Legal events surrounding DDT

14^th Amendment Removing Deposed Donald Trump’s (DDT) Name from State Primaries:

In Minnesota, Michigan, and Colorado in keeping his name on the ballots, but the judge in Colorado also ruled that he “engaged in insurrection” on January 6, 2021 when he “incited imminent lawless violence.” One argument against removing him is that he isn’t an “officer,” the amendment’s word. 

New York Fraud Case Determining Damages:

Justice Arthur Engoron denied DDT’s appeal for a mistrial, but an appeals court again temporarily lifted the limited gag order on DDT until November 27 when the court makes a decision.  The order largely came from DDT’s smears of Engoron’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield; he immediately launched into vicious diatribes barely an hour after the gag order was lifted. DDT also posted he had the “fantasy … to see Lititia [sic] James and Judge Engoron placed under citizens arrest for blatant election interference and harassment,” which some experts call “an incitement to violence” because it “greatly endangers” the subjects.

In Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony last week, he admitted that Mar-a-Lago is a residence, the basis of the damages case against DDT. His lawyers listed 127 defense witnesses. Engoron said they could call all of them because he doesn’t want to be “reversed,” but they must keep to the topic. DDT has also withdrawn his request to move the case from state to federal court.

DDT’s sycophant Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), perhaps wanting to be his vice-presidential candidate, announced she is filing an ethics complaint against the judge. DDT is suing Engoron to shut down gag orders.

New York Upcoming Criminal Case by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Regarding Business Fraud Connected to Hush Money for Stormy Daniels:

Using the excuse that he is a presidential candidate, DDT is trying to get the indictment with 34 charges dismissed. Bragg said DDT was looking for special treatment he didn’t deserve. DDT had directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s reimbursements for hush money reimbursements paid to Stormy Daniels be falsely recorded as Trump Organization’s legal expenses. Bragg also refused defense subpoenas for Cohen’s phone, computers, and hardcopy with “all documents and communications” along with any other materials that Bragg has with the possibility that DDT intends to use the materials to intimidate Cohen. DDT’s legal team dropped its bid to have these state charges moved to federal court although he calls the state court “very unfair.” The trial is set for March 25.

Washington, D.C. Case Regarding Allegation about DDT’s Trying to Overturn the 2020 Presidential Election:

Monday’s oral arguments indicate the three-judge panel from the Washington D.C. Circuit Court may restore the limited gag order but loosen some restrictions in more directly criticizing special counsel Jack Smith. DDT’s lawyer had called DDT’s incendiary comments about people in the case are “core political speech,” but one judge said the question was whether it was “aimed at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process.” She also asked a number of other pointed questions, and another judge pointed out the defense’s faulty arguments.  DDT added Smith’s family in his attacks on the special counsel after the gag order was temporarily lifted.

Another decision is whether to televise the criminal trial, scheduled on March 4, 2024. DDT wants it televised, but Smith warned that DDT will use cameras to create a “spectacle.” Federal trials cannot be televised except with a few exceptions; Smith said DDT has no “rule or case to support” his desire.

Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered DDT to prove the basis for his defense by January 15, 2024, whether he plans to use “advice of counsel” defense in the federal case. He must prove the defense’s position, that he cannot be guilty of the charges because he was acting on his attorneys’ “good faith” advice. Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance said that he can’t use “the advice of … lawyers” for justification if they are co-conspirators.

Chutkan also refused DDT’s request to block all mention of the January 6 insurrection which Smith plans to use the event as the centerpiece of his trial, connecting lies about election fraud to keep him in the White House and the rioters who followed his lies to violently riot. DDT said he isn’t charged with a riot-related crime and referring to the event would prejudice the jury.

Georgia’s State RICO Conspiracy Case about Several Defendants Trying to Overturn the Election:

Fulton County DA Fani Willis has asked for DDT’s federal racketeering trial to begin on August 5, 2024, making it overlap with the November presidential election. DDT objects and asked to postpone this case, along with three other criminal cases until the election on November 5, 2024. The judge in the case barred the release of any “sensitive” evidence in the case after lawyers for two of the defendants gave videos of other co-defendants to reporters from The Washington Post and ABC.

Florida’s Case Regarding DDT’s Charges about Hiding Classified Documents:

DDT-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon again shows her preference for DDT in denying a Smith’s request to schedule a hearing for a deadline in which DDT must disclose what classified information he plans to use at trial. She postponed all remaining deadlines until March 2004, meaning that the trial won’t begin in May 2024. Smith had requested a decision by mid-December for the lawyers’ statement of decision.

Norman Ornstein, a leading member of a conservative think tank, is calling for Cannon’s impeachment, describing her as a “full-fledged member of the Trump defense team.” The suggestion will certainly fail in Congress which determines impeachment for federal elected officials and judges, but he said that a resolution “will go nowhere but will highlight her outrageous conduct.”

With Univision now owned by investment companies, including private equity firms, the Spanish-speaking cable network is promoting DDT’s lies in a propaganda “interview.” Like his bragging about how Iran agreed that it wouldn’t hit a U.S. military base because of DDT’s good relationship with the country. According to DDT’s falsehoods, Iran even called him ahead of the attack to tell him its plans—all that because of Iran’s respect for him. Former security adviser John Bolton said that DDT’s tales about Iran were an inaccurate blend of “five or six things” as he forces other countries to cower before him. As usual, Glenn Kessler gave him four Pinocchios. The details are here.  

The respected two-century-old Economist called DDT the greatest world danger going into 2024, including in “his own country.” The newspaper wrote:

“In pursuing his enemies, Mr. Trump will wage war on any institution that stands in his way, including the courts and the Department of Justice.”

Before DDT left the White House, he pardoned 143 people, including Ted Suhl who was convicted of bribery in 2016. DDT commuted the remainder of Suhl’s sentence in 2019. Suhl, director of the Arkansas youth treatment center Lord’s Ranch is accused of abuse. Eight former residents filed a lawsuit claiming they were victims of “systematic and widespread” abuse—sexual abuse and rape—by an employee at the now-closed facility. According to the filing, Suhl and others at the ranch made an “intentional fully conscious decision” to permit the abuse and threatened victims who told them about it. Their attorneys said more suits will be filed regarding abuse at the facility closed in 2016; they are representing at least 30 youth also claiming abuse at the center.

One of the victims was allegedly forced to marry a staff member but escaped and obtained a divorce. Because the staff transported youth across state lines, plaintiffs are also suing under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The filing deadline is the end of January.

The pardon described Suhl as “a pillar of his community before his prosecution and a generous contributor to several charities.” Former governor Mike Huckabee, who appointed Suhl to the Arkansas Child Welfare Agency Review Board, supported Suhl’s clemency request.

November 20 is the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance to honor the murders from the past year—33 killed at least transgender people since November 20, 2022. Most of the victims are under the age of 35. A spate of anti-transgender GOP bills and laws during the past year have reflected Republican use of this issue in efforts to win elections, but polling shows that people trust politicians less than anyone else. In a Data for Progress of likely voters this month on trans issues from medical care to civil rights.

55 percent agree with the statement, “State lawmakers should not be allowed to implement full bans on abortion and gender-affirming medical care and place criminal penalties on physicians who provide this care.” Only 34 percent disagree.

52 percent trust medical and mental health association most to develop policies and regulations about gender-affirming medical care for minors. Only 7 percent trust politicians, and 34 percent chose neither one.

54 percent selected minors’ parents to make the final decision about whether or not a trans minor can access gender-affirming medical care while 22 percent chose doctors. Only 12 percent chose legislators.

48 percent of the voters support a Transgender Bill of Rights to protect the rights of transgender and nonbinary people under the law by ensuring their access to medical care, shelter, safety, and economic security.” Fewer respondents, 43 percent, opposed this legislation, and the remainder were undecided.

Another recent poll opposed all the anti-LGBTQ+ Christian Nationalist positions of House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson.

Another Sunday, More Chaos in a Cult’s DDT-World

More about Supreme Court rulings: Presidential candidate and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie defended the decision protecting businesses from serving LGBTQ+ people. About the business owner objecting to creating wedding websites for same-gender couples—which she didn’t actually create—Christie said:

“This business has no right not to serve people are protected class…  This business can’t deny LGBTQ people, couples from coming in and trying to, you know, access this business… They just can’t force the owner to do something that is against her personal religious beliefs.”

According to Christie, LGBTQ+ people can “access this business” but can’t use its services. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg summarized the case as “a solution looking for a problem.” The owner had no proof that any same-gender couple had ever sought her services.

As usual, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) finds himself in a snake pit, faced with danger from all directions. Investigations now include his illegal possession and sharing of classified documents, the January 6 insurrection, 2020 fake electors, pressure on state officials to falsify election results, and defamation

Special Counsel Jack Smith is charging ahead in investigation, charges, and prosecution of DDT. Smith plans an additional 30-45 criminal charges in the classified documents case in diverse federal jurisdictions based on more incriminating tapes of DDT. Smith’s prosecutors also subpoenaed surveillance footage from Bedminster (NJ) as they did from Mar-a-Lago. They also attempted to obtain a warrant for classified documents at DDT’s gold resort summer home but lacked probable cause.

