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US Monthly Headline News August 2024 - Page 1
Trump’s running mate rants against feminism, immigrants and Ilhan Omar in a newly unearthed podcast from 2021
Jason Wilson

Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, said that professional women “choose a path to misery” when they prioritize careers over having children in a September 2021 podcast interview in which he also claimed men in America were “suppressed” in their masculinity.

The Ohio senator and vice-presidential candidate said of women like his classmates at Yale Law School that “pursuing racial or gender equity is like the value system that gives their life meaning … [but] they all find that that value system leads to misery”.

Vance also sideswiped the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a one-time Somali refugee, claiming she had shown “ingratitude” to America, and that she “would be living in a craphole” had she not moved to the US.
Story by Kia Fatahi & Emily Hodgkin

Before joining forces with Donald Trump, JD Vance made the bold proposition of booting "every civil servant in the administrative state" and filling their posts with MAGA devotees.

In a conversation with podcaster Jack Murphy in 2021, Vance - who publicly begged his mother to stop "spoiling" his children - argued: "I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice: fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people."

These remarks align with the desires harboured by the "Project 2025" crowd. Trump has kept his distance from the Project 2025 agenda, which has mooted drastic reductions to federal government size and broader executive powers; however, critics are worried this could pave the way for a more radical policy platform should Trump be re-elected.
Donald Trump went on a fascist posting spree on Truth Social after receiving news of his latest indictment.

On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump had some kind of meltdown on his Truth Social profile, all before 10 a.m.

His many posts and “ReTruths” were conspiracy laden, crude, and calling for the death or imprisonment of his enemies. One showed Harris, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, and other Democrats wearing orange jumpsuits captioned with: “HOW TO ACTUALLY ‘FIX THE SYSTEM.’” Multiple posts had QAnon themes, particularly the slogan “WWG1WGA.” Other posts called for a military tribunal for former President Barack Obama, and attacked the FBI, the Justice Department, and the House January 6 committee.
Story by Natalie Andrews, Nancy A. Youssef

Former President Donald Trump’s honoring of fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery sparked a controversy after an apparent altercation between campaign and cemetery staff over access for a photographer during the visit.

Now the ordeal has become fodder on the campaign trail.

Trump’s visit to the cemetery Monday was meant to honor the 13 American service members who were killed in Afghanistan during the attack on Abbey Gate amid the final days of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from that war three years ago. More than 150 Afghan civilians also died during the attack.

JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said Wednesday that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris can “go to hell” after an aide to her campaign called Trump’s cemetery visit “pretty sad.”

“Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened,” Vance said, responding to a reporter’s question about the incident, “and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up.” He then paused for a moment, and said: “She can go to hell.”
Story by Flynn Nicholls

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) has criticized former President Donald Trump for "politicking" on "sacred ground" during a visit to Arlington National Cemetery.

IAVA chief executive Allison Jaslow told Newsweek that Arlington should be free from politics. "When I visit Section 60, it is to honor the fallen and remind myself that I was one of the lucky ones who made it home," she said. "There are plenty of places appropriate for politics—Arlington is not one of them."

Despite being told by a cemetery official not to do so, the Trump campaign took photographs and video footage in Section 60, an area reserved for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Any aspiring elected official, especially one who hopes to be Commander-in-Chief, should not be confused about that fact. Nor should they hide behind members of our community to justify politicking on such sacred ground."
Story by Kevin Scott

Former President Donald Trump voted at a Palm Beach polling location on August 14, despite being recently convicted of 34 felonies in New York.

Florida law allows people with felony convictions to regain their voting rights after completing their sentences, excluding those convicted of murder or felony sex crimes.

Unclear Laws
Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said, “Florida law is unclear on when a felon loses the right to vote.”

A Process That Works
Neil Volz, deputy director of Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, said Trump is “an example of some of the challenges that exist, but also the opportunities that exist to create a better system – a process that works better for everybody."
Story by atecotzky@businessinsider.com (Alice Tecotzky)

A batch of new footage of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reaction to January 6 reveals her scathing anger toward Donald Trump, whom she called a "domestic enemy." Pelosi wasted no time pivoting her attention from her own safety to the former president and security failures.

Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, filmed key moments on Jan. 5, 6, and 7, 2021 as part of a documentary. HBO handed the footage over to the House Committee on Administration, a Republican-led panel that is working to counteract the January 6 select committee's conclusion that Trump alone is responsible for the day's chaos, Politico reported.
"I just feel sick about what he did to the Capitol and the country," Pelosi said while riding in her SUV in the early hours of January 7. "He's got to pay a price for that."

Later that day, Pelosi sat with aides in her ravaged office, wearing a multicolor floral mask and discussing the "failure of leadership at the top of the Capitol Police." By the end of the discussion, Pelosi turned her attention toward Trump and took on a sharper tone.

"There is a domestic enemy in the White House," she said. "And let's not mince words about this."
Story by TWA

Platform X (formerly Twitter) was forced by an American court to disclose its investors as part of a lawsuit filed by former employees. The list of investors who enabled Elon Musk to take over the platform includes a fund associated with Putin's oligarchs.

The Federal Court in California ordered X to disclose the list of investors. This list contains over a hundred entries, including individuals from the world of finance and show business and a Saudi Arabian royal family member. However, one particular fund drew significant attention: it involves the sons of Russian oligarchs closely associated with Vladimir Putin.

Specifically, this is about the 8VC Opportunities Fund II. On the fund's website, Denis Aven and Jack Moszkowicz are listed in the staff section. They are the sons of oligarchs Petr Aven and Vadim Moszkowicz. Petr Aven, a Russian billionaire and founder of Alfa Group, is described as "one of Putin's main portfolios." He is subject to sanctions imposed on Russia due to the war in Ukraine.

Vadim Moszkowicz made his fortune in the agricultural industry and is part of Putin's inner circle, which is why he has also been subjected to Western sanctions.
Story by Gustaf Kilander

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) has cited the infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which stated that enslaved people weren’t citizens, to argue that Vice President Kamala Harris is ineligible to run for president according to the Constitution.

The group also challenged the right of Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley to appear on Republican primary ballots.

The Republican group’s platform and policy document noted that “The Constitutional qualifications of Presidential eligibility” states that “No person except a natural born Citizen, shall be eligible, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

The same document included former President Donald Trump’s running mate Ohio Senator JD Vance on a list of preferred candidates for vice president.

The document and the citing of the Dred Scott decision were initially noted by lawyer Andrew Fleischman on X, formerly Twitter.

The group goes on to argue in the document that a natural-born citizen has to be born in the US to parents who are citizens when the child is born, pointing to the thinking of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
by Joshua Kaplan

Last February, some 20 men and their wives gathered for dinner at an upscale restaurant in Spokane, Washington, for their annual Valentine’s Day celebration. The men weren’t just friends; they did community service work together. They had been featured on local television, in khakis and baseball caps, delivering 1,200 pounds of food to an area veterans’ center; they were gearing up for their next food drive, which they called Operation Hunger Smash. A few days after the holiday, the men went camping in the snow-speckled mountains outside Spokane, where they grilled rib-eyes and bacon-wrapped asparagus over a bonfire.

They also engaged in more menacing activities. They assembled regularly — sometimes wearing night-vision goggles in the dark — to practice storming buildings together with semiautomatic rifles. Their drills included using sniper rifles to shoot targets from distances of half a mile. And they belonged to a shadowy organization whose members were debating, with ever more intensity, whether they should engage in mass-scale political violence.

They were among the thousands of members of American Patriots Three Percent, a militia that has long been one of the largest in the United States and has mostly managed to avoid scrutiny. Its ranks included cops and convicted criminals, active-duty U.S. soldiers and small-business owners, truck drivers and health care professionals. Like other militias, AP3 has a vague but militant right-wing ideology, a pronounced sense of grievance and a commitment to armed action. It has already sought to shape American life through vigilante operations: AP3 members have “rounded up” immigrants at the Texas border, assaulted Black Lives Matter protesters and attempted to crack down on people casting absentee ballots.
Story by Ian Millhiser

The Republican Party wants the Supreme Court to weigh in on a nauseatingly complicated voting rights case, which could potentially disenfranchise thousands of presidential voters in the swing state of Arizona. The case is known as Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota.

