalezNY) September 24, 2018

The entire hallway is in tears. We are at a moment in history where women have to repeat their trauma to the masses to literally beg Senators to vote with moral clarity. #StopKavanaugh #BelieveSurvivors #BeAHero pic.twitter.com/Ky26a9fPTf

— Helen Brosnan (@HelenBrosnan) September 24, 2018

Women must be heard. Today I am wearing black in solidarity with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. #BelieveSurvivors #TIMESUP #StopKavanaugh pic.twitter.com/pSZhEIr0Xe

— kerry washington (@kerrywashington) September 24, 2018

#BelieveWomen #BelieveSurvivors #metoomvmt #timesup pic.twitter.com/LUUikeZ6Xx

— Amber Tamblyn (@ambertamblyn) September 24, 2018

Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and his wife were chased out of a DC restaurant by anti-Kavanaugh protesters Monday night, who followed the pair chanting "we believe survivors." 

BREAKING. Activists just chased @TedCruz out of a fancy Washington DC restaurant, chanting “We Believe Survivors!”

Cruz has been friends with creep Kavanaugh for 20 years. Now Cruz is on judiciary committee hearing his testimony.

Fascists not welcome! #CancelKavanugh pic.twitter.com/7mx6Tc32za

— Smash Racism DC (@SmashRacismDC) September 25, 2018

As Infowars' Paul Joseph Watson notes, the group behind the stunt, Smash Racism DC, issued a threatening tweet afterwards:

"This is a message to Ted Cruz, Bret Kavanaugh, Donald Trump and the rest of the racist, sexist, transphobic, and homophobic right-wing scum: You are not safe. We will find you. We will expose you. We will take from you the peace you have taken from so many others."

p6. This is a message to Ted Cruz, Bret Kavanaugh, Donald Trump and the rest of the racist, sexist, transphobic, and homophobic right-wing scum: You are not safe. We will find you. We will expose you. We will take from you the peace you have taken from so many others.

— Smash Racism DC (@SmashRacismDC) September 25, 2018

If Monday's protests were a taste of what's to come, this is going to be an interesting week.  

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(Daily Caller) Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz was chased out of a DC restaurant by protesters on Monday night, according to video posted on Twitter.

Two videos were posted by “Smash Racism DC” and they show a large group of protesters chanting “We believe survivors” in reference to sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh at Sen. Cruz and his wife, Heidi Cruz.

One video shows a protester confronting Sen. Cruz and his wife as they entered the restaurant. Sen. Cruz tells the woman “God bless you” before attempting to take a seat at a table.

A Northern California woman hired to review flagged Facebook content has sued the social media giant after she was "exposed to highly toxic, unsafe, and injurious content during her employment as a content moderator at Facebook," which she says gave her post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

Selena Scola moderated content for Facebook as an employee of contractor Pro Unlimited, Inc. between June 2017 and March of this year, according to her complaint. 

"Every day, Facebook users post millions of videos, images, and livestreamed broadcasts of child sexual abuse, rape, torture, bestiality, beheadings, suicide, and murder," the lawsuit reads. "To maintain a sanitized platform, maximize its already vast profits, and cultivate its public image, Facebook relies on people like Ms. Scola – known as “content moderators” – to view those posts and remove any that violate the corporation’s terms of use."

"You’d go into work at 9am every morning, turn on your computer and watch someone have their head cut off. Every day, every minute, that’s what you see. Heads being cut off," one content moderator recently told the Guardian.

According to the lawsuit, Facebook content moderators are asked to review over 10 million potentially rule-breaking posts per week, with an error rate of less than one percent - and a mission to review all user-reported content within 24 hours. Making the job even more difficult is Facebook Live, a feature that allows users to broadcast video streams on their Facebook pages. 

The Facebook Live feature in particular "provides a platform for users to livestream murder, beheadings, torture, and even their own suicides, including the following:" 

In late April a father killed his 11-month-old daughter and livestreamed it before hanging himself. Six days later, Naika Venant, a 14-year-old who lived in a foster home, tied a scarf to a shower’s glass doorframe and hung herself. She streamed the whole suicide in real time on Facebook Live. Then in early May, a Georgia teenager took pills and placed a bag over her head in a suicide attempt. She livestreamed the attempt on Facebook and survived only because viewers watching the event unfold called police, allowing them to arrive before she died.

As a result of having to review said content, Scola says she "developed and suffers from significant psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" - however she does not detail the specific imagery she was exposed to for fear of Facebook enforcing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she signed. 

Scola is currently the only named plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit, however the lawsuit says that the potential class could include "thousands" of current and former moderators in California. 

As Motherboard reports, moderators have to view a constant flood of information and use their judgement on how to best censor content per Facebook's "constantly-changing rules." 

Moderating content is a difficult job—multiple documentaries, longform investigations, and law articles have noted that moderators work long hours, are exposed to disturbing and graphic content, and have the tough task of determining whether a specific piece of content violates Facebook’s sometimes byzantine and constantly-changing rules. Facebook prides itself on accuracy, and with more than 2 billion users, Facebook’s work force of moderators are asked to review millions of possibly infringing posts every day. -Motherboard

"An outsider might not totally comprehend, we aren't just exposed to the graphic videos—you'll have to watch them closely, often repeatedly, for specific policy signifiers,” one moderation source told Motherboard. “Someone could be being graphically beaten in a video, and you could have to watch it a dozen times, sometimes with others present, while you decide whether the victim's actions would count as self-defense or not, or whether the aggressor is the same person who posted the video." 

The lawsuit also alleges that "Facebook does not provide its content moderators with sufficient training or implement the safety standards it helped develop … Ms. Scola’s PTSD symptoms may be triggered when she touches a computer mouse, enters a cold building, watches violence on television, hears loud noises, or is startled. Her symptoms are also triggered when she recalls or describes graphic imagery she was exposed to as a content moderator."

Facebook told Motherboard that they are "currently reviewing the claim."

"We recognize that this work can often be difficult. That is why we take the support of our content moderators incredibly seriously, starting with their training, the benefits they receive, and ensuring that every person reviewing Facebook content is offered psychological support and wellness resources," the spokesperson said. "Facebook employees receive these in house and we also require companies that we partner with for content review to provide resources and psychological support, including onsite counseling—available at the location where the plaintiff worked—and other wellness resources like relaxation areas at many of our larger facilities."

“This job is not for everyone, candidly, and we recognize that,” Brian Doegan, Facebook’s director of global training, community operations, told Motherboard in June. He said that new hires are gradually exposed to graphic content to “so we don't just radically expose you, but rather we do have a conversation about what it is, and what we're going to be seeing.” 

Doegan said that there are rooms in each office that are designed to help employees de-stress. -Motherboard

"What I admire is that at any point in this role, you have access to counsellors, you have access to having conversations with other people," he said. "There’s actual physical environments where you can go into, if you want to just kind of chillax, or if you want to go play a game, or if you just want to walk away, you know, be by yourself, that support system is pretty robust, and that is consistent across the board."

Read the lawsuit below: 

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