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Judging by their panicky gambits and subsequent faceplantings, it seems like disgraced former President Trump et al aren’t terribly comfortable with how Operation Coverup Our Failed Coup is going:
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In a Tuesday hearing, the House January 6 Committee will detail outlandish claims from Trump and his allies that federally-authorized voting machines were compromised and turned votes for Trump into votes for Biden in the 2020 election. Toward that end, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) stated that the American public will learn about a meeting in which Trump, attorney/Kraken-summoner Sidney Powell, disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn and others discussed using the military to seize the machines. Along with being seditious, it must be said that these MAGA guys are just so dramatic!
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As expected, the January 6 committee interviewed former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who was repeatedly referenced in former aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s recent testimony. The committee then issued a statement saying that Cipollone’s deposition, “reinforc[ed] key points regarding Donald Trump’s misconduct,” and provided, “highly relevant new information that will play a central role in its upcoming hearings.” If we could add an airhorn sound effect here, we would.
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Tuesday’s hearings will also highlight far-right white nationalist groups (namely the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers) who were central players in the insurrection. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes have both been hit with the rarely-used charge of seditious conspiracy. Rhodes, along with human liver spot Steve Bannon (a glaring reminder to wear sunscreen if there ever was one) have reached for desperate measures to disrupt the committee’s proceedings, each loudly asking to testify at (and seemingly derail) public hearings, to no apparent avail.
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And that extends beyond the committee’s investigation.
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Former President Trump’s campaign lawyer Justin Clark sat for an interview with federal investigators two weeks ago, a new DOJ report states, and it was a doozy. Bannon has racked up two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying his subpoenas, on the grounds that they violate executive privilege, but Clark’s interview revealed that Trump never claimed executive privilege with Bannon. With this new information in hand, Bannon badly lost his bid to delay his contempt trial. This sequence of events led one of Bannon’s lawyers to give perhaps the soundbite of the year: “What’s the point of going to trial here if there are no defenses?” he pleaded with the judge. Yeah, that’s too bad. Couldn’t have happened to a worse guy.
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In other good news for democracy, a federal appeals-court panel ruled that the House subpoena for Trump’s financial records can stand. The fight is not over—litigants can still appeal the panel’s ruling to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit or to the Supreme Court. But the decision marked, at the very least, movement related to the subpoena that was first issued in 2019 by the House Oversight Committee to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA.
It’s good to see the vise tightening around this band of indefensible goons (note to others: don’t try to overthrow the government) but we’re up against the clock, and any progress we make toward accountability might come to a halt after November if Dems can’t get it together.
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Pod Save America & Lovett or Leave It LIVE tour dates are selling fast! Lovett or Leave It will be in Chicago this Friday, July 15th with guests Vinny Thomas, Ali Barthwell, Ashley Ray and Peter Sagal. Plus, catch upcoming Pod Save America live shows in Nashville and Atlanta this August.
Get your tickets to these shows and more at crooked.com/events
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Though Republicans remain favored to win the Midterm elections, the party is struggling in several marquee Senate races because of their, ahem, unpredictable candidates. Even a veteran GOP strategist said, “There are warning signs that some of these candidates are not as strong as they could be given the opportunity at hand.” I believe that’s Washington-speak for “We’ve got some real losers in the bunch.” Chief among them, perhaps, is former running back and Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker. He very publicly criticized absentee fathers, and then revealed he was one to three formerly undisclosed children. He made untrue (and bizarre) statements exaggerating his business and “law-enforcement” background. (He has no background in law enforcement.) But Republicans are sticking with him. Walker also went on a head-scratching rant about the Green New Deal where he said, "Since we don't control the air, our good air decided to float over to China's bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got to clean that back up." Gonna go ahead and say that’s absolutely not accurate, but certainly a new and creative spin defending climate inaction from Republicans. TV doctor and New Jersey Resident Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, is also polling slightly behind his Democratic opponent Lt. Governor John Fetterman (D-PA), a pivotal purple-state race. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) polled roughly even with three of his four potential Democratic rivals in a Marquette University poll last month, and that was before we learned how deeply involved he was in Donald Trump’s efforts to steal the 2020 election. A party of heroes!
If you’re as nervous about Midterms as we are, join us to defend your region in Midterm Madness.
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The Department of Health and Human Services mandated today that doctors must perform abortions if there is risk of maternal fatality, citing requirements on medical facilities in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
A former evangelical leader disclosed that the group Faith and Action recruited wealthy anti-choice couples to wine and dine conservative Supreme Court justices to persuade them to overturn Roe.
Texas’s power-grid operator has warned that record heat could cause rolling blackouts in the state if residents and businesses do not conserve energy today.
President Biden hosted survivors and families of victims of mass shootings from Columbine to Highland Park at the White House today in order to mark the passage the gun legislation package he signed, the most significant in 30 years.
A New York Times/Siena College poll shows that 64 percent of Democratic voters want someone other than president Joe Biden to be the party nominee in 2024.
A new report obtained by a FOIA request shows that the Family Research Council, a right-wing think tank and lobbying group that brings in millions of dollars per year, has received status as a “church” making them tax exempt and shielding their finances from typical oversight. Seems bad!
Since Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) announced a new policy that all state employees must return to work in-person, full-time, over 300 Commonwealth of Virginia employees have resigned.
In other Glenn Youngkin news, he went on Face the Nation and circuitously said that he would pursue a full abortion ban in Virginia if he had the votes. Thankfully (for now) he doesn’t.
Concession workers at Dodger Stadium are threatening to strike during the All-Star Game unless they receive a fair contract in ongoing negotiations with managers, according to union reps. Solidarity and soft pretzels forever!
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Congress returns from a two-week recess today, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seems to have finally made progress with everyone’s least favorite salt rock Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to hopefully pass needed economic legislation. We already know about their (fingers crossed) tentative deal to lower prescription-drug prices and tax the wealthy, but Democrats will also continue to negotiate other policies in the bill, including energy and climate-change funding, and additional tax revenue. They may also negotiate to lower premiums under the Affordable Care Act, but Manchin, in characteristic fashion, is noncommittal. While Schumer and Manchin have been duking it out, no official deal has been reached. Manchin seems to have a bottomless well of energy for stonewalling progress, and Schumer unfortunately has COVID (for the love of god get well soon!) so the fate of this legislative package is unclear, to say the least.
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