The case involves an astoundingly convoluted system Arizona uses to register certain voters — one that emerged from 20 years of conflicting state and federal laws, plus seemingly endless litigation over those laws. Among other things, Republicans claim that several thousand Arizona voters should be allowed to vote only in congressional elections, and that they are barred from voting in state and local elections or voting for the president.

In 2004, Arizona enacted a law which requires new voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship (such as a passport or a birth certificate) when registering to vote in the state. This state law, however, conflicts with a federal law known as the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which requires states to register voters who submit a standardized federal registration form.

That form requires Arizona voters to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they are in fact citizens. But it does not require them to submit other proof of citizenship.
Story by Julia Mehalko

A Texas state agency has accused Elon Musk’s SpaceX of repeatedly polluting waters and violating the Clean Water Act.   

According to these claims, the company refused to file accurate permits about its water deluge system at its Starbase facility — even though Texas warned them about this inaccurate permit.   

Two Agencies Go After SpaceX
A new notice has been released by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) alleging that SpaceX knowingly and repeatedly released various pollutants into or near bodies of water in the Lone Star State.

This notice comes only five months after the Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 office, which covers the Texas region, stated that SpaceX had violated the Clean Water Act.

Polluting Texas Waters
According to this most recent notice, SpaceX has been “discharging deluge water without TCEQ authorization.”   

This has happened repeatedly, as the document said, “In total, the Harlingen region received 14 complaints alleging environmental impacts from the Facility’s deluge system.”
Story by Darryl Coote

Aug. 13 (UPI) -- A U.S. Army soldier and intelligence analyst with top secret security clearance pleaded guilty Tuesday to selling American military secrets to China, including fighter jet manuals, documents on missiles and lessons learned from Russia's invasion of Ukraine in connection to Beijing's threat to take Taiwan.

Korbein Schultz of Fort Campbell, Tenn., faces decades in federal jail after pleading guilty Tuesday to a six-count indictment for being involved in a conspiracy to use his position to gain access to U.S. national defense information that he sold to a co-conspirator whom he suspected to be linked to the Chinese government. He was also accused of trying to recruit other members of the U.S. military to join the conspiracy.
Brig. Gen. Rhett Cox, commanding general of the Army Counterintelligence Command, said that among Schultz' crimes was his failure to fulfill the oath he swore to protect national security as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces.

"Not only did he fail in his sworn duty, but placed personal gain above his duty to our country and disclosed information that could give advantage to a foreign nation, putting his fellow Soldiers in jeopardy," Cox said in a statement Tuesday.
Story by Sean O'Driscoll

Donald Trump has twice been accused of accepting Middle East payments, an attorney has said.

New York lawyer Colleen Kerwick was reacting to an investigation by The Washington Post on August 2 into an alleged $10 million cash payment from the Egyptian president to Donald Trump.

Newsweek approached the Trump campaign for comment on Monday.

The Washington Post article suggested that Trump's attorney general, Bill Barr, thwarted an investigation into the alleged payment and transferred the prosecutor involved in the case.

Kerwick said that this is not the first time that Barr has been accused of blocking an investigation into payments to Trump from a Middle Eastern government.

"Barr also allegedly intervened to have Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the SDNY, resign in 2020 when Berman was investigating cases that had potential political implications, including those involving Turkish interests."
"Businessman Wadie Habboush and family made a $1,000,000.00 donation to Trump and facilitated a meeting with Erdogan. Erdogan-tied businessman granted access to Trump through a donor," she said.
By  THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states.

After an introduction from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, she and Walz made their joint debut a rally Tuesday evening in Philadelphia, kicking off their battleground state tour.
Asif Merchant flew from Pakistan to the U.S. to find hitmen, prosecutors said.
By Aaron Katersky and Jack Date

A Pakistani national with purported ties to Iran was arrested last month on charges he plotted to assassinate former President Donald Trump and multiple other public officials, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

While the criminal complaint does not mention Trump by name, multiple sources familiar with the case told ABC News one of the intended targets of the alleged plot was Trump. Other possible targets included government officials from both sides of the aisle, the sources said.

