Welcome to Friday, August 21st, fractions and whole-numbers...

Former Trump administration chief strategist Steve Bannon was charged for allegedly siphoning money from a fundraising campaign to build the president’s border wall with Mexico.

The Manhattan attorney’s office alleges that Bannon “received over $1m from the ‘We Build the Wall’ online campaign, at least some of which he used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in [his] personal expenses”, through a non-profit he controlled.

Bannon's co-conspirators are Brian Kolfage - who served as the organization's founder and president - Andrew Badolato, and Timothy Shea.

"As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction," acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.

At a brief arraignment on Thursday, Bannon pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

“This entire fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall,” Bannon said after being released on a $5 million bond.

How do you feel about the alleged defrauding scheme?

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On the Radar

Iran Sanctions 'Snapback'

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to formally call on the United Nations Security Council to support the “snapback” of sanctions on Iran for not complying with the terms of the nuclear deal it entered into with major world powers and the Security Council. 

While the U.S. formally left the nuclear deal in 2018, it is still a party to the UN Security Council resolution that formalized the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The Trump administration argues that it therefore has the right to trigger the “snapback” process to effectively prevent the expiration of a UN arms embargo against Iran on October 18th because Iran has increased its nuclear enrichment activities since 2018.

China, Russia, and the Western European nations that are party to the JCPOA insist that the U.S. doesn’t have the standing to initiate the snapback because it withdrew from the nuclear deal.

Do you support the “snapback” of sanctions on Iran?

On the Horizon

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And, in the End...

On this date in 1959, the Fine 49 became the Nifty 50:

Enjoy some SPAM today in honor of Hawaii,

—Josh Herman

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