A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
The Texas secretary of state’s office told officials in Texas’ most populous county, Harris County, on Tuesday that it would be sending “inspectors” who will “perform randomized checks on election records, including tapes and chain-of-custody, and will observe the handling and counting of ballots and electronic media.”
I can’t be second!
Oh yeah, dog training happens later on Thursdays.
I really try not to get my tinfoil hat out of the closet, but have the fascists been actually preparing to use voter fraud as an excuse to overcome elections as long as they’ve been talking about voter fraud?
Are they capable of such a long game?
It seems that Republicans are becoming increasingly successful in establishing the ‘Stolen Election’ as a sort of canon of faith. It serves as the rationale for all manner of undemocratic acts, and has the great benefit of requiring no empirical proof. I think the reason that it has taken root: beyond political expediency, is that it ties in with Republicans’ unspoken belief that all Dem victories are illegitimate because their supporters are not ‘Real Americans’. Democracy was ‘fun while it lasted’, but it is no longer worth it if it takes power away from straight, White, male*, Christian, cisgender Americans.
I still haven’t figured out why Republican women go along with this…
A high-precision grinding machine system manufactured in Connecticut that is banned from being exported to Russia due to its potential application in nuclear proliferation and defense programs has been intercepted in Latvia before it was to be shipped to Russia. A superseding indictment charging a number of individuals and European companies was unsealed Tuesday in the District of Connecticut, naming Eriks Mamonovs, 33, Vadims Ananics, 46, and Janis Uzbalis, 46, who were arrested Tuesday in Riga, Latvia, while Ukrainian Stanislav Romanyuk, 37, was arrested in Tallinn, Estonia, on June 13. The indictment alleges they conspired to violate U.S. export laws and regulations to smuggle a jig grinder to Russia. The machinery “can be used for nefarious purposes, including in defense applications to build weapons of war,” said Matthew Millhollin, special agent in charge of homeland security investigations in New England. All are currently detained and the United States is seeking their extradition. “The power and precision of American technology must not be put to use by the Kremlin’s war machine,” said Andrew Adams, director of task force KleptoCapture. The indictment is just one of two after an entire network was busted providing military technology to Russia, some of which has ended up in the battlefields of Ukraine.
At least one person in Trump’s orbit apparently thinks it’s a bad idea, telling CNN that “it’s a risk to invite a DOJ lawyer to lunch let alone back to Mar-a-Lago.”
Don’t stop at Mar***go. You need to do a coordinated three point location. Jersey, NY, and FL.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discovered that Tim Michels, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ (D) Republican challenger, apparently likes to treat his local police department like a customer service line
And I imagine there’s an entire SWAT team waiting if the pizza delivery guy’s 5 minutes late.
Liz Truss has announced she is to step down as prime minister following a turbulent 45 days in office which has seen her crash the markets, lose two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs.
45 days is so short, she didn’t even have time to think any documents to declassification status. And do you even get a pension and their version of Secret Service protection for 6 weeks of work? She didn’t even make it past the probationary period.
Here’s a head-scratching development: The ex-president and his legal team are weighing whether to let federal agents search Mar-a-Lago again given that the Justice Department believes he still hasn’t turned over all the government records he squirreled away at the resort…
This is like Trumpworld playing Lucy and the football… on the field at the Superbowl for all to see. Aaaaargh.