Several attorneys trying to overturn the election may also face charges. DDT’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was interviewed by Smith’s prosecutors under a “proffer” agreement in which he can avoid indictment for anything he reveals. Giuliani’s law licenses were suspended in New York and Washington, D.C. for his multiple lies while trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Giuliani’s testimony could relate to Smith’s case about DDT’s role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection filed in Washington, D.C. Smith asked Giuliani about creating fake electors plus his role with Steve Bannon, DDT’s lawyer John Eastman now facing disciplinary charges from the California bar, and others at the Willard Hotel before and on January 6. Giuliani parted ways with DDT after failing to be paid for his work to overturn the election and will want to stay out of prison. Giuliani might also want Smith’s help in cutting a deal for charges in Fulton County (GA).

DDT’s former 2020 campaign official Mike Roman, director of Election Day operations, accepted another proffer agreement after previously receiving a grand jury subpoena and having his phone seized. He pled the Fifth Amendment to not answer for fear of self-incrimination when asked about interactions with Giuliana after Election Day 2020, but Roman had a major part in challenging DDT’s election loss, including organizing fake electors lying about Joe Biden’ wins in swing states.

Smith is finding new witnesses, one of them Susie Wiles, a 2024 DDT campaign advisor. In summer 2021, DDT showed her a classified map of a foreign country. He told her he “should not be showing the map” to her and “not to get too close” because she has no clearance, according to an indictment. Wiles is the co-chair of a lobbying firm making millions of dollars serving Chinese companies. One of them makes phones capable of secretly recording calls and tracking web browsing on local networks that can be transferred to China where the government requires companies to turn over information connected to national security. Another of Wiles’ clients that paid her company $1.7 million manufactures surveillance equipment for the Chinese government; the federal government has banned U.S. companies from working with Hikvision because of threats to national security.

Smith has granted immunity to fake DDT “electors” from Nevada, Michael McDonald and Jim DeGraffenreid, for their testimony without any Fifth Amendment protection.

DDT’s latest excuse for the tape of his showing classified materials to people without clearances is that he was only displaying “bravado” in an audio tape of him showing attack plans on Iran. He claimed to hold “building plans, not classified documents that seemed to highly impress his audience without clearances.

As DDT moves toward problems with DA Fani Willis in Fulton County (GA), news has been released that he called Arizona’s former governor Doug Ducey with the same request as of Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—to overturn the state 2020 vote in DDT’s favor. Ducey, who evidently didn’t record the call, is staying quiet, but his associates aren’t. Since the election, DDT has a record of attacking both Ducey and Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp. Former VP Mike Pence, a presidential candidate, couldn’t “remember” if DDT asked him to apply pressure on Ducey or other governors to overturn state elections. Pence called November and December 2020 an “orderly process.”

E. Jean Carroll’s civil trial against DDT will continue in January after the judge rejected DDT’s claim of “presidential immunity,” ruling that his disparaging comments about Carroll weren’t part of his presidential duties. According to the judge, DDT also waited too late to make the claim, almost three years, by earlier contending presidential immunity automatically covers all his actions. This trial is for an additional $10 million to the former $5 million award after DDT continued his defamatory comments. Nineteen months ago, another federal judge stated that DDT’s speech to his supporters on January 6, 2021 was also not part of his official responsibilities.  

Other DDT pieces:

According to a recently published book by Miles Taylor, Blowback, DDT’s top immigration advisor Stephen Miller wanted to use drone strikes to attacked unarmed civilians in Central America. Miller claimed they weren’t protected under the U.S. Constitution if they are in “international waters.” Taylor, DHS’ chief of staff during DDT’s administration, authored the anonymous New York Times op-ed on October 28, 2020, under the headline, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” He claimed the piece after resigning in June 2019.

South Carolina has two GOP presidential contenders, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, but DDT brought in a crowd of up to 50,000 to the small town of Pickens, population 3,300, that shut down its businesses. Boos repeatedly blocked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), once a favorite in his own state, although DDT half-heartedly defended him. In the 2020 election, 75 percent of the region’s vote went to DDT who has endorsements from the state’s governor, senior senator, and three congressmen for 2024. His predictable speech described himself as a victim, called for the country’s polarization, and criticized President Joe Biden.

Bret Baier’s interview with DDT last month got media notice for only a few days. One memorable piece of it, however, was about drug dealers. DDT has said he wants the death penalty for them, and Baier asked him about how that tied in with DDT’s promotion of his administration’s criminal reform. “I focused on non-violent crime,” DDT claimed, citing a woman who had been in prison for 22 years of a 46-year sentence. He wanted her released, but Baier pointed out that she would be killed under DDT’s plan. Lots of waffling on the part of DDT, including “severity” and that she “wasn’t much of a dealer.” He continued:

“Honestly she got treated terribly, she was treated sort of like I get treated. But Bret, she was treated very unfairly, but she got 48 years, and that was bad.”

DDT then segued into talking about China rising to greatness after imposing the death penalty for drug dealers. Just as in his rally speech, where he responds to applause or silence to figure out his next argument, DDT applies lack of logic that appeals to MAGA folk.

Like his avoidance of logic, DDT also ignores facts in his railing against anyone and anything disagreeing with him. Biden is one of his favorite targets. Almost two weeks ago, DDT posted a photo taken by Pete Souza of Biden and Lisa Monaco, deputy AG at the DOJ, on Truth Social to prove they are “probably” colluding against him. The photo was taken a decade ago when Monaco was a Homeland Security advisor during President Obama’s second term. Biden was the VP at that time, and his current photographer is Adam Schultz, not Souza. When the photograph was taken, DDT was a struggling businessman claiming President Obama wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

Karma: In 1989, 15-year-old Yusef Salaam was one of the Central Park Five, arrested and wrongly imprisoned for a jogger’s rape in New York City after authorities’ coercion including beatings. Thirteen years later, the perpetrator was found through DNA after his confession, but Salaam spent almost seven years in prison. DDT, then a real estate developer, paid for full-page ads in four leading city newspapers to demand the death penalty; he continues to suggest that the teenagers were guilty. Salaam has now won the Democratic primary representing Central Harlem on the New York City Council.  

In 2019, DDT pressured GM CEO Mary Barra to save Lordstown Motors, founded in 2018, and she loaned it $40 million to buy and retrofit the facility. DDT promoted the Lordstown Endurance pickup on the South Lawn of the White House during his 2020 campaign, bragging about his saving the plant. Lordstown made only 31 pickups, recalled most of them, and sold only six.

After the Endurance prototype burned in January 2021, Lordstown sold the plant and hired Foxconn to try to make the pickup. Its CEO Steve Burns resigned and made $66 million, cashed out his stock. Six years ago, DDT joined then Gov. Scott Walker to obtain $100 million from Foxconn for an engineering building and company research at the University of Wisconsin. The project never materialized, and state taxpayers lost $1 billion.  Lordstown has now filed bankruptcy and sued the Taiwanese company Foxconn for reneging on its promise to invest another $170 million after Lordstown stock fell below $1 per share. Another DDT failure that he can blame on Biden.

Another Sunday, DDT Still a Loser

Periodically, the RNC performs an “autopsy” to determine why they lose elections and then ignores the results. In the latest one, the big problem, which the RNC ignores, is Deposed Donald Trump (DDT). In 2022, no big “red wave,” a shrinking GOP Senate, lost ground in the number of governors, and no flip in state legislative chambers. A net gain of nine House GOP seats in 2022 instead of the predicted 60 or 70 seats. And Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) can’t manage his caucus. Analysts consider 2022 the best mid-term election for a first-term Democratic president since FDR.

Oblivious to these failures, DDT posted “WE WON” on his failing Truth Social. He was responsible for the failures when he recruited failing candidates, campaigned for them, and made them deliver his “stolen election” message. Yet the RNC doesn’t mention DDT in their list of failures for 2022.

DDT’s problems multiply:

Eight of the fake electors to keep DDT in the White House in 2021 are testifying for DA Fani Willis in the Fulton County (GA) case against election fraud after Willis discovered that their own lawyer had not told them about the deal. They won’t be charged with crimes if they truthfully testify about the efforts by DDT, his campaign, and his allies to overturn Biden’s Georgia victory. Willis’ case could be that multiple defendants such as Rudy Giuliani and the state GOP leader are charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud or racketeering-related charges for coordination to undermine the election.

Hopefully, Willis can continue the case. New Georgia legislation created a commission to fire local, elected prosecutors. The new law is intended to control reforming prosecutors.

DDT may not be sleeping well these days. In the middle of the night, he erupted in fury on his failing Truth Social when he learned about more subpoenas to more of his employees, one of them cooperating with the DOJ:

“The Special ‘Prosecutor,’ Jack Smith, who is harassing, threatening, and terrorizing people who work for me, probably illegally, and totally at odds with the way Crooked Joe Biden is being treated, will no longer be known as the Special ‘Prosecutor,’ but rather, the Special ‘Persecutor.’ He is a Trump Hating SLIMEBALL who is going far beyond the original instructions of the Department of Injustice. The Witch Hunt continues, as it always will, with the Radical Left, Country Destroying, Lunatics!”

Investigations into the handling of surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago about the employees’ response resulted in more grand jury subpoenas to DDT’s senior employees. DDT’s aide and occasional valet Walt Nauta is under additional scrutiny for not being open in the probe, and the Trump Organization COO and executive VP Matthew Calamari was also called in for questioning.

A DDT employee at Mar-a-Lago is working with law enforcement to discover whether DDT ordered the boxes with classified documents to be moved from the storage room while the government was trying to recover them. DOJ wants to know about the method of storage, people with access, workings of the security camera system, and orders from DDT to aides and lawyers about the contents of the materials and its location. The basic inquiry is whether DDT tried to hide documents after receiving a subpoena for their return.

