Andy Borowitz: Trump Files Lawsuit After Finishing New York Times Story He Started in 2018

Donald J. Trump filed a hundred-million-dollar lawsuit after finishing a New York Times story that he started reading in 2018, the former President has confirmed.

“When I started reading the story three years ago, I saw my name in the headline and it made me happy,” Trump told reporters. “It said ‘Trump.’ I thought, This is probably going to be a good story.”

As he continued reading the story in 2019, he said, “It still didn’t seem so bad to me. I spent that year reading three or four paragraphs, and I didn’t really get the entire gist of the article.”

In 2020, Trump said, “I was busy with the election, so I didn’t get to read as much of the article as I would’ve liked. I maybe got through five, six more sentences. It mentioned my name a lot. ‘Trump.’ Still seemed O.K.”

Though Trump was ultimately able to finish the Times article this week, he accused its authors of making it intentionally difficult for him to read.

“Those so-called writers used many, many long words that I didn’t know—and Jared didn’t, either,” he said. “We had to ask Ivanka what they meant, and, quite frankly, she had to look a lot of them up. And those jokers won the Pulitzer for this crap? That should never be allowed to happen in this country.” https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/

U.S. default this fall would cost 6 million jobs, wipe out $15 trillion in wealth, study says

The United States could plunge into an immediate recession if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling and the country defaults on its payment obligations this fall, according to one analysis released Tuesday.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, found that a prolonged impasse over the debt ceiling would cost the U.S. economy up to 6 million jobs, wipe out as much as $15 trillion in household wealth, and send the unemployment rate surging to roughly 9 percent from around 5 percent.

“This economic scenario is cataclysmic. … The downturn would be comparable to that suffered during the financial crisis” of 2008, said the report, written by Zandi and Bernard Yaros, assistant director and economist at Moody’s Analytics. https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/09/21/debt-ceiling-recession

Memo shows Trump lawyer’s six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election

A conservative lawyer working with then-President Donald Trump's legal team tried to convince then-Vice President Mike Pence that he could overturn the election results on January 6 when Congress counted the Electoral College votes by throwing out electors from seven states, according to the new book "Peril" from Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

The scheme put forward by controversial lawyer John Eastman was outlined in a two-page memo obtained by the authors for "Peril," and which was subsequently obtained by CNN. The memo, which has not previously been made public, provides new detail showing how Trump and his team tried to persuade Pence to subvert the Constitution and throw out the election results on January 6. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/politics/trump-pence-election-memo/index.html

Republican leaders remain silent as Trump casts perpetrators of Jan. 6 attack as political prisoners

The Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and the falsehoods that inspired it continue to shape the Republican Party, with former president Donald Trump ramping up his defense of the rioters who participated in the violence while marshaling opposition to GOP lawmakers who have denounced the attack as an insurrection and a threat to American democracy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-leaders-remain-silent-as-trump-casts-perpetrators-of-jan-6-attack-as-political-prisoners/2021/09/17/4ce91dc2-17d0-11ec-9589-31ac3173c2e5_story.html

Jan. 6 panel hires former Bush administration official as top legal adviser

The House select committee in charge of investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has hired John F. Wood, a former U.S. attorney and a member of the George W. Bush administration, as its top legal adviser.

The decision is part of a continued effort to make the committee nonpartisan and follows the elevation of Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney to serve as vice chairwoman on the panel. https://www.axios.com/january-6-committee-hires-former-bush-administration-official-top-legal-adviser-1fc28a0a-8b2c-412a-9791-cb242feed7be.html

Newsom’s Anti-Trump Recall Strategy Offers Republicans a Warning for 2022

California basks in its clairvoyance. “The future happens here first,” says Gov. Gavin Newsom, calling his state “America’s coming attraction.”

By emphatically turning back the effort to recall him from office, however, Mr. Newsom made clear that California’s cherished role presaging the politics of tomorrow was not as significant as another, larger factor in Tuesday’s results: the tribal politics of today.

The first-term Democratic governor will remain in office because, in a deeply liberal state, he effectively nationalized the recall effort as a Republican plot, making a flame-throwing radio host the Trump-like face of the opposition to polarize the electorate along red and blue lines. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/politics/midterms-california-republicans-newsom.html

House Democrats press forward with effort to curtail presidential powers after Trump

House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday aimed at preventing abuses of presidential power in what supporters of the measures say is largely a response to Donald Trump's actions as president.

