AMERIKA
Stop the Steal 2024 is here

Sabrina Haake
August 18, 2024

Republican 2024 presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump reacts on the second day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. 

When Donald Trump tells 150 million of his followers that Kamala Harris is lying about her campaign rally crowd sizes, mainstream media — and the Department of Homeland Security — should pay close attention.

Trump isn’t just licking his wounded ego. He’s test marketing “Stop the Steal” redux.

Trump began spreading false claims about the November 2020 election in April 2020, months before the first vote was cast. By early January 2021, his false claims crescendoed in a violent attack at the U.S. Capitol, costing five people their lives, causing $3 billion in damages and wounding American democracy.

J6, the first and only such attack in U.S. history, was based entirely on Trump’s persistent lies that Joe Biden’s presidential campaign engaged in voter fraud and election interference — even as Trump himself committed election crimes he falsely projected onto Democrats.

As Trump begins to chant the same fact-free mantra against Harris in 2024, Act Two has begun. Only the names have been changed.

Fake Trump cries about fake Harris supporters

Last week, after Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz landed at a Detroit aircraft hangar, they were greeted by thousands of supporters as they stepped off Air Force Two, the vice presidential plane.

In response to photos of the crowd, Trump claimed on his vanity social media platform Truth Social that Harris was using artificial intelligence to generate fake pictures of fake crowds:


(Harris is) a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the “crowd” looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake “crowds” at her speeches.

This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING - And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!

Trump is not only gaslighting his supporters over Harris’ crowd size, he’s building the false narrative that the only way Harris will defeat him — as Biden defeated him in 2020 — is if she cheats.


More than mere gaslighting, this narrative will provide the crucial permission structure for MAGA to engage in political violence if and when Trump loses for a second time in two presidential elections.

A sickening sense of déjà vu

Trump’s legal team argues — even though Trump’s 2020 election challenges were defeated in over 60 separate courts of law — that the former president’s lies about a stolen election were political speech, and therefore, protected by the First Amendment.

Although the First Amendment gives broad protection to political speech, and a Trump-packed Supreme Court gave some credence to his outrageous presidential immunity claims, the First Amendment has never protected fraud.

As the high court has previously written:

“(T)he prevention and punishment of fraud has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem."


"[F]raudulent representations through speech for personal gain” are “not protected by the First Amendment.”

This November, Trump will certainly — and fraudulently — claim he won in states he lost. He will invent problems with voting equipment. He will challenge results in Democratic-run cities.

It’s déjà vu all over again.

Only this time, Trump isn’t just lying to cling to power after 81 million voters rejected him.

This time, he’s lying to stay out of prison.
Even some Republicans want Trump to knock it off


Trump is clearly alarmed over Harris’ crowd size, and members of the Republican Party would like him to stop talking about it.

Trump rejected this advice.

During his fact-free news conference in Florida at Mar-a-Lago, he claimed he draws the “biggest crowds” in politics, and that he attracted a bigger crowd to the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attracted for his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.


Setting aside the chutzpah of comparing MLK’s legendary civil rights speech to his own attempt to overthrow an election, Trump’s obsession with crowd size is a Rorschach test revealing how he sees the role of the U.S. presidency: one that is superficial, a tool of manipulation, a continuation of his reality TV fame.

John Giles, Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., recently wrote an opinion piece urging Republicans to reject Trump’s continuing lies about the election and to elect Harris to give the Republican Party a chance to heal, reset and build itself a sustainable, post-Trump future.

Giles reflected that the state of Arizona had “faced the brunt of misinformation, election denialism and an erosion of trust in our justice system,” from Trump’s repeated false attempts to disrupt the U.S. electoral process.


If MAGA believes Harris crowds are fake, they will believe the election is stolen



Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris gestures to the audience while appearing at a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena on August 9, 2024 in Glendale, Ariz. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

There’s a method to Trump’s madness, and there’s madness with his methods, made plain with J6 hindsight.

Trump, with the help of Fox News and similar propaganda outlets, was able to convince enough followers that the 2020 election was stolen that they breached the Capitol — and attempted to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him.

Because the personal stakes for Trump are much, much higher this year, the risks to the Capitol Police, the District of Columbia, government security agencies and the American public in general are also higher.

There’s a reason Trump keeps talking about pardoning violent J6 protesters; it’s the same reason he opened his 2024 inaugural rally performing with the “J6 Prison Choir.” He’s trying to repackage and market his election crimes as laudatory acts of patriotism, in hopes his zealots will re-enlist despitehundreds of criminal convictions that followed J6.

