The Conversation -- August 29, 2023
Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Many witnesses who spoke with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots have indicated that former Trump lawyer [link fixed] Rudy Giuliani was repeatedly inebriated in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Now sources are telling Rolling Stone that special counsel Jack Smith may use these alleged instances of inebriation to undermine ... Donald Trump's ... expected [defense that he was] following the best advice of his attorneys. 'In their questioning of multiple witnesses, Smith's team of federal investigators have asked questions about how seemingly intoxicated Giuliani was during the weeks he was giving Trump advice on how to cling to power,' the publication writes. 'The special counsel's team has also asked these witnesses if Trump had ever gossiped with them about Giuliani's drinking habits, and if Trump had ever claimed Giuliani's drinking impacted his decision making or judgment. Federal investigators have inquired about whether the then-president was warned, including after Election Night 2020 about Giuliani's allegedly excessive drinking.'... In other words, if Trump were knowingly taking legal advice from a drunken Giuliani, it would hurt claims that he was solely seeking the best sober-minded legal advice available to him rather than just cherry-picking the advice of people who told him only what he wanted to hear." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Giuliani's propensity to hit the bottle hardly would be a surprise to Trump. As Martin Pengelly of the Guardian reported August 24, "Depressed and drinking to excess after the failure of his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Rudy Giuliani secretly recovered at the Florida home of ... Donald Trump. 'We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,' Giuliani's third wife, Judith Giuliani, says in a new book.... Reports of [Giuliani's] drinking while fulfilling his late-career role as Trump's personal attorney are legion, whether regarding his behavior around reporters or in his presence at the White House on election night in 2020, when he exhorted Trump to declare victory before all results were counted. In testimony to the House January 6 committee, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said Giuliani was 'definitely intoxicated' that night."
Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Four criminal indictments of Donald Trump have ignited his followers and spurred his House Republican allies to try to use the upcoming government funding deadline of Sept. 30 as leverage to undermine the prosecutions.... Special counsel Jack Smith's office is funded by a 'permanent, indefinite appropriation for independent counsels,' the [Justice D]epartment said in its statement of expenditures. Given its separate funding source, the special counsel would not be affected by a shutdown and could run off of allocations from previous years. As a result, Republicans are looking at ways to insert provisions in government funding legislation that would hinder federal and state prosecutors who have secured indictments of Trump, based on unproven claims that he's being politically targeted.... Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a Trump ally who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said Monday he will introduce two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump's prosecutors -- Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. His office said the measures would block their prosecutorial authority over 'any major presidential candidate prior to' the 2024 election."
Ella Lee of the Hill: "Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked a Georgia judge Tuesday to expedite the cases of all 19 defendants charged in a sweeping racketeering case over interference in the state's 2020 election. After defendant Kenneth Chesebro demanded a speedy trial in the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set his trial date for Oct. 23, four months sooner than the date Willis had originally proposed.... Willis said Tuesday that her office maintains its position that 'severance is improper at this juncture and that all Defendants should be tried together' -- a position she has held since announcing charges earlier this month. 'At an absolute minimum, the Court should set Defendant Powell's trial and that of any other defendant who may file a speedy trial demand on the same date as Defendant Chesebro's,' Willis said."
Michigan. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "The Michigan Republican Party is starving for cash. A group of prominent activists -- including a former statewide candidate -- was hit this month with felony charges connected to a bizarre plot to hijack election machines. And in the face of these troubles, suspicion and infighting have been running high. A recent state committee meeting led to a fistfight, a spinal injury and a pair of shattered dentures. This turmoil is one measure of the way Donald J. Trump's lies about the 2020 election ... [broke] the state party into ardent believers and pragmatists wanting to move on. Bitter disputes, power struggles and contentious primaries followed, leaving the Michigan Republican Party a husk of itself.... [The election-denying candidates] were resoundingly defeated [in 2022].... Republicans across the state were left pointing fingers."