"We have to codify this, turn it into law, so that no president of whatever party can ever assume that he or she has the power to usurp the power of the other branches of government," House Speaker Nancy said. "And it is specific in its remedies," adding the bill will be a protection against "against future abuse.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-democrats-press-forward-effort-curtail-presidential-powers-after-trump-n1279704

Trump’s Business May Go On Trial On Tax Charges Just Before The 2022 Elections

The judge hearing the tax fraud case, an alleged scheme to defraud taxpayers by paying Trump Organization executives with untaxed benefits, has set a schedule with a potential court trial starting in late August or early September 2022, just months before the midterm elections.

That timing, as well as a potential conviction against his family business, could cast a pall over any efforts by Trump to drum up support for Republican candidates. And with multiple investigations still underway, the legal cloud hanging over Trump's world may be getting larger.

The Trump Organization may also ultimately face civil charges as part of a related investigation James' office launched in 2019 after Cohen told Congress that Trump manipulated the value of his properties to obtain bank loans and lower his tax obligations. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/20/1037035597/trump-organization-investigation-charges-cfo-allen-weisselberg

Judges strike down North Carolina voter ID law, citing its ‘discriminatory purpose’ against African Americans

A panel of North Carolina judges on Friday struck down the state’s law requiring voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, saying that the measure “was enacted in part for a discriminatory purpose” against African American voters.

The ruling is the latest development in a state battle over voting rights that has drawn national attention, and it comes amid a raft of new restrictions by GOP-led state legislatures across the country, as well as an effort in Congress to restore key parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/north-carolina-voter-id-law/2021/09/17/3c2a7892-17e3-11ec-a5e5-ceecb895922f_story.html

As climate pledges fall short, U.N. predicts globe could warm by catastrophic 2.7 degrees Celsius

The United Nations warned Friday that based on the most recent action plans submitted by 191 countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the planet is on track to warm by more than 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century — far above what world leaders have said is the acceptable upper limit of global warming.

Even a lower increase would mean millions of people losing their homes to rising seas, vast sections of permafrost lost and extinction for scores of animal species.

The report set the stakes as President Biden gathered the world’s biggest emitters to the White House last Friday to try reach an agreement among some of them to cut methane — a potent greenhouse gas — by 30 percent by 2030. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/17/un-climate-2030-biden/

Five Oregonians hospitalized due to misuse of ivermectin for COVID-19

The Oregon Poison Center  has managed 25 cases involving Oregonians intentionally misusing ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19 between Aug. 1 and Sept. 14. Five of those cases involved hospitalization, and two people were so severely ill that they had to be admitted to an intensive care unit. Although the Oregon Poison Center also serves Alaska and Guam, the vast majority of ivermectin cases it has managed this year have come from Oregon. https://news.ohsu.edu/2021/09/17/five-oregonians-hospitalized-due-to-misuse-of-ivermectin-for-covid-19

Trump Looks for Challenger to Depose Mitch McConnell as Split Widens

Mitch McConnell’s record-long reign as Senate Republican leader has lasted long enough for former President Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump has spoken recently with senators and allies about trying to depose Mr. McConnell and whether any Republicans are interested in mounting a challenge, according to people familiar with the conversations. There is little appetite among Senate Republicans for such a plan, lawmakers and aides said, but the discussions risk driving a wedge deeper between the most influential figure in the Republican Party and its highest-ranking member in elected office. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-looks-for-challenger-to-depose-mitch-mcconnell-as-split-widens-11632060002

Sources say Beto plans Texas comeback in governor’s race

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke is preparing to run for governor of Texas in 2022, with an announcement expected later this year, Texas political operatives tell Axios.

O'Rourke's entry would give Democrats a high-profile candidate with a national fundraising network to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — and give O’Rourke, a former three-term congressman from El Paso and 2020 presidential candidate and voting rights activist, a path to a political comeback. https://www.axios.com/scoop-beto-plans-texas-comeback-governors-race-33a3ae1a-4c58-4e7a-9e44-26342d3128c9.html

Harassed and Harangued, Poll Workers Now Have a New Form of Defense

Threatened by extremists and under fire by politicians, election workers now have their own legal defense network. It’s a perk they never expected to need.

It is perhaps a metaphor for the times that even the volunteer who checked you into the polls in November now has a legal defense committee.

The Election Official Legal Defense Network, which made its public debut on Sept. 7, offers to represent more than just poll workers, of course. Formed to counter the waves of political pressure and public bullying that election workers have faced in the last year, the organization pledges free legal services to anyone involved in the voting process, from secretaries of state to local election officials and volunteers.

