Source: Mediaite


By Caleb Howe Jul 31st, 2021, 12:17 pm

The House Oversight and Reform Committee has obtained handwritten notes from former acting AG Richard Donoghue that indicated ex-president Donald Trump was pressuring the DOJ to say the 2020 election was corrupt, it was reported on Friday.

Oversight Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney says the Committee is investigating, and that the notes show that Trump “directly instructed our nation’s top law enforcement agency to take steps to overturn a free and fair election in the final days of his presidency.”

Trump has now released his own relatively brief statement claiming that, actually, the notes prove he was trying to protect the election and they are the ones who were glue.

“The corrupt and highly partisan House Democrats who run the House Oversight Committee yesterday released documents—including court filings dealing with the rigged election of 2020—that they dishonestly described as attempting to overturn the election,” the statement sent by email on Saturday begins.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-lashes-out-at-house-oversight-says-donoghue-note-shows-he-was-protecting-vote-from-them/

By Aidan McLaughlin Jul 26th, 2021, 12:36 pm

A survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida said his father now thinks the massacre was a hoax.

The survivor of the 2018 shooting, who is now 18 years old, spoke to Vice after writing in a Reddit post that his father came to believe that shooting was a hoax after taking an interest in the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Vice did not disclose the identity of the survivor, who the outlet identified as Bill, and was “part of the final graduating class of survivors of the 2018 shooting” that killed 14 students and three school staff.

“I think my dad has gone fucking insane,” he wrote in the Reddit post. “It’s going way too far and I have trouble processing the last 5 months. He’s always been very conservative, but now QAnon has consumed his life to the point where it’s tearing our family apart along with my mental health.”

The survivor explained that in January his father watched a video of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) harassing David Hogg, and came to believe the conspiracy theory that the shooting was a hoax, carried out by “​​a radical commie actor,” in order to push gun control.

more
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/parkland-survivors-qanon-dad-believes-massacre-was-a-hoax-berates-him-for-being-part-of-it/

Officials in Michigan will return $65,000 bonuses they gave themselves with COVID aid

Shiawassee County commissioners voted to award themselves 'hazard pay.'

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CORUNNA, Mich. — Elected officials in a conservative Michigan county who gave themselves bonuses of $65,000 with federal COVID-19 relief aid said they will return the money following days of criticism.

Shiawassee County commissioners acted after the prosecutor said the payments were illegal, The Argus-Press reported.

The Michigan Constitution bars additional compensation for elected officials “after services had already been rendered,” prosecutor Scott Koerner said Friday.

The commissioners, all Republicans, voted on July 15 to award themselves $65,000 as part of a plan to give $557,000 to 250 county employees as “hazard pay” for dealing with the pandemic.

more
https://www.pressherald.com/2021/07/25/officials-in-michigan-county-will-return-virus-bonuses/

July 26, 2021 at 11:09 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

“Democrats are seeking to elevate the role of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on the committee examining the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, scheduling her to deliver one of the two opening statements at the panel’s first public hearing on Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the decision,” the Washington Post reports.

“The move is intended to present the committee as a bipartisan effort following Republican leadership’s decision not to participate in the panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) last week rejected two of their picks for the panel.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2021/07/26/democrats-move-to-elevate-liz-cheneys-role/

Arkansas Doctor Paints Heartbreaking Picture of Unvaccinated Covid Regret on CNN: ‘These Are My People. And They’re Dying’

By Colby HallJul 26th, 2021, 10:11 am

Dr. Michael Bolding is an Arkansas-based physician who recently posted a video sharing his insights on what is actually happening as the delta variant of Covid-19 cuts through his community. This weekend, he appeared on CNN to discuss with Pamela Brown in what turned out to be an emotional warning to vaccine-hesitant viewers.

“We know this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Brown noted before asking her guest to detail what he is seeing and hearing every day as he tends to these patients.

“I definitely represent thousands of very tired health care workers,” Dr. Bolding replied, adding, “I literally just came from a patient’s room in his 20s and it took six people to get him in a prone position on the ventilator, and we are seeing 20 and 30-year-olds dying now from a preventible illness. And it is heartbreaking.”

“You can’t be too healthy for this virus,” he continued. “We are seeing people that cross-fit on Tuesday and are on a ventilator on Friday. I can’t get the word out enough of what we’re seeing back here in these units.”

more+video
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/arkansas-doctor-paints-heartbreaking-picture-of-unvaccinated-covid-regret-on-cnn-these-are-my-people-and-theyre-dying/

Trump Stirs Up Rally Goers to Cheer US Women’s Soccer Team’s Olympic Defeat: They’ve Become ‘Warped’ and ‘Demented’

By Brandon Contes Jul 26th, 2021, 9:40 am

The United States women’s soccer team began their Olympic run in Tokyo with a stunning loss to Sweden. For many Americans, the defeat was a disappointment, but former president Donald Trump proudly led the crowd at a rally event to cheer the USWNT loss.

