The Conversation -- August 30, 2023

** Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Rudolph W. Giuliani was liable for defaming two Georgia election workers by repeatedly declaring that they had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the 2020 election. The ruling by the judge, Beryl A. Howell in Federal District Court in Washington, means that the defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, a central figure in ... Donald J. Trump's efforts to remain in power after his election loss, can proceed to trial on the narrow question of how much, if any, damages he will have to pay the plaintiffs in the case.... Judge Howell's decision came a little more than a month after Mr. Giuliani conceded in two stipulations in the case that he had made false statements when he accused the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, of manipulating ballots while working at the State Farm Arena for the Fulton County Board of Elections.... But Judge Howell, complaining that Mr. Giuliani's stipulations 'hold more holes than Swiss cheese,' took the proactive step of declaring him liable for 'defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy and punitive damage claims.'" Politico's report is here.

Paul Duggan of the Washington Post: Federal Judge Amit Mehta "ruled Wednesday that Peter Navarro, a Trump White House adviser charged with criminal contempt of Congress, cannot argue to a jury that he was barred by executive privilege from providing testimony and documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Navarro, who has written and spoken extensively about his role in efforts to reverse ... Donald Trump's 2020 election defeat, is set to go on trial in the contempt case next week in U.S. District Court in Washington.... Navarro has produced nothing in writing from Trump [claiming to invoke executive privilege], nor has Trump publicly corroborated his account." MB: Trump lies about everything; why not lie for Navarro?

Frank Thorp of NBC News: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze again Wednesday, this time during a gaggle with reporters in Covington, Kentucky, stopping for more than 30 seconds after he was asked if he would run for re-election.... When it became apparent that McConnell had frozen again on Wednesday, an aide came up to him and asked, 'Did you hear the question, senator?' McConnell continued to be unresponsive. Once McConnell re-engaged, he responded briefly to another question about Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican; his aide needed to repeat the question to him. McConnell was then asked about ... Donald Trump, another question that had to be repeated. McConnell brushed off the question because he does not usually engage in Trump-related topics." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Since Mitch has had these medical incidents twice in public, it's highly likely he has experienced others in private. Mitch and Sen. Dianne Feinstein should retire now.

It's Not Climate Change, It's a "Directed Energy Weapon." Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "As natural disasters and extreme environmental conditions became more commonplace around the world this summer, scientists pointed repeatedly to a shared driver: climate change. Conspiracy theorists pointed to anything but. Some claimed falsely that the record-smashing heat waves blistering parts of North America, Europe and Asia were normal, and that they had been sensationalized as part of a globalist hoax. Others made up tales that cloud-seeding airplanes or a nearby dam, rather than torrential rains, had caused the unusually intense flooding in northern Italy (and in places like Vermont and Rwanda).... Social media that racked up millions of views blamed the [Maui] blaze on a 'directed energy weapon' (the evidence: years-old footage not recorded in Hawaii).... Sometimes, 'the conspiracy theories] are amplified by top politicians and pundits -- the Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, for example, called climate change a 'hoax' during the first primary debate last week.... Deniers [describe scientific climate theory] as a tyrannical control tactic -- an effort to relocate rural residents to cities to be better monitored, to compel people to isolate indoors or to force a shift to renewable energy by sabotaging the fossil fuel industry."

Arizona. Jen Fifeld of the Arizona Mirror: "Maricopa County Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman ... told a judge ... he remembers the years of harassment against him[, his family] and his colleagues ... propelled by lies about the fairness of the county's [2020] presidential election.... Behind him at the defendant's table as he spoke sat Mark Rissi of Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- one of many who had threatened him. A few days after the release of the results of the partisan 'audit' of the county's 2020 election, in September 2021, Rissi called Hickman's office phone and accused him of lying about the fairness of the election, told him he was going to die, and said 'we're going to hang you.' He called former Attorney General Mark Brnovich a few months later with a similar threat. U.S. District Judge Dominic W. Lanza on Monday sentenced Rissi, 65, to two-and-a-half years in prison and three years of probation after Rissi pleaded guilty to two counts of making interstate threats.... On Monday, Rissi told the judge he was remorseful..., [but Lanza reminded him that when the FBI interviewed him in June 2022, he said] he 'didn't want anyone to be lynched or hanged illegally, but a lot of people still need to be hanged.'"

Tennessee. That Went Well. Erin McCullough of WKRN (Nashville): "The special session of the Tennessee General Assembly ended in chaos, including pushing and shoving between lawmakers and shouting from the public. Republican lawmakers rammed through an adjournment of the House sine die before Rep. Justin Jones could officially call for a vote of no confidence of Speaker Cameron Sexton. Shortly after the House was gaveled out, a situation between Rep. Justin Pearson and Sexton broke out before lawmakers swarmed both men to separate them." ~~~

     ~~~ Kimberlee Kruesi & Jonathan Matisse of the AP: "Tennessee lawmakers on Tuesday abruptly ended a special session initially touted to improve public safety in the wake of a deadly elementary school shooting, but it quickly unraveled into chaos over the past week as the GOP-dominant Statehouse refused to take up gun control measures and instead spent most of the time ensnared in political infighting.... Ultimately, lawmakers could only agree to pass four bills, which in part encourage but don't require using safe gun storage devices; require an annual human trafficking report; add the governor's existing order on background checks into state law; and increase funding for mental health and K-12 and higher education safety initiatives. Only a few gun control measures fell within the session's narrow parameters, and those were rejected without debate."

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Sheryl Stolberg & Rebecca Robbins of the New York Times: "The Biden administration on Tuesday announced the first 10 medicines that will be subject to price negotiations with Medicare, kicking off a landmark program that is expected to reduce the government's drug spending but is being fought by the pharmaceutical industry in court. The medications on the list are taken by millions of older Americans and cost Medicare billions of dollars annually. The drugs were selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services through a process that prioritized medications that account for the highest Medicare spending, have been on the market for years and do not yet face competition from rivals.... Medicare gained the authority to negotiate the price of some prescription medicines when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last year, a signature legislative achievement for the president.... Republicans in Congress opposed authorizing Medicare to negotiate prices, criticizing the move as tantamount to imposing government price controls.... Polling ... has found broad, bipartisan public support for allowing Medicare to negotiate prices." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Tami Luhby of CNN: The drugs on the list "are: Eliquis, Jardiance, Xarelto, Januvia, Farxiga, Entresto, Enbrel, Imbruvica, Stelara, and Fiasp and certain other insulins made by Novo Nordisk, including NovoLog." (Also linked yesterday.)

Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Four criminal indictments of Donald Trump have ignited his followers and spurred his House Republican allies to try to use the upcoming government funding deadline of Sept. 30 as leverage to undermine the prosecutions.... Special counsel Jack Smith's office is funded by a 'permanent, indefinite appropriation for independent counsels,' the [Justice D]epartment said in its statement of expenditures. Given its separate funding source, the special counsel would not be affected by a shutdown and could run off of allocations from previous years. As a result, Republicans are looking at ways to insert provisions in government funding legislation that would hinder federal and state prosecutors who have secured indictments of Trump, based on unproven claims that he's being politically targeted.... Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a Trump ally who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said Monday he will introduce two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump's prosecutors -- Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. His office said the measures would block their prosecutorial authority over 'any major presidential candidate prior to' the 2024 election." (Also linked yesterday.)

Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Many witnesses who spoke with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots have indicated that former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was repeatedly inebriated in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Now sources are telling Rolling Stone that special counsel Jack Smith may use these alleged instances of inebriation to undermine ... Donald Trump's ... expected [defense that he was] following the best advice of his attorneys. 'In their questioning of multiple witnesses, Smith's team of federal investigators have asked questions about how seemingly intoxicated Giuliani was during the weeks he was giving Trump advice on how to cling to power,' the publication writes. 'The special counsel's team has also asked these witnesses if Trump had ever gossiped with them about Giuliani's drinking habits, and if Trump had ever claimed Giuliani's drinking impacted his decision making or judgment. Federal investigators have inquired about whether the then-president was warned, including after Election Night 2020, about Giuliani's allegedly excessive drinking.'... In other words, if Trump were knowingly taking legal advice from a drunken Giuliani, it would hurt claims that he was solely seeking the best sober-minded legal advice available to him rather than just cherry-picking the advice of people who told him only what he wanted to hear." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Giuliani's propensity to hit the bottle hardly would be a surprise to Trump. As Martin Pengelly of the Guardian reported August 24, "Depressed and drinking to excess after the failure of his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Rudy Giuliani secretly recovered at the Florida home of ... Donald Trump. 'We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,' Giuliani's third wife, Judith Giuliani, says in a new book.... Reports of [Giuliani's] drinking while fulfilling his late-career role as Trump's personal attorney are legion, whether regarding his behavior around reporters or in his presence at the White House on election night in 2020, when he exhorted Trump to declare victory before all results were counted. In testimony to the House January 6 committee, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said Giuliani was 'definitely intoxicated' that night."

Ella Lee of the Hill: "Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked a Georgia judge Tuesday to expedite the cases of all 19 defendants charged in a sweeping racketeering case over interference in the state's 2020 election. After defendant Kenneth Chesebro demanded a speedy trial in the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set his trial date for Oct. 23, four months sooner than the date Willis had originally proposed.... Willis said Tuesday that her office maintains its position that 'severance is improper at this juncture and that all Defendants should be tried together' -- a position she has held since announcing charges earlier this month. 'At an absolute minimum, the Court should set Defendant Powell's trial and that of any other defendant who may file a speedy trial demand on the same date as Defendant Chesebro's,' Willis said." (Also linked yesterday.)

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Harrison William Prescott Floyd, a supporter of Donald J. Trump's who was indicted along with the former president in the Georgia election interference case, was granted a $100,000 bond on Tuesday, the last of the 19 defendants in the case to reach a bond agreement. While the other defendants named in the indictment, including Mr. Trump, made only brief visits to an Atlanta jail in recent days to be booked, Mr. Floyd, 39, who once led a group called Black Voices for Trump, spent a number of days at the jail after turning himself in last Thursday, apparently because he showed up to his booking without a lawyer. As of Tuesday evening, Fulton County inmate records showed that Mr. Floyd had not yet been released."

Very Helpful! Zoe Richard & Lawrence Hurley of NBC News: "John Eastman, a Trump-allied lawyer indicted in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, is among more than 100 of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' former law clerks defending Thomas' integrity in an open letter. The undated letter, which appears to be in response to the fallout from a bombshell ProPublica article about lavish trips taken by Thomas and funded by a billionaire GOP donor, calls Thomas' character 'unimpeachable.'" Also signing on: John Yoo, the torture-memos author.

Aliza Chasen of CBS News: "Canada updated its international travel advisory on Tuesday to warn LGBTQ+ travelers of laws and policies in some U.S. states.... While the advisory doesn't dive into specific U.S. states or policies, a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson pointed to laws passed in the U.S. this year banning drag shows, restricting gender-affirming care and blocking participation in sporting events. The American Civil Liberties Union is currently tracking 495 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S." MB: Yes, the U.S. is a dangerous country to visit. But, hey, were not quite Uganda!

Emma Brown & Peter Jamison of the Washington Post: “On a private call with Christian millionaires, home-schooling pioneer Michael Farris pushed for a strategy aimed at siphoning billions of tax dollars from public schools[.]... [Farris's] solution: lawsuits alleging that schools' teachings about gender identity and race are unconstitutional, leading to a Supreme Court decision that would mandate the right of parents to claim billions of tax dollars for private education or home schooling.... The 50-minute recording, whose details Farris did not dispute..., is a remarkable demonstration of how the ideology he has long championed has moved from the partisan fringe to the center of the nation's bitter debates over public education." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. See also his comment & others in yesterday's thread. (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2024

Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: “Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is ending his long-shot 2024 presidential campaign less than three months after he launched it.... Suarez, the only Hispanic candidate in the GOP nominating contest, launched his campaign in mid-June, later than most of his now-former rivals. Last week, he failed to qualify for the first Republican debate after falling short of the necessary polling requirements."

Vaughn Hillyard of NBC News: "Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said Tuesday that his office is figuring out how to handle potential complaints over whether ... Donald Trump should be disqualified from appearing on the 2024 ballot. The issue centers on the 14th Amendment, which prohibits people who have 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion' from holding public office. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson raised the theory at last week's GOP presidential debate that Trump's conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, might disqualify him on those grounds -- a theory that has gained traction among some legal scholars, though others discount the possibility.... New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan is dealing with the same question...."

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Michigan. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "The Michigan Republican Party is starving for cash. A group of prominent activists -- including a former statewide candidate -- was hit this month with felony charges connected to a bizarre plot to hijack election machines. And in the face of these troubles, suspicion and infighting have been running high. A recent state committee meeting led to a fistfight, a spinal injury and a pair of shattered dentures. This turmoil is one measure of the way Donald J. Trump's lies about the 2020 election ... [broke] the state party into ardent believers and pragmatists wanting to move on. Bitter disputes, power struggles and contentious primaries followed, leaving the Michigan Republican Party a husk of itself.... [The election-denying candidates] were resoundingly defeated [in 2022].... Republicans across the state were left pointing fingers." (Also linked yesterday.)

Wisconsin. Scott Bauer of the AP: "The conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday told the new liberal majority in a scathing email that they had staged a 'coup' and conducted an 'illegal experiment' when they voted to weaken her powers and fire the director of state courts. Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, in two emails obtained by The Associated Press, said that firing and hiring a new state court director was illegal and ordered interim state court director Audrey Skwierawski to stop signing orders without her knowledge or approval. 'You are making a mess of the judiciary, the court and the institution for years to come,' Ziegler wrote to her fellow justices and Skwierawski. 'This must stop. ... I have no confidence in the recent hostile takeover and the chaotic effect it has had on the court, staff, and the overall stable functioning of the courts.'" MB: The good news: Ziegler won the National Worst Boss prize for August.

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Russia. Valerie Hopkins of the New York Times: "Even in death, the movements of Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Russian mercenary boss, were the subject of intense interest, contradictory reporting and cultivated confusion. Speculation about where Mr. Prigozhin would be buried on Tuesday ricocheted around news media and channels on the Telegram messaging app, including those considered close to the Russian security services. There were reports (true) of increased security presence and barriers erected at several cemeteries around his hometown, St. Petersburg, and other reports (false) of hearses and a funeral cortege. The fog of misinformation was so dense that a joke spread on social media calling it a 'special funeral operation,' a pun on the Kremlin's term for the war in Ukraine, 'special military operation.' Then, at about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, came the announcement from his company's press service that Mr. Prigozhin had been buried around 1 p.m., with a small group of people in attendance, at the Porokhovskoye Cemetery in the eastern part of St. Petersburg."