Trump knows that if MAGA believes Harris-Walz crowds are “fake,” they will believe Trump’s 2024 loss is also fake — and that Trump won when he didn't.



A person wears a shirt referencing January 6, 2021, on the second day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 16, 2024 in Milwaukee. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

It’s important for national security experts to know that a cornered, frightened and criminally convicted rat will stop at nothing to save itself.

Election deniers now control local elections in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. More than 70 election officials around the country have already announced they will not certify the results if Harris wins.

The Justice Department, Homeland Security, National Guard, State Police and Capitol Police had best gear up, and get prepared for anything. It will be wild.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Polish leader urges Nord Stream patrons to ‘keep quiet’ as pipeline mystery returns to spotlight


In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard a leak from Nord Stream 2 is seen, Sept. 28, 2022. (Swedish Coast Guard via AP, File)

August 17, 2024

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Saturday reacted to reports that revived questions about who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, saying the initiators of the gas pipeline project should “apologize and keep quiet.” That comment came after one of his deputies denied a claim that Warsaw was partly responsible for its damage.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Ukrainian authorities were responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September 2022, a dramatic act of sabotage that cut Germany off from a key source of energy and worsened an energy crisis in Europe.

Germany was a partner with Russia in the pipeline project. Poland has long said its own security interests have been harmed by Nord Stream.

“To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The only thing you should do today about it is apologise and keep quiet,” Tusk wrote on the social media portal X Saturday.

Tusk appeared to be reacting specifically to a claim by a former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, BND, August Hanning, who told the German daily Die Welt that the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines must have had Poland’s support. Hanning said Germany should consider seeking compensation from Poland and Ukraine.

Hanning, who retired from his spy chief job, did not provide any evidence in support of his claim. Some observers noted that he served under former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who went on to work later for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream.

Krzysztof Gawkowski, a deputy Polish prime minister and the minister of digital affairs, strongly denied reports that Poland and Ukraine had damaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline in an interview Friday on the Polsat broadcaster.

Gawkowski alleged that the comments of the former member of the German intelligence service were “inspired by Moscow” and were aimed at destabilizing NATO countries.

“I believe that this is the sound of Russian disinformation,” he added.

On Wednesday, Polish prosecutors confirmed that they had received a warrant for a Ukrainian man wanted by Germany as a suspect in the pipeline attack, but that he left the country before he could be arrested.

The Nord Stream project, with its two pipelines created to carry gas from Russia to Europe along the Baltic Sea bed, went ahead despite opposition from Poland, the U.S. and Ukraine.

They allowed Russia to send gas directly to Western Europe, bypassing Poland and Ukraine. With all gas previously going over land, Warsaw and Kyiv feared losing huge sums in transit fees and political leverage that came with controlling the gas transports.

The Wall Street Journal said in its report published Thursday that it spoke to four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot. All of them said the pipelines were a legitimate target in Ukraine’s war of defense against Russia. Ukrainian authorities are denying the claims.

Nord Stream 1 was completed and came online in 2011. Nord Stream 2 was not finished until the fall of 2021 but never became operational due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Before lobster, Maine had a thriving sardine industry. A sunken ship reminds us of its storied past



FILE 0 Packed sardine cans move down the assembly line at the Stinson Seafood plant Monday, April 25, 2005, in Gouldsboro, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)


In this image provided by Aaron Pike Rugh, the retired sardine carrier Jacob Pike, which sank last winter off Harpswell, Maine, is seen after a salvage company raised the vessel in this photo taken, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in waters off South Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Aaron Pike Rugh)


In this image provided by Aaron Pike Rugh, the retired sardine carrier Jacob Pike, which sank last winter off Harpswell, Maine, is seen after a salvage company raised the vessel in this photo taken, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in waters off South Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Aaron Pike Rugh)

BY DAVID SHARP
August 13, 2024

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — An 83-foot (25-meter) motor boat that was one of the first refrigerated sardine carriers during the heyday of Maine’s sardine industry is going to be scrapped after a recovery operation to retrieve the sunken vessel.

The Jacob Pike fell victim to a storm last winter.

The 21-year-old great-great-grandson of the vessel’s namesake wants the historic wooden vessel to be preserved, and formed a nonprofit that would use it as an educational platform. But the U.S. Coast Guard doesn’t have the authority to transfer ownership of the vessel. And any new owner could become responsible for repaying up to $300,000 for environmental remediation.

