Crooked Media - What A Day: The best raid plans

Well folks, I guess you can’t even do crimes and then brag about all the crimes you did without getting your haunted golf course raided by the FBI anymore.
 

• The FBI executed a search warrant at disgraced former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, FL, yesterday as part of the investigation into his theft of classified presidential documents at the end of his presidency. In typical fashion, Trump made an unhinged public statement from Trump Tower in New York (where he was when the raid was executed) in which he hysterically whined that his “beautiful home” was “under siege” by FBI agents, punctuating it with: “They even broke into my safe!” Yes, Donald, that’s…how an FBI raid works. 
   

• Despite the immediate bad-faith GOP allegations of “political persecution” from “Biden’s DOJ,” the amount of evidence the law-enforcement officials had to procure in order to get a no-knock warrant for a former president is staggering, according to legal experts. (Also Biden reportedly didn’t know about the raid in advance and learned about it through news coverage, like everyone else). And you know who had to ultimately sign off on the whole operation? FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom Trump himself appointed back in 2017. That didn’t stop Trump’s allies in Congress from lapsing into mafioso mode. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted, “The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” and threatened that if the GOP wins back the House, he would open a congressional investigation of Attorney General Merrick Garland. 
   

• The development brought some of Trump’s staunchest and most deranged defenders out of the woodwork. Pro-Trump social media forums lit up with calls for a “civil war” and posts like, “When does the shooting start?” The most popular comment on one website, upvoted over 1,200 times, was simply the phrase, “lock and load.” Analysts fear that this kind of explicitly violent online chatter could lead to real-world violence, as it did before the January 6 insurrection. There were also some more unlikely goons who came to Trump’s defense as well and expressed their ~*moral indignation*~ at the raid. Perpetual-election-loser Andrew Yang said that mishandling classified documents “doesn’t seem like raid material.” Thank you so much, Andrew, for your invaluable legal opinion, as always. Disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) also noted his profound displeasure with the raid, because he didn’t want Yang to be the only Andrew who got to share his bad opinion today, and also he’s probably angling for a Fox News contract. 

How Trump will play this is the matter of a great deal of speculation, but it shouldn’t take up disproportionate space in the conversation about actual crimes he committed. 
 

• Trump has given many, many signals that he intends to run for re-election in 2024, and yes, the FBI raid may strengthen his resolve (via his desire for presidential immunity). As an active candidate, he could argue (again, dishonestly) that the federal investigation is politically motivated in order to hurt him in an election. But the fact of the matter is, Trump for 100 percent sure COMMITTED CRIMES, so whether or not he plays the victim card should not be of concern when it comes to rendering justice. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said it best: “It is a horrible precedent for the Department of Justice to investigate a former President of the United States. The only worse precedent would be for [them] not to investigate because the person happens to be a former President. No one is above the law.”
   

• It is indeed unusual and unprecedented for the FBI to go after a former president for possible violations of the Presidential Records Act, but it is also unusual for a president to regularly rip up official documents or (in at least two instances) flush them down the toilet. And try as the conservative media might to spin this into a warning—“if they can do this to Trump then you’re next”—there’s a quick and easy rebuttal which is: Most of us haven’t committed dozens of crimes and then publicly bragged about them. Regardless of where Trump tries to take this political narrative next, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled today that the House Ways and Means Committee can legally obtain his tax returns, which Trump has so fastidiously tried to conceal. A banner week for the Very Stable Genius.

Just as Trump could have voluntarily released his tax returns, like every other modern presidential candidate, if he had nothing to hide, he could also publish the search warrant, and let the world know what the agents were looking for. Naturally he hasn’t done that. The tides of justice may finally be beginning to turn against Trump, and we can’t wait to watch.

It’s time we talk about America’s newest drug of choice – Tiktok. On the latest episode of Offline, Jon is joined by professor, entrepreneur and host of The Prof G Pod, Scott Galloway, to discuss Tiktok’s rapid growth, its influence on other social media platforms and what makes it uniquely addictive. 

New episodes of Offline drop every Sunday, and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

At least eight people have died after record rainfall fell over South Korea on Monday and Tuesday, inundating the streets and flooding subway stations in the capital, Seoul. 