Sheryl Stolberg & Rebecca Robbins of the New York Times: "The Biden administration on Tuesday announced the first 10 medicines that will be subject to price negotiations with Medicare, kicking off a landmark program that is expected to reduce the government's drug spending but is being fought by the pharmaceutical industry in court. The medications on the list are taken by millions of older Americans and cost Medicare billions of dollars annually. The drugs were selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services through a process that prioritized medications that account for the highest Medicare spending, have been on the market for years and do not yet face competition from rivals.... Medicare gained the authority to negotiate the price of some prescription medicines when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last year, a signature legislative achievement for the president.... Republicans in Congress opposed authorizing Medicare to negotiate prices, criticizing the move as tantamount to imposing government price controls.... Polling ... has found broad, bipartisan public support for allowing Medicare to negotiate prices." ~~~
~~~ Tami Luhby of CNN: The drugs on the list "are: Eliquis, Jardiance, Xarelto, Januvia, Farxiga, Entresto, Enbrel, Imbruvica, Stelara, and Fiasp and certain other insulins made by Novo Nordisk, including NovoLog."
Emma Brown & Peter Jamison of the Washington Post: "On a private call with Christian millionaires, home-schooling pioneer Michael Farris pushed for a strategy aimed at siphoning billions of tax dollars from public schools[.]... [Farris's] solution: lawsuits alleging that schools' teachings about gender identity and race are unconstitutional, leading to a Supreme Court decision that would mandate the right of parents to claim billions of tax dollars for private education or home schooling.... The 50-minute recording, whose details Farris did not dispute..., is a remarkable demonstration of how the ideology he has long championed has moved from the partisan fringe to the center of the nation's bitter debates over public education." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. See also his comment & others in today's thread.
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The Trials of Trump
Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump and his campaign Monday lashed out at the federal judge overseeing his trial in Washington, D.C., over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election shortly after she scheduled his trial to begin for March. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set Trump's D.C. trial for March 4 after special counsel Jack Smith's team asked for a Jan. 2 trial date. Trump's team suggested a trial date in April 2026, well beyond the presidential election. 'Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!' Trump wrote on Truth Social, repeating his claim that his numerous legal problems amount to 'election interference' as he runs for a second White House term. Trump's team is likely to file motions and attempt to delay the trial, though the date itself cannot directly be appealed.... 'From setting a trial date for the day before 'Super Tuesday' to sending a fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County, the Biden regime is no longer hiding its nakedly political motivations,' [a campaign] statement said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Maybe the "campaign" didn't notice that the Trump campaign sent out at least one "fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County" and that it continues to try to fund-raise off Trump's indictment & mugshot.
Judge Picks World Obesity Day, Super Tuesday Eve for Trump Trial. From a CNN liveblog on the trials of Trump: "... Donald Trump will go to trial in March 4, 2024, on charges alleging he worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan said Monday." Thanks to Forrest M. for the obesity thing. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The federal judge overseeing ... Donald J. Trump's prosecution on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election set a trial date on Friday for early March, laying out a schedule that was close to the government's initial request of January and that rebuffed Mr. Trump's extraordinary proposal to push off the proceeding until nearly a year and half after the 2024 election. The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, issued at a contentious hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, to start the trial on March 4 potentially brought it into conflict with two other trials that Mr. Trump is facing that month. The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on the same day. A second trial in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up the 2016 election, is set to go to trial on March 25. While Judge Chutkan noted that she had already spoken to the judge in the Manhattan case, the fact that three of the four criminal cases confronting Mr. Trump could go before separate juries in separate cities within weeks of one another reflects the extraordinary nature of the former president's legal situation....
"In remarks from the bench, Judge Chutkan ... played down arguments made by Mr. Trump's lawyers that they needed until April 2026 to prepare for the trial given the voluminous amount of discovery they will have to sort through. The judge also noted that ... she was not going to let the intersection of his legal troubles and his political campaign get in the way of setting a date. Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,' Judge Chutkan said, adding that 'there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ From the CNN liveblog also linked above: "Federal prosecutor Molly Gaston said during Monday's hearing in Washington, DC, that it was important to take the special counsel's election subversion case against ... Donald Trump to trial as soon as possible in part because of Trump's social media posts. 'On a near daily basis, the defendant posts on social media about this case,' Gaston said. Gaston also sought to use some of Trump's attorney John Lauro's own public statements in her arguments. Despite his complaints earlier in the hearing about the time it would take to go through the material, Lauro previously called the prosecution a 'regurgitation' of the House select committee's investigation in an interview after the indictment was first unsealed." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Reporters on MSNBC say Judge Chutkan repeatedly asked Lauro to propose a date more reasonable than 2026 and he refused to do so. Lauro also made his arguments in such an excited manner that Judge Chutkan twice told him to "take the temperature down." Neal Katyal, speaking on MSNBC, said it seemed as if Lauro was looking for a "My Cousin Vinnie" moment but didn't get it.
