James.galbraith

A young girl on the dirt road outside the South Vietnamese town of Trảng Bàng. A sailor and a nurse in Times Square at the end of World War II. A man in a white shirt standing stock still in front of a line of Chinese tanks at Tiananmen Square. There are some photographs that, because they capture a moment so completely, become part of history. 

The one the world got on Tuesday was unusual, because it wasn’t taken by a photojournalist or an artist attempting to capture a moment in time. However, it seems destined to become just as iconic as any portrait of a world leader or frozen instant from the past. And that’s because the image of top secret documents spread across the stained and gaudy carpet of Mar-a-Lago seemed to do a better job of capturing the essence of Donald Trump than any image that focuses on his artificially orange face.

That picture has already been reproduced multiple times today, and it doesn’t take an expert to see that the contents are damning for Trump. They should be equally damning for everyone who has tried to defend the theft of national security documents. But a careful analysis from The Washington Post reveals details that make what Trump did in revealing these documents even more sickening.

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Some of what the Post analysis reveals is immediately obvious. Many of the documents were can see are covered with a top sheet that is labeled either SECRET or TOP SECRET. Every single one of these documents is also marked with the letters SCI. This stands for “sensitive compartmented information,” and it means that the information is in effect beyond top secret. It’s restricted to a subset of people who are operating “within a formal access control system” established by the directors of the agencies from which the documents originated. That control system may mandate special handling, or even restrict viewing of the document to secure facilities. That’s because these documents involve “intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes” which are themselves restricted. 

The next set of markings on these documents show why they get that SCI marking. Some are labeled with “HCS-P.” These are documents collected using human intelligence, such as a cultivated asset inside a hostile government, or an undercover operative embedded within a group. The reason the “P” marking is added is because these documents are particularly sensitive, and are to be read only by those who have “formal indoctrination” into the protocol for dealing with these sources.

[Side note: No matter what happens to Trump or anyone else at Mar-a-Lago, all of these assets, whether foreign assets or U.S. agents, are now worthless. The cavalier way in which these documents were treated means that agencies have to treat these sources as compromised. Where possible, they will be exfiltrated. Where not, they will be ignored. That’s because further contact will imperil the source, and because nothing they pass along at this point can be trusted. The cost of these losses alone is inestimable.]

Other documents are labeled with “TK,” which is short for “talent keyhole.” If that means nothing, it’s because some history and some jargon is involved. “Keyhole” is a name used for reconnaissance satellites going back more than three decades. “Talent” is another way of saying source. So when documents were originally labeled TK, it was a way of saying they had come from “Agent Keyhole”—America’s eye in the sky. Now TK means more or less any intelligence from a space-based asset, principally high resolution satellite imagery and analysis derived from similar sources.

A third set of documents is labeled with SI, which stands for the very old-school term of “signals intelligence.” It means communications data, and these days it mostly means something having to do with cell phones. Phone logs, texts, transcripts … it’s all SI.

All those documents lying on that tacky carpet appear to come from one of these sources. That means the SCI marking could come because the document involves a satellite technology that no one is supposed to know we have, or because the documents are intercepting phone traffic in some hostile (or friendly) country, or because they involve human sources who would be endangered if they were revealed.

So far, just about all of this was clear the moment the image came out. But the folks at the Post have done something that, while it isn’t quite CSI: Las Vegas-magical levels of “enhance!” is still pretty good. They’ve looked closely at some of the folders and documents in the image. Close enough to pick up a few names and dates.

Two of those documents date from Aug. 26, 2018, a day on which it’s hard to pinpoint some specific event that might have made Trump want to snatch up files. This was during the Mueller investigations, and charges had recently been leveled against Paul Manafort. It’s also a period during which it was declared that $500 million in foreign loans given to Jared Kushner was “no cause for concern” and the NRA admitted that it had collected millions from foreign sources. But nothing really stands out as “oooh, Aug 26th!” 

The third dated document is … something else. Even the level of classification on this document has been obscured. It appears to come from May 9, 2018. That’s just when Trump declared that the U.S. was going to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, and when he claimed that Iran had violated the agreement, even though all inspectors said otherwise. So maybe that folder contains evidence Trump used in making his decision. Or proof that he lied. Again.

There’s one other thing that the Post analysis of the image turned up, and it may be the most interesting. In its description of the photo, the Justice Department says it shows “certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ‘45 office.’” That container is likely the cardboard box showing the Time magazine cover at the right side of the image, and it means that all of this material came not out of storage, but straight from Donald Trump’s office.

But there’s one other thing about these documents that the Post article mentions in passing but then lets slip: the colors are not right. The official border on a SECRET document is supposed to be a bold red, like the partially covered document in the upper left of the image, not the kind of duller, more orange tone seen on the document centered near the bottom. The border on a TOP SECRET document is supposed to be orange, not yellow. 

Possibly these documents all came off a printer that didn’t handle those colors well. They may have even been produced under some special protocol. In any case, the difference is pronounced. Here’s a bit of the border on the document at the bottom, compared to the border of the mostly covered document in the upper left hand corner. Next to it is part of the secret stamp from one of the yellow border documents on the right, compared to the partially covered documents on the left. In both cases, the colors on the documents with the non-standard borders seems to have been shifted toward the yellow, so that red borders and red stamps become more brown. What should have been orange borders appear as yellow.

What does this mean? Very likely it means nothing. But it seems unlikely that all these documents, which surely have a range of dates and origins, would have come from the same maladjusted printer. That is … unless the documents were all printed in the last days of Trump’s residency at the White House because these were documents he selected to take with him. Which would be bad. Or because these are duplicates made on a color copier which didn’t quite capture the original tones. Which would be much worse.

Trump and his followers proved on Jan. 6 how dangerously close they came to overturning our democracy. Help cancel Republican voter suppression with the power of your pen by clicking here and signing up to volunteer with Vote Forward, writing personalized letters to targeted voters urging them to exercise their right to vote this year.

Pam Travis, one of the 10 Wisconsin Republicans who signed fake papers claiming to be a presidential elector in 2020, is now a full-time staffer on Sen. Ron Johnson’s reelection campaign, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  has discovered. Travis has received more than $10,200 since April in pay from the campaign, as well as $3,500 in mileage reimbursements from May through July.

Johnson has been attempting to downplay his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and in fomenting the Big Lie for months now, following the revelation that he was actively attempting to hand fake elector documents from Wisconsin and Michigan to then-Vice President Mike Pence that afternoon, just ahead of the scheduled certification vote. A series of text messages between Sean Riley, an aide for the senator, and Chris Hodhson, a member of Pence’s staff, revealed that Johnson wanted to see Pence to hand over “Alternate slates of electors for [Michigan] and [Wisconsin] because archivist didn’t receive them.” To which Hodgson replied “Do not give that to him,” seeing as how Pence really didn’t want to be involved in the coup.

Travis’ name was on that slate of electors from Wisconsin, and now Travis is getting paid quite a bit of money from Johnson’s campaign, particularly considering she is just “a grassroots staffer answering phones,” as Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for Johnson, told NBC News. “This is being blown way out of proportion.”

Ron Johnson has sullied the Senate long enough. It’s time for him to go. Help elect Democrat Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin!

Her “grassroots” support includes serving as the vice chair of the 7th Congressional District for the state party, the former treasurer of the Wisconsin Federation of Republican Women, and as secretary at the party’s state convention this May. But, yeah, she’s just a grassroots phone-answerer.

A “volunteer” if you will, according to Johnson campaign spokesman Ben Voelkel. He told the Journal Sentinel that Travis is a “dedicated volunteer who has been active in the Republican Party grassroots for years,” adding that the campaign is “proud to have her on the team.” Only a Republican “volunteer” would get paid thousands of dollars for answering phones—which she apparently does from multiple locations, given that mileage she racked up.

This just serves as a reminder that Johnson has been among the most avid Big Lie proponents, however hard he’s tried to distance himself from Jan. 6 and everything that led up to it. First he said he had “no idea”  who was pushing the fake elector documents on him to give to Pence, then he had to admit that yes, it was him that was trying to intervene. But he insisted and still maintains that his involvement in the plot to overturn the election only lasted “a couple seconds.”

Paying one of the Big Lie fake electors to work for his campaign is a pretty good indication that nothing about his involvement with the coup plot was incidental. The man doesn’t deserve a seat in the U.S. Senate.

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If not for a new report recently handed over to a congressional panel, no one would have paid any attention to a bronze plaque of a traditionally clad Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member hanging above a doorway at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York.

The report was released by the Naming Commission, established by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 and created after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. The commission is tasked with making recommendations to Congress and the Department of Defense on naming, renaming, or removing “items that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.”  

According to The New York Times, the KKK plaque has hung above the doorway to the Bartlett Hall Science Center for decades. As cited in the report, the plaque falls outside of the scope of the commission’s power because while the KKK was founded by former Confederate soldiers, the group did not fully materialize until after the Civil War.

RELATED STORY: Cincinnati police officer relieved of her duties after body cam records her using N-word

The report, however, finds that the plaque “clearly ties in the KKK to the Confederacy,” and the commission “encourages the Secretary of Defense to address DoD assets that highlight the KKK in Defense Memorialization processes and create a standard disposition requirement for such asset.”

Ty Seidule, a retired brigadier general who serves as vice chair of the commission, explained to the Times that the plaque was included in the report “because we thought it was wrong.” Seidule added, “When we find something that’s wrong, but it’s not within our remit, we wanted to tell the secretary of defense about that.”

Aundrea L. Matthews, president of the Buffalo Soldiers Association of West Point, says, “It was shocking for most people to see the image.”

Although there are several recommendations for the removal or renaming of assets at both West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy, the panel wrote in the report that the “commissioners do not make these recommendations with any intention of ‘erasing history.’

“The facts of the past remain, and the commissioners are confident the history of the Civil War will continue to be taught at all service academies with all the quality and complex detail our national past deserves.”

The commission has until Oct. 1 to make its recommendations to Congress and will review the names of “more than 750 Department of Defense items” across the nation and two at a U.S. military base in Japan, CNN reports.