News Ledes

Weather.com: "Hurricane Idalia is rapidly intensifying over the Gulf of Mexico, headed for a Florida Gulf Coast landfall Wednesday with catastrophic, life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds and flooding rain. Parts of south Georgia and the Carolinas will also see significant impacts from Idalia, including damaging winds, flooding rain and tornadoes." ~~~

     ~~~ Weather.com Update: "The center of Idalia came ashore near Keaton Beach at 7:45 a.m. EDT with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, making it a strong Category 3. This preliminarily ties as the strongest hurricane landfall on record in Florida's Big Bend region." ~~~

     ~~~ Weather.com Update 2: "People are being rescued from their homes, bridges are closed and evacuation orders remain in place after Hurricane Idalia slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast this morning. The storm is over land bringing heavy rain and other impacts to parts of Georgia and South Carolina."

The Conversation -- August 29, 2023

Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "Many witnesses who spoke with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots have indicated that former Trump lawyer [link fixed] Rudy Giuliani was repeatedly inebriated in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Now sources are telling Rolling Stone that special counsel Jack Smith may use these alleged instances of inebriation to undermine ... Donald Trump's ... expected [defense that he was] following the best advice of his attorneys. 'In their questioning of multiple witnesses, Smith's team of federal investigators have asked questions about how seemingly intoxicated Giuliani was during the weeks he was giving Trump advice on how to cling to power,' the publication writes. 'The special counsel's team has also asked these witnesses if Trump had ever gossiped with them about Giuliani's drinking habits, and if Trump had ever claimed Giuliani's drinking impacted his decision making or judgment. Federal investigators have inquired about whether the then-president was warned, including after Election Night 2020 about Giuliani's allegedly excessive drinking.'... In other words, if Trump were knowingly taking legal advice from a drunken Giuliani, it would hurt claims that he was solely seeking the best sober-minded legal advice available to him rather than just cherry-picking the advice of people who told him only what he wanted to hear." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Giuliani's propensity to hit the bottle hardly would be a surprise to Trump. As Martin Pengelly of the Guardian reported August 24, "Depressed and drinking to excess after the failure of his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Rudy Giuliani secretly recovered at the Florida home of ... Donald Trump. 'We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,' Giuliani's third wife, Judith Giuliani, says in a new book.... Reports of [Giuliani's] drinking while fulfilling his late-career role as Trump's personal attorney are legion, whether regarding his behavior around reporters or in his presence at the White House on election night in 2020, when he exhorted Trump to declare victory before all results were counted. In testimony to the House January 6 committee, Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said Giuliani was 'definitely intoxicated' that night."

Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Four criminal indictments of Donald Trump have ignited his followers and spurred his House Republican allies to try to use the upcoming government funding deadline of Sept. 30 as leverage to undermine the prosecutions.... Special counsel Jack Smith's office is funded by a 'permanent, indefinite appropriation for independent counsels,' the [Justice D]epartment said in its statement of expenditures. Given its separate funding source, the special counsel would not be affected by a shutdown and could run off of allocations from previous years. As a result, Republicans are looking at ways to insert provisions in government funding legislation that would hinder federal and state prosecutors who have secured indictments of Trump, based on unproven claims that he's being politically targeted.... Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a Trump ally who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said Monday he will introduce two amendments to eliminate federal funding for all three of Trump's prosecutors -- Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. His office said the measures would block their prosecutorial authority over 'any major presidential candidate prior to' the 2024 election."

Ella Lee of the Hill: "Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked a Georgia judge Tuesday to expedite the cases of all 19 defendants charged in a sweeping racketeering case over interference in the state's 2020 election. After defendant Kenneth Chesebro demanded a speedy trial in the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set his trial date for Oct. 23, four months sooner than the date Willis had originally proposed.... Willis said Tuesday that her office maintains its position that 'severance is improper at this juncture and that all Defendants should be tried together' -- a position she has held since announcing charges earlier this month. 'At an absolute minimum, the Court should set Defendant Powell's trial and that of any other defendant who may file a speedy trial demand on the same date as Defendant Chesebro's,' Willis said."

Michigan. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "The Michigan Republican Party is starving for cash. A group of prominent activists -- including a former statewide candidate -- was hit this month with felony charges connected to a bizarre plot to hijack election machines. And in the face of these troubles, suspicion and infighting have been running high. A recent state committee meeting led to a fistfight, a spinal injury and a pair of shattered dentures. This turmoil is one measure of the way Donald J. Trump's lies about the 2020 election ... [broke] the state party into ardent believers and pragmatists wanting to move on. Bitter disputes, power struggles and contentious primaries followed, leaving the Michigan Republican Party a husk of itself.... [The election-denying candidates] were resoundingly defeated [in 2022].... Republicans across the state were left pointing fingers."

Sheryl Stolberg & Rebecca Robbins of the New York Times: "The Biden administration on Tuesday announced the first 10 medicines that will be subject to price negotiations with Medicare, kicking off a landmark program that is expected to reduce the government's drug spending but is being fought by the pharmaceutical industry in court. The medications on the list are taken by millions of older Americans and cost Medicare billions of dollars annually. The drugs were selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services through a process that prioritized medications that account for the highest Medicare spending, have been on the market for years and do not yet face competition from rivals.... Medicare gained the authority to negotiate the price of some prescription medicines when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last year, a signature legislative achievement for the president.... Republicans in Congress opposed authorizing Medicare to negotiate prices, criticizing the move as tantamount to imposing government price controls.... Polling ... has found broad, bipartisan public support for allowing Medicare to negotiate prices." ~~~

     ~~~ Tami Luhby of CNN: The drugs on the list "are: Eliquis, Jardiance, Xarelto, Januvia, Farxiga, Entresto, Enbrel, Imbruvica, Stelara, and Fiasp and certain other insulins made by Novo Nordisk, including NovoLog."

Emma Brown & Peter Jamison of the Washington Post: "On a private call with Christian millionaires, home-schooling pioneer Michael Farris pushed for a strategy aimed at siphoning billions of tax dollars from public schools[.]... [Farris's] solution: lawsuits alleging that schools' teachings about gender identity and race are unconstitutional, leading to a Supreme Court decision that would mandate the right of parents to claim billions of tax dollars for private education or home schooling.... The 50-minute recording, whose details Farris did not dispute..., is a remarkable demonstration of how the ideology he has long championed has moved from the partisan fringe to the center of the nation's bitter debates over public education." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. See also his comment & others in today's thread.

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The Trials of Trump

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump and his campaign Monday lashed out at the federal judge overseeing his trial in Washington, D.C., over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election shortly after she scheduled his trial to begin for March. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set Trump's D.C. trial for March 4 after special counsel Jack Smith's team asked for a Jan. 2 trial date. Trump's team suggested a trial date in April 2026, well beyond the presidential election. 'Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!' Trump wrote on Truth Social, repeating his claim that his numerous legal problems amount to 'election interference' as he runs for a second White House term. Trump's team is likely to file motions and attempt to delay the trial, though the date itself cannot directly be appealed.... 'From setting a trial date for the day before 'Super Tuesday' to sending a fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County, the Biden regime is no longer hiding its nakedly political motivations,' [a campaign] statement said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe the "campaign" didn't notice that the Trump campaign sent out at least one "fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County" and that it continues to try to fund-raise off Trump's indictment & mugshot.

