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US Monthly Headline News August 2023 - Page 1
Opinion by Rex Huppke, USA TODAY

There it is, Republicans. We now have a booking photo of former president and current criminal defendant Donald Trump, and that face – scowling in the unflattering light of a county jail – is the face of your political party.

That image is your avatar. The man in that photo, arrested on charges of racketeering and election interference in Georgia, his fourth arrest this year, is the man you have let define you. The MAGA king. The almighty grievance peddler. The con man bilking your fellow voters with sleazy emails that would make a Nigerian-prince-themed scam artist blush.

He was missing at Wednesday night’s GOP presidential primary debate, too good, too high-up in the polls to grace the stage with his presence. So what Americans saw was a mirage. A make-believe look at what today’s Republican Party would have to offer if Trump wasn't around, and dominant.

It was a collection of prattling wannabes, people like Vivek Ramaswamy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pretending they have what it takes to out-Trump Trump alongside people like Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence pretending the party they’ve devoted their lives to still cares about anyone remotely serious or, for that matter, remotely conservative.
Story by Tom Boggioni

The recent release by New York Attorney General Letitia James of a Donald Trump deposition transcript showed him to not be at the top of his game as he rambled during some of his answers and occasionally went off on unrelated tangents.

That is the opinion of MSNBC's Hayes Brown who compared the former president's demeanor and focus, revealed in official transcripts, in previous cases where he was forced to sit and answer questions under oath.

As Brown wrote for MSNBC, Trump's deposition, which is central to James' $250 million civil lawsuit against the Trump Organization on accusations of fraud, could hardly have gone worse for the former president because he couldn't control himself.

"Given the stakes, Trump should have been on his best behavior," argued Brown. "But the 479-page document, which was unsealed Thursday, is Trump in rare form. He’s combative. He’s rambling. Gone is the canny, and even shrewd, person we’ve seen at other points," he wrote before adding that the early excerpts "gave a taste of how unhinged the deposition was."
Story by Tatyana Tandanpolie

A Texas judge ruled on Wednesday that a law dubbed by critics as the "Death Star" and championed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is unconstitutional.

Signed into law by Abbott in June, the top-down legislation prohibited cities from passing local ordinances that contradict state legislation in eight broad areas like government, finance and labor. The GOP-backed effort was widely seen as a power grab meant to curtail the progress of Democrat-led cities in the Lone Star state.

Abbott explained that he signed the bill to "cut red tape & help businesses thrive," arguing that "Texas small businesses are the backbone of our economy" and "burdensome regulations are an obstacle to their success." But District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble disagreed.
Story by Thom Hartmann

As we learned from last week’s Republican debates, the leading candidates for the GOP nomination all appear to agree on a broad plan to gut American government and replace it with a strongman president and corporate rule.

The modern administrative state, sometimes called the “welfare state” by Republicans, was largely created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to the Republican Great Depression of the early 1930s. And every day since FDR was sworn into office on March 4, 1933, the GOP has worked feverishly to dismantle his legacy.

Outside of Russia, China, and Hungary, this isn’t true at all for the rest of the developed world. Nations across the rest of Europe, South America, and Asia imitated FDR’s and LBJ’s America, most going beyond our simple development of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the legalization of unions to further expand opportunity and social mobility for their citizens.

For example, Taiwan has the most efficient and comprehensive single-payer healthcare system in the world; Germany requires half of the members of every large corporation’s board of directors to come from the ranks of organized labor; Luxembourg has the highest national minimum wage in the world at roughly $19.50 an hour (they calculate it monthly).
Tom Winter and Zoë Richards and Lisa Rubin and Adam Reiss and Jonathan Dienst

Former President Donald Trump routinely overstated his personal net worth to financial institutions, by as much as $2.2 billion one year, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office alleged in a filing Wednesday.

The figures, tucked into a 100-page motion for partial summary judgment, are the latest details in the sweeping $250 million civil lawsuit James brought against Trump, some of his eldest children and the Trump Organization last year. The lawsuit alleges efforts spanning 10 years to inflate Trump's personal net worth to attract favorable loan agreements.

In court papers filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court, prosecutors asked the court to rule in favor of the attorney general’s office on only the first cause of action they brought against Trump last year, which argued that the former president and some Trump Organization employees used financial statements as a “vehicle” to fraudulently inflate his net worth by billions of dollars annually from 2011 to 2021.
By Melissa Quinn

Washington — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze again during an exchange with reporters at an event in his home state of Kentucky on Wednesday. The incident comes about a month after McConnell stopped speaking mid-sentence for several seconds during a press conference.

The incident occurred after McConnell, 81, was asked about running for re-election in 2026 during an event in Covington, Kentucky. The Republican leader acknowledged the question, but trailed off shortly after and stopped speaking. McConnell began to stare ahead and after roughly 10 seconds, an aide stepped in and asked whether he heard the question. McConnell replied, "yes," but continued to look off into the distance, prompting the aide to say, "we're going to need a minute."

She then asked for assistance from what appeared to be a member of McConnell's security detail. The senator appeared to regain his composure after roughly 30 seconds of silence, clearing his throat and stating, "OK." McConnell answered two more questions from reporters, though his aide relayed the topics to him. He then left the gathering.
By Reuters

WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's former lawyer Rudy Giuliani is liable for defaming two Georgia election workers who were the target of vote-rigging conspiracy accusations following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, a U.S. judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the order as a sanction against Giuliani for failing to turn over electronic records sought by the two Fulton County election workers, Wandrea "Shaye" Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, in the case.

Howell found that Giuliani refused to comply with a process for producing records, known as discovery, and rejected the former New York mayor's argument that the election workers used the lawsuit to harass him.

"Donning a cloak of victimization may play well on a public stage to certain audiences, but in a court of law this performance has served only to subvert the normal process of discovery in a straight-forward defamation case," Howell wrote in her order.
Savannah Kuchar, Phillip M. Bailey | USA TODAY

His office has not responded to multiple questions this summer about how this problem keeps occurring and hasn't shared what medical advice or diagnosis McConnell has previously received. Earlier in the day, McConnell spoke fluently about a possible government shutdown and a possible short-term spending deal.

President Joe Biden, who learned about the incident shortly before making public remarks about the federal response to Hurricane Idalia, said he would reach out to McConnell. “I’m going to try to get in touch with him later this afternoon,” Biden told reporters. “I don’t know enough to know.”
Story by Thom Hartmann

This is a climate change story that fossil fuel billionaires and their GOP lackeys would rather you didn’t know. As more and more people are killed by extraordinarily severe weather in places where it used to be unusual it’s going to get harder and harder to keep Red State citizens from finding out how badly they’ve been screwed by the unholy alliance between Republicans and oil barons.

