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US Monthly Headline News August 2021
What is McCarthy and Republicans trying to hide?

By Myah Ward

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday threatened to use a future GOP majority to punish companies that comply with the House’s Jan. 6 investigators, warning that “a Republican majority will not forget.”

McCarthy called out Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for what he called “attempts to strong-arm private companies to turn over individuals’ private data.” He asserted that such a forfeiture of information would “put every American with a phone or computer in the crosshairs of a surveillance state run by Democrat politicians.” more...
As Republicans in Wisconsin pursue an unneeded audit, the former House speaker stated plainly that Donald Trump legitimately lost.
By Josephine Harvey

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Monday that it’s clear President Joe Biden won the 2020 election — and that his predecessor Donald Trump’s electoral fraud claims are false — as Republicans in Ryan’s home state push for an unnecessary audit of the vote nearly 10 months later.

“It was not rigged. It was not stolen. Donald Trump lost the election. Joe Biden won the election. It’s really clear,” the former GOP leader said in an interview with WISN 12 News published Tuesday. more...
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent

(CNN) The US military negotiated a secret arrangement with the Taliban that resulted in Taliban members escorting groups of Americans to the gates of the Kabul airport as they sought to escape Afghanistan, according to two defense officials. One of the officials also revealed that US special operations forces set up a "secret gate" at the airport and established "call centers" to guide Americans through the evacuation process. more...
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — The levees, floodwalls and floodgates that protect New Orleans held up against Hurricane Ida's fury, passing their toughest test since the federal government spent billions of dollars to upgrade a system that catastrophically failed when Hurricane Katrina struck 16 years ago.

But strengthening the flood protection system in New Orleans couldn't spare some neighboring communities from Ida's destructive storm surge. Many residents of LaPlace, a western suburb where work only recently began on a long-awaited levee project, had to be rescued from rising floodwaters. more...
"If there were complete public co-operation, a combined offensive of the whole community would soon stamp out the evil," the San Francisco Chronicle wrote of the 1918 flu pandemic.
Dan MacGuill

During the 1918 flu pandemic, a newspaper advised readers to "Wear your masks, take no chances." In August 2021, a widely shared tweet pointed to advice about mask wearing given during the 1918 influenza pandemic, and highlighted its relevance for those living through the COVID-19 pandemic, more than a century later. more...
In this special investigation, Snopes found that the apparent QAnon believer livestreamed to Facebook Live the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
By Jordan Liles

Republican Tina Forte is running in 2022 to claim the New York seat in Congress currently held by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, is a Democrat. During a recent investigation into QAnon activity on Facebook, our research led us to social media accounts managed by Forte, which included heavy promotion of the deadly Jan. 6 “Save America” rally, the event that resulted in the Capitol riot that left law enforcement officers bloodied. Five people died just before, during, or after the riot, and dozens were injured. more...
By Barbara Starr and Paul LeBlanc, CNN

Washington (CNN) The ISIS-K planner targeted by a US drone strike in Afghanistan was believed to be "associated with potential future attacks at the airport," a US defense official told CNN Saturday. The US located him and "had sufficient eyes on and sufficient knowledge" to strike, the official said, adding that he "was a known entity" but that the US is not calling him a "senior" ISIS-K operative. more...
The teacher, who reported attending social functions from May 13-16, became symptomatic on Agence France-Presse

Washington: An unvaccinated teacher at an elementary school in California spread the coronavirus to at least 26 other people, including 12 students in their classroom, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday.

The health agency said the case highlights the importance of vaccinating school staff in order to protect young children who are not yet eligible for vaccines, as schools reopen amid a new nationwide surge driven by the ultra-contagious Delta variant. The CDC said the incident took place in Marin County, a suburb of San Francisco. more...
The Republican Party is the party of the KKK they are using the same tactics the KKK used to prevent people of color from voting.

Benjamin Swasey

Months of partisan battles in Texas concluded late Thursday as Republican House members passed new voting restrictions, moving the legislation closer to the governor's desk. The vote in the Texas House on the nearly 50-page bill, SB1, was 79-37 (mostly on party lines) and follows historic efforts by Democrats to block it. more...
Thousands of companies using Azure warned that their data has been exposed for years
By Thomas Ricker

Microsoft has warned thousands of its Azure cloud computing customers, including many Fortune 500 companies, about a vulnerability that left their data completely exposed for the last two years. A flaw in Microsoft’s Azure Cosmos DB database product left more than 3,300 Azure customers open to complete unrestricted access by attackers. The vulnerability was introduced in 2019 when Microsoft added a data visualization feature called Jupyter Notebook to Cosmos DB. The feature was turned on by default for all Cosmos DBs in February 2021. A listing of Azure Cosmos DB clients includes companies like Coca Cola, Liberty Mutual Insurance, ExxonMobil, and Walgreens, to name just a few. more...
The former president minimized the now-deceased terrorist just a couple weeks before the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and the same day a dozen Americans were killed in Kabul.
Justin Baragona

On the same morning that at least 12 U.S. service members were killed in a bloody terror attack in Kabul, former President Donald Trump suggested Osama bin Laden wasn’t a big deal and only “had one hit.”

