It’s Monday. Donald Trump’s criminality persists. You know the drill. 
 

• Fulton County, GA, District Attorney Fani Willis implied over the weekend that she’s already made charging decisions in her investigation of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, and will announce them by September 1. “The work is accomplished,” Willis said this weekend. “We’ve been working for two and a half years. We’re ready to go.” We love to hear it!!!
   

• Trump’s team has made repeated efforts to remove Willis from the case, disqualify much of the evidence she has collected, and force another Fulton County judge to recuse from the case. All those efforts have failed. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney rejected Trump’s latest bid to quash the investigation on Monday. Trump’s lawyers have filed a separate (equally dubious) request to disqualify Willis that will be heard by a different judge next week. Georgia’s sweeping anti-racketeering statutes allow prosecutors to charge not only in-state crimes but to use activities in other states to prove criminal intent as well. 
   

• The full scope of the investigation remains sealed under McBurney’s orders until official charges are announced. Willis informed county judges that her staff will be working remotely until charges are filed as a safety precaution, because Trump’s loyal followers are famously, uh, not chill. To that end, security barricades were erected outside the county courthouse last week. In Atlanta, local, state, and federal law-enforcement officials have been meeting privately for months to coordinate enhanced security measures ahead of Willis’s announcement.

Trump is, of course, under indictment in two other criminal cases as well.
 

• The Trump-aligned Save America PAC has reportedly spent more than $40 million on legal fees for him so far this year…and it’s barely August. According to new sources, the Mar-a-Lago employee tasked with overseeing the property’s surveillance cameras, Yuscil Taveras, was served a target letter from the Justice Department shortly after Trump was first indicted for stealing and concealing classified documents. It’s unclear whether Taveras is cooperating with prosecutors, but unlike Trump’s longtime errand boy Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, Taveras is not currently facing charges in the classified documents case despite having received the target letter. 
   

• And the hits just keep on coming. New court filings show that Special Counsel Jack Smith has obtained surveillance footage relating to the three obstruction charges recently added in the classified documents case. In June 2022, a Trump attorney received a draft grand jury subpoena seeking surveillance footage from the grounds of Trump’s Florida estate. Trump then spoke to De Oliveira, whom he tasked with speaking to Taveras. De Oliveira reportedly told Taveras that “the boss wanted the server [storing the footage] deleted.” Taveras reportedly said no, which may be where federal prosecutors saw their opening.
   

In any case, Trump is still leading the 2024 GOP field by a whopping 37 points according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll. Only two percent(!) of Republican primary voters polled believed that he had done “something wrong” in the stolen-documents case, and none reported believing he committed serious federal crimes. Cool! Great! Really looking forward to the 2024 general election!

Hey Ohio! If you haven’t been paying attention, now's the time, because reproductive freedom and direct democracy are on the ballot on Tuesday, August 8th. Ohioans are expected to vote on a ballot measure to codify reproductive freedom in the state constitution in November, but Republicans created another ballot measure for August that would make it way more difficult for constitutional amendments, like the abortion protection measure, to pass. Head to votesaveamerica.com/ohio to get all the information you need to vote no on August 8th.

In the past decade, housing costs, evictions, and homelessness have all surged. Ever-increasing unhoused populations now regularly congregate in large encampments for security and stability. Nearly half of all Americans experiencing homelessness live in California, even though the state only accounts for about 12 percent of the total United States population. In Oakland, one of the nation’s most unaffordable housing markets led to the creation of the Wood Street encampment nearly a decade ago, which became one of the state’s largest such sites. Residents installed solar panels, hot water showers, a community garden, a kitchen, a clothing closet, and received help from community volunteers. Wood Street was a fully functioning, lively community. Last fall, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) ordered the state Transportation Department to begin evicting people from Wood Street after a protracted legal battle, citing “serious safety risks.” Almost 100 people accepted temporary housing offers, which often come with a six-month time limit. Community cabins and safe camping sites similarly only provide temporary shelter. According to an audit of Oakland’s homelessness services released in September 2022, nearly half of all former residents of encampments moved to community cabins end up back on the street. 

