What’s that sound? Ron is as tone-deaf as his personality is flaccid. The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson does something written on the X site, “Just heard that the Ron DeSantis social media team is unhappy with this ad.” Also: “Presidential primary campaigns end slowly, then all at once.” What does it say that the Early Bird Special set voted in this guy? Twice. Maybe say “woke” more. Not gonna help. UPDATE: From Charlie Pierce. “It has dawned on the Republican donor class that they have bought a dead parrot.”
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What was bad now looks worse “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast. It’s a very detailed indictment and it’s very damning,” said former US attorney general William Barr in June after special counsel Jack Smith filed the first indictment in the classified documents case against Donald Trump. On Thursday, Smith issued a superceding indictment with several more charges and a indicted a third co-conspirator: Mar-a-Lago maintenance employee Carlos De Oliveira. The trio are accused of attempting to destroy evidence sought by federal prosecutors. Beside attempting to destroy evidence, De Oliveira stands accused of lying to investigators. “Never saw anything,” he told the FBI of Trump’s shuffled boxes. “Never saw nothing.” Those statements were false, the indictment alleges. De Oliveira “personally observed and helped move TRUMP’s boxes” containing classified materials. The Guardian: “I think this original indictment was engineered to last a thousand years and now this superseding indictment will last an antiquity,” Ty Cobb told CNN.
Going all the way back to Richard Nixon’s inexplicable decision to record himself committing crimes and then getting his secretary Rosemary Woods to take the fall for erasing the most incriminating segment, American political scandals have been defined by a simple credo: it’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the cover-up. For instance, in the Iran Contra affair, Lt Colonel Oliver North enlisted his secretary Fawn Hall to help him shred damaging documents and President Bill Clinton notoriously dispatched his secretary Betty Curie to retrieve gifts that he had given to former White House aide Monica Lewinsky during Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s investigation. Presidential hopeful John Edwards persuaded a campaign worker to take responsibility for fathering the child Edwards had with his mistress while his wife was dying of cancer. In every case, these attempts to cover up their misdeeds by dispatching an underling to do their dirty work was eventually discovered. But these privileged, powerful leaders just can’t seem to help themselves.. The latest in this long line of such cover-ups is, naturally, Donald Trump.
This is from the horse’s mouth: There’s a little bit more to it than that, I’m afraid:
How’s it going down in Florida these days? The inflation rate hit a two-year low in June but the financial relief may not be felt in Florida. The Federal Reserve raised the interest rate again on Wednesday in an effort to lower inflation. It comes as the Tampa Bay area still has among the highest inflation rates reported, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater has a Consumer Price Index, which is measured for inflation, of 7.3% for the year ended in May. Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index grew at an annual rate of 3% in June — the smallest increase since March 2021, the Labor Department said on Wednesday. South Florida is also reporting similar numbers. The CPI for Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach is at 6.9% in June from the year before. […] Those like Nhick Ramiro Pacis of Tampa keep an eye on his budget from the rising costs at the grocery to his insurance. “It’s really affecting a lot of people. Not only me,” Pacis said. Like other Floridians, Pacis has had to make adjustments.
In light of the news that Trump ordered his minions to “erase the server” that held the surveillance footage outside the storage room at Mar-a-lago, I’m just going to leave that here for you to enjoy. Trump projection 101.
Trump addressed the new superseding indictment: Donald Trump on Friday defended the handling of surveillance footage at his Florida home that is at the center of major new criminal charges in the federal case over the former president’s retention of classified documents. “These are my tapes that we gave to them,” Trump told a conservative radio host in his first public interview since being accused of the new crimes. “And they basically then say, ‘That’s not enough,’” Trump said on “The John Fredericks Show.” Trump, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, also vowed to continue his campaign even if he is convicted and sentenced. “Not at all, there’s nothing in the Constitution to say that it could,” Trump said when asked if being sentenced would end his presidential bid. Later in the day, Trump fired off several social media posts raging against the Department of Justice.
Be careful with your car’s AC North Carolina ain’t Phoenix, but it’s still hot. Especially on the coastal plain. Probably where you are as well. CNN’s Alexandra Meeks issues a warning in her “5 Things” newsletter: More than 140 million Americans from coast-to-coast are under heat alerts today. Parts of the Northeast will see their highest temperatures this year while temperatures in the Midwest will be up to 20 degrees above normal. The extreme weather has also gripped the country’s southern tier from Southern California to Florida since June. And Phoenix, one of the hardest-hit cities in this summer’s scorching heat, is in its fourth week in a row of temperatures over 110 degrees, smashing a previous record of 18 straight days. President Joe Biden is expected to announce actions to combat extreme weather in a briefing today as the heat wave expands across the US. This was Phoenix in May: Another toddler got burned the same way in Colorado this month. Solar-heated hot tub You thought Florida was too politically hot for trans people?
“To serve Man,” indeed “The Beat with Ari Melber” on Wednesday featured a segment in which astrophysicist Adam Frank offered skeptical commentary on the congressional UFO/UAP hearings. In her wrap-up, MSNBC’s Katie Phang quipped that she got her information on aliens from a “documentary” called Independence Day. I like a good movie about aliens as much as the next person, but they are movies. The Twitter/Xitter/whatever comments on the hearings were withering. Most ran along the lines of, “So aliens travel here possibly from hundreds of light years away only to crash? Repeatedly?” Perhaps what we need more than a congressional hearing on UFOs/UAPs is one on the credulity pandemic.
As I write this, CNN is reporting that Trump’s lawyers are meeting with the Special Counsel today as the Grand Jury has convened in DC. Buckle up. Meanwhile, here’s Trump caterwauling last night. It would appear he knew …. something: Lol! “We’ll have fun on the stand with all of these people that say the Presidential Election wasn’t Rigged and Stollen. THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY!!!” he declared, spelling “stolen” as he often does, as “stollen,” which is actually a popular German Christmastime dessert.