Calling into conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show on Thursday morning, Trump doubled down on his recent claims that the Taliban wouldn’t have quickly taken over Afghanistan following American troop withdrawal if he were still in charge. (Trump negotiated the original peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020, which included a May 1 withdrawal date and the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners.) more...
By Whitney Wild and Chandelis Duster, CNN

(CNN) Seven US Capitol Police officers are suing former President Donald Trump, Stop the Steal rally organizers and members of far-right extremist groups, accusing them of spreading lies, using White supremacist sentiments to attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and ultimately bearing responsibility for the riot that injured more than 140 officers on January 6.

"Plaintiffs and their fellow law enforcement officers risked their lives to defend the Capitol from a violent, mass attack — an attack provoked, aided, and joined by Defendants in an unlawful effort to use force, intimidation, and threats to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 Presidential election," says the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in US District Court for the District of Columbia. more...
WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7

A man upset over state-ordered coronavirus restrictions has been sentenced to just over six years in prison for planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.  Ty Garbin apologized and was sentenced Wednesday. video...
Alana Wise

Nine attorneys aligned with former President Donald Trump who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging Michigan's 2020 presidential election results will have to pay financial penalties and face other punitive actions for their legal effort, a district court judge ruled on Wednesday.

"This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process," U.S. District Judge Linda Parker wrote in her scathing decision on the case. more...
The documents shed further light on the intelligence failures by the Capitol Police in the days before the riot.
By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN and NICHOLAS WU

Just a day before the Jan. 6 riot, the Secret Service warned the U.S. Capitol Police that their officers could face violence at the hands of supporters of former President Donald Trump, according to new documents reviewed by POLITICO.

The Secret Service’s emails shed light on intelligence lapses by the Capitol Police previously highlighted by both the department’s inspector general and a bipartisan report by Senate committees. Since then, the Hill's law enforcement agency has pledged reform and said it has made changes to ensure the effective sharing of intelligence. more...
Graphic body camera video kept secret for more than two years shows a Louisiana State trooper pummeling a Black motorist 18 times with a flashlight — an attack the trooper defended as “pain compliance.”
By JAKE BLEIBERG and JIM MUSTIAN Associated Press

MONROE, La. -- Graphic body camera video kept secret for more than two years shows a Louisiana State Police trooper pummeling a Black motorist 18 times with a flashlight — an attack the trooper defended as “pain compliance.”

“I’m not resisting! I'm not resisting!” Aaron Larry Bowman can be heard screaming between blows on the footage obtained by The Associated Press. The May 2019 beating following a traffic stop left him with a broken jaw, three broken ribs, a broken wrist and a gash to his head that required six staples to close. more...
By Brian Fung and Chandelis Duster, CNN

(CNN) The Federal Communications Commission proposed a record-breaking $5 million fine against right-wing political operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman on Tuesday, after an investigation by the agency found that the two men appeared to have violated US robocalling laws.

The decision, which is not yet final, follows charges by Michigan's attorney general last year linked to hundreds of robocalls allegedly created by Wohl and Burkman and designed to discourage voting in the 2020 election. The robocalls allegedly warned listeners that voters' personal information would be used against them by credit card companies and police departments. more...
The Trump Organization has more than $590 million of debt coming due within the next four years
By Tom Boggioni

According to a report from Intelligencer's Eve Peyser, former president Donald Trump is juggling a multitude of schemes to raise much-needed cash since leaving office with a mountain of debt looming in his very near future.

A report from Bloomberg (subscription required) in July stated that "The Trump Organization has more than $590 million of debt coming due within the next four years with more than half personally guaranteed by Trump. This includes $100 million on Trump Tower in Manhattan maturing next year and $125 million due in 2023 for the Trump Doral golf resort near Miami," and that the former president is unlikely to find a financial partner willing to help him refinance his debt load. more...
Republicans did not want to impeach Trump when he abandon our Kurdish allies in Syria, but want to impeach Biden. Unlike Trump, Biden has not violated any laws.

CNN

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham remained a loyal ally to former President Donald Trump throughout both of Trump’s impeachments, but now Graham says he wants to impeach President Joe Biden for his approach to the drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan. In the latest episode of The Point, CNN’s Chris Cillizza explores Graham’s blind loyalty to Trump and how it’s still affecting his political moves. video...
Why should Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott have all the fun?
By Bess Levin

Over the past few months there’s been a lot of focus on the COVID situations in Florida and Texas, and for good reason: Not only are cases surging in those states, but their respective governors, Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, are seemingly doing everything in their powers to ensure their constituents contract the highly contagious virus, from banning local mask mandates to insane new rules like the one wherein Texas schools no longer have to conduct contact tracing or let parents know if a student has tested positive. more...
Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) won’t change his tune, even as his home state has run out of ICU beds in the latest surge of cases.
Emily Shugerman | Gender Reporter

Contracting COVID-19 isn’t stopping U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) from protesting mask mandates, even as his home state has run out of ICU beds in the latest pandemic wave. “I just don’t believe in mandates from the federal government,” Moore told The Daily Beast from his farm in Enterprise, Alabama on Saturday. “If I died of COVID yesterday, I wouldn’t want to force my beliefs and opinions on anyone.” more...
Dan Patrick refuses to apologise for false claim while Texas experiences highest hospitalisation rates since January
Martin Pengelly

