DHS and DOD can't seem to account for all of the missing Jan. 6 text messages - what a funny coincidence!

Tuesday, August 2, 2022
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA
- Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) ([link removed]) using his usual orneriness for good this time on Fox News

The January 6 hearings may be on hiatus, but they have sprung a torrent of revelations that continue in the committee’s absence.

* House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney and House Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson have written a letter urging DHS inspector general Joseph Cuffari to step aside and provide documents and interviews, citing emails indicating his staff may have intentionally tried to stop efforts to obtain deleted Secret Service text messages. Maloney and Thompson also cited a recent report suggesting that Cuffari learned of the missing Secret Service messages four months after the insurrection, yet did not inform Congress ([link removed]) .

* That coverup now spans cabinet departments! The Pentagon wiped the phones of top parting DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration ([link removed]) , erasing any record of text messages from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6 attacks. Watchdog group American Oversight filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against DOD seeking records from former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, former chief of staff Kash Patel, and former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy and many other prominent officials just a few days after the attack on the Capitol. Miller, Patel, and McCarthy were all involved in the three-hour delay before DOD deployed National Guard troops to the Capitol.

* American Oversight’s executive director Heather Sawyer said to CNN, “It’s just astounding to believe that the agency did not understand the importance of preserving its records – particularly [with regards] to the top officials that might have captured: what they were doing, when they were doing it, why they were doing, it on that day.” A former Defense Department official from a previous administration told CNN new hires are explicitly and repeatedly told during onboarding that their work devices were subject to the Presidential Records Act and that their communications would be archived. The source said it was assumed when they turned in their devices at the end of their tenure, any communication records would be saved. This is starting to look, I believe the official legal classification is “pretty fucking incriminating”?

Outside of Washington, Trump die-hards and their ilk are still working as fastidiously to perpetuate the Big Lie and secure stolen elections as his former top brass are.

* For almost two years now, the Republican National Committee has relied on a trusty roster of Big Lie-spreaders to pilot a massive nationwide “election integrity” (lol) operation to recruit and coach thousands of poll workers in eight battleground states, ([link removed]) which is really scary. New recordings of organizing summits held this year in Florida and Pennsylvania obtained by Politico show RNC National Election Integrity Director Josh Findlay repeatedly saying that the RNC must provide state coalitions with staff, organization, and “muscle.” Heading this effort is Conservative elections attorney Cleta Mitchell, a central figure in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. Mitchell spoke openly about the need to block efforts to register young voters, people of color and other
traditionally-underrepresented voting blocks.

* The recordings indicate that the committee is relying heavily on people who have spread the Big Lie and/or claims of voter fraud and other conspiracies. The RNC is collaborating with the “Stop the Steal” wing of the party toward their expressed “number one goal” ([link removed]) of building a permanent army of over 15,000 GOP poll workers. Publicly, of course, the RNC insists its goal is to ensure a sufficient population of trained poll workers to protect the electoral process at polling centers. How noble!! Sounds like something you guys would definitely do!

With midterms fast approaching, we know how important election security is, and how hard Republicans have been fighting to rig it. Democrats need all hands on deck to fight back with twice as much force.

This week on Imani State of Mind ([link removed]) , the ladies are discussing the last real relationship topic - friendships. They’re talking the good, the bad, and the toxic when it comes to your friends and how it affects mental health.

Listen to new episodes of Imani State of Mind ([link removed]) every Friday on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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We knew that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) could be the one Democrat to tank the Inflation Reduction Act bill this weem, and it seems that Corporate America has figured that out as well. Corporate giants have launched a two-pronged approach to try to convince the American public, and Sinema specifically, not to back the bill. ([link removed]) If the proposed bill becomes law, the biggest 150 American companies will finally pay their fair share of taxes like everyone else, which will generate $313 billion in tax revenue over ten years. Of course, they hate that idea. So major corporations and corporate associations are spending millions on TV ads, especially in Arizona, and lobbying Sinema’s office directly. As so often happens, corporate giants are playing a sad song in their marketing that the bill will hurt small, mom-and-pop businesses, which is plainly untrue. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The 15% minimum tax would mostly hit big
manufacturers who use tax deductions and credits for capital investments and R&D to minimize their overall tax bill.” Doesn’t sound like the work of a small business, does it? The tax provisions in the IRA including the minimum tax for mega-corporations closed loopholes, in lieu of creating new taxes per se, but if someone convinces Sinema otherwise, the bill could be in trouble. So if you live in the great state of Arizona, give Sinema a ring for us to express your hope that she supports this very good piece of legislation, won’t you?