Judge Picks World Obesity Day, Super Tuesday Eve for Trump Trial. From a CNN liveblog on the trials of Trump: "... Donald Trump will go to trial in March 4, 2024, on charges alleging he worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan said Monday." Thanks to Forrest M. for the obesity thing. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The federal judge overseeing ... Donald J. Trump's prosecution on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election set a trial date on Friday for early March, laying out a schedule that was close to the government's initial request of January and that rebuffed Mr. Trump's extraordinary proposal to push off the proceeding until nearly a year and half after the 2024 election. The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, issued at a contentious hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, to start the trial on March 4 potentially brought it into conflict with two other trials that Mr. Trump is facing that month. The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on the same day. A second trial in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up the 2016 election, is set to go to trial on March 25. While Judge Chutkan noted that she had already spoken to the judge in the Manhattan case, the fact that three of the four criminal cases confronting Mr. Trump could go before separate juries in separate cities within weeks of one another reflects the extraordinary nature of the former president's legal situation....

"In remarks from the bench, Judge Chutkan ... played down arguments made by Mr. Trump's lawyers that they needed until April 2026 to prepare for the trial given the voluminous amount of discovery they will have to sort through. The judge also noted that ... she was not going to let the intersection of his legal troubles and his political campaign get in the way of setting a date. Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,' Judge Chutkan said, adding that 'there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ From the CNN liveblog also linked above: "Federal prosecutor Molly Gaston said during Monday's hearing in Washington, DC, that it was important to take the special counsel's election subversion case against ... Donald Trump to trial as soon as possible in part because of Trump's social media posts. 'On a near daily basis, the defendant posts on social media about this case,' Gaston said. Gaston also sought to use some of Trump's attorney John Lauro's own public statements in her arguments. Despite his complaints earlier in the hearing about the time it would take to go through the material, Lauro previously called the prosecution a 'regurgitation' of the House select committee's investigation in an interview after the indictment was first unsealed." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Reporters on MSNBC say Judge Chutkan repeatedly asked Lauro to propose a date more reasonable than 2026 and he refused to do so. Lauro also made his arguments in such an excited manner that Judge Chutkan twice told him to "take the temperature down." Neal Katyal, speaking on MSNBC, said it seemed as if Lauro was looking for a "My Cousin Vinnie" moment but didn't get it.

Ryan Nobles & Dara Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump criticized special counsel Jack Smith's office after a report that a member of Smith's team had a pre-indictment meeting at the White House earlier this year -- but a source told NBC News the meeting was with a career White House staffer and not, as Trump claims, a sitdown to get Biden administration approval for criminal charges. 'It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING,' Trump wrote Monday on his social media platform.... 'If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they "knew nothing,"' Trump added. Trump was referring to a New York Post report on Saturday that said Jay Bratt, the Justice Department's top counterintelligence official, had a meeting at the White House on March 31 with Caroline Saba, who was then deputy chief of staff for the White House Counsel's office. They were also joined by an FBI field agent, the report said.... A source directly familiar with the meeting told NBC News that Saba had facilitated a meeting between Bratt -- a key investigator in the documents case -- and a career White House official who was in the same position in the Trump administration as well." (Also linked yesterday.)

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "... Mr. Trump has made no secret in private conversations with his aides of his desire to solve his jumble of legal problems by winning the election. If either of the two federal trials he is confronting is delayed until after the race and Mr. Trump prevails, he could seek to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general simply dismiss the matters altogether."

Willfully Crazy After All These Years. Burt Neuborne in a New York Times op-ed: Jack "Smith isn't merely charging [Donald Trump] with lying; he is contending that Mr. Trump lied to gain an unlawful benefit -- a second term in office after voters showed him the exit. That kind of speech-related behavior falls comfortably within what the justices call 'categorical exceptions' to the First Amendment like true threats, incitements, obscenity, depictions of child sexual abuse, fighting words, libel, fraud and speech incident to criminal conduct.... [However, the prosecution would have difficulty proving Mr. Trump knew he was lying. Thus, the way to present Trump's lies is to rely on] the Supreme Court's doctrine of willful blindness. A dozen years ago, in the case of Global-Tech Appliances v. SEB, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for all but one justice, ruled that proof of willful blindness is the legal equivalent of proving guilty knowledge.... When a defendant, like Mr. Trump, is on notice of the potential likelihood of an inconvenient fact (Mr. Biden's legitimate victory) and closes his eyes to overwhelming evidence of that fact, the willfully blind defendant is just as guilty as if he actually knew the fact."

