Federal prosecutors said members of the Oath Keepers nationalist group who participated in the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol had a “corrupt” intent to prevent Congress from fulfilling its Constitutional duty to certify the November 2020 election, USA Today reports.

“The object here is to scare Congress into halting the proceeding. The defendants intend to act corruptly by their show of force,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta during a motion hearing in which the 15 members of the Oath Keepers sought to have charges against them dropped.  “The defendants here are corrupt because they intended to intimidated Congress … into stopping what Congress was doing,” Nestler said.

At one point during the hearing, one of the defendants’ lawyers argued that the trial should be moved because the defendants could not get a fair trial in Washington, DC because DC residents lacked “traditional values.”

Tropical Storm Mindy has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and will likely make landfall at the panhandle of Florida overnight before tracking across upper Florida through Thursday, CNN reports.  The 13th named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season, Mindy could dump 2-4 inches of rain with 40 m.p.h. winds on impacted areas before it exits to the Atlantic Ocean.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has not issued any storm warnings for the state, and it is unknown if he will travel to a wealthy Republican donors in New England as this storm hits his state, as he did with Hurricane Ida.

“While Pinellas deputies were in the middle of a tense standoff with an armed man on the roof of a Dunedin home on Sunday, they said a naked woman who drove through the scene on a golf cart made the situation even more dangerous for law enforcement” Fox 13 Tampa Bay reports.

“Deputies were setting up a perimeter outside of a home in the 1100 block of Michigan Blvd just after midnight on Sunday after they said 18-year-old Myles Abbott fired a gun at people in the area, ran from deputies and climbed onto the roof of the house, pointing the firearm at them. It was the beginning of a SWAT standoff that lasted six hours. That’s when they said 28-year-old Jessica Smith, from Boston, Massachusetts, drove past several marked Pinellas sheriff patrol units in a golf cart. As Smith approached the home where the armed standoff was happening, deputies said she ignored their commands to leave the scene. Smith then refused to get out of the golf cart, so deputies took her out and handcuffed her. According to the affidavit, Smith had ‘a distinct odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her person, and she was completely nude.'”

“Amid rising concerns on the Hill about potential violence during a Sept. 18 rally defending those arrested during the Capitol riot, two well-known House conservatives who have described some Jan. 6 insurrectionists as ‘political prisoners’ say they’re not planning to attend this month’s event. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn expect to skip the so-called ‘Justice for J6’ rally on Sept. 18, according to the GOP duo’s spokespeople. Matthew Braynard, a former Trump campaign official organizing the event at the foot of the Capitol, has publicly invited all lawmakers to attend, but Cawthorn and Greene – two of the most vocal elected Republicans who have said some who breached the Capitol were unfairly prosecuted – would have been VIP attendees.”

“A spokesperson for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), another close Trump ally, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. As the rally draws closer, congressional security officials are beginning to prepare for potential risks amid heightened scrutiny of lapses in the response to the violence of Jan. 6’s riot led by supporters of former President Donald Trump. While final security decisions had not yet been made on matters like whether to restore the Capitol fencing that recently came down, House Administration Committee Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) was set to receive a briefing from Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger Wednesday afternoon, according to a source familiar with the meeting” – Politico.

President Biden, I'm not resigning, but you should. pic.twitter.com/HuRYM4bLYP

— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 8, 2021

New York Magazine: “Among liberals, conservative hypocrisy has become something of a truism. They begin with a valid conclusion. To conservatives, the body of the fetus is sacrosanct, but the body of the child is not. A particular ideology leaves children vulnerable to gun violence, to hunger and homelessness, to the consequences of climate change. Victims of a power that holds life loosely in its grip, children have no true defenders on the right. But here, liberals inevitably run aground. People don’t think of themselves as hypocrites. They don’t experience cognitive dissonance in the ways you might expect. Abbott likely believes everything he says, both about personal responsibility and about the immorality of abortion. So, too, do his allies in the state legislature. What, then, should we make of this conservative consistency? What looks like hypocrisy should be understood as a deeper ideology. In Texas, the right to life is conditional.”

“It has always been conditional, at least to conservatives. Only the fetus has an absolute right to life because it cannot err. Women are more complicated. They sin, these Eves, and deserve punishment. The right to life is fragile. The right to a good life is more fragile still. A person must be poor because of some moral failing; they’re lazy, unmotivated, or simply ignorant. The free market is never to blame, and neither are capitalists. Gun violence exists because of innate criminality, which must be answered with incarceration and more guns, borne by the right kind of people. As climate change becomes impossible to deny, the same arguments will appear: Personal responsibility must guard against burned or flooded homes; if the wealthy appear less vulnerable to disaster, it’s because they’ve earned a better way of life. This isn’t hypocrisy, but authoritarianism.”