Where there's no electoral competition and White Republicans rule, maintaining basic infrastructure for Black residents is optional.

Over the last month, following the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, which is now known to have turned up roughly 100 classified documents after Donald Trump’s lawyer signed a statement that there were none, court filings and public statements have filled in the details of what has been a very murky understanding of the “Doc-a-Lago” scandal. Trump left Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2021. And here we are, 17 months later, discovering that he had boxes of the most secret information—including national security documents involving human intelligence and imagery from spy satellites—stashed in Mar-a-Lago. Including in the drawers of his own desk.

It’s no wonder that the response of some skeptics to the whole affair is, “If these documents were so critical, why didn’t they move faster?”

Because the story revealed by all these documents isn’t just one in which Trump, beyond a shadow of doubt, committed and instructed others to commit multiple serious federal offenses, any one of which can, and has, sent other people to jail for many years. The story told in the court filings is one in which every agency involved—from the National Archives, to the Department of Justice, to the White House—gave Trump every possible break. Everyone gave Trump almost endless chances to do the right thing.

And, of course, he spat on them all.

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The government brief filed on Monday evening in response to an order from Judge Aileen Cannon is absolutely devastating when it comes to the case against both Trump and his attorneys. Not only does that brief reveal that the government found documents of the highest possible classification scattered around Mar-a-Lago in unsecure locations, it found them after Trump attorney Christina Bobb signed an statement declaring that a “diligent search” showed no such documents remained. Even more sobering are statements in this filing that indicate Trump “likely concealed and removed” classified documents from Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to hide them from the FBI. With that in mind, it’s likely that all the classified material Trump took from the White House and other locations in D.C. has still not been found.

But this brief wasn’t the first document to emerge, or the first to paint a damning picture of what has happened over the last months at Mar-a-Lago. Last week, the affidavit behind the FBI search was released in response to an order from Judge Bruce Reinhart. That affidavit, which normally would have remained hidden, revealed that the FBI search took place as part of a “criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information” and that this investigation was opened to “among other things, determine how the documents with classification markings and records were removed from the White House.”

What’s amazing is that both of the documents—which are utterly damning—were released only because federal judges went out of their way to show unprecedented deference to Trump. It’s almost unheard of for a federal affidavit to be released in the midst of a criminal investigation, but Reinhart gave in to demands that it be seen after Trump supporters lobbied for its release. The latest filing, showing the stash of highly classified and clearly marked documents that Trump failed to turn over, came only because Cannon determined that she would grant Trump’s request for a “special master” even though granting that request took writing new law out of thin air.

Those two judges are at the end of a long line of people who, from day one of this affair, tried to give Donald Trump every possible break. Despite having walked out of the White House carrying documents that represent a threat to national security, and storing them in ways that made them accessible to hundreds of unvetted passers-by, Trump was given almost endless chances to simply hand them back and walk away.  

It was never a mystery that Trump had taken some documents he shouldn’t have. Even before Trump went out the door, refusing to attend the inauguration of President Joe Biden, the National Archives was informed by the White House Records Office that documents it was tracking had not been returned. When the National Archives had trouble negotiating with Trump’s team to obtain these documents, they turned to the White House, but rather than issuing an order, Biden’s team took a hands-off attitude, leaving it to the archives to sort out. They considered seeking a subpoena, but instead worked slowly using the Presidential Records Act, while Trump either ignored their requests or asked for more time.

That’s why it took a full year before the 15 boxes of material made its way to the archives. What generated almost immediate concern wasn’t just that the boxes were found to contain 100 classified documents, 25 of which were at Top Secret or above, but that these documents had clearly been treated in a cavalier manner and were mingled with “newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records.”

Again, the National Archives could have marched these documents straight to the FBI. They didn’t. Instead, they notified both the Department of Justice and Trump’s attorneys of what had been found, and continued working through the steps of the Presidential Records Act, which allowed Trump to continue asking for more time when not simply being unresponsive.

On April 12, the clearly frustrated archivist informed Trump that she intended to give the records to the FBI the next week. Trump’s response … was to ask for another delay. The Department of Justice didn’t get their first glimpse of what was in the first 15 boxes until April 29.

That day, the Department of Justice sent notification to Trump’s legal team that the contents of the boxes held “important national security interests” and that “access to the materials is not only necessary for purposes of our ongoing criminal investigation, but the Executive Branch must also conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported.”

In the case of human intelligence, any sign that the identity of an asset had been revealed would have meant immediate exfiltration, even if there was no clear sign that the asset was in danger. Both embedded resources and in-place agents that had taken years to establish would have been removed as rapidly as possible to avoid any consequences of having been compromised. Considering that the CIA and other agencies had noted a recent increase in assets lost overseas, there is a chance that handling these documents in an unsecure fashion had already generated fatal results.

Even then, the response of Trump’s attorneys was to … ask for more time. And, for the first time in this sequence, Trump tried a new ploy by saying that, if he didn’t get the extension he wanted, he would assert “‘executive privilege made by counsel for the former President.” On May 10, the acting archivist informed Trump’s attorneys that they were not giving them an extension, and did not recognize Trump’s authority to claim privilege over classified materials. 

The FBI finally got there hands on those first 15 boxes on May 16. What they found inside was “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.” Additionally, some bore the markings indicating they were only to be handled within secure facilities or that they were restricted in the interest of national security. That day, May 16, was the first day the FBI, Department of Justice, and other agencies really got a sense of how bad this was going to be.

At this point, the FBI “developed evidence” that what was in the 15 boxes was far from a complete tally of the dangerous documents in Trump’s possession. There’s been an assumption that this was a matter of someone coming forward—a witness or whistleblower—but it’s also likely that the documents found may have simply been incomplete. Considering how loosely the material had been treated, these classified documents may have been missing pages, or documents that the White House Records Office had identified as being with Trump might not have surfaced.

Whatever happened, it happened fast. Even before the FBI started looking through the files, the Department of Justice had convened a grand jury, and dispatched a subpeona to Trump’s designated “custodian of records” (attorney Christina Bobb).

Even at this late date, it seemed as if the Department of Justice was desperately trying to offer Trump an “out,” because that subpoena indicated that Bobb could comply by sending any remaining classified documents to the Department of Justice and signing a “sworn certification that the documents represent all responsive records.” Trump’s team … asked for an extension.

And that’s how two FBI agents and a Department of Justice attorney ended up visiting Mar-a-Lago on June 3, 2022, supposedly to pick up the last remaining classified documents. When they arrived, Bobb handed over a single “Redweld envelope”—the kind of cardboard expanding file used to store documents in many offices—“double-wrapped in tape.” Bobb then signed a document saying:

“Based upon the information that has been provided to me, I am authorized to certify, on behalf of the Office of Donald J. Trump, the following: a. A diligent search was conducted of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Florida; b. This search was conducted after receipt of the subpoena, in order to locate any and all documents that are responsive to the subpoena; c. Any and all responsive documents accompany this certification; and d. No copy, written notation, or reproduction of any kind was retained as to any responsive document.”

At that moment, despite everything that had happened to get there, despite delays, foot-dragging, and the outright theft of clearly marked classified material that was in no way connected to any possible task Trump should have been conducting, it’s extremely likely that not another word or action would have been taken.

Except that the statement Bobb signed was a lie.

During that visit to Mar-a-Lago, the agents were allowed to see the so-called “storage room” at Mar-a-Lago where they were told all the boxes of documents from the White House were kept. However, they weren’t allowed to look at the contents of those boxes. In fact, “the former President’s counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained.”

Obviously, that alone was a reason to be concerned. The envelope handed over that day contained a further 38 classified documents, including 17 marked as “TOP SECRET.” Some of these were also marked “SCI” indicating that they were where “sensitive compartmentalized” documents while others bore national security markings. Bobb didn’t even try to explain why Trump had these documents, or why they hadn’t been returned with the first 15 boxes.

Over the next month, the FBI “uncovered multiple sources of evidence” that “classified documents remained at the Premises, notwithstanding the sworn certification.” They also developed evidence that records were “likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.” Unlike the steps that made the FBI step up their activity in the first place, this change would almost certainly seem to reflect the action of some whistleblower or other witness who told the FBI about these crimes in progress. Video from the storage room area, showing that the room was frequently entered and that materials were taken from it, may have contributed to this conclusion.

Whatever the source, on Aug. 5, 2022, the government went to Reinhart for a search warrant. That search warrant was carried out on Aug. 8 and netted approximately another 100 classified documents. From the image contained in the latest Department of Justice filing—an image now suspected to represent documents found in Donald Trump’s personal office—many of those documents were not just top secret, but included the SCI notice showing that they were compartmentalized information. Other markings on those pages show that they are among the most valuable, most sensitive, documents in all of government.

What the whole history of this event shows is how at every level, and every step, the National Archives, the White House, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the judges involved gave Trump every possible break. He was granted almost endless delays. Neither the White House or the Department of Justice stepped in early, allowing the archivist to deal with Trump’s legal team right up until the point where it was clear that further efforts to negotiate were fruitless. Even when the Department of Justice and FBI stepped in, Trump had the opportunities to simply own up to the documents he was still holding and put this behind him.

He didn’t. Instead, he didn’t just lie, he had his legal representative lie, in writing, to the FBI, for the purposes of obstructing a criminal investigation in progress.

Trump had every opportunity. And threw them all away.

Whatever he was doing with those documents, he better hope it was worth it.

Donald Trump and his MAGA allies came close to overthrowing our democracy on January 6, and they will try again if they win in 2022. The best thing you can do is to help get out the Democratic vote for the midterms, and we need everyone to do what they can. Click here to find all the volunteer opportunities available.