MEANWHILE, in Georgia. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "A battle over whether to move the Georgia racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies to federal court began in earnest on Monday, when Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, testified in favor of such a move before a federal judge in Atlanta. Under questioning by his own lawyers and by prosecutors, Mr. Meadows stated emphatically that he believed that his actions detailed in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff. But he also appeared unsure of himself at times, saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021.... Monday's hearing marked a dramatic inflection point in the case: Mr. Meadows, one of the highest-profile defendants, faced Fulton County prosecutors for the first time. [Georgia Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger recounted the threats against him, his wife and election workers after Mr. Trump made unfounded allegations about Georgia voter fraud. And Mr. Trump's distinctive voice filled the courtroom as prosecutors played snippets of the Jan. 2 call." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters suggest a couple of advantages Meadows may see in moving his case from Georgia to federal court. Speaking on MSNBC, former federal prosecutor Paul Butler mentioned another one: if the case moves to federal court, it will not be televised as it mostly likely would be in state court. ~~~

~~~ From the CNN liveblog: "Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is fleshing out how his daily activities were all part of his role as chief of staff -- a crucial point that his' legal team is trying to argue to show his post-2020 election activities were part of his official duties. 'I would get invited to almost every meeting that the president had,' Meadows testified in Monday's Georgia hearing.... Meadows said that, at times, he was a principal player in the meetings, while other times he was more of an observer.... 'There was a political component to certainly everything we did,' he said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ It Was Just a Christmas Vacation! The Washington Post's live updates of the Trump trials are here: "At a ... hearing in Atlanta, Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been testifying for hours about Trump's efforts to reverse Joe Biden's victory in Georgia; the purpose of that hearing is to see if Meadows can move his state-level indictment to federal court.... Meadows was repeatedly pressed by prosecutors on why he visited a suburban Atlanta facility where Georgia officials were auditing ballot signatures. Meadows insisted he traveled there on his own volition as a chief of staff because he was already in Georgia visiting his two children for Christmas.... Meadows insisted it did not cross the line into campaign or political work for the Trump campaign and said he only communicated with Trump and White House lawyers about it....

"Meadows claimed that Donald Trump's effort to find fraud in the 2020 election took a small fraction of Meadows's time, with many other enormous tasks on his plate.... Meadows also said a large part of his job as White House chief of staff was setting up phone calls and managing the president's calendar. He said he attended numerous meetings and listened in on many phone calls that were political in nature simply to end the conversations at the right time....

"On several occasions, Mark Meadows claimed to have no knowledge of the Trump campaign's efforts to contest the election results. On Donald Trump's phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, which Meadows participated in, he said he did not kno that three lawyers on the call -- Cleta Mitchell, Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman -- had participated in a campaign lawsuit against Raffensperger.... When questioned about an Oval Office meeting he attended with Trump and Michigan state lawmakers, Meadows said he didn't know that the campaign was contesting the results in that state." MB: Totally believable, Mark. You testify for three hours that it's your job as COS to know everything, you testify that the only reason you went to a signature verification audit near Atlanta was that you read about it in the papers and it was something to do on your Christmas vacation. You claim you had no idea the lawyers on the perfect call were campaign lawyers who had filed a suit against Raffensperger, then -- according to Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC -- you also testified the purpose of the call was to reach a settlement of the suit against Raffensperger and according to the transcript of the call, you discussed "the lawsuit" during the call. IOW, you have already contradicted yourself under oath, even before the trial phase of the proceedings. Doesn't look good, Mark. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ From Monday's CNN liveblog: "The all-day hearing on former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' request to move the Georgia election interference case to federal court in Atlanta has concluded. US District Judge Steve Jones did not rule from the bench on Monday. He acknowledged that arraignments in the criminal case were scheduled for September 6, and said he would rule as quickly as possible....

"Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has taken the stand in Mark Meadows' court hearing. He was called as a witness by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.... Before his testimony concluded, Raffensperger testified that he believed his January 2021 call with Donald Trump was held on behalf of Trump's campaign -- undercutting Meadows' argument that it was part of his role as a federal official....

     ~~~ According to Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, Raffensperger also testified he had no reason to believe a settlement was the purpose of the call (as Meadows claimed under oath), and settlement was not discussed during the call.

"Mark Meadows testified Monday that ... Donald Trump's January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was Meadows' attempt to resolve Trump's concerns about voter fraud and 'land the plane' on the 'whole transfer of power. to Joe Biden. Trump's concerns about voter fraud were a 'roadblock' to the transfer of power, Meadows said. Therefore, Meadows said he tried to get this off the former president's list of concerns by getting on the phone with Raffensperger.... [Meadows] was on the stand for roughly 3 1/2 hours....

"Meadows denied one of the allegations in the indictment, saying he 'did not ask' Trump White House aide John McEntee to write a memo about how to disrupt the certification of the election on January 6, 2021. Meadows was pressed by prosecutors on how the federal government had a role in a state's determination of its election results. 'There is a role for the chief of staff to make sure those campaign goals and objectives are implemented at the federal level,' Meadows testified." (Also linked yesterday.)

Devan Cole of CNN: "The federal judge overseeing Peter Navarro's contempt of Congress criminal case on Monday called his defense arguments 'pretty weak sauce.'... Navarro, Trump's one-time trade adviser, testified Monday in his defense during a key pre-trial hearing in his case. He's facing charges for defying subpoenas issued to him by the House select committee..., claiming he did so because Trump asserted executive privilege in the matter. But during the nearly three-hour hearing before US District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, DC, the judge appeared highly skeptical of Navarro's testimony.... 'I still don't know what the president said,' Mehta told Navarro's attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to a February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege.... Navarro says Trump [commented] to him about regretting not letting him testify. The comment had been used by Navarro and his team to bolster their argument that Trump did invoke privilege because his subsequent regret indicated as much. 'The record is barren, there is nothing here, even after your client's testimony,' Mehta told Woodward." (Also linked yesterday.)

Sam Fossum of CNN: "The Biden administration made its most detailed argument to date on the benefits of organized labor with a potential autoworkers' strike looming as negotiations between the United Auto Workers and auto companies continue and the president works to convince Americans to support his 'Bidenomics' vision. The report, which Vice President Kamala Harris delivered to the president, comes days after the UAW union approved possible strikes at the country's automakers next month if a deal can't be reached with management as they work to win back many concessions that were made over 15 years ago. The UAW, which backed Biden in 2020, has yet to say whether they will endorse the current president, saying their members still need to see more from Biden before lending him their support.... The new government report, released Monday by the US Treasury, shows the administration's argument that labor unions provide beneficial spillover effects to non-unionized workers and the broader economy, as well as help tackle challenges faced by many middle-class Americans, such as stagnant wages and high housing costs.... Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is a labor economist by training, highlighted the findings of the report and said that they serve as a case against the argument that labor unions stifle economic growth and productivity."

Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: "For months, as thousands of migrants seeking asylum have arrived in New York City, local officials have pleaded for Washington to intervene, urging the White House to help stem a spiraling humanitarian crisis that has strained city resources. On Monday, the Biden administration offered its most substantive response yet, but hardly the one that city officials wanted. Instead of granting the most pressing requests for assistance, the administration sought to question the city's handling of the crisis. In letters to city and state officials, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, said the federal government had identified 'structural and operational issues' in the city's response to the crisis, suggesting about two dozen recommendations 'to strengthen the city's migrant operations.'" Politico's story is here.

The Arrogance of the Tech Bros. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "If you regularly follow debates about public policy, especially those involving wealthy tech bros, it's obvious that there's a strong correlation among the three Cs: climate denial, Covid vaccine denial and cryptocurrency cultism.... The link between climate and vaccine denial is clear. In both cases you have a scientific consensus based on models and statistical analysis.... To value the scientific consensus, in other words, you have to have some respect for the whole enterprise of research and understand how scientists reach the conclusions they do.... Success all too easily feeds the belief that you're smarter than anyone else...; this kind of arrogance may be especially rife among tech types who got rich by defying conventional wisdom.... Underlying the whole crypto phenomenon is the belief by some tech types that they can invent a better monetary system than the one we currently have, all without talking to any monetary experts or learning any monetary history.... Anti-vax agitation and crypto enthusiasm are both aspects of a broader rise of know-nothingism, one whose greatest strength lies in an intellectually inbred community of very wealthy men."

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Colorado. Mike Ives of the New York Times: "The authorities in Denver approved a $4.7 million settlement on Monday for protesters who were detained for violating an emergency curfew during demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and later accused the police of using excessive force. The settlement, approved by the Denver City Council, resolves a class-action lawsuit filed by protesters against the consolidated city and county of Denver, which denies any liability or wrongdoing."

Florida. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post (Aug. 23): "Black students at a Florida elementary school were singled out and pulled from class for an assembly about how it was a 'problem' that they had performed poorly on their standardized tests.... The incident drew outrage from parents and prompted an investigation by the school district. Only Black fourth- and fifth-grade students at Bunnell Elementary School in Flagler County, Fla., [between St. Augustine & Jacksonville] were taken out of class ... for the assembly on how to improve their grades -- even students who had passing grades. Students were selected to attend based on their race.... Black teachers showed the students a typo-laden PowerPoint presentation titled, 'AA Presentation,' which noted how Black students had underperformed on standardized tests for the past three years. On the slide titled 'The Problem,' the school district identified Black students as 'AA,' or African Americans, in its assessment of their low overall scores, according to the presentation obtained by The Post.... As an incentive [to improve their scores], the students were promised meals from McDonald's...." MB: What? McDonalds? Not fried chicken & watermelon? Thanks to RAS for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Obviously, this is a story about racism. Less obviously perhaps, so are most or all of the other stories in today's links. Not all fascists are racists, but most are. Trump is both, and the 2020 election was all about racism. Joe Biden said the reason for his deciding to run for president was Trump's endorsement of the neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the Charlottesville demonstrations. After a long career in the private sector, during which he expressed racist views and racist business practices, Trump made his big political splash by leaning into the racist birther movement against President Obama. While president, he courted racists, and racism and xenophobia were the bases of his immigration policies against Mexicans, Muslims & people from "shithole countries."

     His challenges to the 2020 presidential results were centered on racism: all the places where Democrats cheated were in urban areas with large minority populations. The raison d'être of the Georgia case was the recorded call to the Georgia secretary of state: as the Washington Post reports, "During a call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, Trump repeatedly pressed the state's top election official to focus on metro Atlanta's Fulton County, [where minorities outnumber Whites and] where he alleged without evidence that votes had been 'shredded' and 'dumped.' 'You will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt,' Trump said, referring to the statewide margin of his loss to Joe Biden. Trump's campaign spread a false narrative that two Black Fulton County election workers -- Ruby Freeman and her adult daughter Shaye Moss -- had been key to the fraud. Trump has repeatedly attacked Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the charges against him and is Black, as 'so racist.'"

     We are still fighting the 19th-century Civil War, and white supremacists occupy every corner of our nation, not just the South. While there are economic, sociological and other tensions that permeate American politics, racism remains the dominant factor.

Ohio Voter Fraud! Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "A Trump-supporting tax attorney in Shaker Heights, Ohio [-- James Saunders --] has been sentenced to three years for illegally voting twice, reported the Cleveland Scene.... 'Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Andrew Santoli coupled Saunders' sentence with a $10,000 fine, a punishment, as Santoli detailed in last week's hearing, to match the severe violation against the nation's voting laws,' reported Mark Oprea.... According to prior reports, Santoli [MB: s/b Saunders] illegally cast ballots in both Ohio and Florida, first in the 2020 presidential election, then in the 2022 midterm election." MB: It sure is odd that almost all of the voter fraudsters I read about are Republicans. It looks as if, to the miniscule extent it exists, voter fraud has benefited Republican candidates, not Democratic office-seekers.

Tennessee. Andrew Jeong of the Washington Post: "The Tennessee House's Republican majority voted Monday to temporarily silence a Democratic lawmaker who is a member of the 'Tennessee Three,' after he expressed skepticism about a draft bill proposing to install armed police at schools even if those institutions had not adopted such a policy. During a legislative debate, Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) was questioning the effectiveness of a Republican-sponsored bill that proposed plans to have armed officers serve as school resource officers, or SROs, in every state public school.... House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) ... rul[ed] that Jones was out of order -- an offense under which a member can lose the right to speak in legislative debates, according to new rules adopted by the Republican-dominated Tennessee House.... The Tennessee House voted 70 to 20 along party lines to silence him. Members of the public watching from the session from the Capitol balcony shouted 'fascists' repeatedly in protest, as Sexton ordered law enforcement officials to clear them out." An AP story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: While legislative bodies and other organizations no doubt have a right to impose certain speech rules on their members -- like prohibiting obscenities, for instance, or imposing uniform time limits on floor speeches -- stilfling unpopular speech is antithetical to the purpose of an essential democratic institution like a house of representatives. Even if almost no one in Tennessee agreed with Jones' position, Republicans are depriving Jones' legislative district of equal representation. If voters in Jones' district don't like what he says, it's up to them -- not the legislature -- to vote him out and effectively shut him up. However, after House Republicans expelled Jones, he was overwhelming re-elected earlier this month. So, yes, fascists. Look away, look away, Dixieland.

News Ledes

Weather.com: "Idalia may rapidly intensify into a major hurricane by the time it makes landfall in Florida on Wednesday. Life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain are all expected in parts of Florida later Tuesday through Wednesday, spreading to the Southeast coast by Wednesday and Thursday." ~~~

     ~~~ Weather.com Update: "Hurricane Idalia is producing bands of heavy rain, gusty winds and coastal flooding in Florida as it continues to intensify over the Gulf of Mexico ahead of its likely landfall at Category 3 strength Wednesday morning. Catastrophic, life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds and heavy rain are all expected along portions of the west coast of Florida and the Florida Panhandle. Parts of south Georgia and the Carolinas will also see significant impacts from Idalia." ~~~