Sumner Pike Rugh said he’s still hoping to work with the Coast Guard but understands the vessel’s fate is likely sealed.

“It’s an ignominious end to a storied vessel,” said his father, Aaron Pike Rugh.

Around the world, Maine is synonymous with lobster — the state’s signature seafood — but that wasn’t always the case. Over the years, hundreds of sardine canneries operated along the Maine coast.

The first U.S. sardine cannery opened in 1875 in Eastport, Maine, with workers sorting, snipping and packing sardines, which fueled American workers and, later, allied troops overseas. On the nation’s opposite coast, sardine canneries were immortalized by John Steinbeck in his 1945 novel “Cannery Row,” which focused on Monterey, California.


RELATED COVERAGE


Game of inches: Lobster fishermen say tiny change in legal sizes could disrupt imperiled industry


Launched in 1949, the Jacob Pike is a wooden vessel with a motor, along with a type of refrigeration system that allowed the vessel to accept tons of herring from fishing vessels before being offloaded at canneries.

When tastes changed and sardines fell out of favor — leading to the shuttering of canneries — the Jacob Pike vessel hauled lobsters. By last winter, its glory days were long past as it sank off Harpswell during a powerful storm.

In recent years there’s been a resurgence of interest in tinned fish, but the historic ship was already sailed — or in this case, sunk.

Sumner Rugh, a senior at the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, was halfway around the world on a tanker off the coast of South Korea when he learned that the vessel he wanted to preserve was gone. No one else seemed interested in the vessel, he said, so he started the nonprofit Jacob Pike Organization with a board that includes a former owner.

He said he hoped that the Coast Guard would hand the vessel over to the nonprofit without being saddled with costs associated with environmental remediation. Since that’s not possible, he’s modifying his goal of saving the entire vessel intact. Instead, he hopes to save documentation and enough components to be able to reconstruct the vessel.

The Coast Guard took over environmental remediation of fuel, batteries and other materials that could foul the ocean waters when the current owner was either unable or unwilling to take on the task, said Lt. Pamela Manns, a spokesperson based in Maine. The owner’s phone wasn’t accepting messages on Tuesday.

Last week, salvage crews used air bags and pumps to lift the vessel from its watery grave, and it was sturdy and seaworthy enough to be towed to South Portland, Maine.

While sympathetic to Sumner Rugh’s dream, Manns said the Coast Guard intends to destroy the vessel. “I can appreciate the fact that this boat means something to him, but our role is very clear. Our role is to mitigate any pollution threats. Unfortunately the Jacob Pike was a pollution threat,” she said.

CENSORSHIP FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

News outlets were leaked insider material from the Trump campaign. They chose not to print it


BY DAVID BAUDER
 August 13, 2024

At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received.

Instead, Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post have written about a potential hack of the campaign and described what they had in broad terms.

Their decisions stand in marked contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when a Russian hack exposed emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The website Wikileaks published a trove of these embarrassing missives, and mainstream news organizations covered them avidly.

Politico wrote over the weekend about receiving emails starting July 22 from a person identified as “Robert” that included a 271-page campaign document about Vance and a partial vetting report on Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also considered as a potential vice president. Both Politico and the Post said that two people had independently confirmed that the documents were authentic.

“Like many such vetting documents,” The Times wrote of the Vance report, “they contained past statements with the potential to be embarrassing or damaging, such as Mr. Vance’s remarks casting aspersions on Mr. Trump.

What’s unclear is who provided the material. Politico said it did not know who “Robert” was and that when it spoke to the supposed leaker, he said, “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from.”


The Trump campaign said it had been hacked and that Iranians were behind it. While the campaign provided no evidence for the claim, it came a day after a Microsoft report detailed an effort by an Iranian military intelligence unit to compromise the email account of a former senior advisor to a presidential campaign. The report did not specify which campaign.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said over the weekend that “any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies.”

The FBI released a brief statement Monday that read: “We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter.”

The Times said it would not discuss why it had decided not to print details of the internal communications. A spokesperson for the Post said: “As with any information we receive, we take into account the authenticity of the materials, any motives of the source and assess the public interest in making decisions about what, if anything, to publish.”

Brad Dayspring, a spokesperson for Politico, said editors there judged that “the questions surrounding the origins of the documents and how they came to our attention were more newsworthy than the material that was in those documents.”

Indeed, it didn’t take long after Vance was announced as Trump’s running mate for various news organizations to dig up unflattering statements that the Ohio senator had made about him.