Dan Patrick, the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas, has refused to apologise for blaming rising Covid-19 hospitalisations and deaths on unvaccinated African Americans, comments one Black Houston official called “racist and flat out wrong”. Doubling down on his remarks to Fox News, Patrick blamed “Democrat social media trolls” and said “Democrats continue to play politics with people’s lives”. Sylvester Turner, the Democratic mayor of Houston, who is African American, said Patrick’s comments were “offensive and should not be ignored”. more...
CNN

CNN's Laura Coates and Dr. Cedric Dark discuss Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's false claim during a recent interview on Fox News that Black people were to blame for the recent wave of coronavirus cases. video...  
Stunning charges against a top donor and the state GOP chair’s resignation have left the party in turmoil.
By DAVID SIDERS and PAUL DEMKO

Less than a year ago, Minnesota looked every bit a swing state. Donald Trump was pouring millions of dollars into his campaign there, after nearly flipping the state in 2016, Republicans were making inroads in the ancestrally Democratic Iron Range. In the Twin Cities suburbs, nervous Democrats feared protests following the police murder of George Floyd could turn some voters to the GOP.

That all fell apart with Joe Biden’s victory in November. And nine months later, the resignation of the Minnesota Republican Party’s embattled chair, Jennifer Carnahan, on Thursday night marked a new low for a state party in decline. more...
Kelsey Vlamis

A former national security official blamed the Trump administration and Stephen Miller's "racist hysteria" for impeding the visa application process for Afghans who worked with the US.

Olivia Troye worked as the homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. In a Twitter thread Friday, she blasted the Trump administration for its handling of the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) programs that provide a path to US residency for locals who worked with the US government in Afghanistan. more...
Bob Brigham

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick attacked Black Texans to deflect from criticism of GOP attacks on public health measures. "Well, Laura," Patrick said to Fox News personality Laura Ingraham, "The COVID is spreading, particularly — most of the numbers are with the unvaccinated." more...
By Mallory Simon, Leyla Santiago and Sara Weisfeldt, CNN

(CNN) The Florida State Board of Education has sent an order to Broward and Alachua counties' school board officials stating that they have 48 hours to comply with the state's wishes to allow an opt-out option for masks or the state will begin withholding funds, according to copies of the orders shown to CNN.

If the school districts do not comply and continue to keep their mask mandates in place, the districts will start facing financial penalties. The state is requesting a list of the annual salaries of all board members, and the State Board of Education will then begin withholding 1/12th of that amount each month from the district's funds, according to the document. more...
Vanessa Romo

The confrontation between authorities and a man who pulled up next to the Library of Congress claiming to have a bomb in his truck ended with his surrender on Thursday afternoon.

It took hours of negotiations and at least three law enforcement agencies — the U.S. Capitol Police, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — to persuade Floyd Ray Roseberry to stop ranting about a "revolution" and to turn himself over to authorities. more...
“Tell us you stand with the terrorist without telling us you stand with the terrorist,” a Democratic colleague responded.
By Dartunorro Clark

Fellow House members criticized Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., after he released a statement Thursday that appeared to be sympathetic to the man police had arrested earlier in the day in connection with a bomb threat near the U.S. Capitol.

“Although this terrorist’s motivation is not yet publicly known, and generally speaking, I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial Socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society,” Brooks tweeted. “The way to stop Socialism’s march is for patriotic Americans to fight back in the 2022 and 2024 election.” more...
Packet capture expert Bill Alderson says he's proven Mike Lindell wrong — but the pillow magnate won't pay up
By Brett Bachman

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is scrambling to defend his claims of election fraud after a cybersecurity expert demanded his cut of the $5 million reward Lindell had promised to anyone who could disprove the accuracy of his alleged election data.

Bill Alderson is a longtime cybersecurity professional specializing in packet captures — the exact type of data Lindell claimed to be in possession of — and attended the pillow maven's "cyber symposium out of a legitimate desire to "discover the truth." A longtime Republican, Alderson said he supported Donald Trump in 2020 and told Lindell when he was invited to the event, "I'd love to prove you right." Only, he couldn't. more...
Brian Schwartz

It was supposed to be a celebration for a movement that opposes the Chinese Communist Party.

Instead, the swanky private party, held in June at the top of One World Trade Center, served as a platform for several of former President Donald Trump’s allies, including former advisor Steve Bannon and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, to spew anti-government rhetoric and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

The invitation-only event was hosted by a couple of shadowy nonprofits, the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society. They are linked to Guo Wengui, a wealthy exiled businessman from China who is an ardent opponent of that nation’s ruling Communist Party. more...
By Marshall Cohen and Hannah Rabinowitz

(CNN) The sentencing for one of the January 6 US Capitol rioters was abruptly postponed Wednesday after new videos emerged of the man allegedly fighting with police, an unexpected twist in the case because prosecutors hadn't previously accused him of committing violence that day.

Robert Reeder of Maryland was charged in February with four misdemeanors. He pleaded guilty to unlawfully demonstrating inside the Capitol and was set to be sentenced on Wednesday afternoon, with prosecutors asking for two months in jail, partially due to his lack of remorse.  more...
DeSantis is sanctioning schools for protecting students and teachers. Instead of protecting students and teachers, DeSantis is putting them at risk.