Severe weather in the United States is not only getting worse, it’s moving. There’s a reason L. Frank Baum placed his 1901 novel The Wizard of Oz in Kansas: the worst and most frequent tornado activity in the world at that time was in the American Great Plains states — particularly Kansas.

Now that’s changing, as weather extremes are moving to the Midwest and the South. Recently, deadly tornadoes — some with wind velocities in excess of 200 mph — have ravaged Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio and Indiana. This new burst of unusually extreme weather is driven by global warming and its impact on the Arctic, our oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Story by Blair Bowie and Dawn Harrington

In Tennessee, Jim Crow is alive and well. The state’s felony disenfranchisement voter-suppression regime is living proof. Felony disenfranchisement has long been a stain on our democracy. The practice, a destructive backlash against Black voting power, strips the freedom to vote from Americans if they have a past felony conviction.

Felony disenfranchisement laws worked as designed, carrying racial discrimination in the criminal legal system into our democracy to silence Black voters. And these laws still serve that purpose today, stripping Black citizens of the freedom to vote at more than three times the rate of the general population nationwide.

Tennessee, with the most convoluted voting rights restoration process and, by extension, the highest rate of Black disenfranchisement of any state in the nation, has been the poster child for the ruinous consequences of these laws. Then, last month, the state Elections Division brought its voter suppression to another level.
Story by Matthew Chapman

A federal judge was unimpressed by former President Donald Trump's adviser Peter Navarro's defense in his contempt of Congress case, which has yet to actually go to a jury, reported CNN on Monday.

The comments made by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta cast doubt on Navarro's ability to mount an effective argument at trial, which mainly centers on Navarro's claim that the information the House January 6 Committee ordered him to testify on was bound by executive privilege.

"'I still don’t know what the president said,' Mehta told Navarro’s attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to a February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege. 'I don’t have any words from the former president,'" reported Devan Cole. "'That’s pretty weak sauce,' the judge added, referring this time to a comment Navarro says Trump made to him about regretting not letting him testify.
The trial will begin in the middle of the Republican presidential primaries. Special counsel Jack Smith had requested a January trial, while Trump pushed for a 2026 start date.
By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s election interference case in federal court set a trial date for March 4, 2024, a schedule that could have a crucial impact on the 2024 race for the White House. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's decision sets the trial in the middle of the Republican presidential primaries and the day before Super Tuesday.

During a hearing on Monday, Chutkan heard arguments from Trump's lawyers and federal prosecutors about when the case could be set for trial. Special counsel Jack Smith proposed that the trial start in January, with jury selection beginning in December of this year, while Trump’s team said the trial should be pushed back until April 2026, after the presidential election.

"These proposals are obviously very far apart," Chutkan said Monday. "Neither of them is acceptable.” Chutkan said that Trump will have to prioritize the trial and that she wouldn't change the trial schedule based upon another defendant's professional obligations, say, for a professional athlete.
Story by pthompson@insider.com (Polly Thompson)

After more than three years of flexible working, many white-collar workers see working from home as the status quo. Bosses, it turns out, no longer agree. Many of the CEOs who vocally praised and encouraged remote work as a way to avoid total cessation of business during the pandemic have changed their tune.

Through August, firms such as Meta and Goldman Sachs have issued strict return-to-office mandates with threats to track performance or even terminate employees who don't turn up in the office often enough. That change threatens to reverse progress in terms of flexible working. Prithwiraj Choudhury, an associate professor at the Harvard Business School and remote work expert, previously told Insider that "when you allow flexibility, it expands your talent pool".
Story by Tom Boggioni

A Florida prosecutor who was one of two fired by Gov. Ron DeSantis as part of his war on "wokeness" is questioning the timing of her dismissal while revealing that she was poised to bring charges against a bevy of crooked cops. In an interview with the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, Orlando-based State Attorney Monique Worrell suggested that DeSantis -- who is running a faltering campaign to be the 2024 Republican Party's presidential nominee -- may have been giving a local sheriff an assist by removing her from her post.

Worrell notes she was looking into a cover-up conspiracy among law officers who were faking documents to disguise accusations of abusive behavior. Speaking with the Beast, she explained, "They thought that I was overly critical of law enforcement and didn't do anything against ‘real criminals.' Apparently there’s a difference between citizens who commit crimes and cops who commit crimes.”
Eric Levenson Sara Smart
By Eric Levenson, Sara Smart, Nouran Salahieh, Isabel Rosales and Andy Rose, CNN

CNN — The White gunman who killed three Black people in a racially motivated attack at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday legally purchased the two firearms he used in the shooting earlier this year, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said in a news conference Sunday.

The gunman, identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, bought a handgun in April and an AR-15-style rifle in June, the sheriff said. He lived with his parents in nearby Orange Park and had no criminal arrest history, although he had been temporarily involuntarily held under the Baker Act in 2017, the sheriff said. “In this situation, there was nothing illegal about him owning the firearms,” he said.

The news conference came a day after Palmeter fatally shot three Black people at the Dollar General store in what authorities say was an anti-Black hate crime. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department is investigating the shooting as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism.
Story by By WILL GRAVES, AP National Writer

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A decade later, Simone Biles is still on top. The gymnastics star won her record eighth U.S. Championship on Sunday night, 10 years after she first ascended to the top of her sport as a teenage prodigy.

Biles, now a 26-year-old newlywed considered perhaps the greatest of all time, posted an all-around two-day total of 118.40, four points clear of runner-up Shilese Jones. Florida junior Leanne Wong claimed third, bolstering her chances of making a third straight world championship team.

Biles is all but assured of returning to the gym where she captured her first world title in 2013. Over the course of two electric nights at the SAP Center, she served notice that even after a two-year break following the Tokyo Olympics, in gymnastics there is the one referred to as the GOAT and there is everyone else.
A national security review by the Biden administration found that white supremacists represented one of the most “persistent and lethal threats” facing the homeland.
By Daniel Arkin

The killing of three Black people at a Dollar General store in Florida Saturday afternoon was the latest act of American gun violence motivated by racist ideology, a national scourge that federal officials have described as one of the most lethal forms of modern domestic terrorism.

The fatal shootings in Jacksonville, carried out by a white man in his early 20s who authorities say "hated Black people," follows deadly hate-motivated shootings at public gathering places, including a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in 2022.