Another subpoena issued to the Trump Organization concerns LIV Golf, the professional venture with Saudi Arabia backing the tournaments at DDT’s resorts. The Saudis may be making arrangements to get the classified documents that DDT holds.

Smith could charge DDT with a felony for soliciting VP Mike Pence to commit a crime. Pence has written about a meeting at the White House when DDT talked about getting Pence to accept the election certification, a suggestion DDT kept pushing onto Pence.  

Scientists have not yet determined the source of Covid, but DDT is accusing China of spreading the disease into the U.S. to destroy his political career. He said it was retaliation against tariffs he imposed on Chinese goods.

Michigan’s Attorney Grievance Commission has found that nine of DDT’s lawyers who tried to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election committed professional “misconduct” and should be disciplined. The state Attorney Discipline Board, an arm of the state Supreme Court, can decide on the punishment, including reprimands, suspensions, probations, and disbarments. The attorneys in question were already sanctioned by Detroit U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker.

The Florida Commission on Ethics has also dismissed DDT’s allies’ accusations of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “illegal conduct” in a “shadow presidential campaign.” The 12-page dismissal explained the filing failed “to constitute a legally insufficient complaint” without specific allegations constituting a violation of Florida law.

DDT lost another lawsuit when a New York Supreme Judge dismissed his filing against the New York Times and ordered DDT to pay all attorney’s fees, other legal expenses, and related costs. The $100 million lawsuit, filed in 2021, alleged the NYT and his niece Mary Trump collaborated in “an insidious plot” to secure his tax records for a Pulitzer Prize winning story. The judge ruled the “breach of contract” case failed “as a matter of constitutional law” because of reporters’ rights to legally gather news. In 2020 and 2021, courts dismissed DDT’s defamation cases against CNN and the New York Times.

CNN shifted to pandering to DDT by holding a live hour-long “presidential town hall” on May 10 with only DDT after the network’s sale to Warner Bros. Discovery. He will take questions from only Republicans and undecided voters. The announcement with only one sentence about DDT’s indictment for falsifying his company books to hide hush money payments failed to mention his other legal problems, including his incitement of an insurrection. Highly influenced by DDT-supporter investor John Malone, the owner has adopted Fox’s “fair and balanced” approach.

DDT didn’t file to testify in the Carroll civil trial despite his assertion in Ireland that he had to rush back to the U.S. to “confront” E. Jean Carroll and and “probably attend” the trial. He also said he was “doing very well” with the civil trial for rape and defamation that had no defense witnesses. Earlier DDT said he would not appear, and the only other witness reversed his decision to testify. Carroll’s attorneys called several witnesses for the trial, including a woman who said DDT molested her on an airplane.

Clips from DDT’s deposition for the case played by Carroll’s lawyer showed DDT declaring that Carroll wasn’t his “type” while he misidentified Carroll as his second wife, Marla Maples, in a photograph. DDT then informed Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, that she also “wouldn’t be a choice of mine.” 

Attorneys on both sides rested their cases last week, and closing statements were scheduled to start Monday. Typically, no more witnesses are permitted in a trial after both sides rest their arguments, but the judge called DDT’s bluff about returning and and gave him until Sunday at 5:00 pm to testify. DDT can’t lie by saying the judge would not permit his testimony. DDT said in Ireland about the judge:

“He doesn’t like me very much, he was appointed by Bill Clinton.”

The Carroll trial is a civil lawsuit, allowing DDT to skip the event. A criminal proceedings, such as the one DDT faces from his indictment, requires the defendant to be present for the entire trial. DDT could be sitting in a courtroom during his presidential campaign.

At the start of the trial, the judge instructed jurors they have “wide latitude” in punishing the former president. He had also told them that the central claim refers to “battery,” … even the slightest unlawful touching of another person.” Jurors can also determine the monetary penalty.

Joe Tacopina, attorney in the Carroll trial, is closer to being removed from a defense of DDT in the criminal trial including DDT’s paying hush money to Stormy Daniels. The lawyer is accused of conflict of interest by representing Daniels to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement she signed before the 2016 presidential election about her “intimate relationship” with DDT in 2006-2007. To settle the question, a judge has requested records of communication between Tacopina and Daniels by May 15.

DDT tried to pretend that his indictment didn’t bother him, but audio from his plane indicates he snatched two of reporter Vaughn Hillyard’s phones and threw them in a temper tantrum when Hillyard questioned him.  

Although listing all of DDT’s negatives, investigator journalist Klaus Marre also called him a hero:

“So what is this vital service Trump is providing to the nation (and we are saying this completely unironically)? He is going to keep Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) out of the White House.”

For months, pundits kept claiming DeSantis was a better choice than DDT, picturing DDT as the worst possible candidate. I have always disagreed, and DeSantis’ actions have proved my opinion. Marre’s article gives his reasons that, as bad as DDT is, “he isn’t really evil.” DDT wants to be loved; authoritarian DeSantis “wants to control people” and “cruelty is his brand.” The article explains how DDT “completely emasculated the governor [which] might be the greatest service Trump will ever do for his country.”

Thanksgiving Gratitude for Government Actions

Every year on Thanksgiving, many people express gratitude for what happens in their lives. For me, this means my fabulous partner of over 53 years and our joy in working together. We’re grateful for the friends who contribute to our lives through their love, humor, acceptance, and help whenever we need it. We take delight in our loving standard poodle and our delightful cat. Our home is exactly what we want, and we feel safe in the small town where we live.

Beyond that—because I’m a politics junkie—I have much more to list in my gratefulness because they demonstrate that others share with me my desire for human rights and democracy.

Elections:

After a long 15 days, Alaska has declared the winners of its ranked choice votes. Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) returns for a full House term after she won her special election last summer, both elections defeating former VP candidate Sarah Palin. She cares about people, not herself. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) will also return to Washington after Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) tried to destroy her for her impeachment vote against him. DDT endorsed opponents of both these winners.

Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) will be Los Angeles’ first female mayor despite her wealthy opponent outspending her by $91 million.

Two extremely close races flipped the Pennsylvania state House to Democrats for the first time in a decade. The Dems flipped a total of 12 seats in the chamber.

The GOP will likely have 222 members of the House for the 118^th Congress, outnumbering Democrats by five. Democrats are suing to overturn districting maps in six states they couldn’t do before 2022 elections: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, and Texas.

Georgia will determine whether Democrats have 50 or 51 Senators in the election on December 6.  Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) leads opponent Herschel 51 percent to 47 percent and has an 11-point lead among women voters plus 12 percent of those with a four-year or more college degree.

The week after DDT announced his 2024 presidential campaign, 57 percent thought it was a bad idea. Only 27 percent approved in the Quinnipiac University poll. Among independents, the disapproval was 58 percent to 32 percent. Forty-four percent don’t want Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president, compared to 37 percent supporting him.

Courts:

The Supreme Court, typically supporting DDT, turned him down in his request to block House Democrats from seeing his tax records. Sought for 42 months, the decision listed no dissenting votes, and the records should be immediately turned over to the House committee.

The Supreme Court rejected appeals from a Virginia public school district and the University of Toledo in Ohio to stop sexual harassment lawsuits by female students using the law prohibiting sex discrimination at schools receiving federal funds.

A federal judge continued to send Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ beloved Stop WOKE Act into the trash pile, starting when he blocked provisions related to regulating private speech. In August, he wrote:

“Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.”

DeSantis’ law targeted concepts about race and history that Republicans dislike. In banning any information about critical race theory, DeSantis tried to regulate private businesses’ training sessions with their own private-sector employees. 

The November ruling stopped what the judge called a “positively dystopian” policy restricting how lessons on race and gender can be taught in colleges and universities. DeSantis wants to control what scholars can say in higher education. He quoted George Orwell’s novel 1984:

“’It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,’ and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the State has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom.”

The judge added:

“The law officially bans professors from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered expression of the opposite viewpoints. Defendants argue that, under this Act, professors enjoy ‘academic freedom’ so long as they express only those viewpoints of which the State approves. This is positively dystopian.”

DeSantis will certainly appeal, but this ruling is a start. Other lawsuits are fighting the suppression of education in K-12.

With no comment, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected the GOP request to remove a day of early voting for the U.S. Senate runoff between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Herschel Walker. The GOP knows that it needs to block voting to win, causing the Republicans already passing a large number of voter restrictions including cutting the runoff calendar in half with a ban on Saturday voting after a holiday. Georgia’s runoff early voting now runs from November 27 to December 2.

A three-judge 11th Circuit Court panel, two DDT-appointed judges and one from George W. Bush, appear ready to support the DOJ by rescinding the special master appointment in the Mar-a-Lago documents case made by DDT’s pet judge Aileen Cannon. One of the DDT judges told DDT’s lawyer that sweeping up personal items in a court-authorized search was not unusual. The DOJ has also asked for the return of 13,000 documents to investigators examining if DDT illegally retained highly sensitive documents of national defense information after he left the White House and possibly obstructed justice in their retrieval.  

A judge asked DDT’s lawyer that if he can’t establish the seizure is unlawful, “what are we doing here?” Another judge pointed out that a special master has no relationship to unlawful seizure.

A complaint has been filed against a Greenville (MS) municipal judge who signs no-knock search warrants allowing police to go into a home unannounced and then keeps them instead of turning them over to the clerk. Violating the state’s criminal procedure rules, his process hides warrants from the public and The public has no access to the warrants and prevents people from defending themselves when they are charged with crimes.