After spending time in Iran, Asif Merchant flew from Pakistan to the U.S. to recruit hitmen to carry out the alleged plot, according to a detention memo. The person he contacted was a confidential informant working with the FBI, according to the criminal complaint.
ABC News

Several U.S. personnel were possibly injured following a suspected rocket attack Monday against U.S. and Coalition forces at Al-Assad Air Base in western Iraq, a Department of Defense spokesperson told ABC News.

"Initial indications are that several U.S. personnel were injured," the spokesperson said. "Base personnel are conducting a post-attack damage assessment. We will provide updates as more information becomes available."
Story by Ella Lee

Former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis has agreed to cooperate with Arizona prosecutors in their 2020 election subversion case against aides to former President Trump and the state’s so-called fake electors.

Ellis previously faced nine felony counts including fraud, forgery and conspiracy, but in exchange for her cooperation, the charges were dismissed.

In a statement, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called the agreement a “significant step forward” in the case.

“I am grateful to Ms. Ellis for her cooperation with our investigation and prosecution,” Mayes said. “Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court. As I stated when the initial charges were announced, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined — it is far too important. Today’s announcement is a win for the rule of law.”
Story by Alex Woodward

Donald Trump said he would “fire” the ABC News journalist who grilled him about his past comments during a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists convention on July 31.

During his appearance on Adin Ross’s livestream on Kick on Monday, Trump was asked for his reaction to the event, which his campaign appeared to cut short by 30 minutes when it was clear that he led the session off the rails.

“This woman starts talking … about racism, and I said, ‘You didn’t even say hello to me,’ and I’m doing them a favor by doing this,” Trump told Ross on Monday. “I’m doing this out of respect to the Black community.”

Last week, ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump about his history of false claims about his rivals and his inflammatory remarks to officials and reporters of color.

“Why would Black voters trust you when you have used language like that?” she asked.

“I don’t think I’ve been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” Trump replied. “You don’t even say hello, how are you.”

Trump told Ross that he didn’t “know who she was.”

“She was nasty. Terrible person,” he said. “She is horrible. She was very nasty.”

He later said that “if I owned that network I would fire her so fast.”
Story by Brad Reed

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) claimed on Monday that he had discovered more instances of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failing to disclose private flights that were paid for by Republican megadonor Harlan Crow.

The New York Times reports that Wyden cited Customs and Border Protections records showing that "the justice and his wife, Virginia Thomas, took a round trip between Hawaii and New Zealand in November 2010 on Mr. Crow’s private jet, according to the letter. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, writing to Mr. Crow’s lawyer, demanded that he supply more information about the financial relationship between the two men."
Story by MATTHEW BARAKAT and MICHAEL LIEDTKE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Monday ruled that Google's ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world's best-known companies.

The highly anticipated decision issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country's biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century.

After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year's 10-week trial, Mehta issued his potentially market-shifting decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling.
Story by Nicholas Liu

Residents in battleground states are submitting personal information to a pro-Trump PAC whose website invites them to "register to vote" — but instead of actually registering any voters, the PAC is just storing their precious voter data. Now Michigan's top elections official is opening an investigation in the so-called "America PAC," which was founded and partially funded by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for potential violations of state election law.

“Every citizen should know exactly how their personal information is being used by PACs, especially if an entity is claiming it will help people register to vote in Michigan or any other state,” a spokeswoman for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said in a statement to CNBC.

When visitors to the PAC's website access the page from safe Democratic or Republican states, they are typically directed to an actual voter registration page. However, those who enter zip codes in a battleground state like Pennsylvania or Georgia are given a highly detailed form in which they are prompted to submit their address, cellphone number and age. Even after the user submits that information, the website does not help them register to vote, despite promising to do so, instead steering them towards a "thank you" page.

As of Aug. 4, following criticism of the deceptive tactic, the form disappeared from the website.
Story by Jenni Fink

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas broke with the majority of the Supreme Court on Monday in a ruling that prevented the state of Missouri from suing the state of New York over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in May and, if there are no other delays, will be sentenced in September. Trump's trial hasn't shown to have a huge impact on his ability to win the election this year, but Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey argued that the gag order and sentencing occurring before the election infringes on the rights of Missouri voters.

