Trump is making stuff up: "The radical left wants to ban a thing called gasoline"
atart17
@atart17.bsky.social
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BREAKING 🚨 🚨 🚨 Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought criminal charges against President Donald Trump, has been invited to testify Sept. 22 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to an invitation from Chair Chuck Grassley. www.politico.com/live-updates...
Jack Smith invited to testify before Senate next month
The Sept. 22 hearing would be the former special counsel’s second congressional appearance.
politico.com
Ukraine has now disabled 40% of Russia’s fuel refining capabilities, Politico reports.
Klobuchar: "More than six months after Renee and Alex's deaths when I asked Acting AG Blanche if the department would finally fully cooperate with state law enforcement in these investigations, he said 'it depends on what full cooperation means'...Minnesotans deserve transparency and accountability"
Whitehouse: "The last Q I'm left with is what's left of this committee? What's left when we don't demand straight answers? How many times has this DOJ been asked what became of the $50k the FBI reported it handed to Homan? ... our Republican colleagues see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil"
NEWS: Former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has endorsed Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) for re-election Flake: “I’m still a conservative Republican. But character matters. And I want someone in that seat who takes the institution seriously and will protect the institution.”
Last thing standing in way of Blanche’s confirmation now is votes of 3 key Rs Lisa Murkowski Susan Collins Bill Cassidy All voted to convict Trump re 1/6 Cassidy is retiring Collins needs Trump voters this fall but also indies / some Ds Murkowski was elected mostly by Ds/Is + R establishment $
Will Cassidy have a McCain thumb down moment? He faces a big choice this week. No Cabinet pick has been defeated on the floor since 1989 and only two in the last century.
Steven T. Dennis@steventdennis.bsky.social · 2d agoLast thing standing in way of Blanche’s confirmation now is votes of 3 key Rs Lisa Murkowski Susan Collins Bill Cassidy All voted to convict Trump re 1/6 Cassidy is retiring Collins needs Trump voters this fall but also indies / some Ds Murkowski was elected mostly by Ds/Is + R establishment $
What is truly "shocking" about the polling miss in Michigan is that it is completely average for a primary "The expected error on the margin between two primary candidates in a race for governor or U.S. Senate is a whopping 13.0 points." blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/2026-texas...
Do we really know who's leading the Texas Senate races?
Primary polls have historically been rather unreliable, and a surge in new primary voters means turnout assumptions matter more than usual
blog.fiftyplusone.news
|horses|@chemotaxis.bsky.social · 21h agoPolling is like really fucked. Strikes me as a huge problem honestly.
The payoff to Flynn was a forerunner of what Trump wanted to do with his $1.8B slush fund to pay insurrectionists who beat up cops at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Republicans are pretending that shameful idea is “dead,” but they could reinstate it after Todd Blanche gets confirmed as AG. 4/4🧵
How Cornyn and Tillis’ deal on Blanche falls short of their demands
Trump has already said the GOP senators didn’t get anything beyond what Todd Blanche had already said.
ms.now
After Trump lost in 2020, Flynn threatened a “shooting civil war” and urged Trump to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law so the military could conduct a new election. That’s the kind of person who got $1.25 million of your money. 3/4🧵
Michael Flynn calls for Trump to suspend the constitution and declare martial law to re-run election
‘Only then can the winning candidate be accepted as legitimate’
independent.co.uk
In December 2015, before Trump won the presidency and chose Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, Flynn took a $45,000 fee for giving a speech in Moscow at an event for RT, a state-controlled Russian “news” outlet. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sat beside him at the banquet. 2/4🧵
Russians paid Mike Flynn $45k for RT speech, documents show
The former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency earned more than $50,00 from giving speeches RT and two other Russian companies.
nbcnews.com
🧵🧵🧵 A scandal that hardly anyone knows happened is Trump giving traitor Michael Flynn $1.25 million in your tax money. Flynn, Trump’s 1st national security adviser, pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI but was pardoned by Trump. He sued, alleging "weaponization," and DOJ paid him in March. 1/4🧵
Justice Dept. Settles Flynn’s Wrongful Prosecution Suit for $1.25 Million (Gift Article)
The agreement was an extraordinary example of how the Trump administration has offered legal relief to those aligned with the president.
nytimes.com
Missouri Republicans have relentlessly tried to destroy ballot initiatives after voters used them to protect abortion rights, legalize weed, raise the minimum wage, and reform redistricting. They are currently sabotaging a veto referendum that should have suspended the GOP's new House gerrymander
Josh Marshall@joshtpm.bsky.social · yesterdayMissouri Secretary of State Comes Up With Reason to Not Certify Challenge to New Republican Gerrymander talkingpointsmemo.com/news/missour...