The network is the creation of two powerhouses in Republican and Democratic legal circles, Benjamin L. Ginsberg and Bob Bauer. In a Washington Post opinion piece this month, the two — Mr. Ginsberg was a premier G.O.P. lawyer for 38 years and Mr. Bauer was both a Democratic Party lawyer and White House counsel in the Obama administration — wrote that such attacks on people “overseeing the counting and casting of ballots on an independent, nonpartisan basis are destructive to our democracy.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/us/election-workers-legal-aid.html

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves attacks vaccine mandates, downplays state's high death toll

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in his state on Sunday, while challenging the legitimacy of vaccine mandates rolled out by the Biden administration.

"The president very much wants you and everyone else to believe that this is a fight between politicians. The reality is this is an attack by the president on hardworking Americans and hardworking Mississippians who he wants to choose between getting a jab in the arm and their ability to feed their families, and I just believe that is a false choice," Reeves said.

Reeves has previously called new measures to mandate vaccines for a larger swath of Americans by President Joe Biden "tyrannical-type" behavior.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/19/mississippi-gov-tate-reeves-downplays-soaring-covid-death-toll/8410742002/

Rep. Stefanik claims in ads that Democrats seek a ‘permanent election insurrection’ by providing pathways to citizenship

Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, is pushing the notion in Facebooks ads that President Biden and fellow Democrats are seeking a “permanent election insurrection” by expanding pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

“Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” says one version of the ad, paid for by Stefanik’s campaign committee, that appeared Wednesday. “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/rep-stefanik-claims-in-ads-that-democrats-are-seeking-a-permanent-election-insurrection-by-providing-pathways-to-citizenship/2021/09/16/7372011a-16eb-11ec-a5e5-ceecb895922f_story.html

Georgia criminal probe into Trump's attempts to overturn 2020 election quietly moves forward

Georgia criminal investigators have been quietly conducting interviews, collecting documents and working to build a line of communication with congressional investigators as they aim to build a case against the former President for his alleged attempts to overturn the state's 2020 election results.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis kicked off her investigation with a splash earlier this year, when she fired off a round of letters to Georgia officials asking them to preserve documents related to Trump just a month after she took office.

Since then, her investigation into Trump's efforts to upend Georgia's 2020 presidential election results has been more discreet as she juggles the early stages of the Trump probe with an avalanche of backlogged cases and rising violence in the Atlanta area.

"What I can tell you is that the Trump investigation is ongoing. As a district attorney, I do not have the right to look the other way on any crime that may have happened in my jurisdiction," Willis told reporters this week. "We have a team of lawyers that is dedicated to that, but my No. 1 priority is to make sure that we keep violent offenders off the street.” https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/politics/georgia-probe-trump-election/index.html

'Incredibly dangerous': Trump is trying to get Big Lie promoters chosen to run the 2024 election

Swing state by swing state, former President Donald Trump is trying to get people who tried to overturn the 2020 election chosen to be in charge of the 2024 election.

Trump's Monday endorsement of state Rep. Mark Finchem for Arizona secretary of state is the latest in a series of announcements that has alarmed independent elections experts. Trump has now backed Republicans who supported his lies about the 2020 election for the job of top elections official in three crucial battlegrounds -- Arizona, Michigan and Georgia -- where the current elections chiefs opposed his efforts to reverse his 2020 defeat.

"It is incredibly dangerous to support people for office who do not accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election. It suggests that they might be willing to bend or break the rules when it comes to running elections and counting votes in the future," said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science and co-director of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center at the University of California, Irvine. "Someone who claims falsely that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump lacks credibility and cannot be trusted to run a fair election.” https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/16/politics/trump-secretary-of-state-big-lie/index.html

Trump endorsements jolt GOP races

Donald Trump is endorsing candidates in party primary elections all the way down the ballot, a level of involvement that’s virtually unheard of among recent former presidents.

What’s remarkable about Trump’s picks isn’t just their breadth — he’s endorsed close to 40 candidates so far in 23 states — it’s their seemingly random quality. What’s even more unusual is that the political goals of the GOP’s de facto leader aren’t necessarily in sync with his own party — in some cases, they are starkly at odds.

If there’s a thread running through nearly all of Trump’s endorsements, it is his habit of rewarding allies and punishing enemies. So far, at the national level, he’s backed primary challengers to four House GOP incumbents and one sitting senator — all of whom voted for impeachment.