Japan's digital minister, who's vowed to rid the bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine, has now declared "war" on a technology many haven't seen for decades -- the floppy disk. From a report: The hand-sized, square-shaped data storage item, along with similar devices including the CD or even lesser-known mini disk, are still required for some 1,900 government procedures and must go, digital minister Taro Kono wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday. "We will be reviewing these practices swiftly," Kono said in a press conference Tuesday, who added that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has offered his full support. "Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?" Japan isn't the only nation that has struggled to phase out the outdated technology -- the US Defense Department only announced in 2019 that it has ended the use of floppy disks, which were first developed in the 1960s, in a control system for its nuclear arsenal. Sony Group stopped making the disks in 2011 and many young people would struggle to describe how to use one or even identify one in the modern workplace.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Top Republican Party lawmakers and officials screamed to see the search warrant. They screamed again to see the "affidavit." When both of those made Donald J. Trump look guilty not just of making off with government documents but making off with classified government secrets, they screamed that the documents themselves should be made public so that they and the rest of Trump's supporters could determine whether these were "real" classified secrets or imagined ones.

Now that a photo of what was actually found at Mar-a-Lago was publicly released, not even that turns out to be good enough. House Republicans like Jim Jordan will follow Trump through whatever crimes against our nation Trump wants to commit.

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The Republican Party is the party of willing treason. There's no cutting around that, any more than Jim Jordan can let his eyes wander across a dozen all-caps secret and top secret document cover sheets to decide that the real story here was a TIME magazine cover in the corner of the picture.

If you ever begin to doubt that Jim Jordan's whole political existence derives from witnessing crimes and helping to cover them up, keep this one in your sock drawer. The man is a mob lawyer for a mob party willing to endanger national security in literally any way you can name.

As the photograph shows, this is not a "documents" case. This is an espionage case, one that is going to result in a detailed damage assessment for every document seen in that photo and for all of the others as well. There's no way to tell who Donald Trump showed the documents to, in a Mar-a-Lago that in the past week saw Trump host yet another petty con artist posing as an "Anna de Rothschild." There's no way to tell whether photographs of any of these documents made their way to Trump's other golf resort as means of currying favor with specific Saudi guests.

But the Republican Party does not care. They have been given every opportunity to care, and instead remain single-mindedly devoted to presenting it is the government who is overstepping their bounds by not letting the leader of a failed insurrection ignore any and every law he wants to. They were fine with international extortion. They were fine with Trump whipping a known-armed crowd into a fury and directing them to the U.S. Capitol to block his own removal of power.

It may yet come out that government has evidence that Trump indeed exchanged some of these documents for foreign favors; there is no credible voice in the country who can claim Trump had no such intent. And even then, the party will back him and demand that he be allowed to sell whatever national secrets he desires. They will make it a slogan and put it on hats.

Sure enough, Republican partisans immediately stepped forward to say that the evidence of Trump's guilt, the evidence they all wanted to see, was biased against him. It was "staged!" Showing photos of the evidence is unfair to the man who squirreled it away!

I think we all understand at this point that Donald Trump likely did not personally put the documents on the floor alongside an evidence ruler and identifying tag. The government identified the photo as being of documents taken from "a container in the '45 office'" at Mar-a-Lago.

As for why the secret and top secret documents (behind their identifying cover letters) were on the floor, we can speculate from the long evidence list provided by the government that there were simply too many secret and top secret documents found to fit on a table so they had to make do. (We can also speculate, but with less certainty, that the reason the documents were photographed next to a box containing a framed magazine cover featuring Trump is either because they were found together or because, again, the room was just so damn crammed with evidence they didn't have enough room to really feature each tagged set as lavishly as non-government art critics may have desired.

Not every team of federal investigators is able to hire Annie Leibovitz for their document shoots, but if Republicans would like to propose that at least espionage-level crimes be documented by her or a contemporary, Democrats would probably agree to such a law.

Are Republicans backing treason? Yeah. They don't care. Whatever hurts their enemies and helps Trump is what they're going with. They'll bring the whole government down if that's what it takes to protect Trump from the consequences of unambiguous, intentional, and nation-harming crimes. This is nothing to them. This is no different from any other day of any other week.

Jim Jordan's personal treason caucus is especially devoted to the notion that it is the government, not Dear Leader, in the wrong. There is no introspection here. They're on Trump's team no matter what crimes he commits.

Well, the documents weren't "dumped", because all the actual classified contents are still carefully hidden behind their designating sheets.

And the TIME Magazine covers were, again, in the picture Because They Are Evidence.

Did Trump try to hide classified documents with designations indicating a danger to human intelligence sources if disclosed by mingling them with other, nonclassified errata? Yes, we already know that's what he did from multiple previous reports.

And we know Trump was trying to hide the classified documents from the government. As a fact. Because his legal team asserted to the government that all such papers had been handed over, but:

The photo is the proof that the government was right. Papers were being concealed. The government had to go in by force to obtain them. Trump has acted criminally. Again.

What the Jim Jordan treason brigade would like to deflect with next is the tacit admission that Trump did indeed take classified national security secrets, did indeed hide them with other papers and take him to his for-profit golf club, did indeed attempt to conceal their presence from government investigators and did indeed block government efforts to re-secure the papers until government seized those documents directly, but the Department of Justice "knew the documents were missing for 18 months" and "did nothing."

We don't have a good timeline on just when the government knew these documents were missing—if government security protocols were being followed, they would have been branded as "missing" the minute Trump took them out of the deliverer's hands and ordered them taken to the White House residence, and we've yet to hear an explanation on how the Trump White House could have managed to lose hundreds of pages of documents in such a fashion without anyone giving a damn. But Republicans are right to note that the Department of Justice seems to have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the scandal under wraps, perhaps even at the expense of national security.

Anyone who was not named Donald Trump would be in ankle bracelets after the discovery of just one such document. To have successfully carted off hundreds of pages and have the Department of Justice and our entire national security apparatus be stymied on what to do about it is yet another crime so outlandish that our systems can barely comprehend it, much less respond to it.

So why did the government finally decide that the situation had escalated beyond the point where "negotiating" with Trump's team was an answer? It is likely because of the above-mentioned government evidence that Trump's team had responded to their prior requests to return documents by returning some, but hiding others.

But it also may be because, as Trump reemerged into his pre-presidential life of courting foreign wealth and hosting foreign notables, the federal government learned something that convinced them the security of those documents was now more threatened than it was before. It would be foolish to discount that possibility.

Every time we learn more about the Mar-a-Lago documents, we learn that the case is worse than we were previously told. This is not a spat about personal papers with a federal archivist: This is about classified national security secrets. This is not a case where Trump's team might have been "confused" over whether or not the documents were classified; here we see them still with government classification markings, screaming their presence. This is not a case of Trump wanting mementos or knickknacks; these were papers dealing with, at minimum, government satellite imagery and information useful in identifying foreign intelligence agents.

There's nothing to suggest that Trump did not take and hide those documents with the express intent of using them for monetary gain. To sell them, or bargain them away. They are not magazine covers that flatter him. They are not tokens of cherished events. They are national security documents, and he took them from government after a coup attempt failed to keep him in power, and all but perhaps two Republicans in the entire party are not just defending those acts but are furiously looking to discredit the government that, once again, caught the treasonous ratbastard doing it.

It is a party that will gleefully harm America in whatever way is necessary to "win" the news cycle of the day. Extortion, sedition, and treason; there is literally nothing the Republican Party will not embrace if the alternative is admitting Dear Crooked Leader did wrong.

Jail him. There are no mitigating circumstances, and there is no excuse. Put him in prison.

Trump and his followers proved on Jan. 6 how dangerously close they came to overturning our democracy. Help cancel Republican voter suppression with the power of your pen by clicking here and signing up to volunteer with Vote Forward, writing personalized letters to targeted voters urging them to exercise their right to vote this year.

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Trump's screams of a cover-up are resulting in transparency that is further damning him.

Study after study has touted the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) when it comes to reducing emissions and preparing the U.S. for a renewable-powered future. Researchers from the firm Energy Innovation are the latest to make the case for the IRA’s benefits as the country aims to reach net zero by 2050. Per their analysis, “the IRA could create up to 1.3 million new jobs in 2030 concentrated in the manufacturing, construction, and service industries. Through greater clean energy deployment, the bill could avoid up to 4,500 premature deaths and up to 119,000 asthma attacks annually by 2030.”

Energy Innovation Senior Director of Analysis Robbie Orvis told The Guardian that the law is “a complete jump-start for renewables” because of the many provisions incentivizing renewable energy projects, including investment and production tax credits and rural utilities programs as well as forthcoming rules meant to address connectivity issues pertaining to power grids and charging stations for electric vehicles. Provisions in the IRA alone have the potential to double wind and solar capacity by 2030.

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The Energy Innovation study also reconfirmed figures seen in similar studies regarding the potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the IRA’s passage. This adds up to a reduction of emissions up to 43% below 2005 levels “and make significant progress towards achieving the 2030 U.S. [nationally determined contribution] of 50 to 52% below 2005 GHG emissions.” Known as NDCs, the nationally determined contribution plan is a requirement for countries that have signed onto the Paris Agreement.

The plan details how countries can reach target emission reductions and address climate change. Each plan is updated every five years, with the next update slated for 2025. Ahead of that NDC update, it’s exciting to see the Biden administration making real progress on its climate goals with a framework future administrations can build upon. In speaking with The Guardian about the IRA’s impact, Orvis told the outlet that “it will really unleash investment in renewables.” And that’s just the start from one piece of legislation. Imagine how much better things could get if the U.S. addressed the climate crisis as the emergency it is.

Abortion rights, climate change, and gun safety are all on the ballot this fall, and there are literally thousands of ways to get involved in turning our voters. Plug into a federal, state, or local campaign from our GOTV feed at Mobilize and help Democrats and progressives win in November.

Mehmet Oz, the television snake oil huckster and Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, has had what you might call a devolution in his thinking on abortion. He’s gone from approaching the issue as a medical practitioner to a typical Republican, telling his audience whatever he thinks they want to hear. In the case of a tele-town hall audience earlier this year, it’s the most extreme message: life begins at conception.

The Daily Beast obtained audio of a campaign event in May, a week before the Republican primary, in which he told voters he believed that abortion is “still murder” from the moment the sperm enters the egg. “I do believe life starts at conception, and I’ve said that multiple times,” he told the audience. “If life starts at conception,” Oz added, “why do you care what age the heart starts beating at? It’s, you know, it’s still murder, if you were to terminate a child whether their heart’s beating or not.”