The DeSantis administration contends the Alachua and Broward county public schools do not allow parents to opt their children out of the mask mandate.
By Allan Smith

The Florida Board of Education voted Tuesday to sanction two public school districts for defying Gov. Ron DeSantis' order banning mask mandates in schools. The actual penalties by the board, which comprises DeSantis appointees, are yet to be determined, but the votes marked the first punishments for districts that chose to mandate masks amid a surge in Covid cases from the delta variant of the coronavirus as the school year gets underway. The DeSantis administration contends that the Alachua and Broward county public school districts do not allow parents to freely opt their children out of the mask mandate, instead requiring doctor's notes for students to bypass masking. more...
By Melody Gutierrez, Faith E. Pinho

SACRAMENTO — Republicans hoping to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election focused their criticism on the Democratic governor and a leading replacement candidate who both declined to join them at a Tuesday debate, which included a moment of spectacle in which one hopeful was served with a subpoena on stage.

Just three of the 46 candidates running to replace Newsom in the Sept. 14 election participated in Tuesday’s debate at Sacramento’s Guild Theater, though seven were invited — former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox and Assemblyman Kevin Kiley of Rocklin. more...
By Alexandra Meeks and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN

(CNN) A Republican candidate challenging California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in the upcoming state recall election was served with a subpoena while onstage during a debate Tuesday. Video of the awkward moment shows John Cox being served court documents during his opening remarks of the debate at the Guild Theater in Sacramento, California. "John Cox, you've been served (by the) San Diego Superior Court, ordered by the judge," a man yelled, throwing the documents onstage. The man, identified as a private investigator by The Los Angeles Times, was asked to leave shortly after, video shows. Cox continued speaking despite the interruption. more...
By Adam Brewster

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced on Tuesday. Abbott is fully vaccinated and so far is experiencing no symptoms. "The Governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result," Abbott's communications director Mark Miner said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently. The Governor will isolate in the Governor's Mansion and continue to test daily." more...
By ZEKE MILLER, JONATHAN LEMIRE, and JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and other top U.S. officials were stunned on Sunday by the pace of the Taliban’s nearly complete takeover of Afghanistan, as the planned withdrawal of American forces urgently became a mission to ensure a safe evacuation. The speed of the Afghan government’s collapse and the ensuing chaos posed the most serious test of Biden as commander in chief, and he was the subject of withering criticism from Republicans who said that he had failed. Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in international relations and has spent months downplaying the prospect of an ascendant Taliban while arguing that Americans of all political persuasions have tired of a 20-year war, a conflict that demonstrated the limits of money and military might to force a Western-style democracy on a society not ready or willing to embrace it. more...
Shortly after arresting GOP strategist Anton Lazzaro for underage sex trafficking, police say they’ve caught up with his 19-year-old associate, who now faces the same charges.
Jose Pagliery

Law enforcement in Florida has arrested Gisela Castro Medina, a 19-year-old accused of helping a wealthy, young Republican strategist in Minnesota prey on girls and recruit them for paid sex. She faces the same criminal charges as her alleged pal, GOP operative Anton Lazzaro: sex trafficking of a minor, attempt to commit sex trafficking, and obstruction of justice. Both hail from Minnesota. But while the FBI arrested Lazzaro in Minneapolis on Thursday morning, jail records show that law enforcement caught up with Castro Medina that same evening in the Florida panhandle. She was labeled a “fugitive from justice” and jailed overnight, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department. more...
Newt Gingrich, Stephen Miller, Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene, among others, all keep alluding to the same vicious, violent idea.
Wajahat Ali

The hoods are off, and Republicans are embracing the white supremacist “replacement theory.” If you’re dismissing this as fear-mongering or click-bait, you probably missed Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and renowned adulterer, espousing replacement theory rhetoric on Fox News earlier this week while talking to host Maria Baritromo, who always has time to offer a platform to dangerous conspiracy peddling. Speaking about Mexican immigrants coming to America during the pandemic, Gingrich said the “radical left” wants to “get rid of the rest of us” and would “love to drown traditional, classic Americans with as many people as they can who know nothing of American history, nothing of American tradition, nothing of the rule of law.” more...
Jane C. Timm and Char Adams and Suzanne Gamboa

The Census Bureau is set to release the long-awaited data states need to draw new voting maps Thursday, kicking off what advocates fear will be the most hectic, contentious redistricting cycle yet. The detailed, local-level population results arrive months behind schedule thanks to Covid-related delays, which means the notoriously complex and sometimes secretive process of determining congressional district boundaries will happen more quickly as states try to finish before the end of the year. It's a once-a-decade undertaking coinciding with the decennial census, a population count that decides everything from congressional representation to the distribution of federal aid. more...
Authorities say Matthew Taylor Coleman confessed to murdering his two young children in Mexico and told investigators he thought they would "grow into monsters."
By Doha Madani, Andrew Blankstein and Ben Collins

A California surfing school owner who was charged with killing his two children in Mexico is a follower of QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories who thought the children "were going to grow into monsters so he had to kill them," federal officials alleged. Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, was charged Wednesday with foreign murder of U.S. nationals in connection with the death of his 2-year-old son and his 10-month-old daughter, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Authorities said Coleman confessed to the killings and told the FBI that he used a spear fishing gun to stab them. more...
The suspension was “a badge of honor," Paul tweeted.
By Rebecca Shabad

