Crooked Media - What A Day: Frontline fling

 -John Eastman, innocent person

What A Day will be off Monday in observance of Juneteenth. See ya Tuesday!

• After weeks of publicly complaining about one another, the committee and Justice Department have reached a tentative agreement for the committee to turn over witness interview transcripts to DOJ beginning in July. DOJ wants those transcripts in part to assess the truthfulness of witnesses who've provided information to both the committee and prosecutors, and to stress test “prosecutions that have already commenced,” as DOJ leaders noted in an angry Thursday letter to the committee.
   
• By July, the committee may well (read: should) be on to related scandals. Ginni Thomas has reportedly agreed to speak to the committee about her communications with many, many Trump loyalists, including then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and top coup lawyer John Eastman about overturning the election. Eastman once served as clerk to Ginni's husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, and during the insurrection planning he suggested Thomas might side with Trump if the so-called "January 6 strategy" came before the Supreme Court. (Justice Thomas went on to vote, alone, to conceal evidence from the committee.)
   
• Among the Eastman-Thomas correspondence are 30 emails pertaining to two presentations Eastman gave to Frontliners—a right-wing group of state Republicans that Thomas had assembled—in the weeks after the election about the state of Trump's effort to overturn the election. The Ginni Thomas emails in the committee's possession (and repeated briefings she received from Eastman) suggest she was more deeply involved in efforts to overthrow the government than previously known. 

• In the midst of Thursday's hearing, Trump posted the following to his bespoke social media account: "I DEMAND EQUAL TIME!!!" Hahaha, just like the worse old days. In a more specific post, he elaborated that he'd like to go on TV for hours and hours to tell lies about the election. 
   
• A day later, in an address to the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Nashville, TN, Trump called the insurrection "a simple protest that got out of hand," and made clear that if he becomes president again, he'll pardon the insurrectionists (that is, cop beaters, rioters, and corrupt operatives) who've been charged with or convicted of crimes. The leader of the GOP folks!

In 1970, Bernadine Dohrn, a 28-year-old recent law school graduate became the most wanted woman in America. She wasn't born a revolutionary, she become one. Now 50 years later, her son, Zayd Ayers Dohrn hosts Crooked's newest podcast, Mother Country Radicals: A Family history of the Weather Underground. 

A new episode of Mother Country Radicals drops today! Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Republicans have put the bipartisan gun-regulation framework on life support because it includes provisions that regulate guns. Per Punchbowl, Republicans are angling to blow up the deal unless Democrats agree to leave the “boyfriend loophole” open for people who physically abused their significant others “long” ago, and make other concessions on provisions to help states stand up “red-flag laws.” That is: no deal unless the extremely modest proposed new limits on gun ownership get significantly watered down. The GOP—standing up for abusive boyfriends who want to own guns, because that is one of their key constituencies. 

Take Action Today: Protect Trans Youth

Lawmakers have introduced and advanced bills targeting transgender youth in state legislatures across the country – putting 2022 on track to be another horrific, record-setting year for attacks on trans rights, especially trans youth rights.

ACLU lawyers and advocates are monitoring and fighting back against these gratuitous attacks – but we need supporters like you to join the fight as well. Sign our petition today to protect trans youth.

Here's where some of the latest threats are unfolding:

• Texas: Trans youth and their families have had to face the terror of being subjected to invasive and threatening investigations simply for receiving medically-necessary care to affirm their genders.
• Arizona: Multiple anti-trans bills have been pushed in Arizona, including a healthcare ban for trans youth and a bill excluding trans girls from participating in sports at the grade school, high school, or collegiate level.
• Florida: Governor DeSantis signed a law banning any discussion of LGBTQ youth from classrooms, and his Department of Health issued fact-free guidance contradicting medical experts and federal guidelines for medical providers working with transgender youth.
• South Dakota: South Dakota passed the first anti-trans bill of 2022, which bans transgender girls from being able to play on sports teams that affirm their gender. 

These bills represent a nationwide, coordinated campaign to push trans people out of public life. To be clear, these bills will not stop youth from being trans. They only make it harder to access the support, education, and community that all young people need. It's a cruel and needless assault on the health and safety of kids just trying to grow up – and that's why the ACLU is pushing back relentlessly. Will you join us?

With strength,

The ACLU Team 

• Florida is the only state that did not pre-order coronavirus vaccines for children under five—and failed to do so on purpose—because Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is a full-fledged anti-vaxxer.  
   
• The Senate Armed Services Committee padded President Biden’s already enormous annual Pentagon budget with an extra $45 billion because members are very seriously concerned about inflation. 
   
• SpaceX tracked down and fired employees who organized an open letter to the company’s executives calling Elon Musk “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment” and asking that he be reined in.
   
• U.S. TikTok data has been repeatedly accessed from China. 🎶Oh no. Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
   
• Elise Stefanik-endorsed GOP House candidate Carl Paladino said Democrats keep black Americans "dumb and hungry" so that they mindlessly vote Democrat, adding, "You can't teach them differently."
   
• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) hates to be “challenged by medical experts” who don’t like it when he says insane, reckless, false things like that COVID-19 vaccines “pretty obviously” are killing adults. 
   
• GOP Michigan gubernatorial candidate and indicted insurrectionist Ryan Kelley wanted to keep his gun while awaiting trial but the judge said no :(. 
   
• Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) was under the Tuscan sun sipping wine and (presumably) body slamming locals while his state drowned and he pretended to be on the job. 
   
• Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) joined Truth Social to own the cons.  

Who’s funding the Big Lie? It isn’t just MAGA-hat wearing fascists with money to spare. It’s also Fortune 500 companies, many of which promised not to fund insurrectionists after the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. According to an analysis by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, corporations and trade associations have forked more than $32 million over to Republicans who voted to overturn the election, driven by a top-10 who’s who: Koch Industries, Boeing, Home Depot, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, General Motors, and FedEx. Less than half of the almost 250 companies that promised not to fund those Republicans have kept their word, and those dollars have flowed down not just to the House Republicans who quietly opposed certification to direct collaborators, including current House members and Trump-endorsed insurrection participants across the country.

If you have investments, odds are high that your money has been winding up in places you would never put it on purpose. Places like Mitch McConnell’s campaign coffers. Here’s the problem: A lot of Americans own S&P 500 index funds—these are funds made up of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies available, and they collectively contain over $1.5 trillion dollars of Americans’ retirement money.

Unfortunately, when you buy an S&P 500 index fund, you’re buying stock in the following companies:
 

• 3M gives to Mitch McConnell and makes “forever chemicals”
   
• ExxonMobil gives to Trump and has known about the dangers of climate change for decades 
   
• Halliburton has funneled millions to the GOP and is also one of the nation’s biggest defense contractors
   
•  Lockheed Martin is the largest weapons manufacturer in the world and is also a top contributor to Lindsey Graham
   
• Las Vegas Sands’ CEO was Trump’s largest donor during the 2020 election – he gave over $45M
   
• Wynn Resorts has also been one of the top contributors to Trump, McConnell, and the GOP
   
• First Energy just paid a $230M penalty related to a bribery scandal involving Ohio state Republicans
   
• AT&T is already back supporting the election objectors and was a top donor to McConnell and Graham