That question came up from an attendee about Oz’s previous life as a TV doctor in 2019, when he opined about the arbitrary six-week bans in a Breakfast Club interview. “If you’re going to define life by a beating heart,” he said in 2019, “then make it a beating heart, not little electrical exchanges in the cell that no one would hear or think about as a heart.” Oz also said that he was “really worried” about the harmful health effects if federal abortion protections were overturned by the Supreme Court.

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Oz in his capacity as a physician, the 2019 version of Oz, sounded pretty pro-choice in that interview. “Just being logical about it,” Oz said then, “if you think that the moment of conception you’ve got a life, then why would you even wait six weeks? Right, then an in vitro fertilized egg is still a life.”

Which is apparently what 2022 Oz believes: Life begins at conception and it’s murder no matter what. Or at least that’s what May 2022 Oz said he believed. Now that it’s general election time and he’s not chasing the MAGAiest of the MAGAs for votes, Oz seems to think that maybe abortion is not always murder.

In a town hall meeting this week, Oz found some exceptions to his “100% pro-life” abortion-is-always-murder position: the health of the mother, rape, and incest. That’s a variation on the gaslighting forced birth proponents trotted out when various horror stories about abortion bans started emerging.

Like about the 10-year-old rape survivor who had to travel out of Ohio to obtain an abortion. Or people having miscarriages, or people whose lives are threatened by ectopic pregnancies. Those don’t really count as abortions, they have tried to insist. Terminating those kind of pregnancies, Catherine Glenn Foster, the head of Americans United for Life, testified would fall under any exception and would not be an abortion.

The Oz who was a doctor knows that’s bullshit. Abortion is abortion and it is a safe and essential medical treatment for millions. It is necessary for all kinds of reasons that are nobody’s business other than the person needing an abortion and whomever they wish to involve. No matter how the pregnancy occurred.

“I trust democracy,” Oz said this week in that town hall, trying to change the subject. “I trust your ability to influence our representatives in Harrisburg, which is where this decision should be made. It’s not talked about in the Constitution.”

But if he’s elected to the Senate, and if there’s a Republican majority, he’s going to have to be held accountable on this. Because there will be a Republican bill to create a federal abortion ban and he’ll have to take a position.

The FDA just approved Covid-19 vaccines that have BA.5 in their crosshairs. Will people roll up their sleeves?

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized new Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use for the first time since the original vaccines were approved in December 2020. The new boosters from Pfizer/BioNTech and from Moderna are targeted at the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the omicron variant. They’re also the engine of a new vaccine booster campaign in the United States as health officials brace for another surge in cases.

“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf in a statement.

“Bivalent” refers to the fact that the vaccines contain genetic instructions for the immune system to target the original version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19, as well as the main variants in circulation now. The BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants are notorious for evading prior immunity to Covid-19, although older Covid-19 vaccines are still preventing hospitalizations and deaths from newer versions of the virus.

Before those shots can start going into arms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has to weigh in and come up with guidelines for how to distribute these new shots. Advisers to the CDC are meeting this Thursday and Friday to come up with recommendations. Meanwhile, the US government has already ordered 170 million doses. Pending CDC approval, shots could begin rolling out as soon as next week.

As for who is eligible, the Moderna bivalent vaccine is available to anyone over the age of 18 as a first booster or a second booster, provided it’s been at least two months since the last shot. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine follows the same criteria except that it’s open to people ages 12 and up.

For both boosters, it does not matter which vaccine you had as your initial doses. However, the bivalent vaccines are only authorized as boosters, so at the moment, they don’t replace the original vaccines for people who are completely unvaccinated.

Officials didn’t specify whether the eligibility window is different for people who were recently infected with Covid-19, but researchers have found that surviving an infection can increase protection against reinfection. “A Covid infection in a vaccinated person — essentially, that functions as a booster,” Andrew Pekosz, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University, told Vox earlier this month. “So you probably don’t need to get a booster for anywhere from three to six months after your Covid infection.”

While the rate of Covid-19 deaths in the US has fallen sharply from its peak this past winter, deaths are still holding steady at roughly 400 per day. That’s because mask mandates and social distancing measures are all but gone, allowing more opportunities for the virus to spread. The latest variants are especially adept at jumping between people. The largest share of deaths comes from people with weaker immune systems, like older adults and those with certain preexisting health conditions, including some who are vaccinated. Shielding from vaccines also wanes over time, and with so many people months out from their last dose, millions could be susceptible to another infection.

Health officials hope that the new boosters formulated to target the latest variants will keep a lid on hospitalizations and deaths this fall. But boosters are only effective if people actually get them, and it’s clear not everyone is ready to roll up their sleeves. About one in five people in the US have not received any dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and among those who are vaccinated, less than half are boosted. If the uptake of the bivalent vaccines is similarly low, they may not do much to stem the losses of another Covid-19 surge. And as long as the virus spreads, it mutates, increasing the chances of another dangerous variant emerging.

Some researchers have pointed out that the reformulated vaccines are only marginally better than the original versions of the shots, so they question whether it was worth holding out for them. Again, while the original versions of Covid-19 vaccines don’t hold off infections as well from the new variants, they still prevent most hospitalizations and deaths.

It’s also not clear yet whether vaccines will need to be revised on a regular basis. That hinges on changes to the virus itself and its public health impacts. Scientists are also studying universal Covid-19 vaccines that could potentially protect against future variants. Those vaccines are likely years away, but they could become the last shot most people would need.

Not every picture is worth 1,000 words, but the image included in the latest Department of Justice filing, showing highly classified documents scattered over the floor at Mar-a-Lago, should be good for for at least 10 to 20 at Leavenworth. Of course, not everyone sees it that way. Viewed through the secret MAGA filter available only to those who have replaced their love of country, family, and justice with an icon of Trump on his golden throne, all signs of Trump-related crime are invisible.

How else to explain this?

The head of the Republican House Judiciary would be Jim Jordan. Which seems to beg the question: Did he employee this ability to ignore the things he didn’t want to see back at Ohio State?

It’s hard to tell exactly what tune the Republicans are whistling past the graveyard, and it’s hard to hear it in any case, considering all the laughter directed at this tweet.

And then there was this related reply, which seems even more hilarious than all the rest. 

This seems like the point where sensible people are quiet. Where they start backing away. Where they check the nearest closet to see if maybe, just perhaps, they have a 20-foot-pole that they’ve forgotten to deploy in the past. But then, the people here are Jim Jordan and Donald Trump. So “sensible” isn’t a factor.

It’s hard to say which of these tweets is more ridiculous or more pathetic. What’s clear is that the Republican Party has followed Donald Trump over a cliff. And they’re going to keep denying it, all the way to the ground.

Sign if you agree: No one is above the law.

Donald Trump and his MAGA allies came close to overthrowing our democracy on January 6, and they will try again if they win in 2022. The best thing you can do is to help get out the Democratic vote for the midterms, and we need everyone to do what they can. Click here to find all the volunteer opportunities available.

On Tuesday evening, the Department of Justice responded to the order from a Donald Trump-appointed judge who said she was inclined to grant Donald Trump’s request for a “special master” to review documents removed during the Aug. 8 FBI search at Mar-a-Lago.

In that response to Judge Aileen Cannon, the department not only explained the timeline of events with more clarity than has been revealed before, but delivered a shocking view of how classified information had been treated by Trump, including directly stating that highly classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” for the purposes of obstruction. The DOJ response even included an image showing how FBI agents found clearly marked, highly classified documents of the most sensitive kind: sitting in plain sight, spread across the floor. Other documents were recovered from the drawers of Trump’s desk. 

Included in the filing is information that resets the narrative on several events that took place at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s attorneys insisted that all the records taken from the White House were held in that now infamous “storage room.” However, the DOJ reports that “the former President’s counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes” in that room. Trump’s attorneys even signed a statement, saying that their own “diligent search” found no other classified materials.

That statement is what’s known, in legal terms, as an outright lie; it’s also unquestionable obstruction and concealment of classified materials. And that’s just the start.

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On quick review, the DOJ filing breaks down into these areas:

First, there is the summary of the government’s argument opposing the appointment of a special master. In this summary, the DOJ argues that Trump lacks standing to make this request; that the Presidential Records Act establishes clear rules for the ownership and treatment of these documents; and simply, that the documents do not belong to Trump. Additionally, the government insists that there’s no point in giving Trump his special master, because the FBI filter team has already completed its review of the documents.

And the DOJ doesn’t hesitate to push back at Judge Cannon for her unprecedented intervention in the case. 

Furthermore, this Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment challenges to the validity of the search warrant and his arguments for returning or suppressing the materials seized. 

Next comes the factual background of the case. That’s where most of the new information—and big, sharp nails in Trump’s legal coffin—are waiting.

From the moment Trump reluctantly left the White House in January 2021, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has worked to retrieve materials that had been improperly taken to Mar-a-Lago. When they finally recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022, they discovered a variety of clearly-labeled classified information scattered within the boxes, including 25 documents labeled “Top Secret.”

The nature of the documents recovered at that point, and the way in which they had been casually stored among old magazines, newspaper clippings, and other unrelated material, made NARA want to go straight to the FBI. However, they decided to work with Trump through the process of the Presidential Records Act. At every step, Trump and his attorneys were slow to respond, failed to respond, or gave responses that didn’t answer questions sent, ultimately stretching out the process for months.

Finally, the fed-up NARA team told Trump’s attorneys that they were going to proceed with referral to the FBI. Trump tried to assert privilege, which NARA rejected. Once the FBI reviewed the records, a criminal inquiry was swiftly opened. In May, a grand jury subpoena was submitted to Trump, demanding the return of all classified documents. Again, Trump’s team slowed the process, applying for an extension that gave them until June 7 to comply.

On June 3, FBI agents and DOJ attorney visited Mar-a-Lago and were given a single “Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape,” containing what were supposed to be the last classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Trump attorney (and OAN host) Christina Bobb then signed a document stating that “a diligent search was conducted“ and no more classified material remained.

