"Big Lie" Republicans SLAMMED for fake patriotism on 4th

 

Today’s Action: Productive patriotism for the 4th of July!

---

Today's Top Stories:

Republicans who backed Trump’s election lies called out for false patriotism on 4th of July
Critics called out GOPers who celebrated Independence Day but conveniently forgot to mention their promotion of the ex-president's 2020 election lies that fueled the deadly US Capitol riot.

Take Action: Add your name to tell Senate Democrats to DUMP THE FILIBUSTER!

---

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Newly-released recording lands Giuliani in major trouble
Only Rudy Giuliani would actually leave proof of his own efforts to rig an election by leaving voicemails of it.

Take Action: Charge Rudy Giuliani!

---

Brian Tyler Cohen finally interviews a REPUBLICAN congressman
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: About time.

---

Donald Trump Jr. concedes felony count in indictment against dad's company is true
Oops.

---

Developers offered doomed Miami condo owners $400,000 over complaints that new construction next door was causing their building to shake
The condo association of Champlain Towers, which partially collapsed more than a week ago, was sent a draft offer by the luxury high rise Eighty Seven Park, seeking to prevent them from opposing the project.

Take Action: Add your name to call for interns for be protected in the American Jobs Plan!

---

Biden touts US pandemic progress at July 4 White House event: "America is coming back together"
President Biden touted the nation's progress against the pandemic Sunday evening as he and first lady Jill Biden hosted their biggest party yet at the White House marking the July 4th holiday.

Take Action: Tell Congress to pass Biden's infrastructure plan to create jobs and finally rebuild America!

---

Pro-Trump social media app GETTR hacked on launch day as half million sign up
The nascent social media platform started by ex-Trump lackey Jason Miller following the ex-president's permanent Twitter ban is off to a rough start.

Take Action: Add your name to call on Congress to end America's massive backlog of untested rape kits!

---

JD Vance is deleting all his anti-Trump tweets with eyes set on US Senate seat
The Never Trump Republican wants Ohio voters to forget he was ever a Never Trump Republican. Good luck with that.

---

Climate change is driving jarring changes at Yellowstone National Park
Temperatures are likely the warmest they’ve been in 800,000 years.

---

Canada battling more than 180 wildfires with hundreds dead in heat wave
About 70% of the active fires were likely caused by lightning strikes, while record-setting high temperatures have only exacerbated the crisis.

---

Russian hackers demand $70 million after breaching Florida-based tech firm
The hack comes after President Biden warned President Putin to stop Russian cyber-criminals or face repercussions. According to Reuters news agency, the major hack was likely coordinated by the REvil cybercrime gang and it centered on the Miami tech firm Kaseya.

---

---

Alright, alright... alright?

Matthew McConaughey says America is going through puberty right now

White nationalist group tries to march through Philly, promptly chased out of town

Joey Chestnut sets new record, eats 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes

Atlanta woman wakes up to find a wild African cat on her bed

Meanwhile...

Pro golfer shot and killed on Georgia country club golf course

Pope Francis has surgery for colon diverticulitis

80 people missing in deadly 'tsunami' mudslide in central Japan

Remaining section of condo demolished ahead of tropical storm

Hope...

Teen tells tale of rescue after falling four floors in condo collapse

Listening to nature can boost mood and lower stress

Flying car completes first-ever flight between airports

---

Today’s Action: Productive patriotism for the 4th of July!

For many Americans, yesterday was tough. July 4, 1776 was our country’s day of independence, yes...but not for many at the time. Not for native tribal nations, enslaved Africans and their descendants, or women who fought nearly a century and a half for the right to vote.

245 years later, for millions of American citizens, there is no freedom to celebrate. Still others may shoot fireworks even as they face systemic sexism, racism, homophobia, and voter suppression, battling to make their voices heard and their lives matter in their own country.

So here’s where we, at OD Action, feel patriotic: we have the ability and the right to elevate disenfranchised voices and to use every resource to hold our elected leaders to the will of the people.

So today, a day where many (but far from all) of us have a little extra time on our hands, let’s use that freedom to write our Senators and demand that they abolish the filibuster and pass the For The People Act.

With restrictive anti-voter laws being passed by conservative state legislatures and the Supreme Court being stacked in a way that is likely to uphold them, the best way to practice productive patriotism this 4th of July is by writing to our elected leaders and calling on them to rise up and protect the voting rights of Americans. 

Federally passed voting rights legislation is the best way for Democrats to reverse voter suppression efforts in GOP-led state legislatures. Our country needs the For the People Act more than ever.

Write your Senators and tell them the most patriotic thing they can do this 4th of July is to abolish the filibuster and pass the For the People Act!

PS — Please don't forget to sign the petition calling on President Biden to get healthcare to kids in low income schools, and be sure to follow OD Action on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

RSN: FOCUS: Bess Levin | Oops: The Trump Organization Kept Literal Spreadsheets of Its Crimes

 

 

02 July 21

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

 

FOCUS: Bess Levin | Oops: The Trump Organization Kept Literal Spreadsheets of Its Crimes
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair
Levin writes: "In life, a good rule of thumb is to not engage in the sort of behavior that could result in being charged with numerous felonies; in other words, don't do crimes."