The spasms of gun violence are part of a wider history of racist terror in the United States dating back to the country's founding and stretching across more than two centuries. In the modern era, violent domestic extremists are often radicalized online, according to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Two years ago, a comprehensive review conducted by President Joe Biden's national security team found that "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists," specifically those who "promote the superiority of the white race," represented one of the most "persistent and lethal threats" facing the homeland.
By The Associated Press

MOSCOW — Russia's Investigative Committee said Sunday that it confirmed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder and head of the mercenary force Wagner who led a short-lived armed rebellion against Russia's military, was killed in a plane crash.

Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement that forensic and genetic testing identified all 10 bodies recovered at the site of Wednesday's crash and the findings "conform to the manifest" of the plane. The statement didn't offer any details about what might have caused the crash.

Russia's civil aviation authority earlier this week said Prigozhin, 62, and some of his top lieutenants were on the list of the passengers and crew members on board the plane. All seven passengers and three crew died when the plane plummeted from the sky halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, Prigozhin's hometown.
Story by David McAfee

A total of three of Donald Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia RICO case have reportedly told prosecutors that they became false (or "contingent") electors at the request of the former president himself or his attorneys.

It was reported on Thursday that Donald Trump purportedly directed one of his co-defendants, a Georgia Republican, to sign false papers claiming to be a legitimate elector in the 2020 election. Specifically, Politico reported that "Shawn Still, a Georgia Republican charged alongside former President Donald Trump in a racketeering conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election, says he signed false papers claiming to be a legitimate presidential elector at Trump’s direction."

Now, the number of co-defendants making similar claims has grown, according to Kyle Cheney, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico.
Story by Maya Boddie

Florida Republican governor and 2024 GOP candidate Ron DeSantis told an abortion story during the Wednesday, August 23 GOP debate that critics claim was "wildly embellished," according to a Saturday, August 26 Miami Herald report.

"I know a lady in Florida named Penny," DeSantis said. "She survived multiple abortion attempts. She was left discarded in a pan. Fortunately, her grandmother saved her and brought her to another hospital."
Opinion by Sarah Rumpf

The firefighters who protect Walt Disney World made headlines when they controversially backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) takeover of the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), the special taxing district on Disney property. But now that alliance seems to be turning sour after the governor’s new appointees on the district board moved to end one of the firefighters’ most prized perks — a shocking move that left one firefighter “in tears” at the most recent board meeting.

I’ve written at length about DeSantis’ war with Mickey, which was sparked in early 2022 when Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek issued a press release criticizing Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill (dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by many of its critics) after it passed. Disney didn’t actually do anything about the bill after that press release, but it was enough to trigger DeSantis’ ire.
Tom Boggioni

Appearing on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show," Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell claimed Donald Trump might have avoided being hit with violations of the Espionage Act if it had not been reported that he shared highly sensitive government documents with friends at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

According to Lowell, who has been reporting that the documents may have been hidden from Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, a new report that Trump left documents laying about and might have shown them to others makes it more likely he'll face more severe charges if that is true.
Story by Gideon Rubin

Donald Trump directed one of his co-defendants, a Georgia Republican, to sign false papers claiming to be a legitimate elector in the 2020 election, according to a new court filing. Trump and more than a dozen others were indicted in Fulton County for a purported conspiracy to undermine the 2020 election. Part of that overall alleged scheme was the fake elector plot.

"Shawn Still, a Georgia Republican charged alongside former President Donald Trump in a racketeering conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election, says he signed false papers claiming to be a legitimate presidential elector at Trump’s direction."

"Mr. Still, as a presidential elector, was also acting at the direction of the incumbent president of the United States,” his attorney Thomas Bever said Thursday. “The president’s attorneys instructed Mr. Still and the other contingent electors that they had to meet and cast their ballots on Dec. 14, 2020.”
About time someone called out Jonathan Turley.

Opinion by Tatyana Tandanpolie

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, on Thursday claimed that former President Donald Trump was merely seeking a recount when he demanded Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger "find" enough votes to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

Trump called Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, and pressured him to "find" the 11,780 votes he needed in order to declare him the victor. Raffensperger's office had completed a recount of the votes the month prior at Trump's request, marking the third time public officials counted the state's votes, which Trump lost each time.

Turley, who was a Republican witness during Trump's first impeachment inquiry, told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Trump was merely seeking another recount when he made the call. "I think this is criminalizing the challenging of elections," Turley said during the segment. "Basically, you have a Democratic prosecutor saying, 'How dare you challenge a Democratic victory?'"
The former president’s booking photo is unprecedented. And that’s just the beginning of its significance.
By Vanessa Friedman

As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.

As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.

“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem like the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”
Story by Matt Hladik

Former President Donald Trump's mugshot and booking information from Fulton County in Georgia were released on Thursday night. According to the documents, Trump's official height is 6-foot-3 and his weight is 215 pounds. There are many people who aren't buying the second number. Some members of the sports world took to Twitter immediately following the release of the measurements to jokingly compare Trump to several prominent quarterbacks. "6'3". 215 lbs. #ItsAllAnIllusion," said Michelle Beadle.
By Leinz Vales, Aditi Sangal, Adrienne Vogt, Maureen Chowdhury, Matt Meyer, Elise Hammond and Tori B. Powell, CNN, CNN staff

Trump booked in Fulton County, the fourth time this year he has faced criminal charges. Here's what we know. Donald Trump became the first former president with a mug shot when he was placed under arrest at the Fulton County jail on Thursday evening. Trump was booked on 13 counts stemming from his efforts to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results — including racketeering, conspiracy charges and soliciting a public official to violate their oath of office. It is the fourth time this year the former president has faced criminal charges.

Here’s what to know about the historic day:
What happened: The former president, wearing a dark blue suit and red tie, arrived at the Fulton County jail at around 7:30 p.m. ET. After he surrendered, he was placed under arrest and booked on more than a dozen charges. Jail records listed him at 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighing 215 pounds, with blue eyes and blond or strawberry hair. His booking number was P01135809. A mug shot was also taken.
Story by Ken Tran, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck warned former President Donald Trump to stop potentially instigating his supporters amid his various criminal indictments, including his case over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

“I think he absolutely needs to tell all Americans to stand down and allow the judicial system to take its course,” Buck said in an interview on MSNBC. “We trust judges, we trust jurors, we trust appellate courts. This isn’t over until it’s over.

