We should be proud.  We have shown tin pot dictators around the world how to do it.

The Question Menacing Brazil's Elections
August 22, 2022 at 3:15 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 50 Comments

"A simple but alarming question is dominating political discourse in Brazil with just six weeks left until national elections: Will President Jair Bolsonaro accept the results?," the New York Times reports.

"For months, Mr. Bolsonaro has attacked Brazil's electronic voting machines as rife with fraud -- despite virtually no evidence -- and Brazil's election officials as aligned against him. He has suggested that he would dispute any loss unless changes are made in election procedures. He has enlisted Brazil's military in his battle. And he has told his tens of millions of supporters to prepare for a fight."

Said Bolsonaro, in a recent speech: "If need be, we will go to war."

There are two commercials running on TV that are so bad. One is Oz touting his cred as an MD, then devolves into just word salad. Another ends with the tagline, "time for change." Huh? The seat is held by a Republican, you're running as a GQP, is that the change you want. Basically the ad makes Fetterman sound like incumbent. They are just really bad ads. Who came up with this stuff.

Extraordinary Phenomenon in Space Captured by Spellbinding New Image
SPACE
30 August 2022

Veterans Affairs to Provide Abortion Services
September 2, 2022 at 12:51 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 24 Comments

"The Department of Veterans Affairs, for the first time in its history, will provide abortion services and counseling to veterans in cases of health dangers, rape and incest,* even at federal facilities in states that have outlawed the procedure,"* the Wall Street Journal reports.

I think that's true.  But I don't think it's just Trump the bait was for.  Everywhere you read about threats of violence from right wing sites and message boards.  Biden lit them up like the forth of July.

Here's the thing.  If reporters can read and report n this stuff I'm pretty sure the FBI/NSA whatever is tracking every post.

The election is coming and people everywhere are warning of violence and chaos.  

I think Biden, red BG and all, was baiting all of them.  

Republicans are in disarray less than 60 days before the 2022 midterms election, according to report published online Saturday evening by The Washington Post.

I'm gonna say it.  I thought it was impressive.  I was reminded of some movie quote "when a politician quotes Lincoln you know you are in trouble"

She would be a hoot in a Republican primary debate.  

Judge reads the charges: murder for hire.

Defendant pleads guilty.

Judge gets a factual basis.  US attorneys are satisfied, defense counsel satisfied, defendant's satisfied.  Guilty plea accepted.

Defense counsel applies for bail pending sentencing  - asks for ROR.

US Attorneys agree.

Defendant gets home confinement with an ankle bracelet pending sentencing.  He's still there.

Sentencing was scheduled for June but then was pushed back, by mutual consent, to December.

The defendant is Sean Caddle, formerly one of the NJ Democratic party's most prolific fundraisers and distributors of dark money.  Worked for Menendez, worked for Ray Lesniak - the de facto head of the party.  The dead guy - it took 8 years to solve the crime - was a low-level operative in Jersey City who'd worked for Caddle at one point.  The two hitmen, lifelong crooks who were picked up shortly after the guilty plea.  Caddle had paid off the hit with thousands in cash in the parking lot of a diner.  (True Jersey, that)

And that's about all we've heard.  Lots of nervous  
people, we're led to believe but no subsequent arrests.

Still, how much cooperation does one have to give to get home confinement after pleading guilty to a contract murder in federal court?

Donald Trump's long time employee and trusted executive, Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg pled guilty to 15 felonies and admitted to conspiring with Trump to commit fraud. In return for a 5-month sentence, he told a judge Thursday morning he will testify against Trump's company over tax schemes.

Michael Heizer's City, a vast art project in the Nevada desert 50 years in the making, will finally open to the public
The artist's sprawling gesamtkunstwerk has been described as the largest contemporary artwork on earth, evoking the scale of Mesoamerican cities and Indigenous burial mounds

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A Georgia special prosecutor announced Tuesday that murder and assault charges will be dismissed against two Atlanta police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks in June 2020, saying the officers acted reasonably in response to a deadly threat.
"Both acted as reasonable officers would under the facts and circumstances of the events of that night," special prosecutor Peter Skandalakis said. "Both acted in accordance with well-established law and were justified in the use of force regarding the situation."

Shortly after the shooting, former District Attorney Paul Howard charged both officers with serious crimes including felony murder against Garrett Rolfe. I never thought these charges made a lot of sense. From Howard's ridiculous press conference...

Brooks' cordial and cooperative demeanor before the attempt to arrest him played a major role in the determination to present charges, Howard said.

For 41 minutes and 17 seconds, Brooks "never presented himself as a threat," Howard said. He "never displayed any aggressive behavior."

Trump whines: 'I don't understand why I can't have these things'

In the 6/3 decision, Chief Justice Roberts writing for the majority found the provision of the Clean Air Act the Biden Administration pointed to was too oblique, and ran afoul of the major questions doctrine, advancing a central goal of the right wing/reactionary legal movement to curtail the power of the "administrative state".

Justice Kagan writing for the dissent, stated that the statute gives the EPA ample authority, noting that the Clean Air Act was major legislation designed to deal with a major policy issue and that Congress gives an expert agency the power to address it.

In the IRA legislation recently passed, Democrats added language to address the supreme court's reining in the EPA by amending the Act to define carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuel as an "air pollutant". The Amendment gives the EPA explicit authority to regulate greenhouse gas and to use its power to push adoption of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.(this will enhance the EPA's ability to regulate emissions, but does not force utilities to change how power is generated as a means to do so).  

