‘Trump was an unabated crime wave’: ex-prosecutor lists the atrocities

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Donald Trump has legal exposure for a “crime wave” committed while serving as president of the United State, a former federal prosecutor explained on MSNBC on Friday.

Glenn Kirschner told MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi “Donald Trump was an unabated crime wave as president.”

“Even before he became president he committed campaign finance violations with Michael Cohen, for which Michael Cohen went to prison,” he reminded. “Ali, then once he took office he could tick through the felony crimes that we can prove based on the information that has been publicly reported alone, whether it’s the bribery and extortion of President Zelenskiy, the ten counts of obstruction of justice meticulously documented by Bob Mueller in volume 2 of the Trump-Russia report for which Bob Mueller famously testified Donald Trump could be prosecuted upon leaving office.” Continue reading.

Ted Cruz brings lawsuit demanding Trump be able to pay himself back millions he gave to his campaign

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is further attempting to prove he’s pals with Donald Trump after launching a lawsuit appealed to the Supreme Court that Trump and other candidates should be able to pay themselves back the millions of dollars they use to self-fund their campaigns.

Trump loaned his campaign $10.8 million in 2015, and by March 2016, he’d given his campaign $38 million. Trump even went so far as to claim that he was willing to spend as much as $100 million of his own money to win in 2016. He didn’t ultimately give that much officially, but it was certainly a lot, particularly given the hush-money payments uncovered. 

Cruz claims that the McCain-Feingold Law violates the First Amendment by limiting to $250,000 fundraising to repay loans a candidate makes to his or her own federal campaign. Continue reading.

Romney’s ‘Deal’ Would Tax Working Families, Not Corporations

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A new infrastructure plan being pushed by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and a bipartisan group of senators would not increase corporate taxes at all. Instead, it would raise taxes on every American who buys gasoline — running afoul of the president’s promise not to raise taxes on working families.

The group of 10 senators said Thursday they had agreed on a blueprint for $579 billion in new spending on transportation and broadband infrastructure. It would reportedly not include any immediate tax increases but would index the gas tax to inflation, meaning consumers would likely pay more each year.

Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), Romney, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Mark Warner (D-VA) called their plan a “realistic, compromise framework to modernize our nation’s infrastructure and energy technologies” in a joint statement. Continue reading.

QAnon’s demise is ‘well underway’ as adherents cut and run from the cult: columnist

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On Friday, writing for the Chicago Tribune, columnist Virginia Heffernan argued that the QAnon conspiracy — which holds that former President Donald Trump is fighting to take down a cabal of flesh-eating pedophile Satanists who rule the United States — is rapidly falling apart and will soon fade into the history books.

“QAnon, who made a messiah out of former President Donald Trump, was always bound to lose steam. It will follow the arc of furious, loopy-loo American conspiracy theories that have existed since before the Civil War. Cults like QAnon burn bright, and they fade fast,” wrote Heffernan. “QAnon’s demise, in fact, is well underway. Its leader, Q, a figure from the internet’s dark side, is now widely suspected to be the creation of Jim and Ron Watkins. The Watkins men are a seedy father-son duo in Asia who serve up pornography and hate speech online.”

As evidence of the decline, Heffernan noted: the mysterious anonymous poster “Q” whose cryptic messages drove the theory has vanished from the internet; many believers have now disavowed the movement; and the fallout from the January 6 Capitol riot has led many more to blame the movement for their violence. Continue reading.

Trump lost $40 million on his Scottish golf clubs by failing to implement a very basic financial practice, say experts

Donald Trump’s international courses have racked up huge losses and rely on loans from various Trump-owned vehicles in the United States just to stay afloat.

However, the scale of Trump’s losses may be even greater than it first appears, with experts pointing out that Trump appears to have lost tens of millions of dollars more by failing to implement a very basic financial practice.

First, some context: Trump has two golf resorts in Scotland. Continue reading.

Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers

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Election officials and their families are living with threats of hanging, firing squads, torture and bomb blasts, interviews and documents reveal. The campaign of fear, sparked by Trump’s voter-fraud falsehoods, threatens the U.S. electoral system.

Note: This story contains offensive language 

Late on the night of April 24, the wife of Georgia’s top election official got a chilling text message: “You and your family will be killed very slowly.”

A week earlier, Tricia Raffensperger, wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, had received another anonymous text: “We plan for the death of you and your family every day.”

That followed an April 5 text warning. A family member, the texter told her, was “going to have a very unfortunate incident.” Continue reading.

In the Know: June 15, 2021

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Governor Tim Walz
MN Executive Council extends peacetime emergency and Tim Walz emergency powers, Pioneer Press 

Minnesota Legislature
State lawmakers return in person. So do throngs of loud demonstrators., Pioneer Press
MN lawmakers agree on how to end eviction moratorium, Pioneer Press

Minnesota News
State appeals court upholds approval of Line 3 oil pipeline, MPR News
Who will provide security for the 2021 Minnesota State Fair? It’s still being worked out, Pioneer Press
She bought 47 guns last month. Police are already finding them in shooting investigations, Star Tribune
In 13 Minnesota counties, the adult vaccination rate is below 50%, Bring Me The News
Rent stabilization petition headed to Ramsey County elections, and St. Paul voters, Pioneer Press

Continue reading “In the Know: June 15, 2021”

Capitol Police watchdog flags training contractor’s use of Nazi-adjacent symbols

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‘That combination is immediately suspect,’ says former white supremacist

Capitol Police spent $90,075 of taxpayer dollars in 2018 and 2019 to train its specialized Containment Emergency Response Team with Northern Red Inc., a company that publicly displays symbols often associated with the white supremacist movement.

Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton discovered the symbols as part of his review into the Jan. 6 insurrection and has recommended the department “review the appropriateness of utilizing Northern Red, Inc. for further training,” according to an advisory report shared with acting Chief Yogananda Pittman and other department officials.

CQ Roll Call obtained a copy of that report, which has not been publicly released. Continue reading.

DFL Debrief: The Fight for LGBTQ Rights in Minnesota

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Minnesota Republicans continue to attack LGBTQ rights, Democrats in the Senate are divided on the filibuster, and we’re still missing key information about the 1/6 insurrection. We cover all that and more on this week’s episode of the DFL Debrief!

Listen here.

Biden to pick Cuban-born Navy veteran to be Navy secretary

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Carlos Del Toro spent more than two decades in the Navy and later founded a tech company

President Joe Biden announced Friday he plans to tap Carlos Del Toro, a Navy veteran and CEO of a technology company, to be the next Navy secretary.

Born in Cuba, Del Toro is a 1983 graduate of the Naval Academy who spent more than two decades in the Navy, including serving as the commanding officer of the USS Bulkeley, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

In 2004, Del Toro founded SBG Technology Solutions, and has served as the firm’s CEO ever since. Continue reading.