When a woman starts bleeding out after labor, every second matters. But soon, under a new state law, Louisiana doctors might not be able to quickly access one of the most widely used life-saving medications for postpartum hemorrhage. read more
A drug kingpin convicted in the murder of a federal law enforcement officer had his life sentence commuted by President Donald Trump on January 20, 2021, the last day of Trump's term. Now, the man set free by Trump, Jaime A. Davidson, was accused by authorities of strangling his wife during a 2023 dispute, convicted by a jury of domestic violence, and, in July 2024, sentenced to three months in jail, according to court records.
David Neiwert, America's foremost writer and thinker on far-right extremism, on what might happen if Trump wins -- or loses. read more
Trump unleashed a new round of threats to lock up his political opponents. read more
17 real European women--fashion and beauty influencers from the Netherlands, Denmark and as far away as Russia--whose online photos have been stolen by unknown actors to promote Trump and his pick as running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, on X, a CNN investigation in collaboration with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) has found. read more
FTA:
America's 17 million-strong veteran community is traditionally more likely to vote for Republican candidates but polls suggest their enthusiasm for Trump is waning.
The former president won a 61 per cent share of this vote in 2016 but only 54 per cent in 2020. In a Change Research survey released this week, support for Trump among veterans was down to statistical coin toss at 51 per cent.
The military vote is of outsized importance in the five key swing states. There are nearly 800,000 veterans in Pennsylvania, more than 550,000 in Michigan and 283,000 in Wisconsin. Arizona has more than 450,000 and Nevada more than 200,000.
"There's no question in my mind there's been a shift," said Fred Wellman, a US army combat veteran with VoteVets, a veterans' advocacy group and political action committee.
"The Arlington debacle was different," Wellman said. "Even my non card-carrying vet friends who water-ski on weekends rather than pay attention to politics were deeply offended. Arlington is sacred."
NPR is reporting the names of the two Trump campaign officials who harrassed the ANC employee:
Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustupwww.npr.org
One of two staffers involved in the altercation at Arlington National Cemetery is a deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump's reelection bid, NPR has learned. The former president insisted this week the incident did not happen, highlighting a growing disconnect between the messaging of the candidate and his campaign. NPR is identifying both staffers after the campaign's conflicting responses to the incident last week outside Section 60 of the cemetery, where many casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump's advance team.
"A media company matching the description of Tenet Media, which hosts six MAGA commentators, allegedly received $10 million from Russian sources, according to an indictment."
Tip of the iceberg:
David Gilbert
@daithaigilbert
The Tim Pool/Tenet Media story is obviously fascinating.
But...
An FBI affidavit unsealed this week says the Russians are maintaining an active list of 2,800 influencers, 600 of whom are in the US
The FBI has not released the list
Who else is on it?
x.com
DOJ: Russia Aimed Propaganda at Gamers, Minorities to Swing 2024 Electionwww.wired.com
Newly unsealed court documents reveal in unprecedented detail a campaign called the Good Old USA Project, which Russian authorities believed could impact the US election.
One of the key aspects of the Kremlin's campaign is also to engage with influencers. According to the FBI's affidavit, Gambashidze's company "extensively monitors and collects information about a large number of media organizations and social media influencers."
According to the Good Old USA project document, the Kremlin was seeking to work with influencers who are "proponents of traditional values, who stand up for ending the war in Ukraine and peaceful relations between the US and Russia, and who are ready to get involved in the promotion of the project narratives."
Among the types of influencers listed as possible collaborators are actors, politicians, media representatives, activists, and clergymen.
The affidavit references one document maintained by the Social Design Agency, which is not included in the unsealed court documents, that contains a list of more than 2,800 people identified as influencers. While this list is global, US-based influencers account for around 20 percent of the accounts being monitored, including many US lawmakers, acccording to an analysis of the list by the FBI.
Pay attention to what they do, not what they say.
Or put another way: Follow the money.
To wit:
"Two employees of RT, the Russian state media network, were indicted in a US court for allegedly being part of a scheme that funneled nearly $10 million to set up and direct a Tennessee-based front company to produce online content aimed at sowing divisions among Americans, according to the Justice Department.drudge.com
Taken together, the actions represent the Biden administration's most significant public response yet to alleged Russian influence operations targeting American voters.
After the US accused Iran of trying to hack both the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns last month, Wednesday's expected actions are a reminder that US officials continue to see Russia as a prominent foreign influence threat to November's election, the sources said."
"Once again our intel agencies failed at their jobs. The school failed to take action and deemed the threat unworthy of following up on, but somehow passing legislation to ban certain firearms is going to fix this."
The FBI did its job by contacting the local police:
The FBI said its National Threat Operations Center had alerted local law enforcement in May 2023 after receiving anonymous tips about "online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time".www.bbc.com
The agency said that within 24 hours investigators had determined that the threats originated in Georgia.
Sheriff's deputies interviewed the boy and his father, who "stated he had hunting guns in the house, but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them", the FBI said.
The suspect, who was 13 years old at the time, denied making the online threats and officials "alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the subject".
"At the time, there was no probable cause for an arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state or federal levels," added the FBI statement.
Just a reminder of another accused wifebeater whose prison sentence Trump communted:
Police Arrest Loan Shark Whose Sentence Was Commuted By Donald Trumpwww.newsweek.com
A convicted loan shark and drug smuggler whose sentence was commuted by Donald Trump has been arrested for assaulting his wife and father-in-law.
The father of 41-year-old Jonathan Braun had hired Trump's impeachment lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, for legal advice on commutation.
In January 2021, just before leaving the White House, Trump issued 143 pardons and commutations, including a commutation for Braun.
Braun was released after serving five years of a 13-year-sentence for drug importation and money laundering.
Additional background info:
All Trump's Recidivistswww.emptywheel.net
It may have taken no more than ten days for Trump's pardon recipients to start criming again. That's unsurprising: For the people close to Trump (including Bernie Kerik, who played a key role in Rudy Giuliani's cultivation of the Big Lie), he often pardoned them so that they could put their skills to work for him.
Trump wants to fearmonger about the very small percentage of migrants who turn to crime.
But there's a far higher percentage of people whom Trump plucked from prisons (or spared from prison entirely) who turned back to crime.
Which is not surprising. These are Trump's people, after all.
It's called "sanewashing" and the MSM have been doing it to Trump's benefit and the country's detriment for years: