Crooked Media - Belly of the Eastman

Trump and his goons are still trying to wriggle their way out of accountability for myriad crimes. 
 

• According to a Thursday court filing, disgraced former president Donald Trump is looking into the possibility of requesting that the case against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election in Fulton County, GA, be moved from state to federal court. Trump’s lawyers estimate that federal court will be more favorable for Trump because he would sit in front of a “more politically diverse jury pool” than in the Democratic stronghold of Fulton County. Several of Trump’s dozens of co-defendants have already filed to move their cases on the same grounds. 
   

• Meanwhile, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has asked the judge overseeing the Trump racketeering case to shield the identities of prospective jurors to spare them from threats and harassment experienced by the grand jurors who indicted Trump and his co-defendants. Willis asked Judge Scott McAfee to prohibit defendants, the news media, or “any other person” from capturing an image (whether a photo or drawing) of jurors or from distributing any information which could be used to identify them. 
   

• In a largely symbolic but significant move, a coalition representing nearly every former president from Herbert Hoover to Barack Obama issued a collective call on Thursday to protect the foundations of American democracy and maintain civility in our politics. This bipartisan alliance of presidential centers and foundations is a historic first, as the institutions have never formed such a broad coalition over a single issue before. The development is a tacit rebuke of Trump and his many attempts to undermine democracy, a cause that most sensible people can get behind. Trump, naturally, would never pay attention to something like this, and continues spreading lies and calling president Biden a “Manchurian candidate,” a “thief,” and a “dumb son of a bitch.” What a guy.

As Trump bulldozes his way forward like business as usual, some of his co-conspirators have run out of luck evading real consequences. 
 

• Former Trump attorney John Eastman, architect of the fraudulent-electors scheme, testified at his own disbarment trial in California on Wednesday, and something weird happened. He sidestepped a question about whether he and others in the Donald Trump Extended Universe discussed the possibility that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) would preside over the January 6, 2021, session of Congress to certify the 2020 election, rather than then Vice President Mike Pence. Eastman claimed attorney-client privilege over those discussions, and, when pressed to identify which client he was referring to, he replied, “President Trump.” Eastman is seeking to maintain his license to practice law in California even as he faces criminal charges in Georgia, where he is one of 18 Trump co-defendants in the sprawling case regarding the Trump camp’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. 
   

• Grassley’s involvement in the traitorous aftermath of the 2020 election has been a matter of some intrigue. When the vice president—who serves as president of the Senate—is for whatever reason unable to fulfill his or her duties, that job has historically fallen to the majority party’s Senate president pro tempore. In January 2021, that was Grassley. A spokesperson for the senator claimed that Grassley had “no such indication” that Trump and his lackeys were discussing the prospect of him presiding over the January 6 joint session of Congress, and that “every expectation was that Pence would attend and preside.” Eastman has taken the stand in his disbarment hearing on at least four different days since the trial began in June. Seems like everything is going great!

The Donald Trump orbit is staring down the barrel of career-ending consequences, even prison sentences, as we head towards the first of the big guy’s many trials. Fingers-crossed that one day the consequences will stick to Donny Boy as well.

Deep dish isn’t pizza. Now that I have the midwest’s attention, Lovett or Leave It is coming to Chicago on September 21 and Madison on September 22 for two great nights of mayhem, Marlort, and ill-advised dairy consumption. Lovett will be joined by wonderful guests like Brandon Johnson, Shea Coulee, Peter Sagal, Alice Wutterlund, Gillian Flynn, Ben Wickler, and more! Tickets are going fast—head to crooked.com/events to get yours today!

The beginning of the new academic year has coincided with a national spike in coronavirus cases, which means that mask mandates are returning to some American classrooms, which means that some people are going absolutely batshit about “freedom” again. This has become a galvanizing political issue for Republicans, and a number of the 2024 GOP primary candidates invoked the issue during the recent televised debate. A group of Senate Republicans proposed legislation this week to prohibit federal mask mandates on domestic air travel, public transit, and public schools, through the end of 2024. Few schools actually require masks. One elementary school in Silver Spring, MD, recently did, though, after four people tested positive for the virus, which elicited a rebuke from Hell’s doorman, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The school was forced to boost security and keep recess indoors because of the tacit threat from Cruz and the online backlash he knew it would generate. Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley called mask mandates an attack on the increasingly-cited “parental rights.”

In a campaign video last month, Donald Trump sputtered, “When I'm back in the White House I will use every available authority to cut federal funding to any school, college, airline or public transportation system that imposes a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate.” Never mind that Trump himself was the one who began lockdown and social-distancing rules in 2020. The CDC still recommends universal masking in schools where COVID-19 hospitalizations are high, and most of the countries that meet that threshold as of late August are in Alabama. Parts of Mississippi and several other counties in Montana and Texas are seeing high hospitalizations. Interesting how states where more people are unlucky enough to believe the lies Republican politicians and grifters tell them have this problem!

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro was convicted on Thursday of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena from the January 6 Committee. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in prison, with a maximum fine of $100,000. Yahtzee! 

A Los Angeles judge sentenced That 70’s Show star Danny Masterson to 30 years to life in prison on Thursday for raping two women in the early 2000’s. 

One-in-three likely California voters haven’t decided who to support in the California Senate race to succeed Sen. Dianne Fienstein (D-CA), although Reps. Katie Porter (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) currently lead the pack.  

A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit on Wednesday hoping to force the state of Utah to stop allowing upstream water to be diverted from the Great Salt Lake, which is shrinking and on the brink of ecological collapse. 

The United Auto Workers moved one step closer to a strike on Thursday when General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker, offered workers a 10 percent raise and two additional three-percent lump-sum payments over two years as a counter to the 46 percent raise sought by the union, in a move UAW President Shawn Fain called “insulting.”

Ruby Franke, the mother of six behind the successful “family vlogging” YouTube channel “8 Passengers” has been charged with six counts of felony child abuse by a Utah district attorney. Last week, Franke’s 12-year-old son climbed out of a window and ran to a neighbor’s house asking for food and water. The boy was emaciated and had open wounds and duct tape on his wrists and ankles. Her 10-year-old daughter was also found emaciated and malnourished. Franke’s videos and her “life coaching” business, ConneXions, feature harsh parenting advice, including rejecting your children if they do not adhere to your beliefs. Her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt was also arrested. One resurfaced vlog shows one of Franke’s older sons saying that his bedroom “had been taken away” as punishment and he was forced to sleep on a beanbag for seven months. Viewers have accused Franke and her husband of child abuse for years, and a Change.Org petition even led Utah authorities to investigate the family, though the file was eventually closed. Franke’s four minor children were taken into the custody of Utah’s division of Child and Family Services. YouTube has confirmed that the company disabled two channels connected to Franke. “8 Passengers” had nearly 2.3 million subscribers.

Like Crooked Media, the Human Rights Foundation champions the exploration of free-thinking and freedom for all. That’s why we’re inviting you to champion human rights at the fifth Oslo Freedom Forum event in New York on Sept. 28 at The Town Hall!
 

You’ll hear from two survivors of China’s concentration camps and the leader of a modern-day underground railroad running from North to South Korea, among others.
 

Click on the ad above to learn more. Use the promo code ‘OFFNYC’ at checkout to get 15% off your ticket.

New COVID-19 vaccines could be approved by the FDA as early as Friday. Moderna announced on Wednesday that its updated vaccine is effective against emerging variants of the virus. 

U.S. unemployment levels unexpectedly dropped to their lowest level since February last week, and productivity was measured as the strongest in years. Cool, so maybe we should raise the minimum wage!