~~~ Weather.com Update 2: "Life-threatening and catastrophic impacts to the coastline are expected to persist for hours. Urban search and rescue teams have been deployed in Florida and National Guard units across the state are helping clear major roads and debris thrown around by the storm. 'There are as of now no confirmed fatalities,' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a press conference a few minutes ago."

New York Times: "A graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been charged in the fatal shooting of one of his professors on Monday, a killing that spread fear across the campus and forced an hourslong lockdown, according to court documents. The student, Tailei Qi, 34, was charged with first-degree murder and possession of a firearm on educational property in the killing of Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the applied physical sciences department, inside a campus lab, according to court documents filed in Orange County Court in Hillsborough, N.C."

The Conversation -- August 28, 2023

Florida. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post (Aug. 23): "Black students at a Florida elementary school were singled out and pulled from class for an assembly about how it was a 'problem' that they had performed poorly on their standardized tests.... The incident drew outrage from parents and prompted an investigation by the school district. Only Black fourth- and fifth-grade students at Bunnell Elementary School in Flagler County, Fla., [between St. Augustine & Jacksonville] were taken out of class ... for the assembly on how to improve their grades -- even students who had passing grades. Students were selected to attend based on their race.... Black teachers showed the students a typo-laden PowerPoint presentation titled, 'AA Presentation,' which noted how Black students had underperformed on standardized tests for the past three years. On the slide titled 'The Problem,' the school district identified Black students as 'AA,' or African Americans, in its assessment of their low overall scores, according to the presentation obtained by The Post.... As an incentive [to improve their scores], the students were promised meals from McDonald's...." MB: What? McDonald's? Not fried chicken & watermelon? Thanks to RAS for the lead.

Devan Cole of CNN: "The federal judge overseeing Peter Navarro's contempt of Congress criminal case on Monday called his defense arguments 'pretty weak sauce.'... Navarro, Trump's one-time trade adviser, testified Monday in his defense during a key pre-trial hearing in his case. He's facing charges for defying subpoenas issued to him by the House select committee..., claiming he did so because Trump asserted executive privilege in the matter. But during the nearly three-hour hearing before US District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, DC, the judge appeared highly skeptical of Navarro's testimony.... 'I still don't know what the president said,' Mehta told Navarro's attorney Stanley Woodward, referring to a February 20, 2022, call during which Navarro said it was made clear the former president was invoking executive privilege.... Navarro says Trump [commented] to him about regretting not letting him testify. The comment had been used by Navarro and his team to bolster their argument that Trump did invoke privilege because his subsequent regret indicated as much. 'The record is barren, there is nothing here, even after your client's testimony,' Mehta told Woodward."

Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump and his campaign Monday lashed out at the federal judge overseeing his trial in Washington, D.C., over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election shortly after she scheduled his trial to begin for March. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan set Trump's D.C. trial for March 4 after special counsel Jack Smith's team asked for a Jan. 2 trial date. Trump's team suggested a trial date in April 2026, well beyond the presidential election. 'Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!' Trump wrote on Truth Social, repeating his claim that his numerous legal problems amount to 'election interference' as he runs for a second White House term. Trump's team is likely to file motions and attempt to delay the trial, though the date itself cannot directly be appealed.... 'From setting a trial date for the day before "Super Tuesday" to sending a fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County, the Biden regime is no longer hiding its nakedly political motivations,' [a campaign] statement said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe the "campaign" didn't notice that the Trump campaign sent out at least one "fundraising email the moment of President Trump's processing in Fulton County" and that it continues to try to fundraise off Trump's indictment & mugshot.

Ryan Nobles & Dara Gregorian of NBC News: "... Donald Trump criticized special counsel Jack Smith's office after a report that a member of Smith's team had a pre-indictment meeting at the White House earlier this year -- but a source told NBC News the meeting was with a career White House staffer and not, as Trump claims, a sitdown to get Biden administration approval for criminal charges. 'It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING,' Trump wrote Monday on his social media platform.... 'If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they "knew nothing,"' Trump added. Trump was referring to a New York Post report on Saturday that said Jay Bratt, the Justice Department's top counterintelligence official, had a meeting at the White House on March 31 with Caroline Saba, who was then deputy chief of staff for the White House Counsel's office. They were also joined by an FBI field agent, the report said.... A source directly familiar with the meeting told NBC News that Saba had facilitated a meeting between Bratt -- a key investigator in the documents case -- and a career White House official who was in the same position in the Trump administration as well."

It Was Just a Christmas Vacation! The Washington Post's live updates of the Trump trials are here: "At a ... hearing in Atlanta, Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been testifying for hours about Trump's efforts to reverse Joe Biden's victory in Georgia; the purpose of that hearing is to see if Meadows can move his state-level indictment to federal court....Meadows was repeatedly pressed by prosecutors on why he visited a suburban Atlanta facility where Georgia officials were auditing ballot signatures. Meadows insisted he traveled there on his own volition as a chief of staff because he was already in Georgia visiting his two children for Christmas.... Meadows insisted it did not cross the line into campaign or political work for the Trump campaign and said he only communicated with Trump and White House lawyers about it....

"Meadows claimed that Donald Trump's effort to find fraud in the 2020 election took a small fraction of Meadows's time, with many other enormous tasks on his plate.... Meadows also said a large part of his job as White House chief of staff was setting up phone calls and managing the president's calendar. He said he attended numerous meetings and listened in on many phone calls that were political in nature simply to end the conversations a the right time....

"On several occasions, Mark Meadows claimed to have no knowledge of the Trump campaign's efforts to contest the election results. On Donald Trump's phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, on Jan. 2, 2021, which Meadows participated in, he said he did not know that three lawyers on the call -- Cleta Mitchell, Kurt Hilbert and Alex Kaufman -- had participated in a campaign lawsuit against Raffensperger.... When questioned about an Oval Office meeting he attended with Trump and Michigan state lawmakers, Meadows said he didn't know that the campaign was contesting the results in that state." MB: Totally believable. You testify for three hours that you have to know everything, you testify that the only reason you went to a signature verification audit near Atlanta was that you read about it in the papers. Yet you had no idea Trump & Co. had filed some 60 lawsuits & taken other actions contesting swing-state results in an effort to overturn the election. ~~~

     ~~~ From Monday's CNN liveblog: "The all-day hearing on former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' request to move the Georgia election interference case to federal court in Atlanta has concluded. US District Judge Steve Jones did not rule from the bench on Monday. He acknowledged that arraignments in the criminal case were scheduled for September 6, and said he would rule as quickly as possible....

"Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has taken the stand in Mark Meadows' court hearing. He was called as a witness by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.... Before his testimony concluded, Raffensperger testified that he believed his January 2021 call with Donald Trump was held on behalf of Trump's campaign -- undercutting Meadows' argument that it was part of his role as a federal official.

"Mark Meadows testified Monday that ... Donald Trump's January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was Meadows' attempt to resolve Trump's concerns about voter fraud and 'land the plane' on the 'whole transfer of power. to Joe Biden. Trump's concerns about voter fraud were a 'roadblock' to the transfer of power, Meadows said. Therefore, Meadows said he tried to get this off the former president's list of concerns by getting on the phone with Raffensperger.... [Meadows] was on the stand for roughly 3 1/2 hours....

"Meadows denied one of the allegations in the indictment, saying he 'did not ask' Trump White House aide John McEntee to write a memo about how to disrupt the certification of the election on January 6, 2021. Meadows was pressed by prosecutors on how the federal government had a role in a state's determination of its election results. 'There is a role for the chief of staff to make sure those campaign goals and objectives are implemented at the federal level,' Meadows testified."

Judge Picks World Obesity Day, Super Tuesday Eve for Trump Trial. From a CNN liveblog on the trials of Trump: "... Donald Trump will go to trial in March 4, 2024, on charges alleging he worked to overturn the 2020 presidential election, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan said Monday." MB: That's all there is. I'll get up a full story soon. P.S. Thanks to Forrest M. for the obesity thing. Update: Here we go: ~~~

~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The federal judge overseeing ... Donald J. Trump's prosecution on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election set a trial date on Friday for early March, laying out a schedule that was close to the government's initial request of January and that rebuffed Mr. Trump's extraordinary proposal to push off the proceeding until nearly a year and half after the 2024 election. The decision by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, issued at a contentious hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, to start the trial on March 4 potentially brought it into conflict with two other trials that Mr. Trump is facing that month. The district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has proposed taking Mr. Trump to trial on charges of tampering with the election in that state on the same day. A second trial in Manhattan, in which Mr. Trump has been accused of more than 30 felonies connected to hush-money payments to a porn actress in the run-up the 2016 election, is set to go to trial on March 25. While Judge Chutkan noted that she had already spoken to the judge in the Manhattan case, the fact that three of the four criminal cases confronting Mr. Trump could go before separate juries in separate cities within weeks of one another reflects the extraordinary nature of the former president's legal situation....

"In remarks from the bench, Judge Chutkan ... played down arguments made by Mr. Trump's lawyers that they needed until April 2026 to prepare for the trial given the voluminous amount of discovery they will have to sort through. The judge also noted that ... she was not going to let the intersection of his legal troubles and his political campaign get in the way of setting a date. Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule,' Judge Chutkan said, adding that 'there is a societal interest to a speedy trial.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Also from the CNN liveblog: "Federal prosecutor Molly Gaston said during Monday's hearing in Washington, DC, that it was important to take the special counsel's election subversion case against ... Donald Trump to trial as soon as possible in part because of Trump's social media posts. 'On a near daily basis, the defendant posts on social media about this case,' Gaston said. Gaston also sought to use some of Trump's attorney John Lauro's own public statements in her arguments. Despite his complaints earlier in the hearing about the time it would take to go through the material, Lauro previously called the prosecution a 'regurgitation' of the House select committee's investigation in an interview after the indictment was first unsealed." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Reporters on MSNBC say Judge Chutkan repeatedly asked Lauro to propose a date more reasonable than 2026 and he refused to do so. Lauro also made his arguments in such an excited manner that Judge Chutkan twice told him to "take the temperature down."