“Trump has placed several calls over the past week to some family members of the 13 service members killed by an Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist attack during the withdrawal. Several have invited him to attend the funerals, and he has suggested he may try to do so. Trump and his allies have seen the calamitous end to the war in Afghanistan as a potent political opportunity as he weighs a potential 2024 reelection bid – even though Trump himself advocated for the withdrawal, negotiated with the Taliban before leaving office and urged Biden to leave even sooner.”

“As Biden plans to attend several solemn ceremonies Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Trump has not announced any plans to attend memorial events, though an adviser said he may attend one in Manhattan. That evening, he is slated to provide color commentary for a pay-per-view heavyweight boxing match at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla. Trump has criticized the way the Afghanistan withdrawal was handled, telling at least one family that he did not understand why Biden pulled the military out of the country before getting all the civilians out, according to people familiar with the calls who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose details of private discussions” – Washington Post.

The report cover of the Maricopa County canvass

The alleged canvass of Maricopa County voters, done by Republican operatives knocking on doors to ask people who they voted for in the November 2020 election, is completed.  Its report, written by losing Republican candidate for state house Liz Harris, starts off with a Big Lie. 

A Florida Circuit Court judge ruled against Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s appeal, saying he cannot enforce his ban on masks in schools by withholding state funds from school districts, CNN reports.

Using an executive order, DeSantis threatened to withhold state funds from local school districts that mandate students and staff wear masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus.  In most cases, that money would be used to pay school board members.  At least 13 school boards have voted to mandate masks in schools.

Second Circuit Judge John Cooper, however, ruled that DeSantis overstepped his authority in enacting the executive order and issued a stay, preventing schools from enforcing mask mandates.  With the decision, the stay is lifted and school districts can continue to mandate masks. 

“My own estimate is that Mr. Trump can’t afford not to run for president between now and 2024 – it’s too lucrative. His business life now appears to consist largely of paying himself for services his companies provide to his own campaign, funded by thousands of small donations and sales of Trump merchandise. And yet a hunger for him to serve again as president, even among his fans, is not conspicuous. I also ask myself: Would he be selling his Washington hotel, one of the few ways he successfully synergized his business interests with this political interests during his presidency, if he planned on being president again? I doubt it. Mr. Trump has likely already decided he will be happy with just picking the next president, which explains the troop of hopefuls outside his door in Mar-a-Lago” writes Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

He’s lived in the country through decades of civil war and invasions from the world’s superpowers, but the threat of the radical Islamic State proved to be too much for the last Jew in Afghanistan.  Sixty-two year old Zebulon Simentov has left the country, the Associated Press reports.

Living in a run-down synagogue in Kabul, Semintov kept kosher and prayed in Hebrew.  He lived there through the Soviet invasion, the lengthy civil war, the American occupation and the subsequent takeover by the Taliban.  While he didn’t fear the Taliban, an Israeli-American businessman who paid for Semintov’s evacuation convinced him to leave the country due to the threat from ISIS.

Semintov climbed aboard a bus that also held 29 of his neighbors, mostly women and children, and headed to an undisclosed neighboring country.  The businessman, Moti Kahana, is trying to find a country that will take Semintov in as a refugee.  He may not be eligible to travel to Israel because he has refused to grant his wife a divorce, a violation of Jewish law.

The Republican deputy mayor of a small town a half hour drive north of New York City was arrested by federal agents Tuesday for having an arsenal of illegal weapons, silencers and fake federal law enforcement identification cards in his Airmont home, NPR reports.

Deputy Mayor Brian Downey, 47, had 16 assault weapons, 13 silencers, and dozens of false identifications.  The weapons were all unregistered and two of the weapons, a sawed-off shotgun and a short-barrel AR-15 style rifle, require special federal firearms licenses to possess.

Photos of Downey’s fake identifications show a number of FBI identification cards bearing his photo, as well as more than a dozen fake federal badges and uniform patches.  Downey also had a fake badge and identification depicting him as a New York State Court officer.  Other agencies Downey claimed to represent were the US Justice Department, the US Marshal Service, the US Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“After a protracted legal battle, the Italian culture ministry has evicted Benjamin Harnwell, a British Catholic conservative, from the 13th-century Italian monastery where he planned to launch a right-wing political academy with Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. The ministry is now enlisting a coalition of community groups to open the Certosa di Trisulti to the public and determine what purpose it should serve. But Harnwell, who says he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, appealed the case to the Corte di Cassazione, the Italian Supreme Court.”

