Crooked Media - What A Day: Put up your nukes

- Q-Anon nutjob Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) unintentionally complimenting President Biden when she meant “divisive.”

Tomorrow will mark one month since the FBI searched disgraced former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence (time flies when you’re having fun), but it’s unclear whether Teflon Don is much closer to actual legal accountability. 
 

• An FBI agent found a document describing a foreign government’s nuclear capabilities and other military defenses during the August 8 search. And as we already knew, some of the seized documents detailed top-secret American operations so closely-guarded that many national-security officials were kept in the dark about them. By contrast to the documents Trump handed over “voluntarily” and in response to subpoena (after almost a year of blowing off the National Archives), it was only when DOJ forced the issue that the FBI reclaimed the nuclear secrets, suggesting Trump kept them on purpose. The government in question has not been identified, but this kind of document reflects the degree of sensitivity found in these documents that Trump took for himself and then so maddeningly stored in his haunted country club. 
   

• Trump’s former Attorney General and guy-who-kind-of-looks-like-the-Tootsie-Pop-owl Bill Barr said that he thinks that the Justice Department is “getting very close” to having the level of evidence needed to indict the disgraced former president. Knowing the kinds of things he stole, we should fucking hope so. But although Barr has avoided the brain worms characteristic of absolute loyalty to Trump, he says he hopes the DOJ declines to prosecute because he doesn’t “want to see him indicted as a former president.” Thanks for nothing, Bill! You are hereby disinvited from The Resistance. 
   

• In the background of all of this looms the very real threat of Trump deciding to run for re-election in 2024. So liberal groups and Democrats are trying to formulate a plan to stop him. Liberal Republicans and some Democrats plan to pursue an extraordinarily long-shot effort to finally extinguish his chance of returning to power once and for all by using a somewhat arcane (but vital!!) clause in the 14th Amendment that bars insurrectionists from holding office. This clause was initially meant to punish members of the Confederacy during Reconstruction, and it’s basically serving the same purpose now. It’s the same constitutional provision a judge cited to remove New Mexico’s Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin from office. Consider my admiration and respect for Section 3 of the 14th Amendment renewed in full. Love u, 14th Amendment Section 3.

Such a strategy faces a long and legally arduous road ahead, but other members of Trump’s harem of slimy associates and sycophants have not been as lucky in avoiding repercussions. 

• Former Trump adviser and guy-who-looks-like-he’s-been-dead-for-years Steve Bannon is expected to surrender to state prosecutors on Thursday to face a new criminal indictment just weeks after he was convicted of contempt of Congress. Although the precise details of the case could not be confirmed, it will likely mirror the federal fraud charge for which Trump (scandalously!) pardoned Bannon two years ago. To review: Bannon and others defrauded contributors to a private fundraising effort called “We Build the Wall” which donors were told would support construction of Trump’s infamous border wall. They scammed donors out of $25 million, and never built the wall, if you can believe it. So Bannon may have slithered his way out of the federal case with Trump’s intervention, but presidential pardons don’t apply to state prosecutions. 

• Yesterday, Richard Michetti, a Pennsylvania man who breached the Capitol on January 6, was sentenced to 9 months in federal prison. He was turned over to the FBI by his former girlfriend after he called her a “moron” for not believing the 2020 election was stolen. Wherever you are, Richard’s ex-girlfriend, we salute you. Then there was the naval officer named, I shit you not, Hatchet Speed, who was of course not only already charged in connection with January 6, but also was indicted by a grand jury on three new felony counts related to buying more than $50,000 of firearms and equipment in multiple states, including seven(!!!) unregistered silencers. You can say a lot about these guys, but boy do they commit multiple crimes with shocking efficiency!

If Trump’s associates and lackeys can be successfully held accountable by the Justice System, then why, as he is now a private citizen, not him? We humbly ask again: Merrick Garland, u up?

Recent Supreme court decisions have made it clear that religion is being weaponized to push conservative agendas. Recently the hosts of Crooked’s newest show Dare We Say explored the ongoing erosion of the separation of church and state, and what this shift means for their Gen Z peers and their futures. 