Congress:

The Senate unanimously passed legislature to make funding for survivors of gender-based violence more inclusive of the neediest communities. This amendment to the Violence against Women Act increased funding for domestic violence and sexual assault services specifically helping Native Hawaiian survivors who were inadvertently excluded from the funding. Roughly two-thirds of sex-trafficking victims in Hawaii are Native Hawaiian.

Another unanimous Senate vote passed the Safe Connections Act to help survivors of domestic violence and other crimes cut ties with their abusers and separate from shared wireless service plans, useful to monitor, stalk, or control victims. Abused victims and dependents in their care won’t have penalties or other requirements to separate from shared plans, and the FCC must make rules to keep calls or texts on hotlines from appearing on call logs.

Almost 200 years ago, the U.S. agreed to seat a member of the Cherokee Nation in the House as a non-voting delegate. A House vote could make that happen. The House has six non-voting delegates, including from the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands, who can introduce legislation and sit on committees but cannot vote on the House floor.

President Joe Biden:

Facing opposition from conservative states to his student loan forgiveness of $20,000 per person, Biden will extend the payment pause on federal student loans until 60 days after the relief plan is permitted.

The price of crude oil has dropped from almost $120 in March to $77.50, plunging over one-third of its cost from this year’s highest point. Shipping prices are lower, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) drove investment in U.S. battery equipment manufacturing, taking the industry from China.  

Jason Easley and Sarah Jones wrote about gratitude for Biden:

“After four years of feeling like the country was careening out of control, President Joe Biden assumed office and immediately restored stability and normalcy to the country…. Biden got the pandemic under control, oversaw record-setting job growth, and made a huge downpayment on rebuilding America’s infrastructure and helping the planet. Biden has gotten Congress to function in a bipartisan way and has lived up to his promise to try to help people and make their lives better.

“Things have not been perfect. Inflation remains a stubborn and persistent problem. The Senate filibuster has stopped Biden from achieving goals like voting rights reform, an assault weapons ban, and the codification of Roe.”

Easley and Jones described Biden’s leadership:

“You may not appreciate it at the moment, but you’ll know when it is not there.

“The reason why so many Americans will be able to enjoy their Thanksgiving holiday is that a steady hand is again steering the national ship from the Oval Office.

“The feeling that there has been a dark cloud hovering over the nation has passed.”

Footnote for Biden: For many years, Fox network attacked “liberals” for their “War on Christmas.” Evidently that particular war has ended. Fox’s latest complaint is that Biden is “too pro-Christmas,” led by Laura Ingraham on her prime-time show. (The official lighting of the National Christmas Tree isn’t until November 30.) 

And then there’s the scandal about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaking information to evangelical Christians before his announcements of two cases about reproductive rights. But that’s a longer story!

Loss of Democracy on Constitution Day

September 17, 2022 is the little noticed Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia 235 years ago, and leaders swore to uphold this framework for democracy. In the beginning, it protected only white men; almost 200 years were required to give women and minorities more equal rights.

Meant to be limits and protection for the government power, the Constitution divides the rule of the government into three parts to block a monarch or a tyrant. Congress writes laws, levies taxes, borrows money, declares war, pays debts, establishes courts, sets up a postal service, and provides for “the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” The president can veto laws, but Congress can override the veto. The judicial branch settles disputes between states and guarantees a jury trial.

A major problem after 235 years is the continued belief of some states’ governments that, although they cannot strip people of the right to vote, they can stop citizens from this right, preferably the low-income and minorities who are feared by conservatives to support their rights. At this time, Republicans use threats and violence to destroy the ability of people to participate in the voting process, both in going to the polls and in working to help people carry out their constitutional right to vote.

These attempts to prohibit voting go beyond the 400+ voter suppression bills introduced in 48 states creating barriers to register, vote by mail, and vote along with redistricting, gerrymandering, and mass purges of voter rolls. Repeated requirements of “citizenship papers” intimidate naturalized citizens, and threats of violence against election workers drive them away from what they see as their civic duty. Inside the polling places, watchers can frighten voters by standing close to them, challenging ballots, or brandishing weapons. Outside, bullies can wear military-style garb when confronting voters, write down voters’ license plate numbers, block the polling entrance, aggressive question voter, and follow them.

After the election, Republicans who lose spread the lie that they actually won but the election was rigged—even if they lose to another Republican.

Recent events are threatening U.S. democracy and its foundations:

A judge appointed by Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) continues to declare DDT above the law because he was elected to the presidency in 2016. She also ignores the importance of national security documents by delaying any resolution to the ones found lying around during the summer break at Mar-a-Lago. Having named DDT’s choice as “special master,” Judge Aileen Cannon denied the DOJ request to pursue an investigation into classified documents while the master looks through the 11,000 records taken with a search warrant. His deadline is November 30, but no earlier deadline was set for the classified documents.

The DOJ asked an appeals court, comprised of six DDT-apppointed judges out of 11, to permit criminal investigators to examine the seized classified materials while the master works on the other records. Its filing wants those “causing the most serious and immediate harm to the government and the public.” It argues that classified documents are by definition the property of the government, not a former president or a private club and not subject to personal attorney-client privilege. DDT has not cited no legal authority to executive privilege keeping the executive branch, to which the DOJ belongs, from reviewing its own records. Cannon was skeptical that these highly classified documents could cause any harm to national security and indicated a lack of “unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice.”

DDT has until Tuesday to respond to the DOJ’s filing. He may have a decent lawyer this time. Using private donations to his PAC Save America, DDT paid Chris Klise $3 million up front. DDT also used mob-like innuendo for violence when he told far-right conservative Hugh Hewett in an interview that people would not “stand for it” if he were indicted.  

DDT constantly lies about the documents he stole and stored at Mar-a-Lago, the reason that a search warrant was needed after a DDT lawyer signed an official document lying about all documents being submitted to the DOJ by June 2022. This lie followed DDT’s lie to the National Archives that none of the documents was sensitive or classified. Instead, Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told the archives that DDT had only 12 boxes of “news clippings.” Since Meadows’ claim, officials have recovered 42 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago, including top-secret U.S. operations and information about a foreign government’s nuclear-defense readiness. Some of the documents had been torn up.

Far right states use parental rights as an excuse to strip bookshelves of books that don’t support heterosexual white supremacism and eliminate all non-white supremacism from the curriculum, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has removed the rights of parents who support their trans children. With the help of his AG Ken Paxton, who is scheduled to be deposed for his fraud indictment soon after the November election, Abbott has orchestrated a regulation that identifies any medical care for trans youth as child abuse. Texas has no legal restrictions against trans care.  

Because of Abbott’s and Paxton’s regulation, a 13-year-old trans boy was taken from his class at school and interrogated for an hour about intimate personal details without any parents present. Before he received puberty blockers, he had suffered from depression, suicidal thoughts, and difficulty attending classes. The questioning caused him to have a “meltdown,” according to his mother, and he has started missing school and has anxiety attacks because he no longer sees school as a safe place. State child services is investigating the mother for physical child abuse, calling the boy’s testosterone treatment “illegal.” The boy’s treatment is under the guidance of a pediatrician, endocrinologist, and two therapists. Medical experts widely agree that gender-affirming care is medically necessary, and puberty delay can be reversed.

A state court already ruled against Abbott in the case of one family, but he continued to persecute other families for months. An injunction from a state judge last Friday shielded a group of families because such investigations could cause “probable, imminent and irreparable injury” to the families, including “gross invasions of privacy in the home and school, and the resulting trauma felt” by the family, as well as an increased risk of depression and suicide. The state made an immediate appeal to overrule the judge, and the mother of an 18-year-old trans boy is afraid she’ll lose her job with a child abuse charge.

Montana officials plan to defy a judge’s order to permit trans person’s gender changes on birth certificates, and Virginia now requires transgender students to use school programs and facilities according to sex assigned at birth.  

Abbott sent two more busloads of migrants to the home of VP Kamala Harris, and Florida Gov Ron DeSantis is trying to cover his use of Florida money to fly Venezuelan and Colombian migrants out of San Antonio (TX) to Martha’s Vineyard. He claims that all the migrants planned to go to Florida. He also said they knew their destination, but they thought they would be going to cities, close to public transportation, instead of to an island of 20,000 people. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre compared DeSantis’ actions to those of other traffickers:

“These are the kinds of tactics we see from smugglers in places like Mexico and Guatemala. And for what, a photo op? Because these governors care about creating political theater.”

The GOP has bragged that Hispanics are leaving the Democratic party, but DeSantis may have reversed that trend. The Cuban community, identifying with Venezuelans fleeing communism, compared the move to that of deceased Cuban dictator who relocated Cubans in the early 1960s.

On Constitution Day, U.S. knowledge of basic facts about government declined for the first time in six years:

• Only 47 percent could name all three branches of government, down from 56 percent last year and the first decline since 2016.
• One-fourth (25 percent) could not name one single branch of the government.
• 26 percent could not name any First Amendment freedoms. 
• Only 24 percent could name freedom of religion, down from 56 percent last year.
• Only 20 percent could name freedom of the press, down from 50 percent last year.
• 63 percent cited freedom of speech, down from 74 percent last year; right to assembly 16 percent, down from 30 percent; and right to petition 6 percent, down from 20 percent.
• 9 percent, tripled from 3 percent last year, put the right to bear arms in the First Amendment instead of the Second Amendment, but 82 percent know the Supreme Court upheld the right to own guns.
• 78 percent know that the Bill of Rights protects people from illegal searches and seizures.
• Only 55 percent know that a 5-4 ruling in the Supreme Court makes the decision law, down from 61 percent last year.
• 76 percent the federal government cannot establish an official religion, and 88 percent know atheists have the same rights as other citizens.

