And another day of indictments, rulings, business partners, cabinet officials, Fox staffers trapped in the “Trump Cult,” USPS bullshit, endorsements, domestic terrorist threats, Sturgis cases, and Americans with disabilities comes to a close:
"I am telling you with every fiber of my being, that some of the President's closest advisers did not think he had the mental acuity to do the actual job." — Miles Taylor
Deaths
US: 177,424 (+1087)
World: 797,099 (+6122)
Cases
US: 5,746,272 (45,341)
World: 22,859,500 (+281,859)
Countdown: 75 days.
US elections require a 'well-educated electorate about Russian tactics,' says Sen. Warner. This week, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the fifth and final volume of its report on Russian interference. It's nearly 1,000-pages and mostly takes a look back. But it's filled with clear warnings for this election. Mark Warner: Well, I think every American should read of the absolutely stunning number of contacts between Russians, Russian agents and members of the Trump campaign. And in reference to Mr. Kilimnik and Mr. Manafort, we know Manafort passed over insider campaign information, polling information, as reported in the report. What the Russians did with that, how they used it, we may never know...There are Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at discrediting Vice President Biden. My job now is to keep the pressure on the intelligence community to become even more forthcoming with more information, more names about what we've learned so that we don't repeat the mistake of 2016, where, I think, if the intelligence community had been more forthcoming about the Russian interference, more Americans would have been on guard. We see in other nations like Sweden, like the Baltic nations, where the Russians also try to intervene, the best defense oftentimes is a well-educated electorate about Russian tactics.
U.S. President Trump's ex-political adviser Steve Bannon has been arrested in connection with an online fundraising scheme to support building of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, according to U.S. Justice Department officials. Federal prosecutors alleged that Bannon and three others "orchestrated a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors" in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $25 million US to build a wall along the southern border of the United States...He is the second former Trump campaign chair to be charged criminally. Bannon as campaign chair succeeded Paul Manafort, who is currently serving a sentence for an assortment of bank fraud and witness tampering charges in home confinement due to COVID-19. Read the indictment here:
This makes six close associates: Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone. And now Steve Bannon.
You are judged by the company you keep. Donald Trump is a criminal.
It's not true that Pres. Trump doesn't know the people involved in the private fundraising group, We Build the Wall, which he criticized in a tweet last month. Along with Steve Bannon, Trump knows most people on the group's board of directors. -- See comment above.
Judge throws out Trump challenge to Manhattan DA subpoena for tax records. The subpoena, directed to the president’s longtime accounting firm Mazars USA, seeks the president’s personal and business records, including tax returns, dating to 2011.
Trump’s Business Partners Allegedly Involved In Human Trafficking, Mafia Matters, Probable Money Laundering. new report from the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence offers a damning portrait of the people Donald Trump chose as his partners for potential projects in Russia. They include individuals with alleged connections to the mob, to Vladimir Putin and to human trafficking.
Trump cabinet officials voted in 2018 White House meeting to separate migrant children, say officials. "If we don't enforce this, it is the end of our country as we know it," said Trump adviser Stephen Miller, say officials present at a White House meeting. -- They voted by a show of hands. They are all complicit.
Fox News Staffers Feel Trapped In The Trump Cult. The contrast between Fox’s public face and the private “resistance” has existed ever since Trump upended the presidential race five years ago. It’s the reason why I decided to write a book about the network and its unprecedented alliance with the White House. In all I spoke with more than 140 staffers at Fox, plus 180 former staffers and others with direct ties to the network. Their frustration was palpable. Staffers described a TV network that had gone off the rails. Some even said the place that they worked, that they cashed paychecks from, had become dangerous to democracy. They felt like the news division had been squeezed out in favor of pro-Trump blowhards.
USPS Headquarters Tells Managers Not to Reconnect Mail Sorting Machines, Emails Show. Shortly after USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy issued a public statement saying he wanted to "avoid even the appearance" that any of his policies would slow down election mail, USPS instructed all maintenance managers around the country not to reconnect or reinstall any mail sorting machines they had already disconnected.
USPS Warns Employees Not to Speak to Press. Memos are trickling down the United States Postal Service bureaucracy warning employees that they should not speak to the press and any customer asking lots of questions may be a journalist sneakily trying to get information out of them. — Sure seems like someone has something to hide.
President Trump cast a vote-by-mail ballot this week after months of questioning the security of doing so. He submitted that ballot to a third party to turn in — a practice Republicans call "ballot harvesting" and one that Trump himself has criticized.
Republicans are suing to stop people from voting the way Trump did. The Republican Party is going to court this year to stop voters from using the same method President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump used this week: casting mail-in votes with help from a designated contact, who is authorized to pick up and drop off the ballots.
When election disinformation comes from President Trump, national security officials' hands are tied.
Over 70 former Republican national security officials including ex-CIA and FBI chiefs will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday while launching a scathing indictment of President Donald Trump, calling him corrupt and unfit to serve.
The FBI identified QAnon as a domestic terror threat in 2019. Wednesday, President Trump offered praise for followers of the false, far-right conspiracy theory.
President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to allow him to block critics from his personal Twitter account.
Justices remove Green Party candidates from Montana ballot. It was later learned the Montana Republican Party had bankrolled the $100,000 signature-gathering effort and violated campaign finance laws by not properly reporting the expenditure. — The GOP cheat.
Army investigating the presence of uniformed soldiers at the Democratic National Convention amid concerns about troops in politics.
White House formally declaring teachers essential workers. The move is just the latest in the administration's aggressive campaign to pressure districts into bringing back students this fall -- and although the essential worker designation provides guidance for educators that is only voluntary, it calls on teachers to return to the classroom even after potential exposure. -- Funny how all workers who have now been declared “essential workers” were never paid like they were “essential” before Covid-19.
Some Sturgis rallygoers are testing positive for coronavirus. The state’s health department said it has received reports from other states that people who traveled to attend the 10-day motorcycle rally have tested positive. -- Stupid is as stupid does.
How disabled Americans are harmed by a system meant to help them. People with disabilities struggle with the US Social Security Administration, which many say keeps them impoverished. — This is screwed up.
Children with disabilities face additional challenges returning to school amid coronavirus. And while the decision to send children back to school weighs heavily on all parents, families of children with intellectual, physical and developmental disabilities are facing unique challenges and considerations.
Anyone seeking an abortion in Indiana in 2021 will be required to undergo an ultrasound at least 18 hours before.
Use of the word “bitch” surged after women’s suffrage. In retrospect, its emergence was distressingly unsurprising: Whenever women, minorities, or other groups have successfully gained greater power in America, they’ve seen swift backlash.
Massachusetts to require students to get a flu vaccine before school year.
The hidden racism of the Muslim marriage market. We cannot defeat racism if we continue to allow cultural biases govern who we love or who we let our children marry.
Democrats have made a puzzling decision to drop their demand to end fossil fuel subsidies. Democrats say climate change is a priority. The DNC platform dropped its demand to end subsidies to dirty energy.
Kansas City Chiefs ban headdresses and face paint appropriating American Indian culture.
License plate tracking for police set to go nationwide. License plate readers are a powerful surveillance tool, raising privacy concerns for people driving on public streets. Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in March 2019 showed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents used license plate readers to track people's movements, accessing a database that logs 150 million to 200 million scans every month.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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