New episodes of Dare We Say drop every Thursday on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

A leaked membership list of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers includes hundreds of United States law enforcement officers, elected officials, and active military members. Cool cool! Of the 38,000 names leaked, more than 370 are believed to currently work in law enforcement agencies, and more than 100 are currently active military. The ADL Center on Extremism also identified more than 80 individuals on the list who were running for or served in public office as of early August. This damning data raises new concerns about the presence of neo-fascists and far-right extremists in law enforcement and military, who are supposed to protect the U.S, though this is far from the first time the overlap between these two categories has come to light. The question remains: At what point will there be a meaningful investigation into the systemic conditions that attract white supremacists and far-right extremists to law enforcement, and are those institutions so hospitable to them? When will this pattern be treated with the urgency necessary to root them out?

A judge has ruled that billionaire Elon Musk will be able to include new evidence from a recent Twitter whistleblower disclosure, but will not be able to use it as means to delay the October trial over his dispute with the company, as he attempts to renege on his agreement to acquire it.

A Las Vegas-area County public administrator’s home was searched today in connection with the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German. 

Despite her strong debate performance, Georgia Democrats have grown increasingly pessimistic about gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who continues to trail incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) in the polls.

Pfizer, one of the current patent holders for COVID-19 vaccines, refuses to share its formulas with researchers studying next-generation vaccines to fight the virus as it evolves. We can always count on corporations to do the right thing!!

Electronic cigarette maker Juul will pay nearly $440 million to settle a two-year investigation by 33 states into the marketing of its high-nicotine products which have sparked a national surge in teen usage. Sorry, cool teens. 

Kim Kardashian is starting a private-equity firm because we live in hell. 

A South Carolina judge ruled Tuesday that death by firing squad and the electric chair are cruel-and-unusual punishments that violate the state’s constitution. The order halts planned executions of four death row inmates. 

The United States military plans to open a new military testing facility in Saudi Arabia. Was that what Jared Kushner was doing for all those years? 

An 18 year-old Kurdish woman was rescued after eight years in ISIS captivity after being abducted, married off against her will twice, repeatedly raped, and enslaved.  

Officials in Baltimore, MD, are encouraging residents to boil water used for drinking or cooking after E. coli bacteria was detected in samples of the water supply in West Baltimore, which will affect over 100,000 people. 

Seattle Public Schools canceled today’s first day of school after teachers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike over issues including pay, mental health support, and staffing ratios. 

A chimpanzee who ran away from a Ukrainian zoo was persuaded to return after zookeepers offered her a raincoat, a hug, and a bike ride. Please do yourself a favor and watch the video.

A federal judge in Texas (this is already off to a bad start) ruled Wednesday that a provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring employer-sponsored health insurance to cover HIV-preventative drugs violates the religious freedom of a Christian-run business. The business in question is Braidwood Management, a for-profit corporation run by evangelical Christian Steven Hotze, who said that the health insurance his company offers covering PrEP drugs (which reduce the risk of contracting HIV from sex by about 99 percent) “encourages homosexual behavior” and violates “his religious beliefs by making him complicit in encouraging those behaviors.” The judge, Reed O’Connor, wrote: “Braidwood has shown that the PrEP mandate substantially burdens its religious exercise.” The Department of Health and Human Services is expected to appeal, but this ludicrous ruling echoes the 2014 Supreme Court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby, a corporation run by evangelical Christians who objected to providing employees insurance coverage for prescription birth control. And the courts have become much more right-wing since then. I gotta be honest, though, denying health care does not fare well on the ol’ “What Would Jesus Do?” test.

Starbucks has lost its appeal of a lower-court decision ordering the company to reinstate seven workers in Memphis who were fired after leading efforts to unionize their store. 

Global supply chain pressures continued to ease in August for the third consecutive month. 

The IRS will spend $15 million studying a free electronic tax-filing system for possible future implementation, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act/Joe Biden. No, please don’t do that, we all love paying to file our taxes. 

A Michigan judge has officially struck down a long-dormant 1931 law criminalizing abortion, saying it violates the state constitution.

President Biden will give a speech in Boston next week outlining his plans to drastically reduce cancer deaths and boost treatments in what he has called “this generation’s moonshot.” I thought we already did this generation’s moonshot when they invented light-up sneakers but okay whatever you say.

California has thus far avoided rolling blackouts despite the record power demand during the brutal statewide heatwave, suggesting that power conservation advisories from the governor’s office seemed to have worked. Alright Newsom, you’re off the hook this time.