Now if only the Supreme Court would learn these rights.

GOP Uses Biden’s Speech as a Shiny Object to Deflect Attention

[Correction in paragraph 3: “military has no allegiance …”]

MAGA and other conservative supporters of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) came out with amazing vitriol and petty bitterness against President Joe Biden’s call for democracy in the United States in his speech on September 1. One complaint was the visual of two Marines standing behind Biden in front of Independence Hall, where the Constitution was signed, produced massive qualities of GOP bile.

It was not a “break with White House traditions,” as Republicans claim: several previous presidents used the presence of troops as a backdrop during notable speeches. And DDT dragged out his Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to walk with him across Lafayette Square when he drove out legally peaceful protesters for a photo-op in front of a church. At one time, Republicans would not have seen the presence of two Marines and the playing of the Marine band as a menace. No more.

The White House stated the Marines showed “respect” for service members. A line from his speech is that democracy must be defended and protected. Top military officials were vital in stopping DDT’s insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2022 as well as maneuvering a peaceful transfer of power while DDT tried to incite violence with lies about election fraud. DDT wanted his control of the military to destabilize democracy, protecting MAGA protesters, and Biden pointed out that the military has no allegiance to a political party of the commander in chief.

Mark Thiessen, arguably the most conservative Washington Post, claimed that prime-time presidential speeches should focus only on explanations of a military action, a national tragedy, or a major policy initiative. He did try to cover DDT’s prime-time acceptance speech at the GOP from the White House at the GOP convention by calling it “controversial but stuck to his “rule” about presidential speeches.

Some MAGAs went far more overboard by claiming Biden’s red backlighting proves his being part of a satanic cabal of elites who are trafficking children around the world. Former DDT lawyer Jenna Ellis boosted images of Biden with #PedoHitler. Fox’s Tucker Carlson described the visuals as “a blood-red Nazi background,” and another network host and former DDT administration official, Monica Crowley, described the imagery as “almost satanic with the blood red lighting.” Red and blue lights, the colors of the U.S. flag, lighted Independence Hall.

The title of Dana Milbank’s column, “Dear Insurrectionists and Fascists: I’m Sorry I Offended You,” aptly describes the reaction from the “strongmen [who] were so fragile.” Milbank wrote:

“The insurrectionists of Jan. 6 busted into the Capitol, hit police with fire extinguishers, flagpoles, bats, stun guns and pepper spray; they threatened to kill the vice president and tried to overthrow the 2020 election. And now, they want an apology.

“MAGA Republican leaders have fomented violence, attacked the rule of law and deceived tens of millions of people into rejecting the outcome of free and fair elections. And now, they, too, want an apology.”

Milbank continues with sarcastic apologies for the insurrectionists causing themselves pain in their attacks of striking police officers with flagpoles on January 6 and “gouging their eyes.” To others, Milbank wrote he was “sorry you don’t like it when the Justice Department enforces the law and protects national security” and “regret[s] that you’ve taken away women’s rights…, banning books, and censoring history lessons [while] shunning science, expertise, and the truth.”

On the same day that Biden spoke from the Philadelphia location where Founding Fathers signed the U.S. Constitution, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) promised to provide “full pardons with an apology for many” to those convicted for the assault on U.S. democracy on January 6. He also bragged about meeting with insurrectionists and “financially supporting” some of those to defend them from “sick” prosecutors and “nasty” judges. DDT’s latest excuse for the search warrant last month was that the FBI was “looking for Hillary Clinton emails.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)’s pre-rebuttal to Biden’s speech attacked Democrats for destroying democracy and demanded an apology for those in the U.S. he slandered as “fascists.” (Biden never used that term in this speech.) McCarthy was one of 139 House Republicans trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election—and democracy—on January 6. RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who accused Biden of “disgust and hostility towards half the country,” said the RNC position of supporting fake electors sending false electoral certification to Congress is “legitimate political discourse.”

Anyone who watched the speech would note the difference between Biden and DDT in protesters’ interruptions. When a crowd shouted expletives about Biden and set off sirens, Biden pointed out that democracy permitted they were entitled “to be outrageous.” In contrast, DDT told his security staff to beat up anyone interrupting his speech and throw them out of the venue. Journalist Aaron Rupar used them to prove Biden’s premise about “unhinged and dangerous MAGAs.”

Satirist Alexandra Petri continued Milbank’s sarcasm in her column, “The Non-polarizing Speech President Biden Should Have Given,” directed at MAGA folk furious because they want Biden to “unify” the nation. Snippets:

“My fellow Americans. I am the president of the United States … maybe!…

“To those of you who say that violence is never the answer, and to those of you who say that violence is the answer right now, I say, Yup!

“This is a nation, after all, that honors the Constitution. Or doesn’t, if it doesn’t feel like it! Who am I to say who’s wrong and who is right? Maybe the president, but maybe just some guy!…

“I was told that [if I told people to accept the election it] would alienate a lot of people, so, instead, I want to take that time to just stare intensely out at the audience for a solid minute…

“We have had a democracy for a while, which I personally would like to keep, but some people seem to want us to try something new, and that could be … fine! Maybe 235 years is a good stopping point.”

Journalist John Harwood delivered his last commentary on DDT before he resigned from his position at CNN:

“The core point Biden made in that political speech about a threat to democracy is true. Now, that’s something that’s not easy for us, as journalists, to say. We’re brought up to believe there’s two different political parties with different points of view and we don’t take sides in honest disagreements between them. But that’s not what we’re talking about. These are not honest disagreements. The Republican Party right now is led by a dishonest demagogue. Many, many Republicans are rallying behind his lies about the 2020 election and other things as well. And a significant portion—or a sufficient portion—of the constituency that they’re leading attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Violently. By offering pardons or suggesting pardons for those people who violently attacked the Capitol, which you’ve been pointing out numerous times this morning, Donald Trump made Joe Biden’s point for him.”

Although Harwood technically resigned, Dan Froomkin reported in Press Watch that he had been told last month the day of the commentary was his last day in the midst of Harwood’s multi-year contract. Last month, CNN fired CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter and canceled his show, Reliable Sources. News sources are predicting more purging at the network after orders from DDT-supporter John Malone, a member of the board owning CNN, who wants to make the network support Republicans.

Using his theme for his speech, an existential battle for the “soul of nation,” from an op-ed he wrote for the Atlantic six years ago, Biden continued his condemnation of the philosophy expressed by DDT and his followers, first expressed after the GOP support of white supremacist rioters in Charlottesville (VA). Throughout the speech, Biden clearly stated he was not addressing Republicans as a whole but the violent extremists determined “to take this country backwards … to an America where there is no right to choose no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”

Republicans are trying to deflect attention from all their recent problems regarding the insurrection, DDT’s theft of official documents, and Biden’s recent successes. The GOP have not only lost two high-profile special elections in the past few weeks but also has watched Biden’s approval ratings go up at the same time, jumping six points to 44 percent after his legislative wins. This rating is higher than several other elected presidents at the same point in their terms in the last half century: DDT, 41 percent; Barack Obama, 43 percent; Bill Clinton, 39 percent; Jimmy Carter, 43 percent; and Ronald Reagan, 41 percent. Wars raised approval for George W. Bush (65 percent) and George H.W. Bush (74 percent).

The GOP is getting desperate about taking back Congress in November and will likely continue to follow the advice from their megadonor Steve Wynn: lie about Democratic tax policies. Republicans don’t stop with taxes; they lie about everything.

Two days after Biden’s speech, DDT followed him to Pennsylvania when he ranted against the FBI, again claimed the 2020 election was stolen, pushed his Truth Social platform, praised leaders of Russia and China, and polished off the evening with a rousing chorus of “lock her up” about Clinton. Just lie.

Search Warrant Affidavit – Revelations, DDT Excuses for Having Documents

The judge who issued the order to release the search warrant release for documents taken by Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) at Mar-a-Lago said that it would probably be “meaningless” to the public because of the redactions, and the quantity of blacked out content produced jokes. Even with those redactions, however, the affidavit provided a great amount of information, enough that Republicans are backing down after their temper tantrums about the search warrant. DDT-supporter Glenn Youngkin, Virginia governor, said people can’t “draw too many conclusions” after earlier saying the search were “politically motivated actions.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) switched the topic to “border invasions,” and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) moved to the anniversary of the suicide bombing of U.S. service members at the Kabul (Afghanistan) airport, Afghanistan. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) addressed an interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Nothing about the affidavit.

Not all Republican legislators protected DDT before the affidavit was released. Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), an Intelligence Committee member, wanted more information and said:

“If he had actual Special Access Programs—do you know how extraordinarily sensitive that is? That’s very, very sensitive. If that were actually at his residence, that would be a problem. But we just don’t know that. So let’s find out.”

Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said:

“When you get to compartmentalized classified spaces, it gets more serious.”

The affidavit and search warrant cited three criminal laws from Title 18 of the U.S. Code:

• Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, which covers the unlawful retention of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary.
• Section 1519 covers destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations or administrative proceedings.  
• Section 2071 covers the unlawful removal of government records.