WASHINGTON — YouTube suspended Sen. Rand Paul's account on Tuesday for posting a video claiming cloth face masks are ineffective against the coronavirus. “A badge of honor ... leftwing cretins at Youtube banning me for 7 days for a video that quotes 2 peer reviewed articles saying cloth masks don’t work,” Paul, R-Ky., tweeted. Paul falsely claimed in the removed video, “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection," adding that “cloth masks don’t work." more...
By Erica Orden and Kara Scannell, CNN

New York (CNN) New York federal prosecutors came to suspect the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, lied in testimony during their investigation of former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen three years ago, according to four people familiar with prosecutors' thinking. Despite their suspicions, federal prosecutors did not pursue perjury charges against Weisselberg, but his past interactions with them could now become relevant to the Manhattan district attorney's office as it seeks his cooperation in a tax fraud case brought against Weisselberg and the company last month. As that investigation proceeds, all eyes are on whether Weisselberg might flip against his longtime boss, former President Donald Trump. more...
By Clare Foran and Daniella Diaz, CNN

(CNN) Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by Democrats to advance their signature voting and elections overhaul bill in the early hours of Wednesday morning. This was an effort by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats in the chamber to put Republicans on the record on the voting rights package and to demonstrate that they are still trying to pass it despite stiff GOP opposition, a priority for the party and the Biden administration. Democratic senators have argued that the legislation is a necessary counter to state-level efforts to restrict voting access, but Republicans have decried it as a partisan power grab and a federal overreach into voting and elections. more...
Reuters

Google employees could see changes in pay if they switch to working from home permanently, with long commuters hit harder, according to a company pay calculator seen by Reuters. video...
By Kathryn Watson

When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's resignation becomes effective in two weeks, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will replace him as the state's first female governor. Cuomo, a Democrat, announced his impending resignation Tuesday, with his eventual impeachment seeming all but certain in the wake of a New York attorney general report that found he sexually harassed 11 women. Cuomo denied acting inappropriately, but said he would step down to "let government get back to governing." more...
The voting machine company filed suits against Newsmax, OAN, and Patrick Byrne.
By Olivia Rubin

Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday morning filed three $1.6 billion defamation lawsuits against two pro-Trump media networks and an outspoken Trump ally, the latest in a string of suits from the company against those it says pushed false accusations that the company helped rig the 2020 election. The complaints were filed against Newsmax and One America News Network, as well as against former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who is an outspoken supporter of the former president. more...
Jayme Fraser, Mike Stucka | USA TODAY

Most Florida children are returning to school in areas where COVID-19 outbreaks are far more intense than they were when school started last year. In most counties, cases are at least four times higher than a year ago, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. Five counties report a more than tenfold increase. Cases among children are surging, too, raising questions about the health consequences of students returning to campuses and a state ban on school mask mandates while vaccines are available for only some of the schoolchildren. more...
Dan Mangan

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday he will resign effective in two weeks because of a sexual harassment scandal that has crippled his administration. Cuomo’s shock announcement in a live stream from his Manhattan office came minutes after his lawyer during her own statement to reporters again flatly denied claims that he had sexually harassed anyone during the Democrat’s three terms in office. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat from Buffalo who will turn 63 this month, will replace Cuomo, and become the Empire State’s first female governor. more...
Amanda Macias

WASHINGTON – Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday filed defamation suits against One America News Network, Herring Networks’ Newsmax Media and the founder and former CEO of Overstock.com over claims by the defendants that the company rigged the 2020 U.S. election for President Joe Biden. Also named in the complaint are OAN personalities Chanel Rion and Christina Bobb, and Herring Networks owners Robert Herring and Charles Herring. OAN didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. more...
Lies and more lies from the party of lies and alternative facts.

By Barry Saunders

One of my favorite bumper stickers — and a personal philosophy — says If at first you don’t succeed – blame whoever ain’t here. That seems to be the motto of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders when it comes to the resurgence of COVID-19 and its variant strains. The re-emergence of a new strain of the disease that a few short months ago seemed en route to eradication couldn’t possibly have anything to do with their refusal to follow CDC guidelines and implement mask mandates or, with some, discouraging people on vaccinations, could it? more...
Ron DeSantis is putting American lives at risk.

Cheryl Teh

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is threatening to withhold school board members' salaries who dare to defy his mask ban. The governor's threat follows an executive order he signed on July 31, saying that mask mandates are prohibited in Florida schools. The executive order went into effect immediately and noted that schools run the risk of losing funding if they choose to impose face-covering requirements. Now DeSantis is taking it a step further. On August 9, he released a statement to local CBS affiliate CBS Miami, saying that school board members and superintendents who defy his executive order will face "financial consequences." more...
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) A burst of new disclosures exposing the extraordinary efforts by ex-President Donald Trump to steal power after his election defeat constitute a grave warning about the future and his potential bid to recapture the White House. The audacity of the former President's attempts to subvert the law by weaponizing the Justice Department not only underscores how close the United States came to a full blown constitutional crisis this year. It also emphasizes that any attempt by Trump to use a war chest already worth $100 million to try to recapture the White House in 2024 would represent a mortal threat to democracy and the rule of law from a leader who was undeterred even by his own first impeachment. New revelations emerging from Senate testimony, about a Trump Justice Department loyalist's alleged behind-the-scenes efforts to call into question elections in states the ex-President lost, also render the continued GOP whitewashing of history about Trump's crimes against the Constitution even more blatant and dangerous. more...
By Devan Cole, CNN