When it comes to the infamous storage room, the visiting agents were told that the remainder of Trump’s White House materials were stored there.

Critically, however, the former President’s counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained.

The Redweld envelope turned out to contain 38 classified documents, including 17 marked “Top Secret.” However, the FBI soon “uncovered multiple sources of evidence” that more classified documents were still at Mar-a-Lago, and not just in the storage room. How this information came to them is not made clear in the filing, but this seems to very likely be the result of a whistleblower.

And it wasn’t just that Trump was still holding onto classified information after handing over a signed statement that there were no more documents. It’s that there was an active effort underway to hide that information from the government.

The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation. 

When the FBI finally conducted its search, it found numerous documents outside the storage room, including three classified documents inside Trump’s own desk.

The image above attached to the filing—which shows top secret documents scattered uncovered across a carpeted floor—is purposely of too low a resolution to read details. However, it is possible to make out that some of these documents are marked “HCS,” meaning that they represent human intelligence, generally related to United States undercover assets overseas. Other document are marked “TK,” meaning “talent keyhole.” These are documents related to “space assets,” generally satellite imagery or associated analysis. Neither type of document seems like something Trump could even potentially argue was open to claims of privilege or connected to any legitimate activity.

The Aug. 8 FBI search netted over 100 new classified documents in two hours—after Trump’s attorney swore that there were no more to be found.

With each new filing, the case against Trump becomes more damning. Even following the FBI search, most pundits were ready to write this off as a dispute between Trump and NARA, one that was likely to be ended once all the documents were filed back into their proper places.

But at this point, it’s not just a matter of Trump holding documents he shouldn’t have taken.

• These were classified documents of the highest possible level, including human intelligence and space-based intelligence that could not even vaguely be construed as connected to something Trump would need “for his memoirs.”
• They were extremely clearly marked, shredding any claim that they were taken accidentally.
• Trump took every effort to drag his feet in holding onto these documents, including having his attorney sign off on a patently false claim that there were no more classified documents to be found.
• Far from being stored in any secure location, documents were found scattered across Mar-a-Lago, including in Trump’s desk.

it’s hard to see how the case for outright obstruction, lying to the FBI, hiding classified materials, and interfering with an investigation could be any clearer.

If the appearance of the documents in the DOJ filing represents how they were found, just the image alone raises additional concerns. Why were these document spread out across the floor? They give every appearance of documents that were were either being searched for specific contents, or even photographed.

Every filing so far has made the case against Trump even more obvious, to the point that it’s simply overwhelming.

Trump and his followers proved on Jan. 6 how dangerously close they came to overturning our democracy. Help cancel Republican voter suppression with the power of your pen by clicking here and signing up to volunteer with Vote Forward, writing personalized letters to targeted voters urging them to exercise their right to vote this year.

Including that he may have obstructed justice by hiding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

The photograph of highly classified documents strewn across the floor at Mar-a-Lago beside a box of framed Time magazines had already gone viral Wednesday morning as perhaps the defining image of the ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified information.

The image was attached to a 36-page filing from the Department of Justice in the ongoing court battle by Trump to have a special master review the documents seized by federal agents when they searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private Florida club and residence, in August. And it’s by no means the most damning claim from the overnight court filing, which you can read below.

• In the filing, the DOJ asserts that Trump was likely taking efforts to obstruct justice: “The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
• Trump’s lawyers claimed to the DOJ there were no other classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in June. After handing over what they claimed were the remaining classified documents in a sealed legal envelope, a Trump lawyer “represented that there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched.” That envelope contained “38 unique documents bearing classification markings including . . . 17 documents marked as TOP SECRET.”
• The August search warrant at Mar-a-Lago produced “over a hundred classified records including information classified at the highest levels,” including three classified documents that “were located in the desks in the ’45 [Trump’s personal] Office.’”

The filing also contains detailed arguments against the appointment of a special master to review the documents, which Trump has claimed is necessary to review the documents to determine if they contain any privileged material. The DOJ noted a review by a filter team for any privileged information had already been completed. It also pushed back against Trump’s claims of executive privilege to justify holding on to the documents that the National Archives had requested under the Presidential Records Act, noting that there is no precedent for invoking executive privilege “to prohibit the sharing of documents within the Executive Branch.”

Trump’s lawyers are due to file a response on Wednesday, and a hearing is scheduled for Thursday in the matter before Aileen Cannon, a Trump-nominated federal judge in South Florida.

On his personal social media site, Truth Social, Trump said Thursday morning “Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see. Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified!”

Trump has claimed that he had somehow automatically declassified any documents at Mar-a-Lago. There is no evidence that he did so, and his lawyers have not made the same claims in court filings, including again in the response they filed Tuesday night seen below.

New Comic: Rulemonger

Alaska’s experiment with ranked choice elections will determine whether Sarah Palin becomes a member of Congress on Wednesday — and advocates of the system are already plotting where to expand it next.

Though ranked choice elections can take time to see a winner declared because every vote must be counted in some jurisdictions before retabulation begins — Alaska’s about-to-be-decided special election was held more than two weeks ago, with mail ballots filtering in slowly since then — it’s pretty simple on the front end. Voters rank candidates in order of preference instead of just picking one. If no candidate receives a majority of first-place votes, the remaining ballots are reallocated from the lowest-performing finishers to second or third choices until one hopeful secures more than half the vote.

The system became a favorite of election reformers looking for ways to boost less extreme office-seekers. In Alaska, ranked choice voting has opened the chance that the bomb-throwing conservative Palin could lose the state’s special House election.

And an expensive campaign is underway to bring the system to Nevada, the perennial battleground state. It's the latest step in a growing push around the country to implement ranked choice voting in cities and states — a change that could have a profound impact on the type of candidates voters send to city halls, state governments and Washington, D.C.

A ballot measure going before Nevada voters this fall would impose a similar system to Alaska’s. All candidates would run in one open primary under the proposal, with the top five contenders regardless of party advancing to a ranked choice general election.

The ballot measure campaign has become a battle between powerful state and national interests, with a major investment from former food manufacturing CEO Katherine Gehl helping power the “yes” campaign and Nevada’s top elected Democrats — as well as a major national Democratic Senate group — among those funding the “no” side.

Opposition from powerful party interests happened in Alaska, too. Advocates say that that’s because the combination of open primaries and ranked choice voting threatens the parties by incentivizing candidates to represent a broader base of voters, not just those in their party.

"We believe it's that combination that's the most powerful, viable electoral reform in the country right now,” said Nick Troiano, executive director of electoral reform group Unite America.

Currently, voters need to be affiliated with a party to participate in a primary in Nevada, and around one-third of active voters in the state are registered as nonpartisan. The initiative needs to pass in both 2022 and 2024, after which it would go into place for the 2026 elections.

A recent poll from The Nevada Independent and OH Predictive Insights showed 42 percent of registered voters supporting the initiative, compared to 27 percent opposing and another third undecided.

“People aren't aiming for their corner of the electorate anymore,” said Joe Brezny, campaign manager for Nevada Voters First, the group backing the initiative. “People are aiming for the electorate, and that's what's going to make us all better.”

But the push has powerful critics. Protect Your Vote Nevada, the group opposing the measure, claims it will lead to invalidated ballots and argues that it undermines the concept of “one person, one vote.”

Democratic Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, both of whom are up for reelection in November, oppose the initiative, and the Democratic state Assembly and state Senate caucuses have donated against the initiative. So has Majority Forward, the political nonprofit aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“We should be finding ways to continue our progress, not pushing a rushed constitutional change that would make our system more confusing, error-prone and exclusionary,” Sisolak said in a statement. Sen. Jacky Rosen also opposes the “risky and experimental” proposal.

Alaska’s measure faced similar criticisms before it was passed in 2020.

The Nevada initiative has raked in over $2.4 million, according to its most recent filing from July. A chunk of that — $1 million — came from Gehl, founder of the nonprofit Institute for Political Innovation and former president and CEO of Wisconsin-based Gehl Foods manufacturing company.

A half million-dollar contribution also came from the Chicago-based Final Five Fund Inc., which is headed by Gehl. Gehl said that she can’t be the leader of the initiative because she doesn’t live in Nevada — and emphasized the importance of those living there leading the charge — but her initial investment provided the foundation for local organizers to move forward.

“I don’t want to do small things,” Gehl said. “I want to do things that, if they were successful, would not just count as a win, that actual people in their real lives would see and feel the difference in action from their leaders in Congress and in the states.”

The Institute for Political Innovation supports initiatives to implement “final-five voting” — the combination of top-five primaries and instant runoff general-election voting — for elections for Congress and state legislatures. Gehl said that the institute will support the Nevada initiative as much as it can, depending on its needs moving forward.

Unite America, Troiano’s organization, donated $100,000 in March and another $100,000 in June. (Gehl was previously a board member of the group.) Reid Hoffman, the Democratic megadonor and a co-chair of the Institute for Political Innovation, also donated $100,000. Dan Tierney, founder of Wicklow Capital investment firm in Illinois, also donated $50,000 in April.

Out-of-state contributions have long been a driving force behind initiatives like these. Unite America contributed over $500,000 to Alaska’s initiative, and a bulk of other donations came from organizations outside of Alaska. And Unite America co-chair Kathryn Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter-in-law, gave over $2 million to a Massachusetts ranked-choice initiative that eventually failed. But the source of the money has led to claims from opponents that the initiative is being driven by outside interests rather than a grassroots movement.

Other groups supporting the initiative include the Nevada Association of Realtors and the Clark County Education Association with $250,000 each; Laborers Union Local 872 donating $25,000; and the Nevada Franchised Auto Dealers Election Action Committee donating $5,000.

Representatives from the Nevada Association of Realtors and Nevada Franchised Auto Dealers Association pointed primarily to the large number of voters who are currently unable to take part in primaries as their reason for supporting the initiative.

“While it’s not a cure-all for political polarization, we believe this initiative can give more of a voice to the nearly 40 percent of Nevada voters who are not members of the two largest political parties and who are currently disenfranchised during the primary process,” a spokesperson from Nevada Realtors said in a statement.

Other contributors include Wynn Resorts, which donated $20,000 in June. Former Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox and his wife Katherine Maddox, as well as board member Phil Satre and his wife Jennifer Satre, donated $5,000 each. Station Casinos also contributed $25,000.

A similar effort in Missouri failed to get enough signatures to make the November ballot. But ranked choice voting has gained more traction at the local level. Cities like New York and San Francisco use the system, and it is on the November ballot in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, among other cities and counties.

Deb Otis, director of research at FairVote, a pro-ranked choice voting group, said the growth of the system on a local level helps build momentum for it.

Gehl said that she thinks it’s beneficial that these initiatives are adopted at the local level rather than through a national campaign. “Each state has a different dynamic,” she said. “There are some states that I wouldn’t think this is what they want to do. The cool thing about final-five voting is you don’t have to make the changes in 50 states for it to make a difference.”

“You’ll see a difference in the agency and freedom in leadership that their representatives in Congress have,” Gehl predicted, “regardless of what other states around them do.”

Already, the Alaska system may be insulating GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski from partisan blowback over her vote to convict Donald Trump on impeachment charges last year. Three House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump went on to run in partisan primaries in 2022; all of them lost.

But Murkowski didn’t have to face GOP voters in a closed contest because of the new voting system instituted in her state, and she’s favored to defeat a field including a Trump-backed challenger in the November ranked choice vote.

In Nevada, advocates have pushed back against the concept that the voting system is too complicated and have been working on educating voters about how it works. Brezny said that he’s confident the initiative is gaining steam — and he hopes the Alaska election will only help.

“Our enemy isn't opposition,” he said. “Our enemy is a lack of education about the subject.”

And Twitter is on it:

And in other news:

Anna Wolfe/Mississippi Today (March 2021):

‘A profound betrayal of trust’: Why Jackson’s water system is broken

How a shrinking city, aging infrastructure and racism left thousands of Jacksonians without water for weeks.

Many Jacksonians lacked access to clean drinking water long before the most recent storm. In fact, on a good day, officials advise pregnant people and children under five not to drink from the tap, a phenomenon that’s been the case for the last five years…

The city is faced with two colliding but distinct funding problems: One, the city’s infrastructure is only getting older and past administrations did not plan for inevitable future capital investments, as is true in many aging cities. Two, the loss of customer base and pervasive billing troubles have left the water department without a feasible revenue model for regular operations and maintenance.

Jennifer Rubin/WaPo:

The next scary matter for Trump’s lawyers: The crime-fraud exception

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter found in a case concerning the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena of attorney John Eastman’s emails that while some materials might be protected, “the crime-fraud exception applies when (1) a ‘client consults an attorney for advice that will serve [them] in the commission of a fraud or crime,’ and (2) the communications are ‘sufficiently related to’ and were made ‘in furtherance of’ the crime.”

Carter added: “It is irrelevant whether the attorney was aware of the illegal purpose or whether the scheme was ultimately successful. The exception extinguishes both the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine.”

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner/Substack:

Dear Teachers

You nurture the flames of democracy

One of the great sadnesses of our current age is how politics has polluted so much of our public discourse and spread into realms that once seemed free of partisanship. That this occurs at a time when much of the Republican Party has adopted the posture of a bully and is gripped by extremist ideology and attacks on truth and justice makes it all the more dangerous and dispiriting.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the battlegrounds that our schools have become. We are living in an age when the number of books being banned is on the rise and the willingness to confront America’s complicated history is on the decline. We see intolerance worn as a badge of toughness, while inclusion, the great promise of what public education can be, is treated as weakness. We see a concerted effort to take over school boards, especially in deeply conservative areas, with true believers in the culture wars eager to inflict their small-mindedness, bias, and mean-spirited ideology on shaping how young minds are taught.

Teaching, already an underappreciated profession in this country, is becoming an even less appealing line of work. We have educators who have spent decades in the classroom now forced to look over their shoulders, wondering whether the books on their shelves or their carefully honed lesson plans will run afoul of the new draconian mandates. And we have young idealists with freshly minted teaching certificates wondering whether they can impart their excitement and new ideas into the students before them.

Ron Brownstein/CNN:

From a Republican 'tsunami' to a 'puddle': Why the forecast for November is changing

"It feels to me to be more like a shallow red puddle that we're walking through, rather than a tsunami of sorts," says Republican strategist John Thomas.

The key to the change in expectations is a shift in the issues motivating the electorate. Earlier this year, the debate between the parties centered on inflation, the economy, crime, immigration and President Joe Biden's stalled legislative agenda in Congress -- all issues that motivated the Republican base and alienated many swing voters from Democrats. But a series of dramatic events over the past few months have elevated an entirely different set of issues: gun violence, threats to democracy, climate change and, above all, abortion rights.

Brian Klaas/Atlantic:

The Realist’s Weapon in the Fight for Democracy

Coaxing despots into a cushy exile is sometimes the best option.

For decades, hawks in Washington and London pushed for a military solution to democratize dictatorships. They got their way with the Iraq War. Now Afghanistan is back in Taliban control, Libya is a disaster, and the notion of regime change by force has few advocates. Economic sanctions, which often squeeze vulnerable civilians more than the elites (who can take the hit), rarely live up to their lofty expectations.

Bangor Daily News:

Maine high court says referendum blocking CMP corridor was unconstitutional

Maine’s high court ruled Tuesday that a referendum blocking the controversial $1 billion hydropower corridor by an affiliate of Central Maine Power Co. running from the Canadian border through western Maine was unconstitutional.

In a 39-page ruling, five members of Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court said the portion of the November 2021 referendum that retroactively applied to the corridor project, which had previously secured a number of approvals, was unconstitutional.

…

The result was a messy split that still leaves the project in limbo. The court’s decision sends the project back to the business court for further proceedings. Massachusetts, which is paying for the corridor, has given CMP and its allies until the end of 2023 to fulfill the project that will help that state meet its clean energy goals and supply power to the regional grid.

For most of his misbegotten tenure in the Oval Office, Donald Trump danced a three-step tango with right-wing extremists: Apparently embracing them, then stepping back with official (and unconvincing) disavowal, then swinging them back into his arms. He had perfected this tango in the case of the QAnon movement, pretending at first to know nothing about them—despite having winked and nudged in their direction for years—but telling reporters: “I heard that these are people that love our country.”

Now Trump has simply dropped the façade of plausible deniability altogether. On his Truth Social chat platform—an unwieldy and pale imitation of Twitter—Trump has, over the last two months, amplified QAnon accounts over 70 times. He went completely over the cliff on Tuesday morning, pouring out a stream of over 60 QAnon memes, reposts from QAnon accounts, and tangentially amplifying an original “Q drop” (a 4chan post written by the still-anonymous “Q” who originated the conspiracist cult).    

The meltdown on Tuesday was notable both for its unhinged nature and its unmistakably eliminationist targeting of his Democratic enemies—though scripted violence (or stochastic terrorism, if you will) has in fact been part of Trump’s playbook for a long time.

One of the memes he reposted on Truth Social features a stylized photo of Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with words covering their eyes: “Your enemy is not in Russia.”  

Another meme was an artist’s portrait of Trump at his desk in the Oval Office, looking stolid while severe winds and rain blow through. “The Deep State whispered to President Trump, ‘You cannot withstand the storm,” it read. “The President whispered back, ‘I am the storm.’”

As NBC News’ Ben Collins observed: “This is not a guy who sounds like he's running a political campaign. It's a guy who is pointing his followers toward political enemies to target.”

Trump’s Truth Social “retruths” mainly revolved around QAnon-loving accounts like “Patriotic American Alpha Sauce” and “ULTRA-MAGA 4LIFE.” One of them, from “snazzyburrito,” was simply a post featuring an original “Q” post suggesting that Trump would use military intelligence to replace the CIA and FBI.

Another set of posts reupped by Trump featured a discussion of the false conspiracist claims that “Antifa,” working in conjunction with the FBI, was actually responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

On Monday, Trump had posted a wild rant demanding a new election: “So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that if they didn’t, ‘Trump would have easily won the 2020 election.’ This is MASSIVE FRAUD AND INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!”

The QAnon phenomenon has grown massively since its early days in 2017 as a fringe meta-conspiracy theory postulating that Trump was leading a secret war against a “Deep State” that abducted and trafficked in children globally, imprisoning them in tunnels and harvesting their blood for life-extending adrenochrome consumed by evil “globalists.” In the two years, it has overwhelmed the Republican Party from within with a tide of reality-denying extremism, culminating in its key role in inspiring the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and the continuing radicalization of the American right subsequently.

Trump barely attempted to maintain even a credible distance between his administration and the conspiracy cult, constantly retweeting their hashtags and posts. When reporters finally cornered him about his relationship to QAnon in 2020, he was as disingenuous as ever.

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“I don’t know much about the movement besides that they like me very much,” Trump said at a White House press briefing. “These are people that don’t like seeing what’s going on in places like Portland and Chicago,” adding: “I heard these are people that love our country.”

When a reporter followed up by asking him whether he believed their core doctrine—namely, the belief that he is “secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals”—he performed his familiar tango.

“I hadn’t heard that,” he replied, “but is that supposed to be a bad thing? If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it, I’m willing to put myself out there. And we are actually, we are saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country.”

As Collins reported on Twitter, Trump’s reposts were received with wild and bloodthirsty enthusiasm at QAnon-focused forums. “Wipe them out sir,” responded one fan to his “I am the storm” meme. Another added: “Plenty of people will be surprised, but we are all ready. ‘Which storm Mr. President? You’ll find out.’”

“Sir, please finish them off and we’re done playing with them like a cat to a mouse,” responded another QAnon forum participant to the meme. “Nuke them from orbit,” chimed in one.

Collins noted that these forums “had been relatively dead in the last few months, with users headed over to general Trump forums and militia/Q influencer Telegrams. Not anymore.”