Ryan Nobles & Dara Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump criticized special counsel Jack Smith's office after a report that a member of Smith's team had a pre-indictment meeting at the White House earlier this year -- but a source told NBC News the meeting was with a career White House staffer and not, as Trump claims, a sitdown to get Biden administration approval for criminal charges. 'It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING,' Trump wrote Monday on his social media platform.... 'If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they "knew nothing,"' Trump added. Trump was referring to a New York Post report on Saturday that said Jay Bratt, the Justice Department's top counterintelligence official, had a meeting at the White House on March 31 with Caroline Saba, who was then deputy chief of staff for the White House Counsel's office. They were also joined by an FBI field agent, the report said.... A source directly familiar with the meeting told NBC News that Saba had facilitated a meeting between Bratt -- a key investigator in the documents case -- and a career White House official who was in the same position in the Trump administration as well." (Also linked yesterday.)
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... Mr. Trump has made no secret in private conversations with his aides of his desire to solve his jumble of legal problems by winning the election. If either of the two federal trials he is confronting is delayed until after the race and Mr. Trump prevails, he could seek to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general simply dismiss the matters altogether."
Willfully Crazy After All These Years. Burt Neuborne in a New York Times op-ed: Jack "Smith isn't merely charging [Donald Trump] with lying; he is contending that Mr. Trump lied to gain an unlawful benefit -- a second term in office after voters showed him the exit. That kind of speech-related behavior falls comfortably within what the justices call 'categorical exceptions' to the First Amendment like true threats, incitements, obscenity, depictions of child sexual abuse, fighting words, libel, fraud and speech incident to criminal conduct.... [However, the prosecution would have difficulty proving Mr. Trump knew he was lying. Thus, the way to present Trump's lies is to rely on] the Supreme Court's doctrine of willful blindness. A dozen years ago, in the case of Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for all but one justice, ruled that proof of willful blindness is the legal equivalent of proving guilty knowledge.... When a defendant, like Mr. Trump, is on notice of the potential likelihood of an inconvenient fact (Mr. Biden's legitimate victory) and closes his eyes to overwhelming evidence of that fact, the willfully blind defendant is just as guilty as if he actually knew the fact."
MEANWHILE, in Georgia. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "A battle over whether to move the Georgia racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies to federal court began in earnest on Monday, when Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, testified in favor of such a move before a federal judge in Atlanta. Under questioning by his own lawyers and by prosecutors, Mr. Meadows stated emphatically that he believed that his actions detailed in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff. But he also appeared unsure of himself at times, saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021.... Monday's hearing marked a dramatic inflection point in the case: Mr. Meadows, one of the highest-profile defendants, faced Fulton County prosecutors for the first time. [Georgia Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger recounted the threats against him, his wife and election workers after Mr. Trump made unfounded allegations about Georgia voter fraud. And Mr. Trump's distinctive voice filled the courtroom as prosecutors played snippets of the Jan. 2 call." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The reporters suggest a couple of advantages Meadows may see in moving his case from Georgia to federal court. Speaking on MSNBC, former federal prosecutor Paul Butler mentioned another one: if the case moves to federal court, it will not be televised as it mostly likely would be in state court. ~~~
~~~ From the CNN liveblog: "Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is fleshing out how his daily activities were all part of his role as chief of staff -- a crucial point that his' legal team is trying to argue to show his post-2020 election activities were part of his official duties. 'I would get invited to almost every meeting that the president had,' Meadows testified in Monday's Georgia hearing.... Meadows said that, at times, he was a principal player in the meetings, while other times he was more of an observer.... 'There was a political component to certainly everything we did,' he said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ It Was Just a Christmas Vacation! The Washington Post's live updates of the Trump trials are here: "At a ... hearing in Atlanta, Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been testifying for hours about Trump's efforts to reverse Joe Biden's victory in Georgia; the purpose of that hearing is to see if Meadows can move his state-level indictment to federal court.... Meadows was repeatedly pressed by prosecutors on why he visited a suburban Atlanta facility where Georgia officials were auditing ballot signatures. Meadows insisted he traveled there on his own volition as a chief of staff because he was already in Georgia visiting his two children for Christmas.... Meadows insisted it did not cross the line into campaign or political work for the Trump campaign and said he only communicated with Trump and White House lawyers about it....