Washington (CNN) Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin said Sunday that former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen revealed in testimony this weekend "frightening" information about what had occurred at the Justice Department during the waning days of the Trump administration. "He told us a lot, seven hours of testimony. And I might quickly add: this was done on a bipartisan basis -- Democratic staff and Republican legal staff asking questions during this period of time," Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" of the panel's interview with the former DOJ official. "It really is important that we ask these questions, because what was going on in the Department of Justice was frightening from a constitutional point of view," he added. "To think that (former Attorney General) Bill Barr left, resigned after he announced he didn't see irregularities in the election, and then his replacement was under extraordinary pressure -- the President of the United States, even to the point where they were talking about replacing him, that pressure was on."  more...
Basil John

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — Nearly 20 years later, family members of the thousands of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America still have questions about what happened. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) says it’s time to tell Americans the whole story about the 9/11 attacks. “The American people deserve the truth,” Blumenthal said. more...
Florida School Districts want to protect our children and teachers while Ron DeSantis wants to put them at risk.

Joe Hernandez

A battle is brewing in Florida over whether students will have to wear masks when they return to the classroom this fall. Several Florida school districts are keeping their mask mandates in place for the upcoming school year, despite an executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis that leaves it up to parents to decide whether their children wear face coverings in school. School boards that don't eliminate mask mandates could face the loss of state funding. South Florida's Broward County Public Schools, the second-largest district in Florida, cited safety as its top priority announcing the decision to maintain its mask requirement pending further guidance from the state as coronavirus cases surge in Florida. more...
Alexander Nazaryan·National Correspondent | Yahoo News

WASHINGTON — With only weeks before schools reopen in much of the country, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said Thursday at the White House that while the Delta variant of the coronavirus is “providing new challenges,” he still anticipates a return to in-class instruction. “We expect our students to be in the classroom every day," Cardona said from the White House Briefing Room, as he and other administration officials embark on a campaign to convince the American public that schools are safe. To do that, he will have to keep powerful teachers' unions in line while persuading Republican governors like Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas to allow school districts to impose mask mandates. Both governors have strenuously resisted such measures, even as their states are pummeled by the Delta variant. more...
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

(CNN) President Donald Trump -- back in the final days of his presidency -- didn't exactly make a secret of his effort to overturn the election he'd just lost and so it's very easy to get tired of thinking about it, now that he's out of office and his official powers have been clipped. But in addition to the lies he was spreading all along, we continue to learn new and disturbing details about his obstinate and pernicious efforts to poison the system from within, which included an "Apprentice"-style showdown between two top Justice Department officials at the White House and threats of resignation. more...
By Marshall Cohen, Jason Morris and Christopher Hickey, CNN

Washington (CNN) – Prosecutors in Georgia are still investigating whether former President Donald Trump broke any laws when he tried to overturn his 2020 defeat in the hotly contested state. The probe ramped up earlier this year, with a grand jury convening in Atlanta. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said the criminal investigation includes potential “solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.” more...
Some party leaders blamed the former president in the charged moments after the insurrection – but are now embarking on a campaign of revisionism
Hugo Lowell

Top Republicans in Congress are embarking on a new campaign of revisionism seven months after the attack on the Capitol, absolving Donald Trump of responsibility and blaming the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for the 6 January insurrection perpetrated by a mob of Trump supporters. Some House and Senate Republican leaders stated in the charged moments immediately following the attack that Trump was squarely to blame, and amid blood and shattered glass at the US Capitol, some even considered his removal. “The president bears responsibility,” the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said of Trump at the time, demanding that he “accept his share of responsibility”. more...
H. Scott Apley’s Facebook page was filled with anti-mask, anti-vaccine content until he was suddenly hospitalized on Sunday.
Justin Rohrlich

A GOP official from Texas who regularly espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask views online has died from COVID-19, five days after posting a meme on Facebook questioning the wisdom of getting inoculated against COVID. Dickinson City Council member and State Republican Executive Committee member H. Scott Apley, 45, died in a local hospital around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help Apley’s family with expenses. He was admitted to the facility in Galveston on Sunday with “pneumonia-like symptoms,” and was hooked up to a ventilator as his condition worsened. His wife was also infected, the family said. more...
By Tierney Sneed and Sonia Moghe, CNN