A lesson from 2016?

It’s also easy to recall how, in 2016, candidate Trump and his team encouraged coverage of documents on the Clinton campaign that Wikileaks had acquired from hackers. It was widespread: A BBC story promised “18 revelations from Wikileaks’ hacked Clinton emails” and Vox even wrote about Podesta’s advice for making superb risotto.

Brian Fallon, then a Clinton campaign spokesperson, noted at the time how striking it was that concern about Russian hacking quickly gave way to fascination over what was revealed. “Just like Russia wanted,” he said.

Unlike this year, the Wikileaks material was dumped into the public domain, increasing the pressure on news organizations to publish. That led to some bad decisions: In some cases, outlets misrepresented some of the material to be more damaging to Clinton than it actually was, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania communications professor who wrote “Cyberwar,” a book about the 2016 hacking.

This year, Jamieson said she believed news organizations made the right decision not to publish details of the Trump campaign material because they can’t be sure of the source.

“How do you know that you’re not being manipulated by the Trump campaign?” Jamieson said. She’s conservative about publishing decisions “because we’re in the misinformation age,” she said.

Thomas Rid, director of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins, also believes that the news organizations have made the right decision, but for different reasons. He said it appeared that an effort by a foreign agent to influence the 2024 presidential campaign was more newsworthy than the leaked material itself.

But one prominent journalist, Jesse Eisinger, senior reporter and editor at ProPublica, suggested the outlets could have told more than they did. While it’s true that past Vance statements about Trump are easily found publicly, the vetting document could have indicated which statements most concerned the campaign, or revealed things the journalists didn’t know.

Once it is established that the material is accurate, newsworthiness is a more important consideration than the source, he said.

“I don’t think they handled it properly,” Eisinger said. “I think they overlearned the lesson of 2016.”
___

David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.

DAVID BAUDER
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SUE HIS BUTT OFF

Trump again decries two gold medalist Olympic athletes, falsely labeling the female boxers as men

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza, Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa

 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

August 17, 2024Share


WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday again decried two gold medalist Olympic athletes, falsely labeling the female boxers as men.

Trump made the comments while speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and pledging to “keep men out of women’s sports,” turned his attention to the recently concluded Olympic Games and the case of two athletes who became the subject of international scrutiny regarding misconceptions about their gender.

Trump has long criticized transgender people as part of his rallies and focused specifically on transgender athletes, using language about gender identity that LGBTQ+ advocates say is wrong and harmful.

In the case of the two boxers, both Imane Khelif of Algeria and Li Yu-ting of Taiwan have faced misconceptions about their gender created by the fallout from the Olympic-banished International Boxing Association’s decision last year to disqualify both fighters from the world championships for allegedly failing an eligibility test.

Trump did not mention the athletes by name but remarked that “in the Olympics, they had two transitioned.”

“They were men. They transitioned to women, and they were in the boxing,” Trump said.

Despite being born and raised as women, Khelif and Lin found themselves in the crosshairs of Western debates about gender, sex and sports after failing the unspecified and untransparent eligibility tests for women’s competition from the now-banned International Boxing Association.

Trump and other prominent figures have complained about Khelif being allowed to compete and Trump has previously referred to Khelif as a man.

On Saturday, he did so again and in describing both athletes competing in the games as “crazy” and said, “It’s so demeaning to women.”

Imane Khelif stuns internet with her ‘absolutely gorgeous’ looks after Olympic gender row: Here's the boxer's message

ByShweta Kukreti

Aug 18, 2024 

Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer, debuted a new appearance after receiving backlash online after stoking gender row in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer, debuted a new appearance after receiving backlash online after stoking gender row in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Boxer Imane Khelif was “changing her appearance” in the video, but Beauty Code mentioned in the caption, which was translated from Arabic to English, that the boxer was not defined by her appearance. (Getty/BeautyCode)

While the boxer was criticised for playing in the women's category, she shut her critics by winning the gold medal in the Games. She even filed a lawsuit against X owner Elon Musk, author JK Rowling and ex-US President Donald Trump. alleging that several key figures were involved in online harassment over her gender. Khelif claimed that she was the victim of online harassment based on her gender, and French prosecutors have launched a probe into her accusation of cyberbullying.

In her most recent appearance following her Olympic win, she was seen in the center of a collaborative Instagram video posted by Beauty Code and Khelif. The Algerian boxer was dressed in a blue shirt and red boxing gloves, with video switching to a shot of the Algerian boxer in an entirely different look. She was wearing pink flowers linked to her hoops earrings and a white button-down flowery top.