Memo Explains Why Trump Wasn't Charged in 2019
August 24, 2022 at 4:25 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 42 Comments

"The Justice Department has released the entire text of a secret 2019 memo that played a crucial role in the decision not to charge or accuse then-President Donald Trump of committing obstruction of justice in the investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election," the Washington Post reports.

"The memo, addressed to then-deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, says none of the potential instances of obstruction of justice by Trump cited in Mueller's lengthy final report `would warrant a prosecution for obstruction of justice' regardless of whether the person being investigated was a sitting president."

Politico: "The Justice Department fought release of the memo for years, arguing that it was part of a deliberative process advising Barr on what to do in response to Mueller's report. However, judges concluded that at the time the memo was written, Barr had already decided not to charge Trump."

He first got involved in Republican politics by doing advance work in Florida for Ronald Reagan's unsuccessful presidential primary run in 1976. He later worked for a consulting firm led by Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, who went on to play key roles in the political rise of Donald J. Trump.

Candidate Mary Peltola answers questions from a reporter prior to the forum. Candidates for the U.S. House participated in a forum at the Alaska Oil and Gas Association annual conference at the Dena'ina Convention Center in Anchorage on August 31, 2022. (Marc Lester / ADN)
Democrat Mary Peltola was the apparent winner of Alaska's special U.S. House race and is set to become the first Alaska Native in Congress, after votes were tabulated Wednesday in the state's first ranked choice election.

Peltola led Republican former Gov. Sarah Palin after ballots were tallied and votes for third-place GOP candidate Nick Begich III were redistributed to his supporters' second choices. Peltola, a Yup'ik former state lawmaker who calls Bethel home, is now slated to be the first woman to hold Alaska's lone U.S. House seat.

If results are confirmed as expected by the state review board later this week, she will succeed U.S. Rep. Don Young, the Republican who held the office for nearly five decades -- since before Peltola was born. The special election was triggered by Young's death in March.

LINK TO A CONSERVATIVE SITE

I'm the only member left from the team that launched this site in 2006. It's always been owned by others, first by Michelle Malkin and then by Salem Communications, but when you're part of a project from the jump and you invest 36,591 hours into making it work (many more than that, truthfully) you come to think of it as yours.

I have no identity as a writer apart from my site. When I wake up tomorrow, Hot Air will belong to someone else and I'll be a different person.

What cause does the Republican Party presently serve? It has no meaningful policy agenda. It literally has no platform. The closest thing it has to a cause is justifying abuses of state power to own the libs and defending whatever Trump's latest boorish or corrupt thought-fart happens to be. Imagine being a propagandist for a cause as impoverished as that. Many don't need to imagine.

The GOP does have a cause. The cause is consolidating power. Overturn the rigged elections, purge the disloyal bureaucrats, smash the corrupt institutions that stand in the way. Give the leader a free hand. It's plain as day to those who are willing to see where this is going, what the highest ambitions of this personality cult are. Those who support it without insisting on reform should at least stop pretending that they're voting for anything else.

Lastly, to those who spent the last seven years barking insults at me in the comments for not genuflecting to Trump, I'll give you this: You're not phonies. You believe what you say. We have that much in common. I respect honesty and paid you the respect of being honest. It would scandalize you to know how many of your heroes sound like you in public and like me in private. Audience capture has brought most of conservative media to ruin by making it predictable and shrill.

I hear Lincoln's words in my head as I write that: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies." Let's hope. But let's also be real: To a certain sort of Very Online Trumpist weirdo, having the right enemies is what politics is all about. To any who insist upon having me as one, I'm okay with it. Few badges of honor shine as brightly as the scorn of authoritarians.

Every poll we consume over the closing weeks of this election will rely on a likely voter model for which we have no benchmark.

NYTimes

"In my 28 years analyzing elections, I've never seen anything like what's happened in the past two months in American politics: Women are registering to vote in numbers I've never witnessed. I've run out of superlatives to describe how different this moment is, especially in light of the cycles of tragedy and eventual resignation of recent years. This is a moment to throw old political assumptions out the window and to consider that Democrats could buck historic trends this cycle..."

DOJ Slaps Dozens of Subpoenas on Trumpworld Over Jan. 6
The Justice Department has reportedly issued around 40 subpoenas to people close to the former president seeking information about the effort to overturn the 2020 election

And WV passes a near total abortion ban

I had no knowledge until today, but apparently she is being investigated for corruption.

Sheriff's Department Serves Search Warrant at Home of LA County Supervisor Kuehl

Baltimore prosecutors filed a motion Wednesday asking for a new trial for Adnan Syed, whose case was the subject of the hugely popular first season of the "Serial" podcast.

A statement from the state attorney's office cited newly discovered evidence.

As stewards of the court, we are obligated to uphold confidence in the integrity of convictions and do our part to correct when this standard has been comprised," Mosby said. "We have spoken with the family of Ms. Hae Min Lee and (they) fully understand that the person responsible for this heinous crime must be held accountable."

The state will request that Syed be released on his own recognizance pending the investigation if the motion to vacate his conviction is granted.

"We believe that keeping Mr. Syed detained as we continue to investigate the case with everything that we know now, when we do not have confidence in results of the first trial, would be unjust," Mosby said.

A former ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin died after "falling down several flights of stairs,"