- The Fox News chyron on the Rusty Watters show while a hurricane tracker takes up half of the screen after the hottest month ever recorded

No, please, not another “unprecedented” Republican presidential primary. 
 

• Disgraced former president Donald Trump’s trial is scheduled for March 4, by which time five states will have held their primary nominating contests. The following day is Super Tuesday, when 15 states, including delegate heavyweights California and Texas, will cast their votes, and by that time it will be clear whether any of Trump’s GOP challengers have a chance in hell of not getting completely blown out of the water. 
   

• As it stands now, the Republican primary calendar is on a collision course with Trump’s schedule for his many trials. Trump has already complained that the March 4 trial date for his federal indictment stemming from trying to overturn the 2020 election right before Super Tuesday amounts to—get this—“election interference.” But such trials usually take at least four to six weeks, meaning that the majority of delegates will already have been awarded before a jury determines whether the former president is guilty of felonies beyond a reasonable doubt. 
   

• So if by the time the Republican National Convention rolls around Trump is still out in front and also a convicted felon, the only recourse (sane) GOP officials would have is the same mode of circumventing primary voters that failed at the party convention back in 2016. Trump may be the most disliked politician in America, but he continues to put up Bashar al-Assad numbers among GOP primary voters, so there are no signs that Republican Party leaders are contemplating using his criminal status against him. Instead, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel continues defending Trump and using the allegation that he is a “victim of a political persecution,” as a fundraising tool.

Trump is still the far-and-away frontrunner in the GOP field, his top competitors are still looking to change that (except Vivek Ramaswamy, who is clearly running to be Trump’s VP/daddy’s special boy). 
 

• Of course, there are a number of other GOP candidates who have thrown their hat in the ring but are such longshots that their polling numbers are not statistically significant. One such candidate is John Anthony Castro of Texas, who has filed a lawsuit in New Hampshire asking a judge to deem Trump ineligible for the 2024 ballot there on the basis of his involvement in the January 6 insurrection. The lawsuit is as much of a longshot as Castro’s candidacy, as it’s based on a hotly-debated but still unproven legal theory that state and federal officials are obligated to disqualify Trump based on his efforts to subvert democracy under Section 3 of the 14th amendment. 
   

• On Monday, far-right pissant podcaster Charlie Kirk urged the MAGA faithful to swarm New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan’s office with phone calls to pressure him to keep Trump’s name on the New Hampshire ballot—alleging baselessly that the state intends to sideline Trump—and swarm they did. On Tuesday, Scanlan and Attorney General John Formella issued a joint statement declaring that any implication that Scanlan had made a decision about Trump’s eligibility is “misinformation.” Scanlan’s office sought the counsel of Formella’s office, and the state AG is “carefully reviewing the legal issues involved.” 

Some legal scholars have posited that Castro’s argument for Trump’s disqualification is strong. But the political will of the former president’s frothing army of loyalists seems to only grow more intense with each subsequent indictment. Whether or not Trump is a convicted felon at the time of the nominating convention, today’s Republican Party base has decided he is their guy.

Knowing how to swim is important, you never know when you’re going to need to jump from a boat to join in on a racially motivated brawl. But seriously, more than half of Americans don’t know how to swim, and on this week’s America Dissected, Host Dr. Abdul El-Sayed sits down with NYT journalist Mara Gay to talk about how to prevent drowning in the US. Listen to this interesting episode and more on America Dissected, new episodes Tuesday wherever you pod.

Republican officeholders, particularly female Republican officeholders, who feel the heat over their party’s support for criminalizing abortion, have found a new way to try to dupe voters into thinking they’re actually the good guys. Their new plan, particularly in competitive districts where votes from independents and women are at a premium, is to focus on birth control. Broadening access to contraception is widely popular nationally and across party lines. Just before Congress broke for summer (don’t work too hard there, guys!) a group of Republican women in the House introduced the Orally Taken Contraception Act of 2023 which they claim is aimed at expanding access to contraception. Abortion rights advocates, however, note that this is a transparent ploy to obfuscate their positions on reproductive rights. Indeed, the Republican-led contraception bill was endorsed by the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. 

