Crooked Media - What A Day: Slam Duncan

On the Republican side of the aisle, the race-to-the-bottom continues. 
 

• The Fulton County investigation has put elected Republicans in Georgia in the crosshairs of national media. After disgraced former president Donald Trump’s (count ‘em) fourth indictment, a handful of those officials publicly rebuked the former president and defended the integrity of elections in the Peach State. Gov. Brain Kemp (R-GA) firmly refuted Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and former Lt. Gov. Goeff Duncan argued that his fellow Republicans need to take the L, assess the damage Trump has done, and “hit the reset button.” Unfortunately, these (sane) assertions are drowned out by the deranged chorus that makes up the rest of today’s GOP.
   

• No mention of those deranged Republicans would be complete without Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who dragged Kemp to hell for daring to cross the thin red MAGA line, and said the governor should have come to Trump’s defense over the indictment instead of (correctly) stating that the 2020 election was not rigged. Greene and Kemp are both rumored to be considering Senate candidacies in 2026 when Sen. Jon Osoff (D-GA) will be up for reelection, but Greene said she hasn’t made up her mind yet because she’s also considering, “Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?” So there’s some nice material for everyone’s nightmares!
   

• Former Vice President Mike Pence echoed the assertions from Kemp and Duncan on Wednesday, saying, “the Georgia election was not stolen and I had no right to overturn the election on January 6,” at a gathering for state lawmakers at the National Conference of State Legislatures in Indianapolis. I guess once thousands of Trump supporters have chanted in unison for you to be hanged, you kind of have nothing left to lose. Pence was a key source in the federal investigation that led to Trump’s third indictment by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Speaking of Jack Smith’s investigation…
 

• Smith appears to have obtained a bunch of data from Donald Trump’s Twitter account—including direct messages, draft tweets, and location data—after a protracted battle with Twitter’s attorneys at the beginning of the year, capped off by a U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wondering aloud in his analysis whether CEO Elon Musk was attempting to “cozy up” to Trump in fighting the special counsel’s demands so vigorously. Ultimately, federal prosecutors got their hands on what they needed after the judge held Twitter in contempt of court back in February, and slapped the company with a fine of $50,000 per each day the company missed the compliance deadline, eventually totalling $350,000. 

• But that wasn’t all. Judge Howell ripped Twitter a new one for taking “extraordinary” and apparently unprecedented efforts to give Trump advance notice of the search warrant despite explicit warnings from prosecutors that notifying him could cause grave damage to the investigation. Howell returned to the idea that Twitter may have been trying to curry favor with Trump repeatedly during the proceedings, and pressed the company’s lawyers to divulge who held the keys to the former president’s newly-reinstated Twitter account. The search warrant ordered Twitter to produce accounts associated with his infamous @realdonaldtrump account, devices used to log in to that account, IP addresses used to log into the account between October 2020 and January 2021, privacy settings, tweet drafts, direct messages, records of searches, and location information. Whew!

Another day, another unrelenting deluge of Trump news. Maybe someday we will be free from this virtual prison! Until then, we can just hope (with growing confidence!) that the man himself ends up in…actual prison!

RICO-Indicted and it feels so good. On yesterday’s episode of Pod Save America, hosts Jon, Jon, and Tommy reacted to the latest list of Trump indictments out of Georgia. It’s a spicy one. And if you want to stay up to date on the latest indictment news, make sure to check out our daily podcast, What A Day. Be sure to tune in, wherever you get your podcasts.

The White House announced on Wednesday that President Biden and the first lady will travel to Maui on Monday to tour the damage from the wildfires that have ravaged much of the Hawaiian island’s coast and killed more than 100 people. Many native Hawaiians have expressed outrage at the callousness of tourists enjoying the island’s renowned beaches while search-and-rescue teams comb through the wreckage of the deadliest American wildfire in more than 100 years. While authorities and businesses have welcomed tourists, native Hawaiians like actor Jason Momoa have urged tourists to cancel their trips, saying, “Our community needs time to heal, grieve, and restore.” State officials are similarly debating how to balance native residents’ needs for housing and resources against the island’s long-term financial stability when 80 percent of its wealth is derived from tourism. The Hawaii Tourism Authority has asked visitors to avoid all non-essential travel to west Maui in order to focus resources on local recovery. Gov. Josh Green (D-HI) said that the state government is considering acquiring the land devastated by the wildfires so that it is not subject to predatory buying from developers on the mainland, which is what happened to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. 

Wildfires continue to scorch Canada, burning twice as much land as any previous season, a total area equivalent to the state of Alabama. 

A new study shows that cancer among younger Americans, particularly women, is on the rise. Gastrointestinal, endocrine, and breast cancers are increasing at the fastest rates. 

Another heatwave is pummeling Europe, causing wildfires in Spain and forcing residents in southeast France to stay indoors most of the day. 

An exclusive video obtained by MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber shows Trump adviser and overall psycho Roger Stone pushing the now-famous plot for Trump to overthrow the 2020 election. 

Katherine Feinstein has now alleged that her mother, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), has been the victim of elder abuse by the co-trustees of her late husband’s estate. Let’s recap: Katherine, who has power of attorney over Dianne, is alleging that her 90-year-old mother was the victim of elder abuse, while her mother inexplicably continues to serve as a senator to the most populous state in America. Okay cool, thanks! Great!

This week the Biden Administration marked the anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law exactly one year ago on Wednesday, and made the single-largest climate investment in U.S. history. In the year since then, many struggling, often rural communities have enjoyed major investment that could give them new paths to  prosperity. Almost 90 percent of the announced investments in IRA-related sectors are in counties with below-average wages, and more than 80 percent are in counties with college graduation rates lower than the national average. Mingo County, WV, is one such area—one of the poorest counties in the country, where nearly one-third of residents live below the poverty line and unemployment is high. The community has also been upended by the opioid crisis. The investment in the nation’s struggling communities was intentional, and in a paper from the Treasury Department, officials note that low-income, high-unemployment areas will see the greatest return on investment from the new programs.

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A genetically modified pig kidney successfully transplanted into a brain-dead man continues to function after 32 days, a major milestone in the emerging field of inter-species organ transplantation. 

Greenhouse-gas emissions from the European Union fell by nearly three percent in the first quarter of 2023, even as the economy grew.