Some revelations from the unredacted portions of the August 5 affidavit, about half the 38 pages: 

The DOJ involvement came after the National Archives sent the agency a criminal referral on February 9, 2022, after the archives had worked to obtain the documents for over a year. The FBI and DOJ coordinated a criminal investigation that led to a subpoena in June for classified material. When that was unsatisfactory, the DOJ submitted an affidavit to a DDT-appointed magistrate judge in Florida for the search warrant.

The government is “conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records.” The probe deals with possibly violating several statutes relating to his illegal retention and storage of official documents containing sensitive secrets.

The storage for the documents had no lock until the government demanded it have one after almost 18 months of requesting the documents be returned. Mar-a-Lago had no “secure location authorized for the storage of classified information,” according to a June 8 letter that DOJ sent to a DDT lawyer. The documents have “not been handled in an appropriate manner.” Surveillance “footage showed that, after one instance in which Justice Department officials were in contact with Mr. Trump’s team, boxes were moved in and out of the room.”

Of 15 boxes of documents redeemed after a year of requesting them, 14 contained highly secret information: “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.” Additional markings included “HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI,” some of these referring to technology and foreign communication. “HCS,” or human intelligence sources, means information gained from spies. The 184 documents marked as classified contained National Defense information and extremely sensitive top-secret information important to national security, considered among its most valuable and protected secrets.” 

Many of the classified documents, including top secret ones, were mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence.

The affidavit indicated “probably cause” of more boxes, with more highly classified documents, still at Mar-a-Lago, many not secured, “that evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation 18 U.S.C. §§ 793(e), 2071, or 1519 will be found at the PREMISES.” (The search on August 8 added many more documents, for a total of over 300 classified documents.)

According to law, “classified information of any designation may be shared only with persons determined by an appropriate United States Government official to be eligible for access, and who possess a ‘need to know.”

In citing 18 USC 793(e), the government asserts that DDT had no legal right to refuse the return or any document “relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation,” according to 18 USC 793(e).

Tabs and markings are removed from declassified documents; the materials found at Mar-a-Lago still had these on the documents. Declassification of some documents must also be approved by the originating agency, something not done for these documents. The affidavit listed statutes criminalizing the mere possession of these documents, whether they are or aren’t classified.

Some of the documents had DDT’s “handwritten notes”; the government is investigating when those notes were made. Other documents were torn. Statute 18 U.S.C. § 1519 criminalizes knowingly altering any government record or document, whether or not classified or relating to the national defense, if a person’s intent is to obstruct not only an investigation but also the “proper administration” of any federal department or agency.

The moving trucks at Mar-a-Lago on January 18, 2021, at least two of them, were also noted in the affidavit because a president typically moves out of his residence by military plane or at least military truck instead of unguarded moving vans—unless trying to avoid attention. The following material to this information is redacted.

Because of threats by DDT supporters against people involved in the affidavit, the names were redacted, but some information was not blacked out. The FBI agent submitting the affidavit was trained in “counterintelligence and espionage investigations” at the FBI Academy in Quantico (VA), and information had come from a “a significant number of civilian witnesses.”

DDT has provided a number of fake defenses: the classified documents belonging to the government are “mine”; he always planned to turn over the right thing to the government; he could just declassify documents by issuing a tweet; DDT took work home with him from time to time; he withheld the documents because he didn’t trust “partisan Democrat appointees” who were “releasing thousands of his White House documents to the January 6 Committee in spite of his lawyers’ claims of executive privilege”; possession of government classified documents is protected by attorney-client and executive privileges; and of course, it’s all about political and “what about ‘Clinton’s emails.’” 

On Fox, Jesse Watters falsely claimed that a “liberal librarian” wanted boxes of materials and that the boxes just had things “like golf balls and Oval Office raincoats.” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said there was no need for a search warrant because DDT would return any documents; Crenshaw insisted DDT would cooperate—before the affidavit’s pointing out all DDT’s refusals.

DDT’s lawyer Christina Bobb claimed that Mar-a-Lago was secure for classified materials. Yet the facility has no Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), and DDT has no national security clearance. Bobb said the basement door was secure but didn’t say how many people had access to the key. As part of the federal investigation, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, plans an intelligence community assessment of the “potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure” of documents DDT took to Mar-a-Lago.

Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said no one vetted the guests that come and go from Mar-a-Lago. A current example of that failure is the confidence that DDT and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appear to display in Inna Yashchyshyn before they discovered she was posing as a member of the famous Rothschild banking family. Federal authorities were alerted after a legal dispute exposing her frequent trips to DDT’s Florida club. She previously worked for an adoption agency specializing in helping pregnant Russian women come to the U.S. for their infants’ citizenship.

In a security analysis of Mar-a-Lago, ProPublica quoted a cybersecurity expert who reported hackers could use Mar-a-Lago’s network to remotely turn on the microphones and cameras of devices connected to the network in “typical hotel security.” An attacker could listen to sensitive national security conversations. A Chinese citizen, a part of her name matching a club member, entered Mar-a-Lago bringing four cell phones, an external hard drive, a laptop, and a thumb drive infected with malware while DDT was visiting from the White House. Hearing about the problems, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), running for reelection said that possible felonies aren’t important. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) wants the Espionage Act repealed because, to him, leaking classified information isn’t a problem.

DDT reportedly oversaw which documents he wanted to take to Mar-a-Lago. Even his lawyers didn’t know what he packed. And there would be no mess if he had just voluntarily returned the documents. Questions are why DDT insisted on keeping the documents and what he intended to do with these highly secret documents.

At least no one has cried “defund the FBI” since the affidavit was released.

Some News – August 25, 2022

The most dangerous story of the day may be how a Christian fundamentalist company is taking over Texas school boards on its way to control the U.S. for evangelicals. The Texas-based Patriot Mobile markets itself as “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider,” meaning Christian nationalist/MAGA far right. Electing school board members is the beginning to take over every part of the nation’s political structure with its anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist, anti-minorities, anti-history, anti-science, anti-nonChristian religion philosophy—and put all that in the school curriculum.

Former DDT adviser Steve Bannon has promoted Patriot Mobile and its “mission from God to restore conservative Christian values at all levels of government—especially in public schools,” according to Mike Hixenbaugh in his article for NBC news. Patriot Mobile created a PAC this year with $600,000 in seed money to spend on school board races in the Fort Worth suburbs. They bought 11 seats in four districts.

The Keller Independent School District pulled 40 books from the library shelves, including a graphic adaptation of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. The company donated framed posters of “In God We Trust” to the Carroll Independent School District, required to display them in each of the school buildings because of a new Texas law. These posters are spreading in schools across Texas after the passage of Senate Bill 797 requiring “a public elementary school or secondary school” to display the motto in a “conspicuous place” if a poster or framed copy of the motto is “donated for display at the school or institution” or “purchased from private donations and made available to the school.” The bill’s co-author tweeted:

“The national motto, In God We Trust, asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God.”

The Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District board voted 4-3 for a set of policies restricting how teachers talk about race and gender, limit the rights of transgender and nonbinary students to use bathrooms and pronouns corresponding with the genders, and simplified a process for parent to ban library books dealing with sexuality. Almost 200 people signed up to speak during public comments, many of them recruited to support the policies but others voluntarily protesting.

Christian fundamentalists must take over all parts of the government in their “Seven Mountains” theology, aka “dominionism,” once a fringe theology.  Pastor Rafael Cruz, Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) father, started weekly Bible studies for employees at Patriot Mobile’s corporate office to be posted on YouTube. Cruz preached that American founders intended a “one-way wall” for religion, banning government from interfering with the church but not stopping the church from controlling the government.

Supporters of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) are fixated on finding negative information about the Biden family, two of them so much that they stole the diary of Ashley Biden, President Joe Biden, during his 2020 campaign. Two defendants pled guilty to stealing the diary and selling it to Project Veritas, the conservative organization pretending to be a news media organization while falsifying videos and other information for negative lies about Democrats. The two thieves received $40,000 for the diary and returned to take more of Ashley Biden’s property. She had written intimate information about herself and her family while she recovered from addition.

The release of a nine-page memo from the DOJ after a court order shows the obfuscation of former AG Bill Barr in covering for DDT after Robert Mueller filed his report about the investigation into the ties between Russian interference and DDT’s campaign in the 2016 presidential election. Barr explained that DDT couldn’t be charged with any crimes because of no conspiracy, different from Mueller’s report. A highly redacted version of the memo was released in 2019; this version is complete. Barr signed and approved the memo on March 24, 2019, the same date he notified Congress of his decision not to prosecute DDT. It ends with a formal recommendation to not charge DDT. Both Mueller and legal analysts criticized the DOJ for being “selective” about items in the report.

Two federal courts concluded that Barr didn’t rely on the memo for legal advice and decided to not charge DDT before he commissioned the memo. A federal appeals court described the memo as an “academic exercise” or “thought experiment” that meant to bolster the public rollout of Barr’s decision against prosecuting Trump. In the memo, Barr’s deputies, the memo’s authors, wrote DDT couldn’t be charged because of lack of precedence and claimed Mueller couldn’t find any comparable cases with “remotely similar circumstances.”

The ”Trump Defense,” according to Barr’s DOJ: DDT’s acts were not criminal because of his thoughts, anger, and ineptitude.

• DDT’s steps were “not for an illegal purpose” but because he believed the investigation was politically motivated.
• DDT’s “driving force” was anger over Comey’s refusal to publicly declare that the FBI was not investigating Trump himself rather than an effort by Trump to derail the investigation.
• DDT’s obstruction was never carried out because people didn’t follow his orders.

