A beautiful forced-retirement present. 

Monday, May 23, 2022
BY SARAH LAZARUS & CROOKED MEDIA


** -Rudy Giuliani ([link removed]) , screaming at a stranger during a parade
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Georgia’s primary elections on Tuesday will be the next major testing ground for the strength of disgraced president Donald Trump’s endorsement and the Big Lie. In one race, at least, they look poised to get absolutely stomped.

* The latest polls indicate that Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) has a decisive lead over former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) ([link removed]) , whom Trump hassled into challenging Kemp as vengeance for Kemp’s refusal to help him steal the 2020 election. Former Vice President Mike Pence will campaign with Kemp ([link removed]) this evening, while Trump, pissed about reports that he had given up on Perdue ([link removed]) , is now scheduled to hold a “tele-rally” for him. Meanwhile, the candidate running on his willingness to overturn election results said on Monday that he won’t necessarily accept the election results ([link removed]) .

* Unfortunately, Perdue isn’t the only fascism-curious candidate with Trump’s support in Georgia. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will have to fight off the Trump-endorsed Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) ([link removed]) to keep his job after he refused Trump’s demand to “find” him more ballots to overturn the 2020 election. There are fewer public polls available for this race, and the high number of undecided voters in the existing polling makes it tough to guess at the outcome.

* Trump endorsee Herschel Walker, who believes neither in Democrats being allowed to win elections nor evolution ([link removed]) , looks likely to win the GOP Senate primary to take on Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA). If he does, Warnock will be well-equipped to destroy him: Walker said last week that he believes abortion should be banned with no exceptions ([link removed]) for rape, incest, or the health of the mother, and appears to have lied about his work ([link removed]) with a shady, for-profit program that preyed on veterans while defrauding the government. (Not to mention the domestic abuse allegations
([link removed]) and huge pile ([link removed]) of other lies ([link removed]) .)

However Trump’s Big Lie candidates fare in the primaries, there’s some heartening evidence that Georgia Republicans’ new voter-suppression law won’t carry them the rest of the way.

* Georgia’s primaries have seen record-breaking early voter turnout ([link removed]) : Nearly 800,000 Georgians had cast ballots by the end of Friday, more than three times the number in 2018, and higher than in 2020. Did Democrats and voting rights groups successfully mobilize voters to overcome a disgusting antidemocratic obstacle, or mistakenly freak out about a normal law that never posed any threat??? According to the Washington Post article linked above, there’s no way to know! According to observable reality, it’s the first thing.

* Georgia’s high-stakes, sewer-bound GOP primaries have sucked up most of the national attention, but there are a ton of important races ([link removed]) tomorrow in Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and Minnesota. Two key runoffs to watch in Texas: Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), the lone remaining anti-abortion House Democrat who bafflingly still has the support of party leaders, will face progessive challenger Jessica Cisneros ([link removed]) , and indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will face Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

Tuesday’s elections will provide some important data on the extremism level of the Republican Party that we’ll be up against in November, and whether the stakes in Georgia will be Utterly Existential or just Standard Emergency. As always, if your state has elections coming up tomorrow, you’ll find all the information you need at votesaveamerica.com ([link removed]) .
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Did you know that the US Postal Service is replacing its mail trucks and instead of opting for clean air and going electric, it’s going with a gas-guzzling mail truck that gets an astounding 8.6 miles per gallon? We may as well deliver the mail with Hummers!

If the Postal Service bought 100% electric mail trucks instead, we could:
* Save 110 million gallons of fuel per year
* Create more clean energy jobs
* Reduce air pollution in every community
* Save money on truck maintenance

Transportation is the largest source of climate pollution in the United States, and air pollution from fossil fuel vehicles harms people’s health, especially in low-income communities and communities of color where government policies have deliberately concentrated transportation pollution.

The Postal Service has an opportunity to reverse course and upgrade to electric vehicles in order to cut dangerous air pollution across the country and help put us on a path to an all-electric future.

Send a letter to the Postal Service for a change and tell them to buy 100% electric mail trucks. ([link removed])

The legal team at Earthjustice is in court to challenge USPS’ failure to consider the environmental justice impacts of buying combustion mail trucks that will deliver pollution to every neighborhood in the country. Take action at Earthjustice.org/crooked ([link removed]) and send the message that mail delivery in this country should be electric for our health and for our future.