The Colorado Republican’s comments on Trump is an unusual knock on the former president considering Buck is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group comprised of the House’s most conservative lawmakers. Those lawmakers have tended to march with Trump in lockstep and have forcefully denounced most, if not all of Trump’s legal cases.
Story by Rich Thomaselli

The feud between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Walt Disney World escalated beyond mere words. As DeSantis and seven others prepared for the first Republican debate for the 2024 national election, he had more worries back home in Florida.

His handpicked board of supporters, known as the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (CFTOD), to replace the Reedy Creek Improvement District to oversee the entertainment giant is apparently miffed that it received a $2.5 million bill from Disney to pay for the benefits for its theme park employees.

In a statement, the CFTOD said: "The former Disney-run RCID used taxpayer funds to provide season passes and amusement experiences to its employees and their family members, cover the cost of discounts on hotels, merchandise, food, and beverages, and give its own board members VIP Main Entrance passes."
Story by Tatyana Tandanpolie

Special counsel Jack Smith's team in a Tuesday court filing laid out a defense lawyer's potential conflicts of interest in response to Judge Aileen Cannon's inquiry in the Florida case against former President Donald Trump and two codefendants over his retention of national security documents and alleged efforts to prevent their retrieval. Cannon earlier this month questioned Smith's use of a grand jury in Washington D.C. after prosecutors already charged Trump and his co-defendants in the Southern District of Florida.

The special counsel's team requested a hearing on whether defense attorney Stanley Woodward's slate of clientele in the case posed a conflict of interest. Prosecutors said in the Tuesday filing that Woodward is representing codefendant Walt Nauta, a personal aide of the former president, in the case and has previously represented Yuscil Taveras, who was listed as "Trump Employee 4" in the indictment and is now a government witness, we well as two other potential witnesses.

Though the government attempted to provide a sealed filing with the motion to outline the potential conflicts, Cannon — acting on her own — struck it down and demanded a reason for why the grand jury in Washington, D.C. was still sitting in the case, noted Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff.
Story by Matt Naham

Oscar Stilley (L) in a KXAN interview about his S.B. 8-related lawsuit, (R) Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis attend a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Thursday Nov. 19, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

A self-described “disbarred and disgraced former Arkansas lawyer” who previously made national headlines for suing a doctor for violating Texas’ abortion ban is now suing former President Donald Trump and several of his allies, including members of his “elite strike force” legal team, in a bid to have them declared “insurrectionists” in federal court.

Oscar Stilley (L) in a KXAN interview about his S.B. 8-related lawsuit, (R) Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis attend a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Thursday Nov. 19, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

A self-described “disbarred and disgraced former Arkansas lawyer” who previously made national headlines for suing a doctor for violating Texas’ abortion ban is now suing former President Donald Trump and several of his allies, including members of his “elite strike force” legal team, in a bid to have them declared “insurrectionists” in federal court.
Story by Thom Hartmann

There was, it increasingly appears, a conspiracy involving some in the most senior levels of the Trump administration to end American representative democracy and replace it with a strongman oligarchy along the lines of Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary.

This would be followed, after the January 20th swearing-in of Trump for a second term, by a complete realignment of US foreign policy away from NATO and the EU and toward oligarchic, autocratic nations like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary.

As the possibility of this traitorous plan becomes increasingly visible, the GOP, after a frantic two weeks of not knowing what to say or do, has finally settled on a response to Trump’s theft of classified information: “Hillary did the same thing, and she didn’t go to jail!” I heard the comparison made at least a half-dozen times this weekend on various political shows.
Story by Amanda Marcotte

Monday night, "The Beat with Ari Melber" on MSNBC rolled out another set of intriguing videos from "A Storm Foretold," a Danish documentary that follows Donald Trump's close aide and friend Roger Stone, both during the election and through the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Stone is an intriguing character in Trump's plot to overthrow democracy, especially as he's closely connected with the leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. He maintained a group chat called "Friends of Stone," in which many now-convicted insurrection leaders — recently found guilty of leading the Capitol riot, often under severe "seditious conspiracy" charges — kept in communication.

The documentary isn't available in the U.S. and the tapes have not been turned over to American law enforcement, because director Christoffer Guldbrandsen feels it violates journalistic ethics to do so. (Don't be hard on the guy, who was so devoted to this project that he ended up having a heart attack from the stress.) Last week, Melber's show released a video showing Stone detailing the fake electors scheme to his lackeys on November 5, 2020 — before the major news networks called the election. That proves, yet again, that the coup plan predates the election and was not, as Trump apologists claim, merely a reaction to a "sincere" belief that the election was stolen.
Story by sjackson@insider.com (Sarah Jackson)

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman slammed his fellow Paypal Mafia member Elon Musk in a new exposé on Musk's relationship with the US government. Hoffman told The New Yorker Musk "bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker," regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin's account of the war in Ukraine. Hoffman and Musk worked together to build PayPal at the turn of the millennium.

"He was onstage, and he said, 'We should be negotiating. Putin wants peace—we should be negotiating peace with Putin,'" Hoffman told The New Yorker, referencing Musk's comments at a September 2022 conference in Aspen. In October, Musk tweeted his idea for restoring peace in Ukraine, which parroted Kremlin talking points and suggested Ukraine cede territory to Russia. Nearly 60% of respondents voted "no" to Musk's plan. After he was taken to task for the idea, Musk clarified he supported Ukraine.

"SpaceX's out of pocket cost to enable & support Starlink in Ukraine is ~$80M so far. Our support for Russia is $0. Obviously, we are pro Ukraine," Musk tweeted hours after his poll. "Trying to retake Crimea will cause massive death, probably fail & risk nuclear war. This would be terrible for Ukraine & Earth."
Story by Sky Palma

As his legal troubles continued to mount, Donald Trump last week assembled a meeting with his top economic advisers to conceive a trade-focused plan for his presidential campaign, The Washington Post reported.

The meeting, which included figures such as Larry Kudlow and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, focused on how Trump could hit President Joe Biden on the economy in light of recent news showing Biden's economic policies in a positive light.

"Among the ideas they discussed was Trump’s plan to enact a 'universal baseline tariff' on virtually all imports to the United States, the report said. This idea, which Trump has taken to describing as creating a 'ring around the U.S. economy,' could represent a massive escalation of global economic chaos, surpassing the international trade discord that marked much of his first administration," The Post's report stated.
Story by Ananya Gairola

Elon Musk’s decision to remove the “block” feature from X, formerly known as Twitter, has sparked a heated exchange with “Once Upon A Time In America” famed James Woods. What Happened: Woods took to X and voiced his concerns about removing the “block” feature, particularly how it would affect users willing to share their real identities. He said, “X will be untenable for people like me,” adding, “If he (Musk) does this, I will have no choice but to retire from this site.”
Republican's want to Impeach Fani Willis to protect Trump a traitor who attempted a coup, incited insurrection and sedition against America. Republican's protecting Trump and the Trump crime family are not patriots they are traitors.