The government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which obtained the memo after a lawsuit, stated the excuses presented a “breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump.” The group’s statement added:

“It significantly twists the facts and the law to benefit Donald Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller.”

Mueller had pointed out that DDT fired FBI Director James Comey after the former director did not “let this go” in the criminal probe of DDT’s former top adviser Michael Flynn. DDT told his White House counsel, Don McGahn, that he never tried to fire Mueller, but the memo claimed “there is insufficient evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the President sought to induce McGahn to lie.”

In another sticky problem for DDT, one of his appointed judges returned his filing to limit the DOJ review of records seized from Mar-a-Lago with the request that he clarify what he is seeking—why the court has jurisdiction over the dispute and what “precise relief” he wants. Legal observers are already criticizing the suit for being convoluted and failing to ask substantial legal questions. DDT had asked for a special master to review the materials and bar the FBI from examining the documents until the master is appointed. The purpose might be to determine whether the seized documents are protected by attorney-client privilege or any other legalities.

Another potential DDT problem is the release of a redacted version of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit by noon on August 26, per a court ruling. It describes the probable cause for crime, possibly adding more charges against DDT.

More news about documents at Mar-a-Lago came from an email sent by the National Archives chief counsel, Gary Stern to DDT in May 2021. He references two dozen boxes stored in DDT’s White House residence not returned despite the request to give them back. Stern wrote that DDT’s lawyer Pat Cipollone agreed the boxes of official records needed to be returned. For months, DDT repeatedly declined to return the items while his lawyers expressed concerns about his keeping the documents.   

Conservative love to play the victim, and former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, now the GOP candidate for a Montana U.S. House seat by 1,608 votes is no different. He is claiming the DOJ is persecuting him although the agency has refused to bring charges against him for the second time. A report from the Interior Department’s inspector general reveals that Zinke lied and misled his way through an inquiry into possible misdeeds including a casino operating decision following extensive lobbying to bury the project. An earlier investigation into Zinke found he lied about his involvement in a land deal in his hometown of Whitefish (MT), benefitting him personally. He had falsely claimed that his meeting with the developers was “purely social.”

And notably, it’s the second time the Biden DOJ has passed on pursuing Zinke for allegedly lying to investigators. Another IG report released earlier this year found Zinke had allegedly lied about his involvement in a land deal in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont., which he stood to benefit from personally. Zinke claimed his role was minimal and that a meeting he held with the project’s developers at the Interior Department’s headquarters was “purely social.” Yet Inspector General Mark Greenblatt, a DDT appointee, reported that communications proved Zinke had “an extensive, direct, and substantive role in [representing] negotiations” with the developers. Even without any charges for his illegal actions, Zinke called it a “political hit job” by the Biden administration.

The federal government declined to move forward from the investigation of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) until after the general election. In this week’s primary, Gaetz defeated his opponent to be the GOP candidate. Yet the case against Gaetz for sex-trafficking underage girls may be solid, and he could be tied into a massive investigation in corruption throughout central Florida through his connection with an associate, former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, who is due to be sentenced in December after several extensions. Like Gaetz, some of his charges are for sex-trafficking, but the investigation into ? covers illegal real estate deals, embezzlement of federal COVID relief, Republicans running ghost candidates, and public corruption. An op-ed from Gaetz’s primary opponent wrote about Gaetz using money from his donors intended for conservative causes to pay for his sex-trafficking defense and expressed concern about Gaetz, a member of the Congressional Armed Services Committee who has access to top secret information, is open to blackmail.  

Media Focuses on DDT—His Election Fraud, Stolen Documents

The incompetent legal team for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) has asked a federal judge to stop the FBI review of documents taken with a legal search warrant from Mar-a-Lago until an appointed neutral special master inspects the materials. The federal lawsuit also attacks the search which DDT’s lawyers call a “shockingly aggressive move, overly broad, and maintains that deserves a more detailed description of the seized records. According to the filing, the seizure showed “no understanding of the distress that it would cause most Americans,” indicating a possible threat. It added that the FBI and DOJ treated DDT “unfairly” and “illegally seized.” Again, DDT, who was hiding classified documents, is described as “fully cooperative” although he didn’t respond to a subpoena for them.

The DDT-appointed federal magistrate judge in Florida authorizing the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago stated he “carefully reviewed” the FBI’s sworn evidence before signing off and considers the facts contained in an accompanying affidavit to be “reliable.” Bruce Reinhart included this information in the order unsealing redacted portions of the affidavit giving evidence for the search. He also noted that “neither Former President Trump nor anyone else purporting to be the owner of the Premises has filed a pleading taking a position” on efforts to unseal the affidavit.

The judge said the necessary redactions may make the document “meaningless” to the public. He also suggested the physical description of Mar-a-Lago could hinder the Secret Service’s ability to protect DDT because of access by “private members” to the premises and made suggestions for DOJ’s redactions to address that concern. Other judicial recommendations included protecting witness identities, actual information in the files, and methods of the ongoing investigation. Reinhart refused the request from media and conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch to unseal the entire affidavit because complete disclosure “would detrimentally affect this investigation and future investigations.”

A new report from the New York Times has specific information about documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and the process. The first 150+ documents marked as classified were retrieved last January by the National Archives. The 15 boxes included material from the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the FBI covering a number of topics of national security interest. According to several people, DDT had gone through the boxes himself in late 2021 before giving them to the FBI.  

Worried about the highly sensitive nature of the material in the earlier seized boxes, archives officials referred the matter to DOJ which had convened a grand jury investigation. In May, the DOJ issued a subpoena for the missing documents, and in early June, DOJ officials made another visit to Mar-a-Lago. DDT’s lawyer Evan Corcoran went through the boxes to retrieve classified documents for the DOJ and gave them a few dozen documents. He drafted a statement which another DDT lawyer, Christina Bobb, signed. She is supposedly the custodian of the documents, and the statement declared that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material at Mar-a-Lago had been returned. Corcoran also showed Jay Bratt, the chief of the DOJ counterespionage section of the national security division, the basement storage room and said the remaining material had been kept there.

The question is who is lying with the statement, DDT for hiding documents from his lawyers or Bobb for signing a false statement.

On June 22, the DOJ sent a subpoena to the Trump Organization for Mar-a-Lago’s security footage, including the hallway outside the storage area which is well-trafficked. It revealed people moving boxes in and out of the storage, sometimes changing containers for the documents. The DOJ is now seeking surveillance footage between the first subpoena and August 8, the date of the search. Mar-a-Lago has little control over who comes into the club, even finding a spy who stole electronic items.

Armed with a search warrant two weeks ago, FBI agents removed 26 more boxes of material with over 11 sets of material marked at different levels of classified, including the highest level of classification—top secret/sensitive compartmented information—a total of over 150 records. They were located in the basement storage and in a closet within DDT’s office.

DDT’s allies continue to insist that he had a “standing order” to declassify the material and tried to excuse his taking the boxes because the General Services Administration, not DDT’s staff, packed the boxes with the documents. No documentation has been found to indicate DDT declassified any of the documents, and the alleged crimes identified by the DOJ isn’t connected to the documents’ classification status. White House aides described the chaos in trying to pack up the White House as some records were tossed into burn bags. One source blamed former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for the documents at Mar-a-Lago.

National Archives officials worked to get the material returned throughout much of 2021 because all presidential records material remains government property to be provided to the archives at the end of his term. Some of the missing documents were common knowledge such as DDT’s original letters from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and the note that President Barack Obama left DDT before he left office. Former White House officials who DDT designated as his representatives to the archives tried to regain the documents for the archives, but DDT described the boxes of documents as “mine.”

Some members of the “Gang of Eight,” House and Senate leaders and leaders of intelligence committees from both parties, want access to documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. Other lawmakers want complete copies of the affidavit also, but the magistrate judge must sign any releases. Not all the “gang” supports the request. 

To overturn Joe Biden’s presidential win, DDT-related attorneys obtained sensitive election system files that they shared with election deniers, conspiracy theorists and right-wing commentators. The lawyers hired a Georgia computer forensics firm to place the files on a server where they were downloaded dozens of times to 10 accounts “associated with a Texas meteorologist who has appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show; a podcaster who suggested political enemies should be executed; a former pro surfer who pushed disproven theories that the 2020 election was manipulated; and a self-described former “seduction and pickup coach” who claims to also have been a hacker,” according to a Washington Post report.

Records obtained through a subpoena include contracts between Atlanta-based SullivanStrickler and DDT-connected attorneys, notably Sidney Powell. Data came from Coffee County (GA) and Antrim County (MI). One of the plaintiffs in a Georgia lawsuit said the recklessly handled files “go far beyond” these two counties.

Previously, Misty Hampton, a Coffee County elections supervisor in 2020, permitted a group into the offices to prove the “election was not done true and correct,” she said. Hampton resigned under pressure last year because she falsified time sheets. Coffee County files were downloaded to at least four people outside the company: Jim Penrose, a cybersecurity consultant who claimed to have worked for the National Security Agency; Doug Logan, operator of the now defunct CyberNinjas that performed the Arizona GOP election review; Conan Hayes, former Hawaii pro surfer; and “Scott T,” claiming to work with Hayes at Allied Security Operations Group that produced a discredited report on Antrim County used by DDT as proof of a stolen election.  