The Supreme Court, however, disagreed. In an order on Monday, it denied Bailey's motion to file a complaint against Bragg and since he couldn't file the complaint, they rendered the relief he sought as moot.

Thomas and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito agreed with the Court to not grant the relief Bailey wanted, but broke with the other justices on the decision to prevent the lawsuit from taking place. Thomas and Alito would grant the motion to file the bill of complaint.
Victor Pinchuk donated $150,000 to Trump's charitable organization in 2015.
By Soo Rin Kim, Lalee Ibssa , and Kelsey Walsh

Former Trump administration official Kellyanne Conway has registered as a foreign agent representing Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk's foundation, new foreign lobbying disclosure reports show.

In 2015, the Ukrainian steel magnate donated $150,000 to former President Donald Trump's charitable organization to book the then-presidential candidate to speak at a conference in Kyiv.

The donation was later reportedly investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller's team in connection with their probe into Trump's and his campaign's alleged role in Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to The New York Times. Mueller's final report did not specifically address this donation.

Conway is representing the U.K. office of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which the disclosure filings describe as a "registered, private, nonpartisan, philanthropic company limited by guarantee in the United Kingdom primarily focused on advancing artistic, scientific, charitable, benevolent, and philanthropic purposes in Ukraine or related to Ukraine."

According to the disclosure, Conway has been hired to influence American "political leaders," "lawmakers, experts and opinion makers" on a variety of issues related to Ukraine, including "making best efforts to convince" them to "attend the annual Yalta European Strategy meeting in Kiev on September 13 - 14," the disclosure filing states.
Opinion by Sabrina Haake

Project 2025, Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook on Christian nationalism, is already in motion. While the media debates Trump’s disingenuous disavowals of the masterplan, the real story is the extent to which the Supreme Court has already begun implementing it.

Project 2025 seeks to degrade civil rights nationwide by outlawing abortion, mandating Christianity and reducing LGBT+ citizens to second class status.

But these culture war flashpoints are merely a ruse, a distraction for the media to consume while its backers disguise their real objective. Project 2025 is a massive undertaking financed by fossil fuel wealth to protect fossil fuels, abetted by Supreme Court justices with ties to Big Oil.

The Supreme Court's immunity decision is facing its first test. The ruling granted Trump broad immunity in his federal coup case against Jack Smith for “official acts.” Judge Tanya Chutkan will now decide which allegations are immune from prosecution. MSNBC’s Katie Phang is joined by Politco’s Ankush Khardori and The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell.
Maya Boddie

Many Democrats, political and legal experts have warned that a second Donald Trump presidency would likely mean the end of American democracy, based on his proposed policies like mass deportation through force of the National Guard, and using the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.

In a Sunday, August 4 report published by Politico, reporter Gavin Bade highlights another aspect of a second presidency that would also be a danger to democracy — former top Trump trade official, Robert Lighthizer.

Foreign Policy columnist Edward Alden, in May, wrote an article about Lighthizer, titled, "The Man Who Would Help Trump Upend the Global Economy, asserting: "As President Donald Trump’s trade representative, he turned the United States away from six decades of support for a rules-based, multilateral trading system and toward a robustly nationalist approach."
Story by Peter Wade

Donald Trump boasted about MAGA supporters taking over Georgia's State Election Board, part of his team's efforts to corrupt future elections.

"I don't know if you've heard but the Georgia State Election Board is in a very positive way… They're on fire, they're doing a great job," Trump said Saturday night at a rally in Atlanta.

The former president went on to name the three MAGA Republicans currently on the five-person board - Dr. Janis Johnson, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King - calling them "pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory."

According to the State Election Board's website, their charge is not fighting for "victory" for Trump. The board is "entrusted with a variety of responsibilities and authority to protect all Georgians' right to cast a ballot."
At the rally, Trump also pushed his big lie of election fraud, claiming, "I won this state twice in my opinion."

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Team Trump is behind efforts to undermine voter integrity in Georgia. His allies have been working in the state to purge voter roles and put into place policies that make it easier to challenge election results. A source close to Trump told Rolling Stone that "Georgia is our laboratory."
Story by Ben Blanchet

Former President Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday just days after the massive prisoner exchange between the U.S., Russia and other Western nations.