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported substantial health impacts associated with the involuntary displacement actions like encampment sweeps, bans, and move-along orders. All three such “solutions” were found to significantly heighten the risk of overdose deaths, hospitalizations, and life-threatening infections. Additionally, they limit access to treatment for opioid addiction and overdose. Many people who live in encampments are employed—a consequence of housing costs far outpacing still-too-low wages—and displacement can further threaten what little they have. The study calls for a complete reevaluation and overhaul of these methods, promoting evidence-based alternative approaches such as street medicine, medical outreach, substance abuse treatment, harm reduction, and—you’re not gonna believe this—housing.

A report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Health and Human Services found that “sweeps” are “expensive and often of limited long-term effectiveness.” In the worst cases, the report says, “A sweep can set back individuals who were moving toward housing stability, and, perhaps, working with a caseworker who knows where to find them.” Sweeps that do not allow residents to keep their belongings (which often include essential documents like driver’s licenses and birth certificates) or provide them with resources and services are especially ineffective, and do nothing to address the root cause of homelessness. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped sweeps from becoming a favored tool across the political spectrum to get the homeless population out of sight and out of mind, with almost no regard for what comes next.

Singapore executed a woman for the first time in 19 years on Friday, hanging her for drug trafficking. 

Turns out that the North Carolina Democrat who dramatically switched parties earlier this year was a GOP plant all along. Tricia Cotham was recruited to run in a safe-blue district on a pro-choice platform, then switch sides to give North Carolina Republicans the supermajority they needed to pass their restrictive abortion bill.

As a surprise to no one, Elon Musk lifted Kanye West’s Twitter ban. Ye was banned from the platform (now stupidly called “X”) for a series of antisemitic tweets last October. 

Devon Archer met with the House Oversight Committee on Monday feeding the GOP propaganda blitz around Archer’s former business partner Hunter Biden. 

A longstanding federal program to fight HIV and AIDS, globally credited with saving more than 25 million lives over 20 years, is now in jeopardy because Republicans are pushing baseless claims that the program’s funding is being used to “indirectly” support abortions. 

A federal appeals court upheld the state of Kentucky’s right to enforce a recently-enacted ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths while the issue is being litigated. 

President Biden decided to keep the U.S. Space Command headquarters in Colorado, overturning an 11th-hour decision by the Trump administration to move it to Alabama. We hope Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is very sad about it.

Paul Reubens, the comedian who created the popular children’s television and film character Pee-wee Herman, has died at the age of 70.

Three foreign diplomats in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have confirmed that the country will host talks on Ukraine’s peace plan with several other countries this weekend in the coastal city of Jeddah. The other countries present reportedly include the United States, European nations, and Brazil. China and India have been invited, but it is unclear if they will attend. Russia is noticeably not invited, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said only that “Russia will keep an eye on this meeting,” but would need more information “to fully understand what goals are being set.” The head of Ukraine’s presidential office referred to the meeting as an implementation plan “to restore lasting and just peace,” in the country. The proposed 10-point Ukrainian plan holds Russia accountable for atrocities, requires the Kremlin to surrender all captured Ukrainian territory, and pay damages. Moscow unsurprisingly rejected it. The summit is the latest example of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to assert himself as a global leader, rather than one whose influence is limited to the Middle East, but he’s actually just a sadistic butcher and human-rights abuser, and we should probably try to sideline him on account of all that...

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The Biden administration launched a new income-driven student-loan repayment plan on Monday after the Supreme Court struck down his student-debt forgiveness initiative. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said definitively that there is no possibility that President Biden would consider pardoning his son Hunter. We know the idea of a U.S. president not abusing his pardoning powers is hard to believe. 

Amid a flurry of complaints from neighbors, Elon Musk was forced to take down an enormous LED “X” sign on top of the company’s San Francisco headquarters after just three days. The greatest business man of our time!