The New York Times recently explored just how deeply Truth Social has become a hub of QAnon activity. A recent report from media watchdog NewsGuard found the platform hosted 88 users, each with more than 10,000 followers, promoting QAnon theories on Truth Social. Over 30 of these accounts had been previously banned by Twitter.

“He’s not simply President Trump the political leader here—he’s the proprietor of a platform,” Newsguard CEO Steven Brill told the Times. “That would be the equivalent of Mark Zuckerberg reposting content from supporters of QAnon.”

We need democracy warriors to help people exercise their right to vote this November. Sign up to be a poll worker at Power the Polls.

New announcements of green jobs allow them to say that the bills they passed are doing what they said they would.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: More people in the U.S. are now smoking marijuana than cigarettes, according to a Gallup poll. Cigarette use has been trending downward during the past decades, with only 11% of Americans saying they smoke them in a poll conducted July 5 to 26, compared to 45% in the mid-1950s. Sixteen percent of Americans say they smoke marijuana, with 48% saying they have tried it at some point in their lives. In 1969, only 4% of Americans said they smoked marijuana. Attitudes around both substances have also shifted dramatically. In 2019, 83% of Americans said they thought cigarettes were "very harmful" to smokers, while 14% said they are "somewhat harmful." Nine out of 10 adults said in 2013 that smoking causes cancer, while 91% of smokers surveyed in 2015 said they wish they never started. Meanwhile, 53% of people said in a July poll they think marijuana has positive effects on those who use it. "Still, alcohol is the most popular substance, and has remained consistent for a while," notes NPR. "Sixty-seven percent of Americans in the most recent poll said they are drinkers, compared to 63% in 1939. About a third totally abstain from alcohol." Worth pointing out: This poll is especially notable considering marijuana is still a federally illegal drug in the United States. As of April 2021, only seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized small amounts of marijuana for adult recreational use. Overall, 43% of U.S. adults live in a jurisdiction that has legalized the recreational use of the drug at the local level.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

So far in 2022, the United States has suffered at least five major flash flooding events, with areas from Missouri, to Kentucky, to Texas, and the deep South all facing literally unprecedented levels of rainfall resulting in floods that have left dozens dead across the nation. This week, it was Mississippi’s turn to face record setting rain that—yes, definitely—is connected to increasing incidents of severe weather attributable to the human-created climate crisis.

That rain pushed the level of the Pearl River well above flood stage in the state capital of Jackson. Many neighborhoods in the predominately Black city have been plunged below the flood waters over the last three days. It will take weeks to tally the damage and, as local NBC station WLBT reports, approximately 180,000 people have been left without water in the wake of the flooding disaster. A failure at one of the city’s two water treatment plants resulted in a drop in the pressure across the whole system, allowing untreated water to enter the lines. It’s not just drinking water that’s out. Across the whole city, there’s not enough pressure in the lines to fight fires or even reliably flush a toilet.

The cause seems obvious … obvious except to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. As Reuters reports, Reeves stepped in, pushed local officials out, and refused to draw any connection to the fact that the water system in Jackson has been inundated by the flooding. He’s completely cut local elected officials out of decisions on how to address the crisis, going so far as to not even invite Democratic Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba to the press conference where Reeves announced that the system would be out indefinitely. 

Now the federal government and President Joe Biden are stepping in, and making a point of including the elected Black mayor and other local officials in making decisions, things may change quickly.

Jackson, Mississippi, is a classic case of how “white flight” can destroy a location’s tax base and leave Black residents holding the bag. As the regional Clarion-Ledger reports, the new water plant was built in the 1980s after the city’s population soared to over 200,000. But over the next two decades, white residents fled the city and moved to the surrounding suburbs. With the rapid loss of over 35,000 people, prices for homes in the city plummeted. That drove down tax revenues, requiring increases in tax rates, starting a spiral all too familiar to Black homeowners across the nation. In many areas, the tax rates for low-income Black neighborhoods are actually much higher than nearby wealthier white neighborhoods, in large parts because those Black neighborhoods are carrying the cost of outsized and outdated infrastructure left behind by white flight.

As the areas around Jackson grew, increased in value, and built up new infrastructure, the city continued to reduce in size, with homes losing values and long-time Jackson companies capable of providing stable tax bases choosing to relocate to chase those areas with newer infrastructure, lower tax rates, and much whiter populations. As in many states, rural lawmakers in the Republican-dominated state legislature, and in the state’s gubernatorial mansion, saw little reason to help the struggling city, even if they had to deal with living nearby. Starved for funds, struggling with aging infrastructure, and surrounded by white suburbs that seem to take pleasure in watching the city that had been the heart of the region slowly die, Jackson’s story is the story of many Black majority cities.

As in other cities, Jackson has tried to supplement property taxes by adding a small (1%) income tax. That tax has then been used as an excuse by companies that have moved headquarters out of the city, meaning that top level jobs in Jackson have become extremely rare. In the last decade alone, as wages across the region have risen, the average incomes in Jackson have declined almost 8%.

The failure during the flooding of the Pearl River is far from the first time there’s been trouble with the aging water plant. Prior to the flood, the city has experienced off-and-on boil orders for weeks, many related to broken pipes that date back 70 years. Previous flooding in 2020 also resulted in damage to the plant and the entry of untreated water into the system. The extreme heat of 2022 has resulted in record numbers of pipe failures (not just in Jackson), and both the city’s budget and maintenance department have been stretched trying to keep up. At the same time, 90% of the roads in the city are rated as “poor” and extremes in both heat and cold over the last year have left the city struggling to address potholes that make some routes almost impassible. The flooding has contributed to both more failing pipes and further degradation of roads. 

Fighting with all of this, Lumumba has also been faced with a hostile legislature and a smug, belligerent governor in Reeves. As the water rose, the mayor warned residents to get out, citing the last major flood that damaged homes and took lives in the area just two years ago. As it became clear that the water plant was struggling, Lumumba addressed residents again, warning that the floods were requiring the plant to reduce pressure and adjust treatment options. Just hours later, Reeves stepped in with a press conference of his own, telling residents not to drink the water. The governor didn’t even bother to invite Lumumba and dismissed the idea that the flooding was behind the plant failure.

While the mayor said he expected it to be a few days before the pressure on the system is restored, Reeves was less positive, giving no end date for Jackson’s water crisis. According to Reeves, the state is “surging resources” to the water plant and “beginning emergency repairs” for which the state will graciously pay … half. Both the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the City of Jackson have announced plans to distribute drinking water over the following week, though it’s not clear to what extent the two are communicating.

What is clear, at last, is that following pleas from area hospitals, Reeves did file for federal emergency assistance. On Tuesday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted out that President Biden has been “in regular contact with state and local officials, including Mayor Lumumba, and made clear that the Federal Government stands ready to offer assistance.” Both FEMA and the EPA are working “to expedite delivery of critical treatment equipment” and funds from both the American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure bill are available to address the costs. The press release notably did not mention Reeves.

Jackson will get its water back. Hopefully repairs will come in days, not weeks, and residents will get sufficient drinking water while waiting for the showers to come back on. Even in the best circumstances, it’s likely to be weeks before the boil orders are lifted.

There are few things more essential than clean drinking water, and few things less forgivable than how the story of Jackson has been repeated in so many other cities. As Aysha Qamar wrote after six years of watching government at all levels fail to address the crisis in Flint, Michigan, the real tragedy wasn’t that state officials didn’t know how bad things were or how much misery it was causing. It was that they did.

Earlier this year, Reeves celebrated how Mississippi’s abortion legislation had been used as a pretext for overturning Roe v. Wade. Mississippi was, according to Reeves, “creating a culture of life.” As Laura Clawson wrote, Mississippi also has the highest firearm mortality rate, the highest homicide rate, the lowest life expectancy at birth, and the highest infant mortality of all 50 states. Reeves never did say that culture was in favor of life. 

For those who’ve put off a Covid vaccine booster in hopes of getting a shot tailor-made for the Omicron subvariants that have ripped across the country, the wait may soon be over.

The FDA is expected to authorize a pair of booster shots targeting what appear to be the virus’ most contagious strains as soon as Wednesday, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.

The move would set the stage for the Biden administration to begin offering the reformulated vaccine shortly after Labor Day, in a bid to bolster Americans’ protection against a potential Covid resurgence later this year.

The government plans to roll out a combined 175 million doses of the new boosters developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, with Moderna’s shot available to all adults and Pfizer’s offered to those 12 and older, according to a federal planning guide published earlier this month.

The boosters, which officials hope will offer greater protection against the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub variants in addition to guarding against the coronavirus' original strain, come as the administration tries to get ahead of a fast-changing virus that continues to infect tens of thousands of Americans a day. The actual number is unknown since so many people self-test at home and don’t report their cases to the government.

An FDA spokesperson declined to comment, and people with knowledge of the matter, who were granted anonymity to speak about matters they are not authorized to speak about publicly, cautioned the exact timing could change as the agency races to finalize its work.

Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech each finished submitting their applications for authorization last week.

Once the FDA signs off on the shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would still need to endorse their distribution to the public. The CDC has scheduled meetings of its outside vaccine advisory panel for Thursday and Friday — sessions that are traditionally held before the agency gives its final verdict. The CDC hasn't yet published a formal agenda.

The speed of the planned vaccine authorization and rollout has sparked criticism from some public health experts, who have questioned whether the administration should greenlight the boosters without having any human studies showing their effectiveness.

But Biden administration health officials have argued there is sufficient evidence backing the vaccines and growing urgency to make them available before the fall.

The FDA is not convening its own group of outside advisers ahead of the authorization, with Commissioner Robert Califf in a Twitter thread citing “extensive discussion” over bivalent boosters in June.

Though regulators won’t have human data on these bivalent boosters available to consider, Califf noted that they will be evaluating real-world evidence from similar mRNA shots, human data from other bivalent shots and data from studies on mice. The flu vaccine, which is also updated annually, is also only tested in animals before distribution due to the short turnaround time for manufacturers. However, it is not based on the comparatively new mRNA technology.

