August 7, 2023
Vol. 12, No. 2056

ASPIRATIONAL: Evidently Donald Trump merely “aspired” to remain in the presidency after losing the 2020 election.

  Trump’s lawyer John Lauro hit the Sunday morning talk shows saying all Trump did was exercise his right to free speech. “What President Trump didn’t do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything,” Lauro said on CNN’s State of the Union, “He asked him in an aspirational way.”

  The indictment lays out in detail how Trump and unnamed co-conspirators coaxed and cajoled state election officials to reverse the vote while participating in the enlistment of fake electors in seven states.  According to the indictment, they plotted to replace legitimate electors with electors who would cast their votes for Trump.

  Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Lauro referred to Trump’s asking the Georgia secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” as “an aspirational ask.”

  Also yesterday, Trump on social media attacked special counsel Jack Smith and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, calling Smith “deranged” and Pelosi “sick” and “demented.”

THE WAR ROOM: The Ukraine war has stepped up with the Russians striking grain shipping facilities and the Ukrainians hitting ships at sea as well as two bridges connecting Russian-occupied Crimea to the rest of Ukraine.

  One of the strikes forced closure of the Chonhar Bridge, which links Crimea to Russian-occupied Kherson region. 

  Ukraine is making slow progress, if any, on the ground. There’s been heavy fighting to re-take the village of Robotyne in southern Ukraine, which Russia says it has repulsed every time there’s an assault. 

  On the symbolic front, The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned the replacement of the “motherland” symbol on a famous Soviet-era statue in Kyiv. The 335-foot steel monument is the figure of a robed woman holding up a sword and shield. The Ukrainian government replaced the Soviet hammer and sickle on the shield with a trident, the Ukrainian coat of arms. 

PLAIN FOLK: Part of the plain-folks persona advertised by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the 40-foot motor coach he owns and drives around the country in his time off.

  But the NY Times dug into the justice’s purchase of the $267,000 motor coach in 1999 and concluded that there is a back story to the purchase that “leaves unanswered a host of questions about whether the justice received, and failed to disclose, a lavish gift from a wealthy friend.”

  The bus is a Prevost Marathon, considered the Rolls-Royce of motor coaches. Although Thomas had told people he scrimped and saved to buy the bus, it was actually financed by a wealthy friend, who told the Times little about the deal, other than that nine years later “the loan was satisfied.” 

  The friend, Anthony Welters, who made his fortune in the health care, would not tell the Times the terms of the loan or whether Thomas paid it back in full. 

  Thomas is already documented to have accepted hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in travel, from a rich friend who also bought Thomas’s mother’s home and allowed her to keep living in it.

  Justice Thomas refused to answer questions about the motor home deal.

BOOTED: After controlling the game in regular time yesterday but failing to score even in overtime, the US women’s soccer team lost to Sweden in a heartbreaking penalty kick shootout, ending their quest for another World Cup title.

  Sweden’s Magdalena Eriksson tied it up at 4-4 and then the US’s Kelley O’Hara missed her shot, bouncing off the right post.

  Sweden’s Lina Hurtig then fired it to the left side of the goal and American goalie Alyssa Naeher popped it up with both hands before stretching to keep it out of the goal. It was in doubt for a moment with the stadium suspended before the call … the ball crossed the plane of the goal by less than the width of the ball, and it was over for the Americans. 

THE SPIN RACK: The movie Barbie has surpassed a $1 billion worldwide intake at the box office, according to Warner Bros., in a first for a woman director, Greta Gerwig. — Trucking giant yellow, which has already shut down, officially filed for bankruptcy. — Flooding from glacial melting over the weekend swept away two homes in the Alaska capital of Juneau and severely damaged others. Part of a third home was broken away and a riverfront condominium building was significantly undermined.  — Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California say they have repeated a fusion energy event that creates more energy than is put into it. — X (Twitter) owner Elon Musk says he will cover the legal costs “no limit” for anyone who gets in trouble with their employer for posting something on his platform. Prominent in that category is AJ Delgado, who says she got pregnant working for the Trump campaign and was sued for breaking her nondisclosure agreement when she went public with the news.

BELOW THE FOLD: The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida has asked people not to call the cops when they see manatees in evident distress because what they’re doing is mating. People who see the manatees up on the beach tend to think the creatures are in trouble when actually they are answering nature’s most basic call. The sheriff’s office post said, “We can assure you they are more than fine.”

-30-