"Meadows claimed that Donald Trump's effort to find fraud in the 2020 election took a small fraction of Meadows's time, with many other enormous tasks on his plate.... Meadows also said a large part of his job as White House chief of staff was setting up phone calls and managing the president's calendar. He said he attended numerous meetings and listened in on many phone calls that were political in nature simply to end the conversations at the right time....
"On several occasions, Mark Meadows claimed to have no knowledge of the Trump campaign's efforts to contest the election results. On Donald Trump's phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, which Meadows participated in, he said he did not kno that three lawyers on the call -- Cleta Mitchell, Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman -- had participated in a campaign lawsuit against Raffensperger.... When questioned about an Oval Office meeting he attended with Trump and Michigan state lawmakers, Meadows said he didn't know that the campaign was contesting the results in that state." MB: Totally believable, Mark. You testify for three hours that it's your job as COS to know everything, you testify that the only reason you went to a signature verification audit near Atlanta was that you read about it in the papers and it was something to do on your Christmas vacation. You claim you had no idea the lawyers on the perfect call were campaign lawyers who had filed a suit against Raffensperger, then -- according to Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC -- you also testified the purpose of the call was to reach a settlement of the suit against Raffensperger and according to the transcript of the call, you discussed "the lawsuit" during the call. IOW, you have already contradicted yourself under oath, even before the trial phase of the proceedings. Doesn't look good, Mark. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ From Monday's CNN liveblog: "The all-day hearing on former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' request to move the Georgia election interference case to federal court in Atlanta has concluded. US District Judge Steve Jones did not rule from the bench on Monday. He acknowledged that arraignments in the criminal case were scheduled for September 6, and said he would rule as quickly as possible....
"Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has taken the stand in Mark Meadows' court hearing. He was called as a witness by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.... Before his testimony concluded, Raffensperger testified that he believed his January 2021 call with Donald Trump was held on behalf of Trump's campaign -- undercutting Meadows' argument that it was part of his role as a federal official....
~~~ According to Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, Raffensperger also testified he had no reason to believe a settlement was the purpose of the call (as Meadows claimed under oath), and settlement was not discussed during the call.
"Mark Meadows testified Monday that ... Donald Trump's January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was Meadows' attempt to resolve Trump's concerns about voter fraud and 'land the plane' on the 'whole transfer of power. to Joe Biden. Trump's concerns about voter fraud were a 'roadblock' to the transfer of power, Meadows said. Therefore, Meadows said he tried to get this off the former president's list of concerns by getting on the phone with Raffensperger.... [Meadows] was on the stand for roughly 3 1/2 hours....
"Meadows denied one of the allegations in the indictment, saying he 'did not ask' Trump White House aide John McEntee to write a memo about how to disrupt the certification of the election on January 6, 2021. Meadows was pressed by prosecutors on how the federal government had a role in a state's determination of its election results. 'There is a role for the chief of staff to make sure those campaign goals and objectives are implemented at the federal level,' Meadows testified." (Also linked yesterday.)
Devan Cole of CNN: "The federal judge overseeing Peter Navarro's contempt of Congress criminal case on Monday called his defense arguments 'pretty weak sauce.'... Navarro, Trump's one-time trade adviser, testified Monday in his defense during a key pre-trial hearing in his case. He's facing charges for defying subpoenas issued to him by the House select committee..., claiming he did so because Trump asserted executive privilege in the matter. But during the nearly three-hour hearing before US District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, DC, the judge appeared highly skeptical of Navarro's testimony.... '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.... Navarro says Trump [commented] to him about regretting not letting him testify. The comment had been used by Navarro and his team to bolster their argument that Trump did invoke privilege because his subsequent regret indicated as much. 'The record is barren, there is nothing here, even after your client's testimony,' Mehta told Woodward." (Also linked yesterday.)