Khelif was “changing her appearance” in the video, but Beauty Code mentioned in the caption, which was translated from Arabic to English, that the boxer was not defined by her appearance. They further noted that the boxer also “did not seek to change her form to fit the molds that the world wants to confine us to.”

“Her message is much deeper: clothes do not make a monk, and appearance does not reveal the essence of a person,” the caption stated. “She can be feminine and elegant when she wants, but on the ring, she does not need makeup or high heels. She only needs strategy, strength, and to throw blows, which is where the essence of her personality lies.”

Also Read: Imane Khelif takes legal action against online harassment amid gender controversy: ‘I want to change minds…’

Social media reacts to Imane Khelif's new look

Meanwhile, several social media users complimented Khelif on her new appearance, However, few pointed that fighter shouldn't have to change her appearance to look more feminine.

“Very stunning woman, the internet owes her an apology,” one person commented, while another wrote: “She looks absolutely gorgeous and the haters are still crying.”

Khelif became the first female athlete from Algeria to win a gold medal in boxing at the Olympics when she defeated Yang Liu in the women's welterweight competition. Days before, anger had erupted over Italy's Angela Carini's decision to withdraw from her round-of-16 match against the Algerian after just 46 seconds. Carini was reportedly heard saying to her coach, “It's not right, it's not right!” during the contest. This sparked an internet controversy around Khelif, who failed a gender eligibility test in 2023.

 FORTEAN PHENOMENA

Origins of black ring in the sky over Virginia a mystery

Aug. 16 (UPI) -- Several Virginia residents captured video when a mysterious black ring was seen floating in the sky over the Williamsburg area.

Multiple witnesses in the Hampton Roads region reported seeing the black ring in the sky shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, and multiple people captured photos and videos of the unusual phenomenon.

The ring vanished within a few minutes.

Seemingly similar blacks rings have been spotted in other locations in the past, with fires and explosions being cited as the likely cause.

The James City County Fire Department said it was unaware of any reports of incidents that could have caused the ring at the time of the sightings.

Ricky Mathews, a meteorologist for WAVY-TV, said the cause was likely pyrotechnics or similar incident of concentrated fire causing a smoke ring to rise. Fellow meteorologist Steve Fundaro hypothesized it might have resulted from an industrial process.

SEA SERPENT

A rarely seen deep sea fish is found in California, and scientists want to know why

  Aug 17, 2024

A rarely seen deep sea fish resembling a serpent was found floating dead on the ocean surface off the San Diego coast and was brought ashore for study, marine experts said.

The silvery, 12-foot-long (3.6-meter) oarfish was found last weekend by a group of snorkelers and kayakers in La Jolla Cove, north of downtown San Diego, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a statement.

It's only the 20th time an oarfish is known to have washed up in California since 1901, according to institution fish expert Ben Frable.

Scripps noted that oarfish have a mythical reputation as predictors of natural disasters or earthquakes, although no correlation has been proven.

Oarfish can grow longer than 20 feet (6 meters) and normally live in a deep part of the ocean called the mesopelagic zone, where light cannot reach, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Swimmers brought the La Jolla Cove oarfish to shore atop a paddleboard. It was then transferred to the bed of a pickup truck.

Scientists from NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and Scripps planned a necropsy on Friday to try to determine the cause of death.

MOVING UP FROM TOYOTA

Chechen warlord invites Musk to Russia after he’s filmed driving machine-gun mounted Cybertruck

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk to Russia after being filmed behind the wheel of one of the company’s Cybertrucks, equipped with a machine gun

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 August 17, 2024


Chechnya President Ramzan Kadyrov invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk to Russia on Saturday after being filmed behind the wheel of one of the company’s Cybertrucks mounted with a machine gun.

In a clip posted on Kadyrov’s Telegram channel, the self-styled strongman was seen taking the stainless steel-clad Cybertruck for a leisurely drive before standing astride the machine gun mounted in the truck bed, draped with belts of ammunition.

In a gushing post, Kadyrov, who rules over Chechnya, a republic within the Russian Federation, described the vehicle as “undoubtedly one of the best cars in the world. I literally fell in love.”

He also said he would donate the vehicle to Russian forces fighting in the invasion of Ukraine. “It’s not for nothing that they call this a cyberbeast,” he said. “I’m sure that this beast will bring plenty of benefits to our troops.”