When it comes to state and local races, Trump’s seal of approval is often linked in one way or another to his failed efforts to have the 2020 election results overturned. In the three secretary of state contests where he has endorsed — Arizona, Georgia and Michigan — the common denominator is that his claims of election fraud were dismissed in those places by the current secretaries of state due to a lack of evidence.

In Arizona Trump endorsed state Rep. Mark Finchem’s bid for secretary of state. Finchem contends the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, participated in the “Stop the Steal” movement, attended the Jan. 6 rally at the U.S. Capitol and has pushed conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon.. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/17/trump-endorsements-stoke-dissension-in-gop-ranks-512444

More than half of US states have cut back public health powers during the pandemic

Republican legislators in more than half of U.S. states, spurred on by voters angry about lockdowns and mask mandates, are taking away the powers that state and local officials use to protect the public against infectious diseases.

In Arkansas, legislators banned mask mandates except in private businesses or state-run health care settings, calling them “a burden on the public peace, health, and safety of the citizens of this state.” In Idaho, county commissioners, who typically have no public health expertise, can veto countywide public health orders. In Kansas and Tennessee, school boards, rather than health officials, have the power to close schools. https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-aud-nw-public-health-state-laws-20210915-7xwjxmy7frgihidgzjctxakqhu-story.html

Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers approve wide-ranging subpoenas for personal information of 2020 voters

Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania on Wednesday approved subpoenas for a wide range of data and personal information on voters, advancing a probe of the 2020 election in a key battleground state former president Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted with baseless claims of fraud.

Among other requests, Republicans are seeking the names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses and methods of voting for millions of people who cast ballots in the May primary and the November general election.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) called Wednesday’s vote “merely another step to undermine democracy, confidence in our elections and to capitulate to Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/15/pennsylvania-gop-election-probe-subpoena-trump/

Powell orders ethics review after Fed presidents disclosed multimillion-dollar investments

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell directed staff to review the central bank’s ethics rules for appropriate financial activities after disclosures that several senior central bank officials made multiple multimillion-dollar stock trades in 2020, while others held significant investments.

News of Powell’s inquiry broke after Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent 12 letters to the Fed’s regional bank presidents calling on each Fed president to institute a ban on the ownership and trading of individual stocks by senior officials at each regional office.

A Fed spokesman told CNBC that Powell last week ordered a “fresh and comprehensive look at the ethics rules around permissible financial holdings and activities by senior Fed officials.This review will assist in identifying ways to further tighten those rules and standards. The Board will make changes, as appropriate, and any changes will be added to the Reserve Bank Code of Conduct.” https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/16/fed-chief-powell-orders-ethics-review-after-multimillion-dollar-trades.html

The DAILY GRILL

One of the sad constants of American political debate is that, anytime the tax rate on the rich is to be either raised or lowered, Republicans will repeat a certain statistic. To wit, “The Stat” is that the highest-earning one percent of taxpayers pay 40 percent of all income taxes. Conservatives consider this fact a dispositive justification either against any proposal to increase taxes on the rich, or in favor of any plan to reduce it. Over just the past day, I have seen it circulating — here. https://www.dailywire.com/news/61-of-americans-paid-no-income-tax-in-2020-report

VERSUS

The actual truth about the American tax system is that it is slightly progressive. The richest one percent earn about 21 percent of the income and pay 24 percent of the taxes. https://www.dailywire.com/news/61-of-americans-paid-no-income-tax-in-2020-report

 

"I hope I get COVID just so I can prove to people I've had bouts of food poisoning that are more serious and life threatening than a hyped up virus. Have you ever eaten bad fajitas? That will kill you faster than COVID. — Far-right anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Laura Loome's post on the right-wing social network Parler. "https://www.salon.com/2021/09/17/just-pray-for-me-please-loomer-suffers-brutal-symptoms-after-hoping-she-would-get-covid/

VERSUS

"Just pray for me please," Loomer wrote. "Can't even begin to explain how brutal the body aches and nausea that come with covid are. I am in so much pain. This is honestly the worst part about it.” — Loomer writing in another message on Telegram that she can't begin to describe how terrible the symptoms are, but then going on to push more conspiracy theories about the vaccine. https://www.salon.com/2021/09/17/just-pray-for-me-please-loomer-suffers-brutal-symptoms-after-hoping-she-would-get-covid/