(CNN) The New York attorney general's investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo found that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday. The office found that Cuomo harassed current and former state employees, as well as a number of women outside of state government, James said, as the office released a lengthy report on the investigation. James said Tuesday that her investigation found that Cuomo engaged in "unwelcome and nonconsensual touching," and made comments of a "suggestive" sexual nature. James said that the conduct created a "hostile work environment for women." Cuomo's conduct violated multiple federal and state laws, James said. more...
Gov. Bill Lee, who grew up on his family's ranch and refers to himself as a cattle farmer in his Twitter profile, has been far less enthusiastic about incentivizing herd immunity among humans.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee has sent nearly half a million dollars to farmers who have vaccinated their cattle against respiratory diseases and other maladies over the past two years. But Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who grew up on his family's ranch and refers to himself as a cattle farmer in his Twitter profile, has been far less enthusiastic about incentivizing herd immunity among humans. Even though Tennessee has among the lowest vaccination rates in the country, Lee has refused to follow the lead of other states that have offered enticements for people to get the potentially life-saving Covid-19 vaccine. more...
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) Donald Trump now has a $100 million weapon to wield against US democracy. The defeated and disgraced ex-President's huge war chest, nearly all amassed within six months of leaving office, was built on his ravenous calls for cash from supporters bought into his delusional lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It is the latest sign, along with trips to win his favor by GOP candidates and his party's incessant efforts to wipe the history of his crimes against the Constitution, that Trump's threat to basic political freedoms is far from over. more...
How long will it last?
Economist.com

TROUBLE IS BREWING in America. The reopening economy’s hunger for goods from China, and for the containers that carry them, has left importers of coffee, of which the average American guzzles two cups a day, struggling to ship the stuff from Brazil. They are using whatever they can get, says Janine Mansour of Port of New Orleans, where much of America’s raw coffee lands. That includes much bigger boxes, which reach the maximum allowed weight before they are full. Importing part-empty containers adds extra costs, Ms Mansour says, and these will ultimately be swallowed by consumers. more...
The ex-president has built an arsenal of groups staffed with ex-officials and loyalists seemingly aimed at sustaining his political hopes for a comeback
Peter Stone

Donald Trump’s penchant for turning his political and legal troubles into fundraising schemes has long been recognized, but the former US president’s money hustling tricks seem to have expanded since his defeat by Joe Biden, prompting new scrutiny and criticism from campaign finance watchdogs and legal analysts. Critics note Trump has built an arsenal of political committees and nonprofit groups, staffed with dozens of ex-administration officials and loyalists, which seem aimed at sustaining his political hopes for a comeback, and exacting revenge on Republican congressional critics. These groups have been aggressive in raising money through at times misleading appeals to the party base which polls show share Trump’s false views he lost the White House due to fraud. more...
By Christina Zhao

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber blamed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after the state reported 21,683 new COVID-19 cases Saturday, its highest single-day total during the ongoing pandemic. "We're not allowed to have mask mandates now, we were one of the first cities to require it and we charged a fine just to get people to do it. The governor stopped allowing us to do it and then immediately we saw a surge across our county and state when he did that," Gelber told CNN. The Democratic mayor said city officials are "trying to do everything we can to get around the governor's very wrong-headed desires." more...
Andrew Solender Forbes Staff

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Thursday shot down the idea of creating a carve-out to the Senate filibuster for voting rights bills after a meeting with Democratic state lawmakers from Texas who are in Washington, D.C., to protest a voting restrictions bill in their state, effectively killing a proposal that has gained steam among even some Democratic leaders in recent weeks. more...
Analysis by John Blake, CNN

(CNN) If you're trying to figure out why so many conservatives despise critical race theory, here's some historical context you should remember: White conservatives oppose critical race theory -- only when it's applied to Black people. But many have no problem adopting some of CRT's language and core insights when complaining that contemporary America discriminates against White people. This is the audacious double standard that's often overlooked in the current debate over critical race theory. Many White conservatives roll their eyes when Black people claim that systemic racism exists, that racism is baked into the nation's policies and legal system, and that it can't be reduced to individual prejudice -- all key CRT concepts. more...
By Independent TV

Jamie Raskin corners GOP congressman who said Capitol rioters looked like normal tourists in fiery clash. Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin cornered GOP Georgia congressman Andrew Clyde, calling him out on his statement that some Capitol rioters looked like tourists, in a heated exchange. During a hearing of the rules committee in the House on Tuesday night, Mr Raskin brought up Mr Clyde’s statement from May, in which he said that if you looked at the footage from 6 January, “you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit”. more...
Anger as top US Republican jokes about hitting Pelosi
Yahoo!News

The top Republican in the US House of Representatives faced calls to apologize or resign Sunday after joking about hitting speaker Nancy Pelosi in the head with a gavel. It was the latest round in a nasty spat between the Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Pelosi, the chamber's top Democrat.  Last week Pelosi called her Republican counterpart a "moron" for opposing mask mandates to fight the Covid-19 pandemic as the Delta variant causes a surge in cases in America.  At a fundraising dinner Saturday night in Tennessee, McCarthy spoke with optimism about prospects for his party retaking the House in mid-term elections next year. more...
Florida Sets Daily Record for Entire Pandemic With 21,683 New COVID-19 Cases
By Daniel Politi

Florida reported 21,683 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest number than any previous day during the coronavirus pandemic. The record numbers were recorded on Friday and released Saturday. The state’s previous record had been set on Jan. 7, when 19,334 cases were reported in what was the worst month of the pandemic. Over the past week, Florida experienced a 50 percent weekly increase in new infections, with 110,477 cases from July 23 to July 29. Now it’s looking like the second half of July could likely be the start of the third COVID-19 peak for Florida “as the case numbers reported Thursday (17,589), Friday (17,093) and Saturday mix in with Jan. 6-8 to comprise the top six individual case count days,” notes the Miami Herald. more...