Sam Fossum of CNN: "The Biden administration made its most detailed argument to date on the benefits of organized labor with a potential autoworkers' strike looming as negotiations between the United Auto Workers and auto companies continue and the president works to convince Americans to support his 'Bidenomics' vision. The report, which Vice President Kamala Harris delivered to the president, comes days after the UAW union approved possible strikes at the country's automakers next month if a deal can't be reached with management as they work to win back many concessions that were made over 15 years ago. The UAW, which backed Biden in 2020, has yet to say whether they will endorse the current president, saying their members still need to see more from Biden before lending him their support.... The new government report, released Monday by the US Treasury, shows the administration's argument that labor unions provide beneficial spillover effects to non-unionized workers and the broader economy, as well as help tackle challenges faced by many middle-class Americans, such as stagnant wages and high housing costs.... Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is a labor economist by training, highlighted the findings of the report and said that they serve as a case against the argument that labor unions stifle economic growth and productivity."
Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: "For months, as thousands of migrants seeking asylum have arrived in New York City, local officials have pleaded for Washington to intervene, urging the White House to help stem a spiraling humanitarian crisis that has strained city resources. On Monday, the Biden administration offered its most substantive response yet, but hardly the one that city officials wanted. Instead of granting the most pressing requests for assistance, the administration sought to question the city's handling of the crisis. In letters to city and state officials, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, said the federal government had identified 'structural and operational issues' in the city's response to the crisis, suggesting about two dozen recommendations 'to strengthen the city's migrant operations.'" Politico's story is here.
The Arrogance of the Tech Bros. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "If you regularly follow debates about public policy, especially those involving wealthy tech bros, it's obvious that there's a strong correlation among the three Cs: climate denial, Covid vaccine denial and cryptocurrency cultism.... The link between climate and vaccine denial is clear. In both cases you have a scientific consensus based on models and statistical analysis.... To value the scientific consensus, in other words, you have to have some respect for the whole enterprise of research and understand how scientists reach the conclusions they do.... Success all too easily feeds the belief that you're smarter than anyone else...; this kind of arrogance may be especially rife among tech types who got rich by defying conventional wisdom.... Underlying the whole crypto phenomenon is the belief by some tech types that they can invent a better monetary system than the one we currently have, all without talking to any monetary experts or learning any monetary history.... Anti-vax agitation and crypto enthusiasm are both aspects of a broader rise of know-nothingism, one whose greatest strength lies in an intellectually inbred community of very wealthy men."
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Colorado. Mike Ives of the New York Times: "The authorities in Denver approved a $4.7 million settlement on Monday for protesters who were detained for violating an emergency curfew during demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and later accused the police of using excessive force. The settlement, approved by the Denver City Council, resolves a class-action lawsuit filed by protesters against the consolidated city and county of Denver, which denies any liability or wrongdoing."
Florida. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post (Aug. 23): "Black students at a Florida elementary school were singled out and pulled from class for an assembly about how it was a 'problem' that they had performed poorly on their standardized tests.... The incident drew outrage from parents and prompted an investigation by the school district. Only Black fourth- and fifth-grade students at Bunnell Elementary School in Flagler County, Fla., [between St. Augustine & Jacksonville] were taken out of class ... for the assembly on how to improve their grades -- even students who had passing grades. Students were selected to attend based on their race.... Black teachers showed the students a typo-laden PowerPoint presentation titled, 'AA Presentation,' which noted how Black students had underperformed on standardized tests for the past three years. On the slide titled 'The Problem,' the school district identified Black students as 'AA,' or African Americans, in its assessment of their low overall scores, according to the presentation obtained by The Post.... As an incentive [to improve their scores], the students were promised meals from McDonald's...." MB: What? McDonalds? Not fried chicken & watermelon? Thanks to RAS for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Obviously, this is a story about racism. Less obviously perhaps, so are most or all of the other stories in today's links. Not all fascists are racists, but most are. Trump is both, and the 2020 election was all about racism. Joe Biden said the reason for his deciding to run for president was Trump's endorsement of the neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the Charlottesville demonstrations. After a long career in the private sector, during which he expressed racist views and racist business practices, Trump made his big political splash by leaning into the racist birther movement against President Obama. While president, he courted racists, and racism and xenophobia were the bases of his immigration policies against Mexicans, Muslims & people from "shithole countries."
