3CD DFL

In the Know: June 4, 2021

Attorney General Keith Ellison
AG Keith Ellison alleges professor misused funds raised in Philando Castile’s name, Star Tribune

Governor Tim Walz
MN reports 10 COVID deaths Thursday. ‘All preventable,’ Tim Walz says., Pioneer Press

Minnesota News
City workers clear George Floyd Square at 38th and Chicago in south Minneapolis, Star Tribune
Law enforcement kills man in Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood, Star Tribune
Unrest erupts after man fatally shot in Minneapolis arrest attempt, MPR News
Student COVID-19 cases plummet in Minnesota after spring wave, Star Tribune
Latest on COVID-19 in MN: Inching toward 70 percent vaccinated, MPR News
Minnesota’s top LGBTQ rights group gets new leader, Star Tribune

Observers of Arizona’s GOP-led election audit document security breaches, prohibited items on counting floor

Observers of Arizona’s Republican-led recount have found security gates left open, confidential manuals left unattended and quality-control measures disregarded, according to the Arizona secretary of state’s office.

In one instance, a software update caused so many errors that the company handling the recount abandoned the update and went back to the old software. In other instances, prohibited items including cellphones and pens with black or blue ink were allowed onto the counting floor.

And in an alleged incident last week, audit spokesman and former state Republican Party chairman Randy Pullen told an observer that the pink T-shirt the observer was required to wear while watching the proceedings made him “look like a transgender,” according to the Arizona secretary of state’s office. Continue reading.

‘Striking, horrific and brutal’: Reporter details disturbing accusations against a 1/6 rioter in new filing

Pennsylvania resident Ryan Samsel is among the many people facing federal criminal charges in connection with the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building. Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for WRC-TV Channel 4 (the NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C.) who is also an MSNBC contributor, discusses Samsel in a Twitter thread posted this week — and lays out some reasons why his case is especially troubling.

MacFarlane tweets, “WHOA!!! The filing just submitted in the Jan 6 prosecution of Ryan Samsel of Pennsylvania might” include “the most striking, horrific and brutal accusations I’ve read so far in *any* of these 460+ cases.”

MacFarlane reports that last week, Samsel asked to be released from the Washington, D.C. jail where he is being held, “citing injuries he allegedly suffered in (a) beating there.” Continue reading.

Parliamentarian guidance deals blow to reconciliation strategy

Senate rules referee says use of special procedure to pass multiple filibuster-proof bills should be reserved for ‘extraordinary circumstances’

Using a revised budget resolution to take an extra crack at reconciliation to advance Democratic priorities through the Senate appears unlikely during this Congress, given a new opinion from the Senate parliamentarian.

The new guidance, issued to Senate staff on Friday, suggests that Democrats will get just one more try this year to pass a filibuster-proof legislative package to enact additional priorities ranging from infrastructure to immigration policy proposed by President Joe Biden and party leaders on Capitol Hill. If they want to use reconciliation yet again, they’d need to adopt a fiscal 2023 budget resolution next year, but would likely get only one shot then as well.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough’s four-page opinion makes clear her view that the framers of the 1974 law establishing the modern budget process didn’t intend for lawmakers to be able to use the budget reconciliation process as many times as they could jam into a given year. Continue reading.

Rudy Giuliani rages at ‘anti-American’ prosecutors: It’s ‘unconstitutional’ to investigate Trump

Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday asserted that it is “unconstitutional” to investigate former President Donald Trump.

During an interview on Newsmax, Giuliani blasted Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James over the ongoing investigation into whether the Trump Organization illegally manipulated property values.

“This is an investigation in search of a crime, not a crime that’s being investigated,” Giuliani said. “They’ve gone through his whole life searching for something they can make into a criminal act. That’s a very, very dangerous thing to do for America. In fact, it’s anti-American. I think [it’s] unconstitutional.” Continue reading.

Trump scraps short-lived blog that was created in wake of social media bans

The former president, who is scheduled to address the North Carolina Republican Party on Saturday, wasn’t getting much traction with his new outlet.

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has discontinued his short-lived blog.

“It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have [been] and are working on,” Trump adviser Jason Miller said in confirming the decision to scrap the blog, From the Desk of Donald J. Trump. The news was first reported by CNBC.

Trump is set to return to the campaign trail to help Republicans win control of the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections as he considers whether to mount a third presidential campaign. Continue reading.

Why so many Trump supporters crave apocalyptic bloodshed

Donie O’Sullivan is a reporter for CNN. His beat appears to be American conspiracy theories. He was on Anderson Cooper’s show last night with reporting on a QAnon conference last weekend during which former Donald Trump adviser and pardoned traitor Michael Flynn said a Myanmar-style military coup “should happen” in America.

That some people in this country long for purifying violence to “reinstate” Donald Trump to his “rightful place” is not what got my attention, though. What did was Donie O’Sullivan’s editorial remark at the end of his report. This is what he said:

I spend a lot of time reading these pro-Trump forums, reading these QAnon forums online, and speaking to Trump supporters, and I will say of all the conspiracy theories we hear, this talk from Americans about a coup, cheering a coup, and hoping for a coup, in the United States is one of the most chilling things I hear.

Trump team’s effort to explain away Lafayette Square hits yet another snag, one year later

One year since mostly peaceful protesters outside the White House were cleared out on June 1, 2020, so that President Donald Trump could take a photo outside a nearby church, the Trump administration’s statements continue to be incomplete, contradictory or false as to why and how the square was cleared.

Below are the various explanations, examples of which you can watch in the video above.

Why Lafayette Square was cleared

Initially, White House spokesman Judd Deere said protesters were cleared to “help enforce the [city’s] 7 p.m. curfew.” Continue reading.

Trump’s delusional election claims will ‘get more intense’ the closer he gets to being indicted: NYT’s Haberman

Former President Donald Trump is reportedly telling his associates that he expects to be “reinstated” as president by the end of the summer — and New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said that attorney Sidney Powell is to blame for planting that false idea in his head.

Appearing on CNN Wednesday, Haberman outlined how Trump has come to believe the delusional theories of both Powell and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, both of whom have falsely claimed to have definitively proof of the 2020 election being “stolen” from Trump.

“Is Trump regurgitating what he’s hearing from Lindell and what he’s hearing Sidney Powell say? I think that’s what this is,” she said. Continue reading.

To build a crowd for a pro-Trump rally, Nevada GOP consultant sought help from Proud Boys

Two days after the tumultuous 2020 election, as President Donald Trump railed that his victory had been stolen, a small group of men dressed in yellow-and-black Proud Boys shirts appeared with dozens of other Trump supporters to protest the counting of ballots at Nevada’s biggest voting center.

The rally at the Clark County Election Department in North Las Vegas, one of many such demonstrations around the nation, looked like an organic response to a president then trailing in early returns and threatening anew to contest his defeat. But private messages from Facebook and interviews show the extent of the efforts, in at least one battleground state, to demonstrate the appearance of grass-roots energy to spread Trump’s falsehoods about the election. His claims would only grow over the coming months, culminating in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The behind-the-scenes maneuverings in Nevada involved a liberal activist who had faked a persona to get close to far-right activists, and a consultant working with the state Republican Party who contacted her in a bid to recruit the Proud Boys, a far-right men’s group, to attend the rally. Continue reading.

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Why Lafayette Square was cleared

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