Music: Maestro Garofalo — ‘Samba E Amor’
Election workers have gotten death threats and warnings they will be lynched, the U.S. government says
The Associated Press reports: More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote. Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and…
A new Rudy scandal: FBI agent says Giuliani was co-opted by Russian intelligence
Mother Jones reports: It was big news when Rudy Giuliani, once hailed as America’s Mayor, was indicted last month by a district attorney in Atlanta for allegedly being part of a criminal enterprise led by Donald Trump that sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Giuliani was back in headlines this week when he lost a defamation suit filed against him by two Georgia election workers whom he had falsely accused of ballot stuffing. Giuliani’s apparent impoverishment, caused by his…
State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment
ABC News reports: Efforts to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment are gaining momentum as election officials in key states are preparing for or starting to respond to legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy. The argument to disqualify Trump from appearing on primary or general election ballots in 2024 boils down to Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that an elected official is not eligible to assume public office if…
‘Trump isn’t funding any of us’: Co-defendants in Georgia case are struggling with mounting legal bills
CNN reports: Some of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the sprawling election subversion case in Georgia are trying all sorts of ways to fund their mounting legal bills – yet the costs of the 2020 election fallout may quickly exceed their abilities to pay. At least four have turned to crowdfunding online, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for defense lawyers. One now has a political action committee to help with legal fees. Another has an ally in Congress…
Mitch McConnell may be experiencing focal seizures, doctors suggest
The New York Times reports: A four-line letter, signed by the attending physician of Congress and released by Senator Mitch McConnell on Thursday, suggested that his recent spells of speechlessness were linked to “occasional lightheadedness” perhaps brought on by his recovery from a concussion last winter or “dehydration.” But seven neurologists, relying on what they described as unusually revealing video of Mr. McConnell freezing up in public twice recently, said in interviews Thursday and Friday that the episodes captured in…
All lifeforms, from worms to corals, transform the planet
Olivia Judson writes: I want to start with a proposition: if Earth had never come alive, it would be a profoundly different world. Conversely: the planet of today has, to a remarkable extent, been made what it is by the activities of lifeforms. Over the course of the planet’s long history, a history that extends back more than 4.5 billion years, lifeforms have shaped the rocks, the water, the air, even the colour of the sky. A Never-Life Earth would not even…
Do spiders dream?
Carolyn Wilke writes: Young jumping spiders dangle by a thread through the night, in a box, in a lab. Every so often, their legs curl and their spinnerets twitch — and the retinas of their eyes, visible through their translucent exoskeletons, shift back and forth. “What these spiders are doing seems to be resembling — very closely — REM sleep,” says Daniela Rößler, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Konstanz in Germany. During REM (which stands for rapid eye…
Music: Jazzbois — ‘Monsun’ ft. Dom Beats
Coup evidence bomb goes off: Trump’s Jan. 5 Roger Stone outreach echoes amidst smoking gun tape
Donald Trump’s indictments bring new heat on the coup’s “team effort,” after new footage that first aired on “The Beat” showed Trump vet Roger Stone pushing the elector plot before all votes were in. In accordance with Stone’s rules — “Admit nothing, deny everything…” he responded to Ari Melber’s report: Trump veteran Roger Stone replies to a report on the The Beat, and denies Cassidy Hutchison’s testimony under oath that Mark Meadows called him on January 5, 2021. pic.twitter.com/b9dLof2lsJ…
Proud Boys lieutenant, Joseph Biggs, sentenced to 17 years in Jan. 6 sedition case
The New York Times reports: Mr. Biggs recorded a podcast after the riot in which he declared that the attack on the Capitol was “a warning shot to the government.” Mr. Biggs’s contacts in the world of right-wing politics were never restricted solely to the Proud Boys. Like Mr. Tarrio, he has long had ties to Roger J. Stone Jr., one of Mr. Trump’s political advisers. He has also been involved at the edges of far-right disinformation campaigns like the…
As Trump and Republicans target Georgia’s Fani Willis for retribution, the state’s governor opts out
The Associated Press reports: Some Republicans in Washington and Georgia began attacking Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis immediately after she announced the Aug. 14 indictment of former President Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. But others, including Gov. Brian Kemp, have been conspicuous in their unwillingness to pile on. Kemp, who had previously survived scathing attacks from Trump over his refusal to endorse the former president’s false claims about the election, declined to comment…
The cult of MAGA will eventually end
Peter Sagal writes: [Cult expert, Daniella Mestyanek] Young doesn’t believe that anybody can be argued out of Trumpism (or any other firmly held belief). People can save only themselves, as she did [when she escaped from the Children of God]. But she argues that such self-rescues are happening all around us. “Twenty years ago,” she told me, “when I walked away from a cult, it was much rarer to meet Americans like me, who are completely estranged from their families…
Top North Carolina judge faces potential sanctions for talking about racial discrimination
Judd Legum writes: North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls is being threatened with sanctions for criticizing the court’s approach to racial and gender discrimination. Earls, the only Black woman on the court, is under investigation by the state’s Judicial Standards Commission, a body largely comprised of conservative judges appointed by North Carolina Chief Justice Paul Newby. On August 15, Earls received a letter from the Commission informing her that she was under investigation on suspicion that her comments to…
U.S. presses Saudi Arabia on reported migrant massacres which could be crimes against humanity
The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration is pressing Saudi Arabia to identify which elements of its security forces are alleged to have slaughtered migrants along the kingdom’s border with Yemen, a step that would mark an advance toward determining responsibility for the reported abuses and help the United States establish if it has provided weapons or training to those units. Riyadh has categorically denied the allegations in last week’s explosive report from Human Rights Watch, which described widespread killing,…
Human and ape ancestors arose in Europe, not in Africa, controversial study claims
Live Science reports: An ape fossil found in Turkey may controversially suggest that the ancestors of African apes and humans first evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa, a research team says in a new study. The proposal breaks with the conventional view that hominines — the group that includes humans, the African apes (chimps, bonobos and gorillas) and their fossil ancestors — originated exclusively in Africa. However, the discovery of several hominine fossils in Europe and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey)…