“By the way, I would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for having made yet another great deal. Did you see the deal we made?” said the Republican nominee at a campaign rally in Atlanta.

The historic prisoner swap —the largest such exchange involving the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War — saw 16 people including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich being released from Russian custody.

It’s been described as a massivewin for President Joe Biden’s administration in the days since.

Trump, who hasshowed love to Putin before and once claimed the Russian leader wouldn’t release Gershkovich “for anyone else” but him, didn’t mention any Americans who returned home as part of the deal at his Atlanta rally.

Project 2025 dedicates six chapters to "The Common Defense," proposing sweeping changes for the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the intelligence community. Its goal is to remove any obstacles to Trump’s authority and entrench right-wing culture wars into governance. The proposals include purging military leaders who don't align with Trump’s policies, eliminating what it terms "divisive critical race theory programs," expelling trans individuals from military service, and requiring military aptitude tests for public school students. Project 2025 advocates “a purge of anyone who might disagree with a second Trump administration,” warns top national security lawyer Mark Zaid.
Opinion by Thom Hartmann

Republicans in Georgia have been champions at pioneering new ways to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Their latest scam is breathtaking.

First, the background.

When Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp was Secretary of State — the state’s top elections official — and running against Stacey Abrams for Governor in 2018, Abrams’ organization had registered 53,000 people (70% African American) to vote. Kemp put those registrations on hold so they couldn’t vote in the 2018 election, which he won by 54,723 votes.

But that was just the beginning for Kemp. By the year prior to the 2018 election he’d purged a total of 1.4 million voters from the rolls, claiming he was just removing people who’d died or moved. On a single night in July 2017 he removed half a million voters, about 8% of all registered Georgia voters, an act The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said “may represent the largest mass disenfranchisement in US history.”

Investigative reporter Greg Palast hired the company Amazon uses to verify addresses and ran the names and addresses of those 534,000 people Kemp purged that July day through their system: 334,000 of them, most Black, had neither died nor moved. But they’d sure lost their right to vote.

Then Kemp shut down 8 percent of all the polling places in Georgia just before the election, the majority — recommended as a “cost saving move” by a white consultant Kemp had hired — in Black neighborhoods. Did I mention that he “won” that election by only 54,723 votes?
Story by Nandika Chatterjee

In January 2017, a bank manager at the National Bank of Egypt in Cairo received a letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service asking them “kindly withdraw” about $10 million in cash from the organization’s account. That took place just five days before Donald Trump became president, The Washington Post reported in an exclusive on Friday, revealing that federal investigators believed the withdrawn cash may have been intended as a bribe for the Republican.

According to bank records, the state-run branch emptied a considerable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency by filling two large bags with bundles of $100 bills weighing a combined 200 pounds. Later four men arrived to carry away the bags.
Vadim Krasikov, who was returned to Russia in the big prisoner swap, received a hero’s welcome from President Putin, along with others who were freed.
By Ivan Nechepurenko

The convicted assassin who was the linchpin of the biggest prisoner swap in decades is a member of the most powerful security agency in Russia, the Kremlin acknowledged on Friday, and had served in a special unit with some agents who now guard President Vladimir V. Putin.

The ties help explain Mr. Putin’s determination to free the assassin, Vadim Krasikov, from the German prison where he was serving time for murder. The effort culminated on Thursday when Mr. Krasikov and seven other former prisoners returned to Moscow after an exchange with Western nations that involved 24 adults and seven countries.

This was the first time that Moscow had admitted that Mr. Krasikov had been working for the Russian state in the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., an agency that is a successor to the Soviet K.G.B., in which Mr. Putin served in the early stage of his career. The F.S.B. was also the agency that was at the center of the negotiations with the C.I.A. about the swap, Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said.
Maya Yang

Kamala Harris’s campaign has brought in a staggering $310m in July, more than double the $137m that Donald Trump’s campaign raised last month, according to a new report.

On Friday, Politico reported that Harris’s campaign and other affiliated committees have $377m in cash on hand, marking a $50m advantage over Trump’s total funds of $327m.