His challenges to the 2020 presidential results were centered on racism: all the places where Democrats cheated were in urban areas with large minority populations. The raison d'être of the Georgia case was the recorded call to the Georgia secretary of state: as the Washington Post reports, "During a call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, Trump repeatedly pressed the state's top election official to focus on metro Atlanta's Fulton County, [where minorities outnumber Whites and] where he alleged without evidence that votes had been 'shredded' and 'dumped.' 'You will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt,' Trump said, referring to the statewide margin of his loss to Joe Biden. Trump's campaign spread a false narrative that two Black Fulton County election workers -- Ruby Freeman and her adult daughter Shaye Moss -- had been key to the fraud. Trump has repeatedly attacked Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the charges against him and is Black, as 'so racist.'"
We are still fighting the 19th-century Civil War, and white supremacists occupy every corner of our nation, not just the South. While there are economic, sociological and other tensions that permeate American politics, racism remains the dominant factor.
Ohio Voter Fraud! Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A Trump-supporting tax attorney in Shaker Heights, Ohio [-- James Saunders --] has been sentenced to three years for illegally voting twice, reported the Cleveland Scene.... 'Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Andrew Santoli coupled Saunders' sentence with a $10,000 fine, a punishment, as Santoli detailed in last week's hearing, to match the severe violation against the nation's voting laws,' reported Mark Oprea.... According to prior reports, Santoli [MB: s/b Saunders] illegally cast ballots in both Ohio and Florida, first in the 2020 presidential election, then in the 2022 midterm election." MB: It sure is odd that almost all of the voter fraudsters I read about are Republicans. It looks as if, to the miniscule extent it exists, voter fraud has benefited Republican candidates, not Democratic office-seekers.
Tennessee. Andrew Jeong of the Washington Post: "The Tennessee House's Republican majority voted Monday to temporarily silence a Democratic lawmaker who is a member of the 'Tennessee Three,' after he expressed skepticism about a draft bill proposing to install armed police at schools even if those institutions had not adopted such a policy. During a legislative debate, Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) was questioning the effectiveness of a Republican-sponsored bill that proposed plans to have armed officers serve as school resource officers, or SROs, in every state public school.... House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) ... rul[ed] that Jones was out of order -- an offense under which a member can lose the right to speak in legislative debates, according to new rules adopted by the Republican-dominated Tennessee House.... The Tennessee House voted 70 to 20 along party lines to silence him. Members of the public watching from the session from the Capitol balcony shouted 'fascists' repeatedly in protest, as Sexton ordered law enforcement officials to clear them out." An AP story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: While legislative bodies and other organizations no doubt have a right to impose certain speech rules on their members -- like prohibiting obscenities, for instance, or imposing uniform time limits on floor speeches -- stilfling unpopular speech is antithetical to the purpose of an essential democratic institution like a house of representatives. Even if almost no one in Tennessee agreed with Jones' position, Republicans are depriving Jones' legislative district of equal representation. If voters in Jones' district don't like what he says, it's up to them -- not the legislature -- to vote him out and effectively shut him up. However, after House Republicans expelled Jones, he was overwhelming re-elected earlier this month. So, yes, fascists. Look away, look away, Dixieland.
News Ledes
Weather.com: "Idalia may rapidly intensify into a major hurricane by the time it makes landfall in Florida on Wednesday. Life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain are all expected in parts of Florida later Tuesday through Wednesday, spreading to the Southeast coast by Wednesday and Thursday." ~~~
~~~ Weather.com Update: "Hurricane Idalia is producing bands of heavy rain, gusty winds and coastal flooding in Florida as it continues to intensify over the Gulf of Mexico ahead of its likely landfall at Category 3 strength Wednesday morning. Catastrophic, life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds and heavy rain are all expected along portions of the west coast of Florida and the Florida Panhandle. Parts of south Georgia and the Carolinas will also see significant impacts from Idalia." ~~~
~~~ Weather.com Update 2: "Life-threatening and catastrophic impacts to the coastline are expected to persist for hours. Urban search and rescue teams have been deployed in Florida and National Guard units across the state are helping clear major roads and debris thrown around by the storm. 'There are as of now no confirmed fatalities,' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a press conference a few minutes ago."
New York Times: "A graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been charged in the fatal shooting of one of his professors on Monday, a killing that spread fear across the campus and forced an hourslong lockdown, according to court documents. The student, Tailei Qi, 34, was charged with first-degree murder and possession of a firearm on educational property in the killing of Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the applied physical sciences department, inside a campus lab, according to court documents filed in Orange County Court in Hillsborough, N.C."
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