Story by James Bickerton

Georgia state Senator Colton Moore, a firm Donald Trump supporter, is calling for an emergency special session of the state's legislature to investigate the actions of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, which he said could lead to impeachment proceedings.

On Monday, Willis charged Trump and 18 of his associates over allegations they broke the law while attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in Georgia. The former president is facing 13 counts. This includes one of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

Trump has fervently denied any wrongdoing, with his legal team saying that the indictment is flawed and unconstitutional. "Ripping a page from Crooked Joe Biden's playbook, Willis has strategically stalled her investigation to try and maximally interfere with the 2024 presidential race and damage the dominant Trump campaign," read a statement on Trump's Truth Social account.
Story by Milla

Tom Nichols, who spent 40 years in the Republican party and soon after Trump became POTUS, spoke about the “Trump Cult” mentality and how some will never reject the former president despite the charges.

The claims about a “deep state”
While on The Bulwark podcast, Nichols told the host, Charlie Sykes, how Trump convinced his supporters that all charges against him are planned by the “deep state” to stop Trump from taking over the White House again. Nichols explained, “It’s a way for him to keep presenting his faithful in the Trump Cult with the storyline that, not only am I untouchable, I should be untouchable because I’m me.”

Nichols called it “red meat for the rallygoers”
The former Republican continued, “It’s just red meat for the rallygoers… it gets people past the ugly problem of they know he’s guilty of all this! Instead, it goads them to where they need to be emotionally and mentally, saying, ‘It doesn’t matter, he’s Donald Trump.'”
Story by Phillip Nieto

James Woods got into it with Twitter CEO Elon Musk over potential changes to the platform, including removing the ability to block accounts, which battle resulted in the billionaire hitting the conservative actor with that very function.

Musk has come under fire from both conservatives and liberals over his idea to completely remove the ability to block other users on the X platform (formerly Twitter). Woods particularly and vocally opposed the idea over the weekend, saying that if the block feature is removed he “will have no choice but to retire from this site.”

Just months ago, when the purchase of the company was complete, Woods was on with Tucker Carlson on Fox News saying that Musk “may have saved America” with the takeover and the Twitter Files releases. But the inability to block accounts pushed Woods to change his view about the direction of the company.
Story by Milla

During a recent interview, the former president and GOP’s presidential hopeful bragged about his closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and sparked rage and fury from many conservatives and, inherently, liberals.

Trump’s disturbing speech on Fox News
During his Fox News interview, the former president spoke about Ukraine and his close relationship with Russian President Putin. Trump said, “Putin would have never gone into Ukraine, but that was just on my relationship with him. My personality over his. [He] would have never gone in. I used to speak to him. I was the apple of his eye, but I said, ‘Don’t ever do it.’ It was tough stuff there, but he would have never done it.”
Opinion by Thom Hartmann

So now, as expected after decades of taking big bucks for her right-wing work on behalf of America's oligarchs, we learn that the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginny Thomas, was in Trump's January 6th "rally" up to her eyeballs. Let's just say it right out loud: the US Supreme Court is corrupt. And Americans know it.

No other federal court in the nation would allow a defendant in a case before them to fly a judge on a private Gulfstream luxury jet to a luxury hunting retreat in Louisiana and then, a week later, watch as that judge rules in that defendant's favor.

But Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did exactly that when Dick Cheney was sued for allegedly lying about his secret "energy group" that was planning the seizure and sale of Iraq's oil fields as he and Bush lied us into the war that opened those oil fields up to exploitation.

No other federal court would allow a judge to give a speech before a group that was funding a case before them and then rule in favor of that group's openly stated goal, but that's exactly what Neal Gorsuch did when he addressed the Fund for American Studies, itself funded by the Bradley Foundation that was helping fund the Janus v AFSCME case that gutted union protections for government workers.
Story by David McAfee

Donald Trump saying he was the "apple" of Vladimir Putin's eye is sparking some harsh criticism. Trump, who has long been open about having a good relationship with the Russian president, reportedly said in a Fox interview that Putin never would have invaded Ukraine if he had been president. "I was the apple of his eye," the former president said in the interview.

The response was swift.

David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said helping Trump to become the president was Putin's "supreme accomplishment as dictator." "A perverse truth here. Helping Trump into the US presidency was Putin's supreme accomplishment as dictator. A Trump 2nd term would have wrecked NATO from within," Frum wrote Saturday. "With no one to help it, Ukraine would have been easy pickings for Putin." Conservative attorney and Trump-critic George Conway also chimed in, calling Trump a "Kremlin asset."
Story by Robert Legare

Washington — The FBI is asking for the public's help in locating a one-time member of the Proud Boys and defendant in a case linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol after he failed to show up for his sentencing Friday in Washington, D.C., according to court filings and public statements.

Christopher Worrell was convicted of seven counts at a bench trial in May, including obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting officers. Prosecutors alleged he sprayed law enforcement officers with pepper spray gel during the attack as they defended the north side of the Capitol against a large group of rioters.

"Mr. Worrell did, in fact, spray his Sabre Red Maximum Strength Pepper Gel at a line of law enforcement officers protecting the Capitol. Of course, no one can doubt that he did actually spray that pepper gel," Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in explaining his decision to convict Worrell in May.
Story by By MICHAEL R. SISAK, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The founder of Project Veritas, a conservative nonprofit known for its hidden camera stings, is under investigation by a suburban New York prosecutor’s office in the latest fallout after his ouster from the group over allegations that he mistreated workers and misspent organization funds.

The Westchester County district attorney’s office confirmed Friday it is "looking into" matters concerning James O’Keefe, who was suspended in February and later fired as chairman and CEO. The Project Veritas board said he spent “an excessive amount of donor funds” on personal luxuries.

