Crooked Media - Beach don't kill my flag

Top right-wingers seem downright peeved they can’t shred democratic norms without getting an earful from their neighbors, or, y’know, law enforcement. Can’t MAGA just have fun?

• Poor Sam Alito. The conservative Supreme Court Justice is getting so much guff for flying anti-democratic “Stop the Steal” flags, he hardly knows what to say. The first time, like any strong family-values conservative, he blamed his wife. (Adding, for good measure, that she did it because a neighbor called her “the c-word,” which we presume is a detail she appreciated seeing in print.) But after a second flag tied to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection was ID’d fluttering over his beach house, he simply didn't respond to questions about it from the New York Times. Now, top Democrats are demanding he recuse himself from election cases and face an investigation. Can’t the man just come home from a hard day’s work, raise an authoritarian banner, and enjoy a peaceful weekend at the beach like a normal guy?

• Rudy Giuliani is likewise miffed at agents who served him with criminal indictment papers at his birthday party last Friday, right after his guests finished singing “Happy Birthday.” One officer, Rudy complained, failed to exhibit good style. “He handed me a folded-up, crumpling piece of paper,” Giuliani groused. “It wasn’t, like, done stylishly.” Never mind the man stands accused of attempting to undermine two-and-a-half centuries of American democracy!  Indict him with style, or not at all!

• MAGA nutjob Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is likewise up in arms that he can’t have a cordial visit with former Trump advisor Peter Navarro, who’s jailed for spurning the congressional Jan. 6 committee. The nerve! What is this… prison!? Even the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 took selfies and celebrated as they broke into a federal building. Republicans went from calling them tourists to hostages after hundreds have been jailed for their part in the attack. 

• They get it from the top, of course. Disgraced former President Trump may be facing 88 felonies for trashing democracy and allegedly hiding state secrets in his bathroom. But lately he can’t seem to stop complaining about how cold it is in the courtroom as he napped through his hush-money trial. 

If you want to shred democratic norms, it’s a lot to expect your neighbors, the press, pro-democracy politicians and, y’know, the cops, to be chill about that. Pick one, guys: your anti-democracy flags, or your weekends. 

In December of 2014, Judge Brijgopal Loya died at a wedding in Nagpur, India of a heart attack - and at the time his passing barely made the news. But when his niece approached a journalist two years later, she shared a different narrative: that the circumstances around Judge Loya’s death had made his family doubt the official story. In Killing Justice - the newest limited series from Crooked Media and the Branch - host Ravi Gupta, follows the reporting and legal fallout from this tip. Ravi examines the conflicting evidence to answer how one man’s death became a magnet for the increasingly polarized politics in India and what this means for the future of the world’s largest democracy. 

You can hear the first 2 episodes of Killing Justice right now on Apple or Spotify - Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new episodes every Monday. For ad-free episodes, join the ‘Friends of the Pod’ community at crooked.com/friends.

President Biden welcomed Kenyan President William Ruto to the White House Thursday, marking the first state visit by an African president to the White House since 2008. Biden said he would designate Kenya as a “major non-NATO ally,” a title held by countries like Qatar, Japan and Australia. The move, as detailed in the What A Day podcast, recognizes the two countries’ strategic relationship and signals Biden's hope of strengthening U.S. partnership with a key regional African power.   

The timing isn’t entirely altruistic, of course. Russia and China are courting Kenya, and the U.S. wants to counter their influence. Kenya is also providing assistance to a crucial trouble-spot close to the U.S. border: Haiti. Biden praised Ruto for Kenya’s role in a multinational security effort to help stabilize the Caribbean country, which has experienced astonishing hardship and terror from gangs after the Haitian president was assassinated in 2021. 

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) shamefully snubbed Ruto, however, by opting not to invite him to address Congress. It’s a rebuke to both a foreign ally and also top U.S. lawmakers who were clamoring to extend the historic invitation. Ruto would have been the first Kenyan leader to ever address a joint meeting of Congress. 

Johnson’s office claimed “scheduling restraints” made it impossible. Yeah right, Mike. This is one of the least productive sessions of Congress in history. Y’all could have found 30 minutes to make history — if you really wanted to. 

The Justice Department filed an extensive antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation Entertainment Thursday, alleging that the entertainment group is running an illegal monopoly on live events by squeezing out competition and driving up ticket prices. Live Nation denied that it is violating antitrust laws. “Live music should not be available only to those who can afford to pay the Ticketmaster tax,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter said. That might be one thing that Swifties and the Bey Hive can finally agree on.  

The Supreme Court gave South Carolina the go-ahead to use a controversial congressional map that a lower court said “exiled” thousands of Black voters in order to carve out a district in favor of a White Republican incumbent.Legal experts say the decision will make it more difficult to challenge maps going forward and raises the burden of proving racial gerrymandering as opposed to partisan preferences. Which, of course are both bad! Does that help?

Senate Democrats opened an investigation into Trump’s recent infamous meeting with oil execs, when he reportedly asked executives for $1 billion in campaign donations as a “deal” for rolling back Biden’s climate regulations. “Such an obvious policies-for-money transaction reeks of cronyism and corruption,” the senators wrote in letters to oil executives, according to Politico. Can’t believe they would make these accusations against the Trump campaign and the oil industry when neither group has ever done anything wrong. 

That’s just the latest Big Oil probe launched this week by congressional Democrats. On Wednesday, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) demanded info from oil companies on whether they colluded with each other or the international OPEC cartel to inflate prices. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-NY) has formally asked the Department of Justice to review whether any laws were broken after decades of alleged climate deception. Go get ‘em, fellas. 

The presidents of Northwestern and Rutgers Universities defended their decisions to negotiate with students to end pro-Palestinian encampments on their campuses in a House Committee hearing Thursday as House Republicans expanded their probe into universities’ handling of the protests to public universities. Both presidents said police action was not necessary and neither school agreed to sever business ties with Israel in their concessions with students. The chancellor of UCLA also testified, expressing remorse for the handling of an encampment that was attacked by counterprotesters in early May.

A political consultant who admitted to creating an AI robocall impersonating President Biden back in January was indicted in New Hampshire and fined $6 million by the FCC. The fake call told recipients not to vote in the state’s presidential primary and was the first known example of deepfakes being used in national American politics. And we are so sure it will not be the last. 

Young voters say actress Zendaya has the most celebrity star power to influence their vote in the November election, according to a recent Blueprint poll, followed by Lebron James and Kevin Hart. This is the power of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers!!!

Surprisingly, Taylor Swift came in 21st place in terms of net impact on voters ages 18-30. Biden’s campaign reportedly has been actively vying for the pop star to endorse him a second time. 

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Pod Save America’s own Jon Lovett is joining the cast of Survivor season 47! In the teaser for the new season that dropped Wednesday night, Lovett admitted to having no outdoor skills. “What am I doing here? I went camping as a cub scout, I threw up and went home.” We don’t know how far he’ll make it but we will be tuning in with pride in our hearts and fear in our eyes! 

The Louisiana Senate passed a bill that prevents universities from charging campus media outlets for public records. The bill is in response to a Louisiana State University admin’s decision to interpret a bill that codified public records fees to mean the school could charge its own student news outlets, which would come from the student fees that fund these programs. Our apologies to universities, we know how much you love charging students for everything.