Pfizer anticipates that it will begin a human trial on the safety and effectiveness of its booster later this month; Moderna already has one such study underway.

The CDC also said that it expects Omicron-specific boosters for children younger than 12 will be ready shortly after boosters for adults become available.

By David Badash Billionaire-backed Blake Masters, the Arizona Republican party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate is undergoing a massive transformation little more than two months before Election Day and nearly two months after early voting in the Grand Canyon State has already begun. Masters is a venture capitalist, the former COO of billionaire Peter Thiel’s investment firm, and former head of his foundation. He’s been described as someone who “spews white supremacist conspiracies,” including promoting the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, saying Democrats “hope to just change the demograph…

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Impeach Biden for what? Whatever. Trump will demand revenge, and the base will demand action.

By Brandon Gage Former Republican South Carolina Governor and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has responded to Politico’s report from last Friday that the names of dark money donors to her nonprofit had been leaked to the publication. “The organization Documented, which describes itself as a nonpartisan government watchdog that investigates money in politics, obtained an unredacted copy of Stand For America’s 2019 filings, which it then shared with POLITICO,” the outlet explained. “The group did not share the original source of the filing, but it bears a stamp from t…

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It's been eight months and counting since more than a dozen California police officers were linked to “anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic or transphobic remarks” spanning three years in the city of Torrance. Despite 390 of the disgusting remarks counted in court documents, most of those police officers still work for the police department about 20 miles southwest of Los Angeles, according to The Los Angeles Times.

In one text message condemning protesters after Torrance police officers shot and killed Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, an officer reportedly wrote: "Was going to tell you all those [N-word] family members are all pissed off in front of the station.”

RELATED STORY: Torrance cop scandal over racist texts mere tip of bigotry iceberg within nation’s law enforcement

Another text message showed an officer implying violence after the names of the officers who killed Mitchell were released. “Gun cleaning Party at my house when they release my name??” that officer reportedly asked.

Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, summarized the details of how Mitchell was killed on Dec. 9, 2018 in a petition to create a civilian oversight commission for Torrance police and see Mitchell's killers charged, fired, and not rehired elsewhere.

Mitchell was in a Ralph's grocery store parking lot when officers Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez shot him multiple times "within 15 seconds of approaching the vehicle in which he was sitting," Abdullah wrote in the petition.

“The gunshot wound to his hand indicates that his hands were in a position of surrender at the time he was shot,” she said.

Police contend Mitchell was armed.

The state attorney general’s office subpoenaed police for their records in May related to its investigation into alleged police misconduct, but authorities have yet to release updates about their probe.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, formerly led by District Attorney Jackie Lacey, determined it would not charge the officers who killed Mitchell.

"We find that Officers Anthony Chavez and Matthew Concannon acted lawfully in self-defense when they used deadly force against Christopher Deandre Mitchell," Lacey’s team wrote in their findings. "We are closing our file and will take no further action in this matter."

Prosecutors wrote in their analysis that the car Mitchell was driving had been reported stolen, although Chavez had been “unable” to run its plates before approaching Mitchell.

Chavez yelled “police” and told Mitchell to put his hands on the steering wheel, a command prosecutors wrote that Mitchell hesitated before following. The officers then claimed that Mitchell reached near his lap where they saw a rifle and again leaned forward even though police had told him not to move.

Heavily edited police body camera video of the stop showed an officer telling Mitchell not to move and seconds later demanding he “get out of the car.” The officers’ three gunshots followed.

Warning: This video contains footage of a police shooting that may be triggering for viewers.

Mitchell’s death triggered outrage in the community and led to numerous protests, which were later found to be mocked by police.

They spread racist cartoons, joked about “gassing” Jewish people, and made statements about lynching suspects and murdering Black children, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Torrance police told the newspaper 15 officers were put on administrative leave related to the alleged misconduct, but the department has opted not to identify those officers. Former Torrance Police Officers Christopher Tomsic and Cody Weldin were charged with spray-painting a swastika in a car, and Torrance police only reported that they left the force, not specifying whether they were fired, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper identified other officers and reported authors of racist text messages as Concannon, Chavez, Andrew Kissinger, Enrique Villegas, David Chandler, Brian Kawamoto, Joshua Satterfield, Christopher Allen-Young, Blake Williams, Omar Alonso, and Maxwell Schroeder.

Schroeder, who worked for Long Beach Police, not Torrance, was the only officer officials said was terminated, effective on Feb. 24, 2022.

The city of Torrance and its police department claimed to be "committed to police reform, transparency and building trust with the public," in a news release responding to The Los Angeles Times article.

"We are committed to building a police department that will reflect the values of the community that we are proud to serve," Sgt. Ron Salary, the Torrance Police Department's spokesman, wrote in the release. "This transformation will take time, but rest assured that the women and men of this department are working hard to build community trust while engaging in policing guided by respect for all and constitutional principles."

Salary went on to say that misconduct "will not be tolerated."

"We will provide public safety," he said. "We will rebuild community trust. We will do better."

He failed to say how any of those promises would translate to holding racist officers accountable.

RELATED STORY: Secret texts from Torrance cops uncover messages threatening to lynch Black people, ‘gas’ Jews

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Former president Donald Trump has evaded criminal prosecution for years, in large part because white-collar crimes like fraud and obstruction of justice require prosecutors to prove that the defendant had a particular state of mind. But the Justice Department now has Trump in its crosshairs for straightforward crimes that are easier to prove, and it looks like the first federal criminal charges against a former president are at least plausible, if not probable.

For years, I have explained why Trump’s outrageous actions did not fit neatly within existing criminal statutes or would be otherwise difficult to prosecute. But his determination to keep highly classified documents at his residence in South Florida even after the federal government told him they were classified and demanded their return is much more like the straightforward crimes I prosecuted as a junior federal prosecutor — bank robbery and narcotics trafficking — than the complex white-collar crimes I later spent years investigating and prosecuting.

White-collar crimes like fraud or obstruction usually turn on the defendant’s intent. There is usually no question that the defendant filed his tax returns. But did he do so with the intent to defraud the IRS? It can be easy to prove that a defendant destroyed documents or spoke with a witness. But did she do so with the intent to obstruct or impede a federal investigation? We don’t have a magic device that can read a defendant’s mind, so prosecutors typically ask jurors to infer a defendant’s intent from their communications or their actions. It isn’t always easy to do.

Not all crimes are that complicated. As a junior prosecutor, I spent years investigating large-scale narcotics trafficking. In a narcotics case, if you possess heroin or cocaine, you’re guilty. You can argue that you didn’t really know it was narcotics — maybe you thought it was powdered sugar — but that is rarely a viable defense. If the government can prove you were the guy at the drug deal, it’s over.

Most of the statutes at issue in the Mar-a-Lago documents case are more similar to a narcotics case than a complicated bank fraud or obstruction of justice case. Top Secret classified documents are a lot like narcotics from a criminal law perspective. You really don’t want to possess them if you are not authorized to do so. If you take Top Secret classified documents from a government facility and store them at your home, you’re guilty.

According to the just-released redacted affidavit for the search warrant conducted by the FBI on Aug. 8, in the 15 boxes removed from Mar-a-Lago in February, 184 documents had markings that indicated various levels of classification, 25 of them marked Top Secret. Some of these documents, according to the affidavit, concerned human intelligence sources. The presence of so many sensitive documents in the first batch of boxes suggests strongly that the numerous boxes of documents FBI agents subsequently seized also include highly sensitive documents.

I’m convinced that if the defendant’s name was John Doe and not Donald John Trump, he would be charged in this case. Trump is obviously not a typical defendant. But his potential defenses are limited. He can argue, as he has done, that the FBI planted the documents. That will work about as well as it works when defendants claim that the DEA planted drugs at their home. (It usually doesn’t.) He can also argue that he declassified the documents via an unwritten “standing order” when president, but as DOJ recently pointed out, the statutes at issue don’t require the documents to be classified if they are closely held national defense material.

The only viable defense Trump has is to point the finger at someone else — to claim that he is a hands-off administrator who took the word of his aides that none of the documents at Mar-a-Lago belonged in the government’s hands. But while two of the statutes at issue require the government to prove that the defendant intended to break the law, the DOJ’s repeated requests and demands to Trump — including a grand jury subpoena — will make it hard for him to argue that he did not realize that the records contained national security secrets that belonged to the federal government.

Trump’s defense would have to be that he did not read any of the communications from the government and was told by his attorneys that their meeting and communications with the DOJ indicated that he was in the clear. He would have to claim that the attorneys lied to him and that he never directed one of the attorneys, Christina Bobb, to sign an apparently false statement to DOJ that all of the materials “marked classified” had been returned to the government.

It’s not uncommon for criminal defendants to point the finger at professionals like attorneys and accountants. In my experience, lawyers distance themselves from the defendant and protect themselves whenever a defendant points the finger at them. I personally interviewed lawyers, along with a FBI agent, and they dropped the defendant like a hot potato. That has been my experience in private practice as well. I typically advise clients that their lawyers and accountants will throw them under the bus.

Trump has inspired loyalty from millions of Americans. But it remains to be seen whether lawyers are willing to sacrifice their career — and their freedom — to take the fall for him. If they don’t, Trump must hope that Attorney General Merrick Garland exercises restraint. For instance, when General David Petraeus removed classified information and lied to the FBI about it, he was offered the opportunity to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. (Ironically, Trump signed into law a bill that made that same statute a felony, and it’s not clear if there is a misdemeanor that applies to his conduct.)

Many of Trump’s defenders, such as former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, have taken to minimizing the severity of the case by alleging that “if it’s just about documents, that’s almost absurd.” If there is no other alleged criminal activity, the supporters argue, then the FBI’s search was an unjustifiable “overreach.” That’s like arguing a narcotics case is just about the drugs. In this case it really is just about the documents. Trump had something he shouldn’t have. And that’s a potential crime.

It looks like the Justice Department has the goods on Trump. Typically, a criminal defense attorney would be trying to work out a deal in this situation. That may be the best move Trump has left, even if he isn’t inclined to go that route.