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is facing a primary challenge in Minnesota’s fifth congressional district from a centrist, pro-police candidate who’s receiving hefty sums of money from the right.

This past month was among the three hottest Julys ever on record, worldwide, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, lost her reelection primary campaign to Trump-endorsed Republican challenger and brewing fascist Joe Kent.


An Atlanta judge ordered Trump’s former lawyer and man with a forehead that just won’t quit, Rudy Giuliani, to testify in-person before a grand jury about his interference in the 2020 election, after Giuliani claimed he couldn’t for medical reasons. 

Now that a U.S. district court judge lifted an injunction requiring DHS to resume Trump’s abhorrent “Remain in Mexico” policy, the Biden administration will suspend it. 

Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams proposed investing $1 billion of the state of Georgia’s $7 billion surplus in Georgians through Medicaid expansion, increasing teacher salaries, and increasing salaries for state police and prison guards. 

The thousands of texts and cell-phone data Alex Jones’s lawyers accidentally (wink) handed over to the Sandy Hook legal team included a nude photo of Jones’s wife that he had sent to Roger Stone. Hard to even wrap one’s mind around how gross these guys are.

As temperatures continue to shatter heat records around the world, conditions for workers who have to labor in the heat have been staggeringly slow to change. A growing group of immigrant laborers in South Florida is pushing for what health experts agree are sensible preventative regulations to prevent heat stroke as extreme temperatures become our new normal. They’re seeking a law requiring employers to provide outdoor workers with drinking water, shade, and rest breaks on hot days. States like California and Washington have adopted such workplace rules to address extreme heat exposure, but many other states’ attempts have failed, often following deep-pocketed opposition from groups representing the agriculture and construction industries, among others. The Biden administration’s plan to draft heat-related protections for workers is expected to face similar opposition from corporations who want to be able to keep endangering their workers uninterrupted. As always, what should be a regulatory no-brainer is actively being squashed by powerful interests trying to exploit laborers at all costs.

By now, you’ve probably heard of ESG investing: the hot trend on Wall Street making lots of headlines. 
 

Generally speaking, ESG funds are intended to allow you to invest in a group of companies with high Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings. The idea is that when you invest in ESG funds, you’re investing with your values. 
 

But as the New York Times and other major media publications have pointed out, ESG funds are far from perfect because there is not a standard methodology to assign ESG ratings to a company – or to verify them.
 

In fact, if you look at the companies that are included in many of the largest ESG funds (AT&T, Home Depot, Pfizer, Waste Management, and many others), many of them overwhelmingly support Republican politicians and PACs. The same Republican politicians and PACs who are trying to fight ESG ideals by blocking climate change legislation and undermining women’s rights. 

At DEMZ, we believe that measuring political contributions is a better way to ensure that the companies you invest in also share your values. 
 

That’s why the DEMZ fund includes only those S&P 500 companies that have made over 75% of their political contributions to Democratic politicians and causes.
 

Oh, and by the way, DEMZ was awarded a maximum five-globe sustainability rating by Morningstar and declared to be fossil-fuel-free. And DEMZ outperformed the S&P 500 index in 2021 by 2.5 percent, net of fees. So, that’s a win-win. 
 

Search for the DEMZ ticker wherever you invest or visit demz.fund to learn more. 
 

Investing Involves Risk. Principal loss is possible. Carefully consider the fund’s investment objectives, risk factors, charges, and expenses before investing. This and additional information can be found in the fund’s prospectus, which may be obtained by visiting demz.fund. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.

The United States will return 30 stolen Cambodian antiques, including Bronze Age artifacts, to their native country. 

President Biden signed a $280 billion package to boost the domestic chip-producing industry and scientific research into law today. 

The supply chain bottleneck has recently shown significant signs of easing. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised to bring a bill setting a $35 price cap on insulin for non-Medicare patients back to the floor after Republicans killed that provision of the Inflation Reduction Act over the weekend. 

The Federal Trade Commission fined conservative apparel company Lions Not Sheep $200,000 for replacing “made in China” tags with “made in USA” tags on their clothing. America first!!!