Crooked Media - What A Day: Strzok of luck

In what has become an unfortunate yet unavoidable Station of the Cross in modern American politics, we gotta check in on disgraced former president Donald Trump. 
 

• House Speaker Kevin McCarthy knows that the ultra-right flank of his caucus is full of MAGA psychos (as is much of the GOP voter base) and is thus trying to prevent a mutiny in his chamber by declining to endorse any Republican candidate running in the 2024 presidential primary. While some of Trump’s louder supporters in Congress have already made their allegiance clear, many others are likely waiting to see how the next year and myriad criminal investigations and prosecutions of Trump unfold before placing their horse bets in the primary. 
   

• Speaking of which, let’s move on to the classified documents crimes. According to extremism experts and one government official familiar with the matter, prosecutors who will try Trump on 37 felony counts of stealing classified documents and obstruction are facing significant harassment and threats both online and off. However, they are exceptions to a larger trend. Federal agencies have not seen a more general uptick in threats against law enforcement in the week since Trump’s indictment, as compared to the weeks following the August 8, 2022 probe of Mar-a-Lago. And the threat climate overall is reportedly lower because the violent creeps who would normally harass and threaten government officials have grown reluctant to act out after DOJ prosecuted hundreds of January 6 insurrectionists. We’re not exactly sure how comforting that is supposed to be for the prosecutors who are under threat, but okay, sure. 
   

• That’s not for Trump’s lack of trying. Last week, a January 6 defendant was arrested near former president Barack Obama’s home in Washington, DC, with a machete, two guns, and 400 rounds of ammunition. Sounds like a chill guy! The man arrived at the residence shortly after Trump posted screenshots of the Obamas’ home address. What’s more, Trump has not taken the post down. It’s part of a larger pattern of increasing incitement in the past few weeks. “The 45th president of the United States has begun doxxing the 44th” isn’t a sentence most of us would have imagined in our most bizarre daydreams years ago, but luckily, we live in hell! Of course, Trump doesn’t pull any punches for President Biden, either, whom he recently accused of being the owner of the bag of cocaine found at the White House. Busy, normal statesman stuff!

But wait, there’s more!
 

• On Thursday, a federal judge ruled Trump can be deposed in wrongful termination suits filed by former FBI officials (Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) whom Trump targeted for firing. This is a win for Strzok’s legal counsel, who want to depose Trump in order to determine whether the former president directly pressured the DOJ and FBI to terminate their client. The Justice Department has argued that recent testimony from FBI Director Christopher Wray on the case makes it unnecessary to depose Trump under the so-called “apex doctrine,” which states that officials are not subject to deposition unless they have personally knowledge of the matter at hand and/or the information cannot be obtained through other means. 
   

• Undeterred (as ever) by all of his serious legal problems, Trump continues his unhinged third bid for the White House. On Friday, he stated that he would bring back his infamous Muslim travel ban (in typical Trump parlance) “even bigger than before.” (You just know he was so close to calling it, “My big, beautiful ban.”) Trump’s first two travel bans were effectively challenged in the court system, but the third version—barring nearly all travelers from five majority-Muslim countries as well as North Korea and Venezuela—was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. President Biden reversed the ban during his first week in office. Naturally, Trump invoked fictitious images of “people blowing up our shopping centers,” and “people stealing our farms,” (???) to support his plans to expand the ban. 

So as you can see, everything is going really well!

The current U.S. Marine Corps Commandant David Berger will retire on Monday. No one is confirmed to replace him. Over 250(!) military promotions are being held up by one single member of Congress: Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). This outrageous obstruction of promotions will leave the USMC without a leader for the first time in over a century. Tuberville has been throwing a fit since March over the post-Dobbs Department of Defense policy of covering travel costs for service members in need of abortions who live in states where they are banned, calling it a waste of “time and resources.” This is a hilarious objection considering how few servicemembers would even need this benefit, and the fact that the Department of Defense spends staggering amounts of taxpayer money on truly unnecessary things like robot dogs. Tuberville is also apparently sore that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has not sufficiently kissed his ring, only telephoning him once. Allowing one Senator to put the kibosh on hundreds of military promotions is a dangerous precedent to set for reasons that should be obvious! Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell said he does not support Tuberville’s reckless actions, but did not offer much more condemnation than that. Party of heroes! Profiles in courage!

President Biden has made the controversial decision to supply Ukraine with U.S. cluster bombs, bypassing a federal law prohibiting their production, use, or transfer, in order to bolster Kyiv’s struggling counteroffensive. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen punctuated her trip to China on Friday by calling for market reforms and criticizing the Chinese government’s recent tough actions against American companies and mineral exports. China called on Yellen to “meet [them] halfway,” and put the strained relations back on course. 

The 24-year-old self-described White nationalist gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in a predominantly Hispanic Texas community was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences on Friday in an El Paso courtroom. He could still face more punishment under Texas law, including the death penalty. 

Biden administration lawyers filed an emergency stay of the Trump-appointed Louisiana federal judge’s order broadly limiting federal government communications with social-media companies, arguing (correctly) that it could cause “grave harm” if it prevents the White House from flagging things like vaccine and election disinformation. 

Laws restricting education and teaching faculty in Florida are causing a brain drain from the state, as educators, if you can believe it, don’t want to be subject to harassment and retribution for simply doing their jobs. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Attorney General Rob Bonta (D-CA), and Texas Sheriff Javier Salazar sent a joint letter to the Department of Justice on Thursday calling on the agency to investigate the Florida state government’s depraved trafficking of tens of thousands of undocumented migrants to blue cities. 

An attorney disciplinary committee unanimously recommended that former New York City Mayor and current insane guy screaming into the void Rudy Giuliani be disbarred in Washington, DC, for, you know, trying to overturn the 2020 election results. Yep, that’ll do it. 

The FDA endorsed the breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug Lequembi on Thursday, the first medication convincingly shown to slow cognitive decline caused by the disease. The endorsement means the medication is cleared to be covered by Medicare and other insurance plans. 

President Biden rolled out a new slate of initiatives on Friday aimed at reducing out-of-pocket health-care costs including a crackdown on “junk” insurance plans, directives to prevent unexpected medical bills, and a plan to reduce instances of medical debt being tied to credit cards.