MEANWHILE, in Georgia: From the CNN liveblog: "Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is fleshing out how his daily activities were all part of his role as chief of staff -- a crucial point that his' legal team is trying to argue to show his post-2020 election activities were part of his official duties. 'I would get invited to almost every meeting that the president had,' Meadows testified in Monday's Georgia hearing.... Meadows said that, at times, he was a principal player in the meetings, while other times he was more of an observer.... 'There was a political component to certainly everything we did,' he said."

~~~~~~~~~~

     ~~~ Here's the full transcript of Dr. King's speech, via NPR. Here's the full audio:

Charles Kaiser of the Guardian on the March on Washington: "One hundred years after the civil war, the treatment of African Americans persisted as a gaping wound in the purported land of the free. Then, suddenly in the 1960s, the bleeding from lynchings, bombings, beatings and shootings finally had a seismic effect. It galvanized the noble group who made the 60s so electric: the nimble, passionate and utterly fearless Black and white citizens who banded together to rescue America's soul."

President Joe Biden in a Washington Post op-ed: "Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans marched on Washington for jobs and freedom. In describing his dream for us all, Dr. King spoke of redeeming the 'promissory note to which every American was to fall heir' derived from the very idea of America -- we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.... Each day of the Biden-Harris administration, we continue the march forward. That includes a fundamental break with trickle-down economics that promised prosperity but failed America, especially Black Americans, over the past several decades.... Vice President Harris and I came into office determined to change the economic direction of the country and grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. Our plan -- Bidenomics -- is working.... Black unemployment fell to a historic low this spring and remains near that level."

David Lynch of the Washington Post: "President Biden ... continues a remarkable break with decades of trade policy that spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations. Blending a tough-on-China stance with lavish federal subsidies for favored industries, the president is reshaping the U.S. approach to cross-border commerce to focus on the needs of Americans as workers rather than consumers. Left out of the president's strategy, to the irritation of many business groups, have been traditional trade deals, which gave American companies greater access to foreign markets in return for allowing producers in those countries to sell more goods in the United States. The White House says the old approach cost many American factory workers their jobs. The president, who counts labor unions among his strongest supporters, surprised some in the business community by retaining Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports after criticizing them during the 2020 campaign as 'erratic' and 'self-defeating.'... Biden's approach rejects the trade liberalization doctrine that held sway for nearly three decades after the Cold War's end."

The Trials of Trump

Perry Stein & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "Pretrial jousting is now officially underway in all four of [Donald] Trump's criminal cases -- a packed schedule of court dates that will play out uneasily alongside his campaign activities as the front-runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary race.... To help you keep track, here is a recap of what happened with the various cases last week, and what to watch for in the week ahead[.]" ~~~

~~~ Stephen Collinson of CNN: "Americans are about to learn significant new details on the timing and the substance of the trials of Donald Trump.... Two key hearings on Monday -- one in Georgia and one in Washington -- will take the drama over Trump's quadruple criminal indictments into a new phase, following the extraordinary scenes and political maneuvering that culminated in the release of Trump's booking mug shot last week. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will sketch the first substantive evidentiary arguments in any of the cases facing Trump in a hearing on ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' bid to get his state case moved to federal court.... At the same time in Washington, Judge Tanya Chutkan will hold a status hearing to consider dueling arguments by special counsel Jack Smith and Trump's defense team over the date for a trial in the federal investigation into Trump's alleged attempt to prevent now-President Joe Biden from taking office. Smith wants the trial to begin January 2 -- two weeks before Trump's first big test in the 2024 primary race in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. The ex-president's team has asked for much more time, and is proposing a date of April 2026." ~~~

~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Donald Trump's path to the GOP nomination is littered with court dates. He is a defendant in seven pending cases: four criminal prosecutions and three civil lawsuits. Starting this fall and continuing through the first half of 2024, he is likely to face a near-constant string of trials that will overlap, and perhaps overshadow, the primary calendar.... He is unlikely to attend his three civil trials, all of which are scheduled over the next six months. But he'll be required to be in court for his four criminal trials across four jurisdictions, and those could last for weeks at a time while voting is underway.... Here's a look at what we know about Trump's upcoming trials, the key variables that could shake them up and how they will intersect with the primaries, which begin in January."

Tal Axelrod of ABC News: "The most recent ABC News/Ipsos poll, conducted Aug. 15-17, showed some problems for ... Donald Trump in terms of public opinion on his mounting criminal charges amid his comeback bid for the White House. The poll, released after his fourth indictment, over efforts to reverse his 2020 loss in Georgia, shows that he's not getting the post-indictment bounce with Americans that he's been touting on the campaign trail."

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Florida. Aaron Morrison & Russ Bynum of the AP: "Hundreds of people gathered Sunday at prayer vigils and in church, in frustration and exhaustion, to mourn yet another racist attack in America: this one the killing of three Black people in Florida at the hands of a white, 21-year-old man who authorities say left behind white supremacist ramblings that read like 'the diary of a madman.' Following services earlier in the day, about 200 people showed up at a Sunday evening vigil a block from the Dollar General store in Jacksonville where officials said Ryan Palmeter opened fire Saturday using guns he bought legally despite a past involuntary commitment for a mental health exam. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis..., who has loosened gun laws in Florida and who has antagonized civil rights leaders by deriding 'wokeness' -- was loudly booed as he addressed the vigil." ~~~

~~~ President Joe Biden, in a statement, via the White House: "On Saturday, our nation marked the 60^th Anniversary of the March on Washington -- a seminal moment in our history and in our work towards equal opportunity for all Americans. But this day of remembrance and commemoration ended with yet another American community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus and carried out with two firearms.... We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin....Silence is complicity and we must not remain silent."

News Ledes

AP: "Tropical Storm Idalia was near the coast of Cuba Sunday on a potential track to come ashore as a hurricane in the southern U.S., the National Hurricane Center said. At 10 p.m. CDT Sunday, the storm was about 145 miles (235 kilometers) off the western tip of Cuba with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (95 kmh). The storm was stationary at the time, the hurricane center said.... Forecasters said they expected Idalia to become a hurricane on Tuesday in the Gulf of Mexico and then curve northeast toward the west coast of Florida."~~~

~~~ Weather.com Update: "T​ropical Storm Idalia may rapidly intensify into a major hurricane by the time it makes landfall in Florida on Wednesday. Life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain are all expected in parts of Florida later Tuesday through Wednesday, spreading to the Southeast coast by Wednesday and Thursday. If you live in an area prone to storm surge, be sure to follow the advice of local officials if evacuations are ordered. The latest on evacuations for Idalia can be found here."

New York Times: "An assailant fatally shot a faculty member in a laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday, forcing the campus into lockdown for several hours as students barricaded themselves in classrooms, dorms and bathrooms, the authorities said. Brian James, chief of the U.N.C. Police, said at a news conference on Monday evening that a suspect was taken into custody at 2:31 p.m., about 90 minutes after the police received a 911 call reporting that shots had been fired at Caudill Labs, a science building on campus. He did not name the suspect, saying that formal charges had not been filed. Chief James and Kevin M. Guskiewicz, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, did not name the faculty member who was killed, saying that relatives were still being notified. The police are continuing to investigate the killing and have not identified a motive or recovered the weapon that was used, the chief said. He declined to discuss what relationship, if any, the faculty member and the assailant might have had." An AP story is here.