Since her entry into the race following Joe Biden’s re-election bid withdrawal, Harris has galvanized Democrats across the country, with a new Associated Press poll revealing that about eight in 10 Democrats say they would be somewhat or very satisfied if she became the Democratic nominee for president.
By Dmitry Antonov and Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW, Aug 2 (Reuters) - A family of Russian sleeper agents flown to Moscow in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War were so deep under cover that their children found out they were Russians only after the flight took off, the Kremlin said on Friday.

"Before that, they didn't know that they were Russian and that they had anything to do with our country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"And you probably saw that when the children came down the plane's steps that they don't speak Russian and that Putin greeted them in Spanish. He said 'buenas noches'."

Giving new details about the swap and those freed, Peskov confirmed that Vadim Krasikov, a hitman released by Germany, was an employee of Russia's FSB security service and had served in Alpha Group, the FSB's special forces unit.

Krasikov was convicted by a German court of killing a former Chechen militant in a Berlin park in 2019. President Vladimir Putin hugged him after he got off a plane in Moscow on Thursday evening.
Story by Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter

The self-styled “secretary of retribution” for Donald Trump, who created a “Deep State target list” a prominent congressman describes as a “vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans,” received an audience earlier this month with the very people he’s sought to attract: law enforcement officers.

Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army lieutenant colonel with designs on conducting “live-streamed swatting raids” against the more 350 politicians, federal employees, journalists and others on the list, detailed his plans to about two-dozen police officials gathered earlier this month for a sheriffs’ association conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

Raiklin’s 20-minute presentation to the Texas law enforcement officials took place in a private meeting room on July 22 in a restaurant in Fort Worth, according to a video reviewed by Raw Story.

During his presentation, Raiklin laid out a legally dubious plan in which he suggested the law enforcement officials could investigate various high-ranking Democrats by reviewing their private communications on the social media platform X, and then correlating the geo-located data to their local counties.
Story by Carl Gibson

In the critical battleground state of Georgia, voting rights advocates are warning that a new website launched by the state's top elections official will be exploited by bad-faith groups seeking to disenfranchise voters.

USA TODAY recently reported that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger (R) is rolling out a web portal that will allow anyone to request a voter's registration be purged from the state's rolls. The Georgia Voter Registration Cancellation Portal was meant to be a tool for former residents of the Peach State to take themselves off of Georgia's list of registered voters in the event they move, or for family members to remove a deceased relative's name from the database.
Carl Gibson

On Friday, former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) gave a joint press conference at Mar-a-Lago to introduce an initiative aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting. But one Fox News host slammed that policy proposal as a red herring.

Johnson joined Trump for the press conference in the wake of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) threatening to bring a motion to vacate to the floor of the House of Representatives in protest of Johnson's bipartisan efforts to keep the federal government open. Trump made it clear that Johnson had his support, despite Greene saying on Friday that the speaker was "full of sh--" during an interview with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

During the press conference, with Trump scowling behind him, Johnson promised to introduce legislation "to require that every single person who registers to vote in a federal election must prove that they're an American citizen first."

Of course, as Punchbowl News' John Bresnahan tweeted, US residents who lack citizenship "can’t vote in federal elections [and] haven’t been able to do so for decades." During a Friday segment on Fox News' The Five, panelist Richard Fowler echoed that sentiment, casting doubt on the need for a new law on the books to ban non-citizens from voting.

"This press conference was billed as an 'election integrity' press conference," Fowler said. "In 1996 congress passed the illegal immigration reform and immigration responsibility act. That act makes it explicitly illegal for noncitizens to vote."
Story by Beth Moreton

Many precedents have been in place for years in court cases, based on the U.S. Constitution, to help give more protection to the defendant.

However, this could soon change if Chief Justice John Roberts gets his way. The Chief Justice wants to encourage the return of historical court cases so that decisions can be overturned based on constitutional protections. In short, you should be very worried.    

Who Is Chief Justice John Roberts?
Chief Justice John Roberts graduated from Harvard College in 1976 with an A.B. and Harvard Law School in 1979 with a J.D. He has had a law career spanning almost 50 years.   

During that time, he worked in law for various companies and areas before he was finally appointed as the Chief Justice of the United States by then-President George W. Bush in September 2005.

Precedent Is Important
When Justice Roberts was made Chief Justice in 2005, during his confirmation, he made the point that precedent is “important in promoting stability and even handedness.”  

