New developments in the Donald Trump extended critical universe!

Thursday, February 15, 2024
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA

- Rep. Robert Garcia ([link removed]) (D-CA) apologizing to Congressional witnesses for having to listen to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) continue to scream COVID conspiracy theories during a hearing on vaccine safety.

Another day, another instance of disgraced former president Trump clogging up the news cycle with his bullshit.

* A judge in New York on Thursday rejected yet another bid from Donald Trump to dismiss criminal charges against him ([link removed]) stemming from a hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump’s lawyers threw a fit in response to the judge’s decision to set the trial to begin on March 25, noting that the six-week case will conflict with Trump’s presidential campaign. Tough break, my guy! The hammer of justice does not care about primary season. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges last year, said he was “pleased” by the judge’s decision and looking forward to the upcoming court dates.

* Of all the cases in Trump’s web of legal entanglements, the hush money trial is the least serious, and the former president’s legal team is sure to portray it as trivial and outdated. However, it does present a unique threat to his legal strategy, because unlike the federal cases against him, Bragg’s case is immune from federal intervention should Trump retake the White House. He wouldn’t be able to pardon himself or use the presidency as a shield should the worst happen in November.

* Proving a pattern of serious criminal guilt in the public consciousness (for the millions of Americans who are for some reason still on the fence about that) would have been more impactful if the federal election interference case against Trump in Washington D.C. had been first on the docket, as was scheduled to happen until recently. But appeals from Trump’s lawyers gummed up the works, and now that case will begin after Trump’s presidential immunity is decided by the Supreme Court. One of Trump’s favorite legal strategies is just running out the clock, and until Judge Juan Merchan set his trial in the Stormy Daniels case today, it seemed to be working pretty well for him.

There were more developments in the Donald Trump extended criminal universe on Thursday, and this time Trump wasn’t even the focus.

* Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D-GA)—who brought criminal charges against Trump and his associates for alleged interference in the 2020 election in Georgia—herself took the stand on Thursday. Willis is accused of having an improper relationship with her lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade, and the hearing is meant to determine whether she financially benefited from that relationship. Shortly after taking the stand, Willis’s testimony turned combative.

* Willis has maintained that her personal relationship with Wade only began after she had hired him as lead prosecutor on the case, but a former friend of hers testified that the relationship actually began in 2019. An attorney for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman raised this implication to Willis, who, visibly upset, called the suggestion “extremely offensive,” ([link removed]) and a lie. Roman’s attorney is Ashleigh Merchant, a former Fulton County public defender who goes way back with Willis. The two have tried cases against each other when Willis was a prosecutor and know one another extremely well.

Conservative media will do everything in its power to paint the Willis case and Trump’s numerous actual criminal wrongdoings as Equally Bad, but of course, they aren’t. Still, from a public relations perspective, this judgment lapse from DA Willis could not have come at a worse time, and leaves us wringing our hands and saying, “You had one job!”

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The Israel Defense Forces raided Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis ([link removed]) , on Thursday, claiming it was conducting an operation to recover the bodies of hostages. The Gaza Health Ministry accused the IDF ([link removed]) of storming the complex “after demolishing the southern wall,” and said that earlier, an Israeli drone fired at a doctors room and injured an ER physician. Footage and satellite imagery obtained by The Washington Post show that Egypt is clearing off and building a wall around a plot of land along its border with the Gaza Strip ([link removed]) in advance of an Israeli offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for an investigation into reports that American citizens have been killed in violence in the West Bank ([link removed]) at a news conference in Albania on Thursday. Mohammad Ahmad Alkhdour, a 17-year-old Palestinian American, was shot twice in the head on Saturday in the town of Biddu in the occupied West Bank. He was pronounced dead that night. The State Department confirmed on Tuesday that an American citizen had died on Saturday, and stated that it was seeking additional information from the Israel government. Alkhdour’s aunt, who confirmed her nephew’s death to The Washington Post, as well as the group Defense for Children International-Palestine, allege that IDF soldiers were behind the fatal shooting. The IDF told the Post it wasn’t present during the incident, and referred an earlier request to comment to Israel’s domestic intel agency, Shin
Bet, which declined to comment.

Special counsel Robert Hur will testify next month before a Republican-led House panel related to his investigation into President Biden ([link removed]) ’s handling of classified documents. Hur previously served in Trump’s DOJ and is, by all accounts, a little freaking dweeb.


Britain’s economy has officially entered a recession, which will add a fresh challenge for conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ([link removed]) , who promised to boost economic growth. The Tory party has dominated British politics for most of the past 70 years, but according to new opinion polls ([link removed]) , Labour is now more trusted with managing the economy. Take THAT, ghost of Margaret Thatcher!


A former FBI informant was charged ([link removed]) with lying about the Bidens’ business dealings, in a development that deals a black eye to Republicans who sought to use those claims to malign President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and other House Republicans spent months arguing the FBI informant was presenting evidence of Biden family corruption.


George Latimer, a candidate waging a primary challenge against Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), baselessly accused Bowman of taking money from Hamas. On Tuesday, Bowman’s campaign threatened to sue for defamation, and demanded he retract the claim ([link removed]) . Latimer was recruited to run for the seat by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and as The Intercept previously reported ([link removed]) , the organization is his largest campaign funder. You can’t just accuse people of being funded by terrorists, George!!


A new poll from the Washington Post shows that there is widespread agreement among Americans about what it means to be middle class. Just over one-third of all U.S. adults have the financial means to meet the definition ([link removed]) that most people agreed on. Even worse, most Americans also underestimate the income required to achieve that lifestyle.


Half of NowThis News staff was laid off on Thursday, according to its union ([link removed]) .

Some early adopters are returning the new Apple Vision Pro headsets ([link removed]) over complaints about motion sickness and headaches. One customer told The Verge he blamed the device for a burst blood vessel in his eye. We can always count on Apple to innovate new technology that will make our eyes explode.

California is aiming to introduce “Ethnic Studies” into its public high school curriculum by 2025 ([link removed]) . The discipline focuses on the history of Black, Latino, Jewish, and Asian Americans as well as Native Americans, looking through a critical lens at various forms of oppression. It is meant to provide a more complete history outside of the typical White, Euro-centric curriculum, and is seen to be of particular value for California’s public school students, 80 percent of whom are non-White. But a debate has emerged over the decision to remove discussions of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Initial plans to teach a critical view of Israeli settler colonialism in Palestinian territories—as university-level ethnic studies classes often do—were criticized by some pro-Israel Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League as antisemitic.
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The Georgia State Election Board opposed a resolution on Tuesday that would have end no-excuse absentee voting ([link removed]) . The procedure is relied on by hundreds of thousands of voters in every major election. The move to kill this practice was, of course, championed by Republicans who want to make voting as difficult as possible.


Greece became the first Christian Orthodox-majority country to legalize gay marriage on Thursday ([link removed]) . Same-sex couples will now also be able to legally adopt children under the law. The law now finally recognizes what any of us who studied ancient history have always known: Greece is gay as hell.

The House GOP broke a record on Thursday, becoming the first in American history to have six rule votes fail in one Congress ([link removed]) . Congratulations to all involved!
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