A veteran diplomat resigned from Russia’s mission to the UN on Monday ([link removed]) , in one of the most high-profile protests against the war in Ukraine from within the Russian government. “Never have I been so ashamed of my country as on Feb. 24 of this year,” Boris Bondarev wrote in an email to diplomats in Geneva. “The aggressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine and in fact against the entire Western world is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people but also, perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia.” In other major developments, a Russian soldier was sentenced to life in prison ([link removed]) in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for “maximum” sanctions ([link removed]) against Russia in a video address at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Starbucks has joined McDonalds ([link removed]) in leaving Russia completely.
* President Biden said on Monday that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan ([link removed]) , an usually explicit pledge to defend Taiwan that reportedly caught some of his aides by surprise. The White House said that Biden’s comments didn’t reflect a change in U.S.policy.

* A Trump-appointed federal judge in Louisiana has blocked the Biden administration from lifting Title 42 ([link removed]) , the Trump-era immigration policy used to expel asylum-seekers at the southern border, which had been scheduled to end today.

* The Supreme Court’s joyriding conservative majority ruled (outrageously) that death row inmates can’t present new evidence in federal court ([link removed]) to argue that their state-appointed lawyers represented them incompetently during state trials, effectively stripping the constitutional right to effective counsel from people who may have been wrongfully convicted.

* The January 6 committee is reportedly expected to hold six public hearings in June ([link removed]) , with the first and last in primetime.

* D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has sued Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg ([link removed]) , alleging that he was directly involved in Facebook’s failure to protect user data and personally responsible for the Cambridge Analytica data breach.

* The frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination had himself one of the most normal weekends on record, sharing (sorry, “ReTruthing”) a Truth Social post calling for civil war ([link removed]) , and appearing at CPAC Hungary alongside a virulently racist and antisemitic Hungarian talk show host ([link removed]) .

* Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) argued that Louisiana’s horrendous maternal mortality rates aren’t so bad if you don’t count Black women ([link removed]) , in a rancid free sample of the racism underlying that disparity.

* A 35-year-old runner died Saturday after finishing the Brooklyn Half Marathon on an unseasonably warm day ([link removed]) , and 15 other runners were hospitalized.

* A new billionaire emerged every 30 hours during the pandemic ([link removed]) , on average, according to a new Oxfam analysis, while COVID, growing global inequality, and rising food prices could push 263 million people into extreme poverty this year. Perfect distribution of wealth, no notes!

* The House Ethics Committee got Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) a beautiful forced-retirement present: ([link removed]) an investigation into allegations that he improperly promoted a cryptocurrency and had an “improper relationship” with a member of his staff.

This week in Oops! All Corruption, Jared Kushner and then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were jetting around the Middle East to meet with future investors for their private funds ([link removed]) weeks before the end of the Trump administration. They did so under the guise of raising money for a government-sponsored program called the Abraham Fund, which they said would fund projects around the Middle East, and which never had any actual accounts, employees, income, or projects. After Donald Trump left office and the Abraham Fund evaporated, Kushner and Mnuchin returned to the Gulf to ask the same foreign leaders to invest in their private firms; as previously reported, the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund gave Kushner $2 billion even after its advisory panel expressed serious concerns. Kushner and Mnuchin didn’t just use their official roles to advance private business interests
and seek payoffs for the favors they did for a murderous foreign ruler—they made clear that if Trump ever returns to power, more favors will be available for purchase.
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Life can be overwhelming, and many people are burned out without even knowing it. Symptoms of burnout can include lack of motivation, feeling helpless or trapped, detachment, fatigue, and more.

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We associate burnout with work, but that’s not the only cause. Any of our roles in life can lead us to feel burned out, and BetterHelp ([link removed]) online therapy wants to remind you to prioritize yourself. Talking with someone can help you figure out what’s causing stress in your life.

BetterHelp ([link removed]) is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to.

It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours.

What A Day is sponsored by BetterHelp and readers of this newsletter get 10 percent off their first month at BetterHelp.com/crooked ([link removed]) .

The first shipment of baby formula ([link removed]) from Europe arrived in the U.S. on Sunday, with another set to arrive on Wednesday.

Pfizer ([link removed]) said that three doses of its vaccine provide strong protection for kids under age five, potentially paving the way for authorized shots early this summer.

Australian voters ([link removed]) this weekend elected Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese, who has promised stronger action on climate change, as the country’s next prime minister.

Trinidad Cervantes ([link removed]) , a 19-year-old member of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, successfully pushed for a new state law giving Native American students the right to wear tribal regalia at high school graduations and other events.
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