Jin Whang, a spokesperson for District Attorney Mimi Rocah, declined to discuss the subject or details of the investigation, or what potential charges, if any, O’Keefe could face. Whang cautioned that investigations can have a variety of outcomes, not necessarily resulting in criminal charges.
Story by Tom Boggioni

In a blunt-talking column published by the Charlotte Observer, a lifelong Evangelical expressed dismay that Christians have been taken in by Donald Trump who could not be less like Jesus Christ. According to Isaac Bailey, Christians who are still standing by the former president despite his record of criminality and incitements to violence need to "wake up" and realize they have been suckered by a con man who has been preying on them since he was first elected in 2016.

Referring to comments made by Christian leader Russell Moore about the influence the former president has had on parishioners who are now claiming the words of Jesus show weakness, Bailey wrote, "Maybe in their minds, Trump is the Jesus of Revelation. He’s the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords with a sword in his mouth who has come back to judge the righteous and unrighteous, to wage war."
by Donald K. Sherman, opinion contributor

While some ­on the right portray accountability for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as just another partisan dispute, two prominent conservative legal scholars have made the case that the Constitution disqualifies former President Trump from public office.

Last week, law professors William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — both members of the conservative Federalist Society — argued in a law review article that Trump is already constitutionally forbidden from serving in public office because of Section Three of the 14th Amendment.

This section, also known as the Disqualification Clause, bars from office any government officer who takes an oath to defend the Constitution and then engages in or aids an insurrection against the United States. Only a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress can act to remove such disability.
Story by Joe Conason

Now that former President Donald Trump has been indicted not once but twice for attempting to steal the 2020 presidential election, his apologists say he was merely pursuing his constitutional right to contest the results. They insist that he truly believed his campaign was undone by massive voter fraud and that all the post-election machinations carried out by him and his cronies were innocent and sincere.

Unfortunately for them, evidence continues to emerge showing not only that their claims of fraud were fabricated -- and ruled to be false in 61 lawsuits -- but that Trump had planned to carry out a conspiracy against democracy well before the election results were even fully tabulated.

Nobody should be surprised to learn that the latest confirmation of the Trump's campaign's nefarious intent features Roger Stone, the veteran dirty trickster and pardoned felon, who must have coined his "Stop the Steal" slogan while peering into a mirror. If there was an attempted "steal," he was one of the perps.
Story by Calvin Schermerhorn

Key Point: Despite opposition from abolitionists, as president, George Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 that authorized federal police power to recapture runaway human property. If there was anyone who knew the rewards of slavery, it was George Washington. Over a period of about 50 years, the nation’s first president enslaved about 577 Black Americans, starting when he was 11 years old.

One of them was a Black man named Morris who was skilled in carpentry and became an overseer of other enslaved men and women working on a farm at Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia. Though Morris’ skills afforded him a few extra benefits, he was still unable to buy what he coveted most – freedom.

Despite the existence of voluminous public records that reveal Washington’s treatment of Morris and other human property he owned, Florida officials want public school educators to instead emphasize Washington’s efforts to abolish slavery. As a scholar of slavery in the U.S., my research has shown that Washington’s efforts to free Black people pale in comparison to how he fought to keep Black people enslaved.
A harassment campaign followed right-wing outrage over the former president’s latest criminal charges
Alex Woodward

Police in Georgia are investigating online threats to members of a grand jury that voted to indict Donald Trump and 18 of the former president’s allies accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in a sprawling criminal case.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office is “aware that personal information from members of the jury” has been shared across social media platforms, the agency announced on 17 August, less than three days after a sweeping charging document was unsealed.

As required under state law, the names of the jurors are listed in the 98-page indictment from the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The sheriff’s office is working with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to “track down” the origins of the threats in the county and in other jurisdictions, according to the statement.

Protesters marched against Florida’s Black history education standards that require lessons that include “how slaves developed skill which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” CNN’s Carlos Suarez reports on the backlash.
Story by Aurora DeStefano

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) counts himself among former President Donald Trump‘s most staunch defenders — but even Comer had to drop a truth bomb on the GOP reality since the party has been led by Trump. Republicans, Comer says, have been “losing for years.”

As Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Comer says his approach to investigations has to be different, because if not, “at the end of the day we would lose and that’s what Republicans have been doing for years. They’ve been losing.”

To try to reverse the Republican losing streak both on ballots and in courts, the Congressman has used his power to develop a narrative that portrays President Joe Biden as the most corrupt President in U.S. history while exonerating the twice-impeached, four-times indicted Trump as an unjustly persecuted victim of political vendettas by threatened Democrats.
Story by bgriffiths@insider.com (Brent D. Griffiths)

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday practically scoffed at former President Donald Trump's argument that it's unfair for him to be in court when he should be campaigning for president. "To some degree, they might accommodate a few days here and there, but I don't think that should govern the schedule for pursuing these cases," Barr told Fox News host Neil Cavuto.

Barr pointed out that the federal investigations into Trump were ongoing before he announced his candidacy. Trump and his defenders have pointed out that some of his cases would run right up against the political calendar. Special counsel Jack Smith wants to take his January 6-related case to trial in January, right before the Iowa Republican caucuses. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to Trump be tried in Georgia right before Super Tuesday.
Story by Steve Benen

As of today, congressional Republicans have filed six separate impeachment resolutions targeting President Joe Biden. Of course, today isn’t over yet, and it’s possible we’ll soon see a seventh. The half-dozen impeachment resolutions have quite a bit in common. They were all introduced by far-right House members. They all fail to point to any evidence of the Democrat actually doing anything wrong. And they’re all destined to eventually fail, since there’s no way 67 senators will convict the president and remove Biden from office in response to a scandal that doesn’t exist. So why are so many GOP members bothering? As it turns out, Rep. Matt Gaetz participated in a Twitter Space earlier this week and the Florida Republican explained the entire strategy, out loud, with unexpected candor. As The New Republic summarized:

The congressman acknowledged that, realistically, those expecting to remove Biden from office through the impeachment process need to lower their expectations. “Let me break it to all of you: There’s no conviction and removal of Joe Biden coming on impeachment,” Gaetz conceded. “I know that. You know that. Anyone with rational thought knows that given Chuck Schumer’s control of the Senate. And frankly, the way that that Senate Republicans view Joe Biden and seem to work with him for their own selfish objectives.”
Siladitya Ray Forbes Staff

A Texas woman has been arrested and charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case, while the former president has repeatedly lashed out at the judge on social media and demanded her recusal from the case.

According to a filing made last week in a Texas federal court, Abigail Jo Shry allegedly sent a voice message to D.C. Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan's chambers on August 5, which included a racial slur and a death threat. Shry’s message allegedly warned Chutkan that she will be killed if Trump does not get elected president in 2024. In addition to Chutkan, Shry also allegedly threatened Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), “all Democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community.”