However, it appears that Justice Roberts’ opinion on precedent has changed in the two decades since that moment. Roberts has been crucial in overturning previous Supreme Court rulings, such as the Roe V. Wade overturn in 2022.
By Arden Farhi, Olivia Gazis, Camilla Schick

After a historically complex, monthslong negotiation involving more than six countries and two dozen prisoners, the Biden administration on Thursday announced it had secured the release of three American citizens from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, all of whom are expected to arrive on American soil by nightfall.

The three will return to the United States as part of a 24-person prisoner swap — one of the largest since the end of the Cold War — among the U.S., Russia, Germany and three other Western countries.

The deal is a significant and hard-fought win for the Biden administration, which has secured the release of more than 60 hostages or wrongful detainees from around the world over the past three years. Few cases have received a similar level of prominence or scrutiny as the ones in Russia, a longstanding geopolitical rival of the U.S. with a history of taking — and trading — foreign detainees.

"All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over," President Biden said in a statement.
“He’s grasping around,” said Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based political strategist.
By Natalie Allison and Alex Isenstadt

Scrambling to put an end to Kamala Harris’ ascent, Donald Trump’s campaign and outside allies came up with a plan: Hit her on immigration, her record as a “liberal prosecutor” and as a “radical.”

It didn’t last long.

During a 34-minute question-and-answer appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump questioned Harris’ Black identity. He said he would pardon violent Jan. 6 rioters, and he didn’t directly answer when asked if his vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, would be ready to assume the presidency.

The exchanges overshadowed the attacks his political operation has made against Harris in recent days, while Trump still seems to be searching for an effective message to damage her.

“They don’t have a narrative that they’re comfortable with about how to take down Harris,” said Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based political strategist. “He’s grasping around. I think he’s desperately grasping around with his instincts. I don’t think his team has any way to put their handle on this, and so he’s instinctually grasping around for what to say.”
It's not clear the legislation has the votes to advance as top Republicans rally opposition. The vote comes amid criticism over Sen. JD Vance's comments about "childless cat ladies."
By Sahil Kapur, Julie Tsirkin and Kate Santaliz

WASHINGTON — The Democratic-led Senate will hold a key test vote Thursday on a bipartisan bill to expand the child tax credit and provide some tax breaks for businesses.

But it’s not clear Democrats have enough Republican support to break a filibuster and advance the bill toward a final vote, as many GOP senators oppose it.

“This should be a no-brainer,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters. “Right now, the only ones standing in the way are Senate Republicans. Everyone else, even House Republicans, are for this.”

The vote on the bill, which would provide the most financial help to multi-child households, comes as Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the GOP vice presidential nominee, faces heated criticism over past remarks disparaging “childless cat ladies” and questioning the character of women who choose not to have kids. Vance is scheduled to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Thursday and is expected to miss the vote. His office didn’t say how he'd vote if he were in Washington.

Asked about Vance’s labeling Democrats “anti-family,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who negotiated the bill with House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., responded: “There’s a lot of weird stuff going on here.”
By Oren Liebermann and Lauren del Valle, CNN

CNN — The US has reached a plea deal with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants accused of plotting the 2001 terror attacks, according to the Defense Department.

The pretrial agreement – reached after 27 months of negotiations – takes the death penalty off the table for Mohammed, Walid Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa al Hawsawi, prosecutors said in a letter, obtained by CNN, sent to the families of 9/11 victims and survivors shortly before the Department of Defense announced the news in a press release Wednesday evening.

After beginning negotiations in March 2022, the three men agreed to plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charging sheet, the families were told.

Mohammed and his co-defendants will enter guilty pleas at a plea hearing that could come as early as next week, according to the letter.

“We recognize that the status of the case in general, and this news in particular, will understandably and appropriately elicit intense emotion, and we also realize that the decision to enter into a pre-trial agreement will be met with mixed reactions amongst the thousands of family members who lost loved ones,” prosecutors wrote in the letter. “The decision to enter into a pre-trial agreement after 12 years of pre-trial litigation was not reached lightly; however, it is our collective, reasoned, and good-faith judgment that this resolution is the best path to finality and justice in this case.”
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