Kadyrov, who was sanctioned by the U.S. after being linked to numerous human rights violations, said he received the truck from Musk, although this was not independently confirmed. Messages left with Tesla seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Kadyrov also took advantage of the video clip to invite Musk to Chechnya.

“I don’t think the Russian Foreign Ministry would mind such a trip,” he said. “And, of course, we’re waiting for your new developments that will help us finish our special military operation (in Ukraine).”

SCOTUS VS HUMAN RIGHTS

Supreme Court denies stays of Title IX changes to protect LGBTQ students in 10 states


The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday denied a Department of Education request to enable partial enforcement of recent Title IX changes in 10 states while awaiting pending federal appellate court cases regarding their legality. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI. | License Photo

Aug. 17 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court refused to hear arguments regarding stays of federal Title IX changes made by the Biden-Harris administration to protect LGBTQ students that 10 states successfully challenged in federal courts.

The Supreme Court on Friday denied the Department of Education's request to stay federal court injunctions that stop enforcement of several provisions of recent Title IX changes in 10 states.

Those provisions include defining sex discrimination based on "sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation and gender identity," the Supreme Court said in an unsigned denial Friday.

Ten states and other parties filed federal lawsuits in Louisiana and Kentucky to stop enforcement of the Title IX changes and secured preliminary injunctions, which the Department of Education seeks to have overturned by federal appellate courts.

Related

Seven GOP-led states sue to block Biden's new anti-discrimination healthcare rule
Judge blocks Biden's rule protecting LGBTQ students in four states
Biden administration Title IX rules protecting LGBTQ students face state challenges

The Education Department also wants to enforce the new changes to Title IX that aren't contested while the Fifth and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeal hear the respective cases in October, but the appellate courts denied the requests.

The respective appellate court judges "concluded otherwise because the new definition of sex discrimination is intertwined with and affects many other provisions of the new rule," the Supreme Court said.

"The allegedly unlawful provisions are not readily severable from the remaining provisions," the court said in its denial.

"The lower courts also pointed out the difficulty that schools would face in determining how to apply the rule for a temporary period with some provisions in effect and some enjoined," the court said.

The denial letter said the Department of Education has the burden to show it has a likelihood of success in its legal argument and must show which provisions are independent of the new Title IX definition of sex discrimination, but has not.

"The court expects that the courts of appeals will render their decisions with appropriate dispatch," the unsigned Supreme Court said while denying the Education Department's requests for partial stays.

Title IX refers to the 1972 Education Amendments that ban discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that accept federal funding.

CRT

Biden establishes national monument at site of 1908 Springfield, Ill., race riot

"Over 100 years ago this week, a mob not far from Lincoln's home unleashed a race riot in Springfield that literally shocked the conscience of the nation," 

Aug. 16 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden signed a proclamation Friday establishing the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument in Illinois recognizing one of the most notable moments of racial tension in the country at the time.

The creation of the monument came on the 116th anniversary of the riots that took place Aug. 14- to 16, 1908, in Springfield, Ill., which saw two Black men lynched while nearly three dozen businesses, mostly Black and Jewish establishments were destroyed in the city's Levee neighborhood by a White mob after two Black prisoners were moved instead of being released to them.

"By signing this designation for the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument, we remind ourselves we have to -- we -- we have no safe harbor unless we continue to remind people what happened," Biden said in the Oval Office before signing the proclamation.

"I am an optimist. I'm optimistic about this country because we're good people. But we can't let these things fade," he added.

The administration characterized the national monument as an effort to weave together two important threads in our nation's story -- "the hateful violence targeted against Black Americans, and the power of dedicated individuals to come together across racial lines to transform shock and grief into hope and action."

The monument will protect 1.57 acres of federal land in Springfield including historical objects that detail the riots.

"Over 100 years ago this week, a mob not far from Lincoln's home unleashed a race riot in Springfield that literally shocked the conscience of the nation," the president said Friday. "I mean, it shocked the conscience of the nation. But ... people forgot it as if, you know, it didn't happen. If you listen to some of our colleagues, you'd think, 'Oh, no, no, no. We've never had this problem.'"

The White House said that national outrage over the attack helped spark action around civil rights and led to the creation of what is now known as the NAACP.

"By establishing the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument, President Biden is recognizing the significance of these events and the broader history of the Black community resilience in the face of violent oppression," the White House said.

"President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris are committed to protecting places that help tell a more complete story of our nation's history, including by recognizing difficult moments that have been ignored or obscured for far too long."