“The US Women’s Soccer team is a very good example of what’s going on,” Trump said Saturday at a Turning Point Action “Rally to Protect Our Elections!” event in Phoenix, AZ.

“Wokeism makes you lose, ruins your mind, and ruins you as a person. You become warped. You become demented,” Trump continued, blaming the US soccer team’s opening loss on their politics. “Earlier this week they unexpectedly lost to Sweden, three-to-nothing, and Americans were happy about it.”

The crowd responded to Trump by cheering.

more + video
https://www.mediaite.com/sports/trump-stirs-up-rally-goers-to-cheer-us-womens-soccer-teams-olympic-defeat-theyve-become-warped-and-demented/

‘A propaganda tool’ for Trump: A second federal judge castigates attorneys who filed a lawsuit challenging the 2020 results

By Rosalind S. Helderman
July 16, 2021|Updated today at 10:50 a.m. EDT


Just before Christmas, two Colorado lawyers filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of 160 million American voters, alleging a vast conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election by the voting equipment manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook, its founder Mark Zuckerberg, his wife Priscilla Chan and elected officials in four states — and asking for $160 billion in damages.

The case was dismissed in April, but now a federal judge is considering disciplining the lawyers for filing a frivolous claim — sharply questioning the duo in a Friday hearing about whether they had allowed themselves to be used as “a propaganda tool” of former president Donald Trump.

“Did that ever occur to you? That, possibly, [you’re] just repeating stuff the president is lying about?” Federal Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter asked the two lawyers, Gary D. Fielder and Ernest John Walker, during a hearing to consider sanctioning them.

The two lawyers argued they had a good-faith belief that the election was stolen and did not trust government officials and others who affirmed that it was secure and that there was not widespread fraud.

more/NO PAYWALL
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-propaganda-tool-for-trump-a-second-federal-judge-castigates-attorneys-who-filed-a-lawsuit-challenging-the-2020-results/ar-AAMf6Hf

Spencer Hsu 22 hrs ago

A struggle to manage huge amounts of video evidence is delaying hundreds of Jan. 6 Capitol breach cases as many of more than 500 people charged now wait for U.S. prosecutors to produce records that could help defendants decide whether to face trial or plead guilty.

More than six months after the riots, the government has turned over big blocks of evidence directly implicating many individual defendants — including pertinent social media posts, FBI reports and search warrant returns.

And though the government has shared clips of U.S. Capitol surveillance and officer body-camera footage, it has yet to release comprehensive video of the entire event that might reveal mitigating or exonerating conduct that day, such as whether a person helped maintain order at other times, or what police or others nearby were doing, prosecutors and defense lawyers have said.

Partly as a result, only a trickle of suspects — about 20 out of more than 500 charged so far — have pleaded guilty.

More/NO PAYWALL
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/as-mountain-of-video-evidence-grows-capitol-riot-trials-are-pushed-to-2022-and-beyond/ar-AAMexjL

Source: Washington Post/MSN

U.S. seeks prison term for first felony defendant to be sentenced in Capitol breach, citing domestic terror threat

Spencer Hsu 2 hrs ago

U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday urged a federal judge to impose an 18-month prison term on the first defendant to face sentencing for a felony in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, citing the need to deter domestic terrorism.

"The need to deter others is especially strong in cases involving domestic terrorism, which the breach of the Capitol certainly was," Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Sedky said in a government sentencing request for Tampa crane operator Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38, who carried a Trump flag into the well of the Senate.

The court filing marked one of the Justice Department's bluntest statements to date of its view of the Capitol breach, in which members of a mob supporting President Donald Trump stormed barricades, assaulted nearly 140 police officers, and forced the evacuation of a joint session of Congress meeting to confirm the results of the 2020 election.

Hodgkins's sentencing, scheduled for Monday, could set the bar for what punishment 100 or more defendants might expect to face as they weigh whether to accept plea offers by prosecutors or take their chances at a trial by jury.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-seeks-prison-term-for-first-felony-defendant-to-be-sentenced-in-capitol-breach-citing-domestic-terror-threat/ar-AAMbWba

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NO PAYWALL

A video still from surveillance inside the Senate Chamber shows Paul Allard Hodgkins, carrying a flag and wearing a Trump shirt, standing in front of the Senate dais. (U.S Attorney’s Office for Washington)