California and Illinois have each declared statewide emergencies over monkeypox ([link removed]) outbreaks.


Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R-AZ) concluded his ginned-up criminal investigation of allegations of voter fraud ([link removed]) in the form of “dead people voting” in the 2020 election and, surprise surprise, 281 of the 282 voters in question were very much alive.


BuzzFeed and more than 90 of its former employees are locked in a legal battle as the plaintiffs (many of the company’s early employees when it was a modest startup) have not been able to sell their shares since the company went public ([link removed]) last December.


President Biden continues testing positive for COVID-19 ([link removed]) after experiencing rebound infection when he completed his course of Paxlovid. He is isolating and conducting business from the White House residence.


The Senate has approved a bill that entitles families of public-safety officers who die by suicide to essential benefits ([link removed]) , sending the bill to Biden’s desk.


Black female firefighters in Washington, DC, have sued the city for systematic and continuous discrimination on the basis of race and gender ([link removed]) , including being denied salary increases and subjected to disproportionate disciplinary action.


Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has retained former Trump White House Counsel Don McGahn to represent him as he resists a subpoena for testimony ([link removed]) about his efforts to overturn the Georgia election results on Trump’s behalf.


Across the U.S., health officials are worried that the monkeypox outbreak could be the second major public-health disaster in two years if the response to contain it doesn’t accelerate now ([link removed]) , with many state health departments saying they have nowhere near the number of vaccine doses they need.


The polio virus was found in New York wastewater one month before the first case was made public a few weeks ago ([link removed]) . Cool cool cool!!!


The Los Angeles City Council voted today to criminalize unhoused city residents who set up tents or sleep within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers ([link removed]) in an 11-3 vote over raucous jeers from protestors who attended the public meeting.


The Biden administration sued Idaho today over a strict abortion law that will take effect this month which the DOJ says would inhibit E.R. doctors from performing medically-necessary abortions ([link removed]) .


Senate Republicans have cried uncle and dropped their heinous obstruction of a bill meant to expand health-care for veterans exposed to toxic substances on active duty ([link removed]) , though of course they insist they didn’t mean to and it's Democrats’ fault, actually!!!


A trial in Minnesota will decide whether a pharmacist violated a woman’s human rights by denying her 2019 request to fill a prescription for emergency contraception ([link removed]) (the morning after pill). I have a hunch they were!

The House Oversight and Reform Committee has subpoenaed firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson for key documents related to the sale and marketing of the AR-15-style firearms ([link removed]) after the company did not hand over sufficient information requested by the committee and the CEO refused to appear last month. Classic behavior of an innocent company with nothing to hide!

There's a hearty crop of super important primary elections today, as well as a ballot initiative on abortion rights in Kansas. We'll have a full rundown of them all tomorrow!

As evidenced by the constant headlines over the past few weeks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) trip to Taiwan has been…controversial. China promised a “strong and resolute” military response to Pelosi’s arrival today ([link removed]) , already announcing new military exercises in the South China Sea. According to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, Beijing’s “provocations” are likely to include missiles fired into the Taiwan Strait and a major breach of Taiwan’s air defense zone. But there is precedent for Pelosi’s visit (lower-level lawmakers have visited as recently as this year) and U.S. policy on Taiwan is unchanged. The difference between this visit and the one from then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997 is manifold. China’s presence on the world stage has grown dramatically since then, Gingrich had three days of meetings in Beijing before he went to Taiwan, and Chinese officials strenuously dislike Speaker P
elosi, a longtime high-profile critic of Chinese human rights abuses. The trip comes at the peak of China’s annual military training cycle, and ahead of the Party Congress at which President Xi Jinping is expected to seek a third term, so he doesn’t want to show any perceived weakness on Taiwan. Still, a possible act of aggression from China over Taiwan was always possible even if Pelosi had never set foot there. For her part, after Speaker Pelosi touched down in Taipei, she said in a statement ([link removed]) , “Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan — and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy.”
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Tiger Woods reportedly rejected an offer of between $700 and $800 million to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series ([link removed]) held at one of former president Trump’s golf courses in New Jersey.


An 18-year-old lifeguard in Colorado helped deliver a baby on the deck of a YMCA pool ([link removed]) .


The state supreme court of Pennsylvania has upheld its mail-in voting law ([link removed]) , a huge win for voting rights in a crucial swing state.


A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that over half of likely midterm voters say abortion is a “very important” issue ([link removed]) informing how they will vote.


Seven Florida clergy members of various faiths have filed separate lawsuits against the state’s abortion law ([link removed]) , one of the strictest in the country, on the grounds that it violates Americans’ religious freedom.
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