So it’s no surprise that the legislation would be largely inconsequential if enacted. As Planned Parenthood Action Fund Vice President Karen Stone put it, “The legislation is not a genuine attempt to expand birth control…They’re posturing to save face with voters, all while failing to support existing legislation that would actually help people access over-the-counter birth control.” The legislation borrows much of the medically-incorrect language used by the anti-abortion lobby, like suggesting that pregnancy begins at the point of fertilization, and defining oral contraception as a drug that “is used to prevent fertilization.” It’s a clear ploy to redefine pregnancy based on modern religious ideology, and then tell women abortion isn’t necessary with contraception, while doing nothing to make contraception widely and easily available.

Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida on Wednesday as a Category 3 storm. Because he’s not a sociopath, President Biden has already contacted Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and pledged all necessary federal support, instead of harassing him or trying to shake his state down.

Officials in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina have issued emergency declarations warning of heavy rain and flooding from Hurricane Idalia. 

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating Tesla’s use of company funds on a secret project that has been described internally as…another house for CEO Elon Musk, known as “Project 42.” The Securities and Exchange Commission has also opened a civil investigation into the matter. 

Republican Blake Masters says he plans to run for Senate again in 2024 after losing his bid last year, likely pitting him against MAGA lunatic/gubernatorial loser Kari Lake. Let them fight. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a court to forgo a trial and issue summary judgment based on a mountain of evidence that Donald Trump and other defendants from the Trump Organization inflated the value of their assets in annual financial statements, fraudulently obtaining favorable loans and insurance agreements. 

Sanctions against Russia are slowly working, with new reports that the country is feeling the squeeze as it spends huge sums on its war in Ukraine while earning less revenue from oil. 

A 20-year-old man is the first person to be charged with “aggravated homosexuality” under Uganda’s new anti-gay laws, which stipulate that the “crime” is punishable by death. 

Theodore McCarrick, the highest-ranking Catholic cleric in the United States to face charges in the Church’s decades-long sexual abuse crisis, was ruled by a Massachusetts judge as unfit to stand trial at age 93. McCarrick was expelled from the church in 2019 after a Vatican trial found him guilty of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians over several decades. 

After freezing at a new conference in July, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to have had another episode; he was silent for more than 30 seconds before becoming responsive. Long live the gerontocracy!

For decades, Amtrak has had a monopoly on intercity passenger rail travel. In just a few weeks, that will come to an end when Florida becomes home to the fastest American trains outside of the Northeast Corridor. The only private passenger railroad in the country is Brightline, and the company is slated to open its newest station in the Sunshine State later this year, with a high(er)-speed rail line connecting Orlando International Airport and South Florida in three hours. High-speed rail projects are progressing in western states and Texas as well. Flush with cash from that sweet sweet 2021 infrastructure bill, Amtrak is preparing for its biggest expansion in over half a century, with plans to add 39 new routes and connect dozens more cities. If the Orlando-to-Miami venture goes smoothly, Brightline will turn to a $12 billion high-speed railway from Las Vegas to Southern California, which could put trains on tracks as soon as 2028. Hell yeah, Infrastructure Bill! Hell yeah, trains!

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A U.S. district court judge has denied Trump’s former White House adviser Peter Navarro’s bid to escape contempt of court charges by invoking executive privilege. 

American Airlines flight attendants voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike with 99.47 percent voting in favor and 93 percent of the union membership voting. Flight attendants are often not paid for boarding, gate time, and time in between flights, even though they are still working, resulting in as little as five hours of pay for a 12-hour shift. 

A federal judge has ruled that Ole’ Crazy Teeth Rudy Giuliani is legally liable for defaming two Georgia election workers whom he falsely accused of tampering with the 2020 election results. 

Under a new proposal from the Department of Labor, more than three-million workers would be newly-eligible for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week.