Which is something one should probably avoid if one is hoping to avoid prison time.

n life, a good rule of thumb is to not engage in the sort of behavior that could result in being charged with numerous felonies; in other words, don‘t do crimes. But if you’re going to ignore that rule, and you don’t want to spend years in prison, another piece of advice is to not leave such an obvious paper trail of said crimes that you might as well have stuck a Post-it note on a stack of files that reads, “Hey, everybody, come check out all the laws I’ve been breaking! It’s all right here! Get the handcuffs ready!” Which, based on the indictment unsealed in a Manhattan courtroom today, is basically what the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO did, for more than a decade. Whoops!

Yes, in a turn of events perhaps unsurprising given Donald Trump‘s frequent pronouncements that he‘s “like, really smart,” it appears that not only did the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg engage in so many scams that they were hit with a whopping 15 criminal charges—including conspiracy, grand larceny, and multiple counts of tax fraud and falsifying records—but they were really, really stupid about it. Despite the fact that Weisselberg and the company were very effective at (allegedly) hiding all sorts of income from the Internal Revenue Service—largely through fringe benefits like apartments, cars, and private school tuition the Trump Org paid for that were never declared as income—they apparently never envisioned a scenario in which they would be investigated, hence the decision to keep meticulous records of all the taxes they were allegedly dodging. (In total, Weisselberg was accused of dodging taxes on $1.7 million worth of perks.)

As one delightful section of the indictment reads:

Weisselberg caused the Trump Corporation to issue corporate checks made payable to a Trump Organization employee who cashed the checks and received cash. The cash was given to Weisselberg for his personal use. The Trump Corporation booked this cash as “Holiday Entertainment,” but maintained internal spreadsheets showing the cash to be part of Weisselberg’s employee compensation.

Oops! Great work, dummies! Here’s another fun example:

For certain years, the Trump Organization maintained internal spreadsheets that tracked the amounts it paid for Weisselberg’s rent, utility, and garage expenses. Simultaneously, the Trump Organization reduced the amount of direct compensation that Weisselberg received in the form of checks or direct deposits to account for the indirect compensation that he received in the form of payments of rent, utility bills, and garage expenses. The indirect compensation was not included on Weisselberg’s W-2 forms or otherwise reported to federal, state, or local tax authorities, and no income taxes were withheld by the corporate defendants in connection with the indirect compensation.

Weisselberg, who pleaded not guilty on Thursday alongside the ex-president‘s business, is now facing more than a decade in prison, if convicted on all charges. And while prosecutors are presumably still hoping he’ll flip and testify against Trump, according to former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen, the government will still be able to make its case without him:

The Supreme Court gives voter suppression the green light

Nothing to see here, just the high court‘s conservative justices declaring it‘s A-OK for states to disenfranchise minority voters. Per The Washington Post:

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld two Arizona voting restrictions that a lower court had said discriminated against minority voters, a ruling that suggests that it will be harder to challenge a spate of new laws passed by state legislatures in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the opinion in the 6-to-3 ruling, with the court’s conservative majority in charge. The court’s liberals joined an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan protesting that the decision weakens the shield provided by the Voting Rights Act (VRA), first passed in 1965 to forbid laws that result in discrimination based on race.

Liberal election law experts said the decision is part of a pattern in which the Supreme Court has systematically weakened legal protections for minority voters. “The conservative Supreme Court has taken away all the major available tools for going after voting restrictions,” said Richard Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California at Irvine. “This at a time when some Republican states are passing new restrictive voting laws.” He said the court “makes it harder to prove intentional racial discrimination in passing a voting rule,” which is likely to affect the Biden Justice Department’s newly filed complaint about Georgia’s new voting laws.

Responding to the news, Joe Biden said in a statement: “I am deeply disappointed in today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court that undercuts the Voting Rights Act, and upholds what Justice Kagan called ‘a significant race-based disparity in voting opportunities.’ In a span of just eight years, the Court has now done severe damage to two of the most important provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—a law that took years of struggle and strife to secure.”

Team Trump rolls out strangely named social media network that looks a lot like Twitter but worse

Will GETTR be scrubbed from existence as quickly as Trump’s blog? Stay tuned! Per Politico:

The site, called GETTR, advertised its mission statement as “fighting cancel culture, promoting common sense, defending free speech, challenging social media monopolies, and creating a true marketplace of ideas.” The app is currently in beta form and will be officially launched on July 4 at 10 a.m.

Trump’s former spokesman, Jason Miller, is leading the platform, he confirmed via text. Former Trump campaign spokesperson Tim Murtaugh is involved as a consultant on the app. Trump’s involvement with the project is unclear as is whether or not he will set up an account on GETTR and use it. “The former president is going to make his own decision, it’s certainly there and ready for him should he make the decision—we would welcome that. There is an account reserved for him and waiting for him but that’s a decision for him to make,” said a person involved with the app.

In an interview, Miller told Fox News that GETTR uses “superior technology” and, even more hilariously, that the conservative hellscape will “be the envy of the social media world.”

READ MORE

 

Contribute to RSN

Follow us on facebook and twitter!

Update My Monthly Donation

PO Box 2043 / Citrus Heights, CA 95611