“Following a ruling this spring by the Consiglio di Stato, Italy’s highest administrative court, Harn-well was ordered to vacate the property, located on a wooded hill in Collepardo, south-east of Rome, by 26 July. Culture ministry officials subsequently conducted an inventory of the buildings, including a cloister, a library and an 18th-century pharmacy. The initial survey suggests nothing has been damaged, a ministry spokesman tells The Art Newspaper. The monastery is a listed national monument overseen by the culture ministry’s director general of museums, former Pompeii chief Massimo Osanna. Part of the complex will be opened to visitors as a heritage attraction in the coming months, but there will be a longer “period of reflection” before its primary use is decided, the spokesman says. The ministry is partnering with the Lazio region and Trisulti Bene Comune, an alliance of ten local associations, to develop a long-term plan for the site” – The Art Newspaper.

News.com.au: “Residents in apartment blocks locked-down by NSW Health are having their alcohol deliveries policed as part of a policy to limit the number of drinks being consumed each day. NSW Health has imposed rules limiting people in ‘NSW Health controlled buildings’ to a certain amount of alcohol each day in a bid to ‘ensure the safety of health staff and residents’. Mission Australia’s Common Ground building in Camperdown is the latest building where occupants are subjected to the harsh rules. Residents of the social housing estate have complained that care packages sent by friends and relatives have been searched. ‘They are searching all bags and things coming into the building… They confiscated a series of gifts. So things like bottles of spirits, we weren’t allowed to have those and we still (aren’t),’ Common Ground resident Robin Elhaj said”

“Today, Macy’s, Inc. and the City of New York announced the return of the world-famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, set to march down the streets of New York City for its 95th annual holiday celebration. Following last year’s made for television celebration, the official kick-off to the holiday season will take to the streets of Manhattan on Thursday, November 25th beginning at 9:00 a.m. On Thanksgiving Day, the spectacle will once again delight New York City spectators and a national TV audience with its signature mix of giant character helium balloons, fantastic floats, marching bands, performance groups, celebrities, clowns, and the one-and-only Santa Claus.”

“‘Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been a New York City institution for more than nine decades, growing to become an icon of American pop culture as it annually marks the official start of the holiday season,’ said Will Coss, Executive Producer of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. ‘For our 95th celebration, we are delighted to return this cherished holiday tradition closer to its original form as we march down the streets of New York City and into the homes of a nationwide audience.’ ‘We are thrilled to welcome back in its full form the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a world-renowned celebration that ushers in the magic of being in New York City during the holiday season,’ said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. ‘We applaud Macy’s work to creatively continue this beloved tradition last year and look forward to welcoming back Parade watchers to experience it safely, live and in person this November'” – Macy’s Press Release.

Microwave hack says we've been heating up our food all wronghttps://t.co/m01jyPkNGk

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 8, 2021

“The death threats brought Staci McElyea to tears. The caller said that McElyea and other workers in the Nevada Secretary of State’s office were ‘going to fucking die.’ She documented the threats and alerted police, who identified and interviewed the caller. But in the end, detectives said there was nothing they could do – that the man had committed no crime. The first call came at 8:07 a.m. on Jan. 7, hours after Congress certified Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the November 2020 presidential vote. The caller accused McElyea of ‘stealing’ the election, echoing Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. ‘I hope your children get molested. You’re all going to fucking die,’ he told her. He called back three times over the next 15 minutes, each time telling her she was ‘going to die.’ McElyea, 53, a former U.S. Marine, called the Nevada Capitol Patrol and sent the state police agency a transcript of the calls, according to emails Reuters obtained through a public-records request. An officer contacted the man – who police would later identify as Gjurgi Juncaj of Las Vegas – and reported back to McElyea that their inquiry ‘might have pissed him off even further,’ the emails showed. A week later, state police concluded that Juncaj’s threats were not criminal, characterizing them as ‘protected’ political speech, according to a summary of the case.”

“Juncaj was never arrested or charged. Asked about the calls, Juncaj told Reuters he didn’t believe he had done anything wrong. ‘Like I explained to the police, I didn’t threaten anybody,’ he said. The case illustrates the glaring gaps in the protection that U.S. law enforcement provides the administrators of American democracy amid a sustained campaign of intimidation against election officials and staff. The unprecedented torrent of terroristic threats began in the weeks before the November election, as Trump was predicting widespread voter fraud, and continues today as the former president carries on with false claims that he was cheated out of victory. In an investigation that identified hundreds of incidents of intimidation and harassment of election workers and officials nationwide, Reuters found only a handful of arrests” – Reuters.

“Hundreds of parents in Mexico are asking for court injunctions to have their children vaccinated against Covid-19 before they return to school, because the government is yet to offer a shot to people ages 12 to 18 even though they are authorized to receive it” the New York Times reports.

“The legal battle is taking place as the more transmissible Delta variant has pummeled Mexico, where only 28 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. The country is recording some of its highest daily caseloads of the pandemic, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration wants all students to return to school for in-person classes, which have been suspended for almost a year and a half. The Pfizer vaccine was approved in Mexico for use in children age 12 and above in June, but so far only ages 18 and above have been able to get shots.”