Hayes’ Twitter account has posted conspiracy theory material and images smearing Dominion voting systems in Michigan. He also allegedly worked with Mesa County (CO) officials to copy elections software in May 2021. One of three arrested was Tina Peters who lost a run for secretary of state but claims that the election was rigged.

SullivanStrickler’s work began in Michigan after Matthew DePerno, now the DDT-endorsed GOP candidate for the state attorney general, won a court order in December 2020 to have access to Antrim County’s election systems. The next week, SullivanStrickler employees uploaded dozens of files that were shared with attorneys representing Antrim and Michigan’s attorney general in a lawsuit opposing the county election results for DDT. Later the Antrim files were made available to a larger pool of accounts for people who made false claims about the election and promoted conspiracy theories about election fraud. Data security expert Harri Hursti said that widespread release of server images “lowers the barrier to planning an attack against any election management system running this Dominion software.”

The right wing had hoped to campaign on how horrible the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is, but news about it is barely a blip on the screen with DDT, as usual, sucking up all the time through his possible corruption and attacks to avoid backlash. One theory is that the culture war and DDT are feeding conservative activism so that the GOP can’t weaponize the IRA. The GOP sweep in 2010 came from the GOP attacking Democrats over the Affordable Care Act, but the health care is now popular. Attacking the investment of money in clean energy isn’t a good talking point.

Republicans also set their hopes on campaigning with complaints about the Democrats’ economy, but a new NBC poll gives threats to democracy at the top concern from 21 percent of registered voters. “Cost of living” was five points lower at 16 percent, and third at 14 percent was “jobs and the economy.” In the poll, 57 percent believe investigations into alleged misconduct by Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) should continue. Republicans will need to look for more issues

Wars on Two Fronts – DDT, Ukraine

On Thursday, AG Merrick Garland announced that the DOJ filed a court request to unseal the search warrant and property receipt for the Mar-a-Lago residence of Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) because of massive DDT-engendered lies and violent threats by his allies. One man, who may have participated in the January 6 insurrection, was shot and killed after he tried to storm the Cincinnati FBI office. On Monday, a post on DDT’s Truth Social with the name Ricky Shiffer, the man killed, sent a “call to arms” message:

“People, this is it. Leave work tomorrow as soon as the gun shop/Army-Navy store/pawn shop opens, get whatever you need to be ready for combat. We must not tolerate this one. They have been conditioning us to accept tyranny and think we can’t do anything for 2 years. This time we must respond with force.”

Garland explained the reason for unsealing the search warrant was “the intense public interest” and called out the “unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors.”

“I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated patriotic public servants. Every day, they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. I am honored to work alongside them.”

The government has until 3 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) on August 11 to notify the court whether DDT’s attorneys object to unsealing the warrant. The same judge appointed by DDT who signed the search warrant will hear the case.  

A few hours after Garland’s speech, breaking news revealed that the classified documents illegally stored at Mar-a-Lago concerned nuclear weapons. Mar-a-Lago has extremely lax security, and the documents would be classified at the highest levels, restricted to a small number of government officials because details about them allows adversaries to counter the systems.

Former senior intelligence officials said that DDT’s administration routinely mishandled highly classified intelligence about sensitive topics. Often it went to people who didn’t need to see it or weren’t authorized to read it. Among this information was signals intelligence, intercepted electronic communications such as emails and phone calls of foreign leaders. They needed to be closely guarded because they reveal how the U.S. penetrates foreign governments. This type of information was included in the 15 boxes removed from Mar-a-Lago last January.

Months later, the DOJ subpoenaed DDT for more documents and were given other materials. Officials suspected DDT’s team was not truthful and withheld additional documents. The current search warrant would describe what was being sought at Mar-a-Lago as well as their related crimes. Republicans who reveled in the search because of political benefits now worry about new damaging discoveries.  

In 2019, whistleblowers expressed concern that DDT wanted to provide U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia as his former national security adviser Michael Flynn had suggested. 

While DDT plays his games trying to return to the White House, the Russian war against Ukraine grinds on for almost six months since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Earlier this week, a Ukrainian attack on a Russian air base in coastal Crimea took out a dozen or more Russian planes used for missile strikes against Ukrainian-controlled territory. The losses would be the largest in a single day for the Russian air force, further reducing its ability to launch missile strikes against Ukraine. The Russian losses would also curtail its long-term ability to control southern Ukraine, especially the nearby province of Kherson, where Ukraine attempts a counteroffensive to retake its territory. Crimea is a Russian transit point for troops, equipment, and ammunition to supply the Kherson area.

Before the loss, Russia assumed it would be unimpeded in its operation instead of being forced to guard another part of Ukraine. At least three explosions at the base also demonstrated to Russia that it’s not invincible. Special forces fighters caused the destruction because HIMARS couldn’t cross the 150 miles from Ukrainian-controlled area to the air base. Russia only admitted damage to civilian structures and denied any destroyed planes, but satellite images showed the extent of the damage.

Russia continues to endanger the world with more shelling of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which Ukraine lost in early March. An administrative office near the welding area has been hit and several radiation sensors damaged. Russia turned the facility and the surrounding area in southeastern Ukraine along the Dnieper River into a military base and launches attacks from there.

Russia launched an Iranian satellite from southern Kazakhstan after Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pledged to work together against the West. Tehran claims Russia will not use the satellite, named Omar Khayyam after the 11^th century Persian poet and philosopher, for intelligence in Ukraine. U.S. officials are concerned that Russia will use the satellite to monitor military in Israel and other parts of the Middle East.  

Assistant director for the Atlantic Council, Doug Klain, wrote that the attack on the Russian air base could be the turning point in the war. Russia has taken great pride in illegally taking Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, an act leading them to believe the Ukrainian invasion would finish within three days. Instead of grinding down a disheartened enemy, Russia faces an enemy achieving daring counteroffensives showing Ukraine able to precisely strike hundreds of miles behind Russian lines. Thanks to the West, Ukraine has up-to-date weapons; Russia is running out of equipment, even stripping commercial jetliners of parts after blocked from components from abroad. The EU has banned Russian coal imports, annually impacting about 8 billion euros worth of Russian exports.

In the Guardian, Nimo Omer writes that the war in Ukraine is entering a new decisive phase. Russia wants to hold out until winter, when Europe will be in an energy crisis and more likely to push for a negotiated agreement. The invaders may also be trying to connect the nuclear facility to the grid in Crimea, for the first time that one country steals a nuclear reactor from another country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin initially wanted to overturn the Ukrainian government and replace it with one of his own. Kyiv didn’t fall so he tried to take the eastern region of Donbas. The artillery onslaught led to Russia occupying the Luhansk province, and Russia wants Kherson as a transport hub with a key river crossing as a barrier from attacks. Russia has more ammunition than Ukraine, but the U.S.-supplied HIMARS partly equalized the battles with its precision-guided artillery aimed at Russian logistics centers, weapons depots, and command points. They also sever some supply lines, decreasing Russian shelling.

Hundreds of Russian soldiers refuse to fight and try to leave the military. Unable to replenish the 80,000 soldiers killed and untold numbers wounded, Russia is recruiting prisoners for replacements. St. Petersburg penal colony prisoners were offered amnesty in return for fighting in Ukraine. Of 11 volunteers, eight died in Ukraine. Russia’s major new ground force, the 3^rd Army Corps of “volunteer battalions,” seeks men up to age 50 and requires only a middle-school education. Deployment to Ukraine promises “lucrative cash bonuses,” but complaints in the media indicate Russia isn’t paying off. The Soviet Union used the same tactic during World War II. Supposedly Russia’s shadowy private military force, the Wagner Group, is doing this recruiting.

Kurt Volker, expert in Ukrainian affairs, said that Putin has put himself into a “weak position” because of the widely-condemned war in Ukraine, that he can partner only with vulnerable countries needing financial assistance. These countries will also worry about global sanctions against them like Russia has. Belarus, for example, may suffer from the same sanctions as Russia because it allows Russian troops on and Russian air strikes from its territory while receiving $1.5 billion in return. Even before Russia’s invasion, the U.S., UK, Canada, and Europe sanctioned Belarus in late 2021 for alleged repression of its residents and human rights violations of migrants.

In another Russian difficulty, Finland and Sweden are on their way to becoming NATO’s 31^st and 32^nd member states following the acceptance of North Macedonia in March 2020. Bosnia, Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine are also interested in joining NATO. All senators except Josh Hawley (R-MO) agreed to the expansion of NATO, and President Joe Biden signed the NATO accession protocols for Finland and Sweden. Putin called the expansion of NATO an imperialistic threat, but it would not have happened if he hadn’t “shattered peace and security in Europe,” as Biden said when he signed the protocols.

Even conservative senators such as Ted Cruz (TX) and Marco Rubio (FL) criticized Hawley for his objection; both of them emphasized NATO’s importance in protection against China. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) pointed out that Hawley had voted to permit Montenegro and North Macedonia into NATO.

Hawley has been mocked since the July 12 House January 6 investigative committee showed him running away from the insurrectionists who he incited. The irony comes from his image of masculinity that he described in his new book. Jonathan Capeheart described Hawley’s message: “if you’re a man, you believe in these things”: patriarchy, opposition to female’s body choice, opposition to marriage equality, aversion to labor organizing. Hawley’s sense of exclusion, and intolerance leading him to vote against other countries joining NATO. To Hawley, masculinity is the prejudice manifested by conservatives in the U.S. who cling to a vision of White America, identical to the beliefs of DDT’s followers.