In exclusive video obtained by "The Beat with Ari Melber," Trump adviser and ally Roger Stone is seen pushing a plot to overthrow the 2020 Election. Melber interviews Christoffer Guldbrand, the documentary filmmaker who reported on Stone and recorded the footage, and attorney John Flannery, about the tape's significance amidst probes and cases indicting Trump and allies for trying to steal the election.
By Shawna Mizelle, CNN

Washington CNN — An internal Trump campaign memo from December 2020, made public Tuesday by The New York Times, reveals new details about how the campaign initiated its plan to subvert the Electoral College process and install fake GOP electors in multiple states after losing the 2020 presidential election.

In the December 6, 2020, memo, pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro laid out the plan to put forth slates of Republican electors in seven key swing states that then-President Donald Trump lost. The memo then outlines how then-Vice President Mike Pence, while presiding over the Electoral College certification on January 6, 2021, should declare “that it is his constitutional power and duty, alone, as President of the Senate, to both open and count the votes” from the GOP electors.

Chesebro conceded in the memo that this idea was a “controversial” long shot that would “likely” be rejected by the Supreme Court – but nonetheless promoted the strategy. He wrote that despite the legal dubiousness, “letting matters play out this way would guarantee that public attention would be riveted on the evidence of electoral abuses by the Democrats and would also buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”
By Robert Costa, Kathryn Watson

Washington — A newly revealed memo authored by a Trump-allied attorney laid out a sweeping strategy for organizing Trump supporters to serve as fake electors in the wake of the 2020 election, shining new light on the origins of an alleged scheme that is central to the most recent indictment of former President Donald Trump.

The six-page memo dated Dec. 6, 2020, was authored by attorney Kenneth Chesebro and circulated among Trump campaign lawyers and associates, two people familiar with the matter tell CBS News. The New York Times obtained and published the memo for the first time on Tuesday.

The document, signed by "K.C.," was one of a series of memos crafted by Chesebro and John Eastman, a conservative attorney, that formed the proposed legal basis for the ultimately unsuccessful fake elector scheme. The indictment alleges the plan "evolved over time from a legal strategy to preserve the Defendant's rights to a corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors' votes from being counted and certified."
Story by Gloria Oladipo

Advocacy groups are outraged after the Arkansas department of education warned state high schools not to offer an advanced placement course on African American history. The admonition from Arkansas education officials is the latest example of conservative lawmakers limiting education on racial history, sexual orientation and other topics they label as “indoctrination”.

The Arkansas Education Association (AEA), a professional organization of educators in the state, said the latest decision is of “grave concern” to its members and other citizens worried about “the abandonment of teaching African American history and culture”.

“Having this course pulled out from under our students at this late juncture is just another marginalizing move that has already played out in other states,” said a statement from AEA president April Reisma, which was shared with the Guardian.
Story by Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

The power of the presidency always lures those seeking reflected glory. And Donald Trump’s riotous palace court – renowned for lax Oval Office walk-in privileges – was a pageant of characters who might normally have gotten nowhere near a president.

But the price for proximity to power in the most scandalous presidency of modern times came due just before midnight on Monday when 18 of Trump’s former aides, officials, lawyers and associates were indicted alongside him over their efforts to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia. They were the latest members of the former president’s inner circle to find out that associating with Trump could put them on cracking legal ice. At least until now, their patron has always seemed to skate free. But Trump is now staring up at his own astonishing mountain of 91 criminal charges in four separate indictments – an unparalleled and dubious record for an ex-president.

Story by Jennifer Bowers Bahney

Ben Shapiro, who once wrote an entire book about how Barack Obama should be prosecuted under the RICO statute,  is now lamenting the racketeering charges filed Monday against former President Donald Trump.

Shapiro tweeted Tuesday morning, “Whatever you think of the Trump indictments, one thing is for certain: the glass has now been broken over and over again. Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail — on all sides.”
Story by Milla

David Jolly, a former representative from Florida, gave his insight into growing white nationalism and explained the vital difference between Trump’s and DeSantis’s perspectives.

White supremacy in the military
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville recently spoke about white nationalists, declaring, “I call them Americans,” AL.com reported.

Senator blamed the Democrats, Biden
He continued, “We are losing in the military so fast,” adding, “The Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda, as Joe Biden’s agenda.”
It’s the fourth indictment in five months for former President Donald Trump.
Dylan Stableford and Yahoo News Staff

Former President Donald Trump and 18 others have been indicted by a grand jury in Georgia on criminal charges stemming from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s long-running investigation into their attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state.

Speaking after the indictment was unsealed late Monday, Willis said the defendants have until noon on Aug. 25 to surrender. Trump has been charged with 13 counts — including a charge of violating Georgia's RICO (or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act. It’s the fourth indictment in five months for Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Donald Trump and 18 others were indicted Monday in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia.
Christopher Wilson·Senior Writer

The harassment of Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman was included in the racketeering charge against former President Donald Trump and his alleged co-conspirators by Fulton County grand jurors. The first of the 41 charges laid out in the indictment falls under the state’s RICO laws and notes that some of the 19 members of the alleged “criminal enterprise” falsely accused Freeman of committing election crimes, allegations they repeated to Georgia officials in an attempt to persuade them that the election results were tainted and should be overturned.

The indictment adds that “in furtherance of the scheme, members of the enterprise traveled from out of state to harass Freeman, intimidate her, and solicit her to falsely confess to election crimes that she did not commit.” Further details include some of the Trump allies traveling to Freeman’s residence, talking to her neighbors and calling her home.

It also notes false testimony from former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who accused Freeman and others of passing around USB drives at State Farm Arena, which was used as a polling place. The accusations stem from a video of Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, Freeman’s daughter who also was a poll worker, that circulated on conservative social media in the wake of the 2020 election.
David Knowles Senior Editor

Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was charged Monday with multiple felonies stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and other battleground states. While Meadows is just one player in the alleged conspiracy laid out by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the passages in the indictment bearing his name are noteworthy. Meadows made an appearance in front of the grand jury in Georgia but refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

The indictment alleges that Meadows and Trump met “on or about the 20th day of November 2020,” with Michael Shirkey, leader of the Michigan state Senate, Michigan Rep. Lee Chatfield and others. During the meeting, Trump allegedly “made false statements concerning fraud” in the 2020 election. A day later, per the indictment, Meadows “sent a text message to United States Representative Scott Perry from Pennsylvania,” asking for the phone number for the speaker and leader of that state’s legislature. Both of those contacts, the indictment states, were “in furtherance of the conspiracy” to overturn the election.
CNN

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis spoke to reporters after a grand jury delivered a 41-count indictment that alleges former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants “unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise” after Trump lost the election in Georgia.
By Stephen Fowler

In charging former President Donald Trump and his allies, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is relying on a particular aspect of Georgia state law. So what is a RICO charge, and why is Willis applying it to alleged election interference?

Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute allows prosecutors to pursue criminal enterprises, and it was based on — and is broader than — the federal RICO law.

That federal act was established to target organized crime activities like money laundering, bribery, drug trafficking and other serious offenses. Georgia's version says that attempting or soliciting any of the mentioned crimes can count as a predicate act.
By Andy Sullivan, Joseph Ax and Sarah N. Lynch

Aug 14 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump was hit with a sweeping fourth set of criminal charges on Monday when a Georgia grand jury issued an indictment accusing him of efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. The charges, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, add to the legal woes facing Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

The sprawling 98-page indictment listed 19 defendants and 41 criminal counts in all. All of the defendants were charged with racketeering, which is used to target members of organized crime groups and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Among the other defendants were Mark Meadows, Trump's former White House chief of staff, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. "Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump," the indictment said.
Story by Gabriella Ferrigine

Former President Donald Trump's failed attempt to move Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's hush-money case to federal court may end up bolstering the prosecutor's case, according to The Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery. Trump's move gave U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein a chance to "take the first swing," which he used to "make it clear that the case against Trump is far more serious than it otherwise seems," Pagliery wrote. Former New York prosecutor John Moscow told the outlet that Hellerstein's rejection of Trump's effort was effectively "a seal of approval on the indictment."
Story by Lee Moran

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sprung to the defense of Donald Trump ahead of the former president’s latest indictment — in the Georgia case — and was mocked for comments that critics thought defined irony. During Monday’s broadcast of Jesse Watters’ Fox News show, Graham said Trump’s mounting legal woes were “unfair,” claimed it was a weaponization of the law, was setting “a bad precedent” and insisted the former president’s fate should be left to voters.

“The American people can decide whether they want him to be president or not,” said Graham, who was a fierce critic of Trump before his 2016 election win but has now become one of his most loyal allies. “This should be decided at the ballot box, not a bunch of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail.”
Story by Rodney Coates, Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Miami University

The state of Florida ignited a controversy when it released a set of 2023 academic standards that require fifth graders to be taught that enslaved Black people in the U.S. “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their benefit.” As a researcher specializing in the history of race and racism in the U.S., I – like a growing chorus of critics – see that education standard as flawed and misleading.

Whereas Florida would have students believe that enslaved Black people “benefited” by developing skills during slavery, the reality is that enslaved Africans contributed to the nation’s social, cultural and economic well-being by using skills they had already developed before captivity. What follows are examples of the skills the Africans brought with them as they entered the Americas as enslaved:
By Ali Winston

A neo-Nazi “active club” counts several current and former members of the United States military as its members, the Guardian has learned, including a lance corporal machine gunner currently in detention on insubordination charges and a former US Marine Corps staff sergeant who was booted from the service for stealing large quantities of ammunition.

Lance corporal machine gunner Mohammed Wadaa and former Marine Corps staff sergeant Gunnar Naughton are part of the Clockwork Crew, California’s first ‘active club ,’ according to the group’s own internal research records and social media posts , as well as law enforcement sources.

Active clubs – white nationalists and neo-fascist fight clubs that train in combat sports – are a growing concern for US law enforcement. Their recruitment among active and former members of the military underscores both the broadening appeal of the fitness-centric organising model and the American armed services’ persistent struggle with extremism within the ranks.
Zachary Cohen Sara Murray
By Zachary Cohen and Sara Murray, CNN

CNN — Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals when her team presents its case before a grand jury next week. Several individuals involved in the voting systems breach in Coffee County are among those who may face charges in the sprawling criminal probe.

Investigators in the Georgia criminal probe have long suspected the breach was not an organic effort sprung from sympathetic Trump supporters in rural and heavily Republican Coffee County – a county Trump won by nearly 70% of the vote. They have gathered evidence indicating it was a top-down push by Trump’s team to access sensitive voting software, according to people familiar with the situation.

Trump allies attempted to access voting systems after the 2020 election as part of the broader push to produce evidence that could back up the former president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud.
Marjorie Taylor Greene does not know what she is talking about. The people who voted for her should be embarrassed for voting for someone as stupid as her.

Story by Milla

Marjorie Taylor Greene made the demand in an amendment for the President to withdraw from NATO, saying the alliance is “not a reliable partner” and even suggesting it was “beholden to Russia.”

Greene’s amendment
The Georgia Republican made the demand in an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, saying, “My amendment would direct the President withdrawal [sic] from NATO. They are not a reliable partner whose defense spending should be paid for by American citizens.”

The Republican firebrand talked about GDP
Greene’s amendment further said, “For the better part of the last decade, Germany contributed only around 1% of its GDP to finance NATO obligations while the United States is paying around 4% of our GDP to defend NATO countries.” She also made some interesting claims, and the most extraordinary one came without explanation.
Story by Julia Shapero

Republican presidential hopeful and former Texas Rep. Will Hurd ripped into former President Trump on Friday, calling him a “liar,” “loser” and “national security threat.” Hurd, who has been sharply critical of the former president throughout his campaign, argued on PBS’ “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover” that the GOP needs to “be honest” about Trump if they want to win the 2024 presidential election.

“Donald Trump is a liar. Donald Trump is a loser. And Donald Trump is a national security threat to the United States of America,” Hurd said. “And we need to be honest about that. And if we nominate him, if the GOP nominates him, then we’re giving Joe Biden and Kamala Harris four more years.”
Story by Michael Daly

At 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 2, when Assistant Principal Danny Guidry walked past the high school library in Granbury, Texas, he saw two figures moving in the darkened interior. “There were flashing lights from the phones looking at some books,” he later reported in an email to the district office made public by a parent’s open records request. Guidry entered and asked if he could be of assistance. He informed the two they were in a restricted part of the building.

“It was dark and difficult to see,” he wrote. “One of the ladies identified herself as Karen Lowery, Board Trustee.” Lowery is indeed a member of the Granbury Independent School District board. Security video would show that she and another woman, Carolyn Reeves, had entered the library an hour and a half earlier, around 8 a.m., repeatedly switching the lights off when a motion detector turned them on.
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