NEW: Missouri voters have rejected Amendment 4, which Republicans had passed to make citizen-initiated constitutional amendments effectively impossible. It would have required initiatives to pass in every congressional district—not just statewide—giving the overwhelmingly red districts a veto
Missouri Republicans tried to make voter-initiated constitutional amendments impossible by requiring passage in every congressional district instead of just statewide. Voters rejected the amendment in not just every congressional district but every county too. Trump won all but four counties there
Stephen Wolf@stephenwolf.bsky.social · yesterdayNEW: Missouri voters have rejected Amendment 4, which Republicans had passed to make citizen-initiated constitutional amendments effectively impossible. It would have required initiatives to pass in every congressional district—not just statewide—giving the overwhelmingly red districts a veto
TAPPER: Hold on -- hold on, 'cause I'm not done with the list of women who have accused you of violence. Are all three of them lying? REP. MAX MILLER: Yes. And I'm not getting out of the race because in 2016, President Donald J Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world ...
“I’m staying in the race because, thanks to President Trump paving the groundwork, sexual assault and violence against women is widely and openly accepted now, so there’s really no reason to drop out.”
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterdayTAPPER: Hold on -- hold on, 'cause I'm not done with the list of women who have accused you of violence. Are all three of them lying? REP. MAX MILLER: Yes. And I'm not getting out of the race because in 2016, President Donald J Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world ...
The last midterm Senate race in Michigan was 2018; Debbie Stabenow got 2.2 million votes. Dems tracking for around 1.6 million in the primary.
A major defeat for conservatives in Kansas, who were hoping to make inroads on the state supreme court by switching the state to regular elections. Their measure was defeated 61/39. (I'll have more to say on what this means for the court going forward soon.)
The board of a Michigan township agreed to rezone a terrain to make way for a data center. Residents opposed to the data center forced a vote on the matter, and they blocked the rezoning tonight: www.mlive.com/news/ann-arb...
Ramaswamy has spent $9 million on ads. Amy Acton has spent $100,000. The race is tied. "You can't buy Ohio, and you can't buy us." www.dworkinsubstack.com/p/the-trump-...
Judge Adam Abelson blocked the regime's ban on helping new citizens register to vote, and found it was likely driven by discriminatory intent. Their own policy language is in the opinion. www.dworkinsubstack.com/p/the-trump-...
🔥 Here's Whitehouse's entire remarkable speech opposing Blanche: "What's left of this committee when we don't demand straight answers? How many times has DOJ been asked what became of the $50k that the FBI reported it handed to Homan? ... our R colleagues see no evil, hear no evil, & speak no evil."
Whitehouse on Blanche: "Today is a sad and embarrassing day"
YouTube video by Aaron Rupar
youtu.be
The Stranger on Spokane fire: Arson Suspect Arrested: Police arrested a 37-year-old Spokane man seen near the starting point of the Old Trails wildfire, one of the three fires that scorched the city over the weekend. On Saturday, a day of “particularly dangerous” fire weather,...
Slog AM: Suspected Spokane Fire Arsonist Arrested, Seattle Event Organizers Want More Cameras, Israeli Prison Crocodile Moat Hits Roadblock - The Stranger
It’s Election Day: Have you voted? You have until 8 pm tonight to get your ballot into a ballot box. Don’t forget to come back to the blog this evening for our dispatches on the election parties happe...
thestranger.com
Capital One has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the Trump Org. over the closure of hundreds of bank accounts in 2021, arguing that the shutdowns were the product of a monthslong anti-money-laundering review — not retaliation for the Capitol riot, as the Trump businesses have claimed.
I wrote about the Trojan horse, and what we can learn from her mouth about different cultural attitudes towards deception and violence. As someone comments below, the phrase GIFT ARTICLE is pretty scary in this context.
Chris Suellentrop@suellentrop.bsky.social · 2d agoTurns out @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social knows a lot about ancient epics www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Booker: "Ghislaine Maxwell is sitting in the lowest possible confinement after giving no information that helped us get one more investigation started and has been silent, and the man responsible for that we're about to make the attorney general of the US ... this is farcical."
Whitehouse: "Today I think is a sad and embarrassing day for this committee as it looks like on a party-line vote we are going to advance out of this committee probably the most discreditable person ever to seek the office of attorney general. Let's start with the Epstein files ... "