Capitol riot police officer: 'I was at risk of being killed with my own firearm' – video
Martin Pengelly

Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the House select committee investigating the US Capitol assault, will support subpoenas for testimony from Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, and senior members of the congressional GOP including Jim Jordan, a prominent Trump ally from Ohio. Donald Trump’s pressure on federal and state officials to overturn his national defeat and state losses to Biden has been well documented. “I would support subpoenas to anybody that can shed light” on events on 6 January, Kinzinger said on Sunday, on ABC’s This Week. “If that’s the leader, that’s the leader; if it’s anybody that talked to the president that can provide us that information.” He also suggested a subpoena for Donald Trump himself was unlikely, given the continuing circus around the former president and Trump’s habit of lying. more...
Martin Pengelly

Donald Trump insisted on Saturday that when he told senior justice department officials to “Just say that the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me”, he was not attempting to subvert US democracy, but to “uphold the integrity and honesty of elections and the sanctity of our vote”. Trump at a rally in Sarasota earlier this month. Trump has fought hard to keep his tax returns from public view. The former president’s restatement of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud came a day after Washington was rocked by news of his December call with acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue, a senior DoJ official. Trump’s pressure on federal and state officials to overturn his national defeat and state losses to Biden has been well documented. Cases mounted by his campaign claiming electoral fraud were repeatedly thrown out of court. more...
Andrew Solender Forbes Staff

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Sunday said there is “no doubt” former President Donald Trump instigated the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, making her one of just a handful of Republicans still willing to highlight Trump’s culpability in the incident. more...
By Scott Wong

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday repeated his claims that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats should be faulted for the violent insurrection carried out by a pro-Trump mob. It's an argument McCarthy and Republicans have kept going back to this week as four police officers have publicly called them out for not accepting responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack, which led to five deaths and 140 officers injured. The four officers testified on Tuesday that reckless words and actions by former President Trump and his GOP allies were to blame for the Jan. 6 attack. more...
Many Republicans don't see the difference between Democrats, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger. It says a lot about the state of the contemporary GOP.
By Steve Benen

It's been a couple of days since the bipartisan House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack held a gripping hearing, hearing testimony from police officers who shared their terrifying experiences during the insurrectionist riot. For most congressional Republicans, the hearing was irrelevant and better left ignored. What rank-and-file GOP lawmakers cared far more about was the members of their conference who participated in the process. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) invited Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) to serve on the investigatory panel, and the House Republicans agreed. more...
By Adam Schrader For Dailymail.Com, Reuters

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert reportedly threw a COVID-19 mask at a House staffer who tried to hand her one after Congress reinstated its face covering mandate. The Colorado lawmaker, who has publicly opposed vaccines and downplayed the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, tossed the mask into the face of a Democratic congressional staffer on Wednesday, Politico and ABC News reported. more...
Analysis by John Blake, CNN

(CNN) There comes a point in every awful horror movie where a character does something so careless and shortsighted a viewer loses faith in the storyteller. There's the hapless victim who can't flee from the monster without falling, the stubborn homeowner who won't move out of a haunted house, and my favorite: the person who walks toward, not away, from a sinister noise at night while asking, "Hello, is anyone there?" As I watch some Democrats handle the voting rights issue, I'm seeing a replay of a 19th-century political horror story. It ended with Black voters losing faith in the leaders who were supposed to protect them. President Biden has called voting rights "the single most important" issue and described a wave of voter restriction bills recently passed by Republican legislatures across the US as "Jim Crow on steroids." more...
He doesn't believe lockdowns are likely to return, however.
By Molly Nagle

As the country grapples with a surge in the delta variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci believes that lockdowns the country saw last year are likely to not return, though he warned "things will get worse" during an interview on ABC's "This Week." "I don't think we're gonna see lockdowns. I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country -- not enough to crush the outbreak -- but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter. But things are going to get worse," the nation's top infectious disease expert told "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday. more...
By David Williams, CNN

(CNN) Payten McCall, 24, and her family were afraid to get vaccinated, but now she's urging people not to make that mistake after losing her oldest brother and her dad to Covid-19. Her dad, Mark McCall, 60, died early Friday morning in the Covid ward of a Jacksonville, Florida, hospital where her mom, Sherry McCall, 58, was also being treated for the virus. "It has been one of the most, roughest and hardest experiences that I have ever had to go through in my whole life and I would never, ever wish this on anybody in their family," McCall told CNN. "I mean, I wish it wasn't me, but I sure wouldn't wish it on anybody." more...
The competition’s winners will be announced at Def Con
By Mitchell Clark

Twitter is holding a competition in hopes that hackers and researchers will be able to identify biases in its image cropping algorithm — and it’s going to be handing out cash prizes to winning teams (via Engadget). Twitter is hoping that giving teams access to its code and image cropping model will let them find ways that the algorithm could be harmful (such as it cropping in a way that stereotypes or erases the image’s subject). Those competing will have to submit a description of their findings, and a dataset that can be run through the algorithm to demonstrate the issue. Twitter will then assign points based on what kind of harms are found, how much it could potentially affect people, and more. more...
ABC7

An emotional candlelight vigil honored the memory of two teens who were killed in an apparently random shooting at a Corona movie theater showing of "The Forever Purge." video...
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