Mother Jones illustration; Woody Harrington

This week, a Republican group in Lawrence County, Alabama, is offering an apology after they published an image featuring a GOP-styled elephant that included, intentionally and by way of a clever graphical trick, a series of Ku Klux Klan hoods.

The image was posted as part of a congratulatory Facebook message to honor the group’s new chairman and thank its previous leader for his service. But as soon as the hood imagery was noticed, the group took it down and offered an apology, saying the image was pulled from the internet without seeing the details or inner meaning. “I would like to offer a deep and sincere apology for a picture that temporarily appeared on this page last night,” the new chairman, Shannon Terry, posted to Facebook. “A google search picture of a GOP elephant was used and later found to have hidden images that do not represent the views or beliefs of the Lawrence County Republican Party. The picture was then immediately replaced. As chairman I take full responsibility for the error.”

But here’s the thing: That’s our illustration. Our Editor-in-Chief explains:

Two years ago, we commissioned this art from Woody Harrington to reference how white supremacy was taking over the GOP. Not only didn't they not get it, they appropriated copyrighted art. https://t.co/lxEJoXjhap https://t.co/FxwRMo9Mqd

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) August 18, 2022

In 2020, Mother Jones commissioned Woody Harrington to illustrate a story that explored how the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid, Stuart Stevens, was reckoning with how the GOP was weaponizing bigotry during the 2020 campaign. The piece, by our Washington DC Bureau Chief, David Corn, was titled “The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.” In it, Stevens was scathing. “We created this. It didn’t just happen,” he told Corn.

“Republicans only exist to elect Republicans,” Stevens said. “They are down to one idea: How can we win?”  Playing footsie with white supremacy, Corn argues, was part of the strategy.

Thus, this image.

So we got in touch with the artist, Harrington, to see what he felt not only about the apparent copyright infringement, but its underlining implications.

“It is nearly impossible to find my image in a standard Google search excluding terms like ‘racist,'” he told us by email. “My goal was for the reader to recognize the classic Republican symbol, and reveal the sinister message of racism upon closer examination, unfortunately, some people never made it that far!”

There’s some evidence it’s happened before. A Republican candidate for Union County Sheriff in Indiana went even farther, using the image on election posters in May of this year. Dozens were printed before the mixup was caught and eventually fixed, according to a Reddit user who knew someone at the printing company.

And HuffPost politics reporter Liz Skalka tweeted that a GOP club in Arizona accidentally used it too.

Saw this same logo used at a GOP club event this summer in Arizona. A graphic designer in the room noticed and alerted them to take it off a projected screen — and they did. Club officials seemed genuinely shocked when they realized. https://t.co/eoQDqT7I4k

— Liz Skalka (@lizskalka) August 18, 2022

And while Harrington hopes it can be “a future lesson to all about fair use of intellectual material, and the karma that comes along with copyright infringement,” he notes that “there are positive takeaways from this whole debacle.”

“This can be a moment for reflection, accountability,” he said. “And should allow for more discussion on the issues the image first intended to bring to light.”

If you’re interested in reading the piece that started it all, here you go.

Rich Graessle/ZUMA

Donald Trump’s reputation as a historically bad, financially delinquent client who has collected a spectacular number of legal crises is catching up to him. In the week following the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, which led to the revelation that the Justice Department is investigating Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws, the former president and his aides are reportedly scrambling to find a team of respected defense lawyers. 

“Everyone is saying no,” an anonymous source told the Washington Post. Alan Dershowitz, the former Harvard Law School professor who has advised Trump in the past, didn’t seem too encouraging either, telling the Post that “good lawyers should have been working on this case for months.”

But clearly, such “good lawyers” have eluded Trump as he sinks further into a legal hot mess. Perhaps lawyers aren’t touching the case with a 10-foot pole in order to avoid the fate of Trump’s former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, whose own role in the Big Lie now has him embroiled in the criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia. Let’s also recall that Giuliani’s deeply problematic television interviews were reportedly central to his firing from his own law firm. He eventually got his license suspended by the New York Bar last year. 

So far, here’s the legal team Trump has managed to convince to defend him in his cascading legal troubles, according to the Post: 

Lindsey Halligan, a Florida insurance lawyer with, according to an investigation by the Washington Post, no prior experience on federal cases.

Alina Habba, a partner of a three-attorney firm and former general counsel for a parking garage company.

Christina Bobb, a former TV host of a pro-Trump news network who’s prior federal experience includes trademark infringement cases

Not exactly a crack team. But these days, with Trump increasingly threatened by mounting legal woes, who would want to join the ranks of Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and other MAGA-allied lawyers?

Tor Erik Schrøder/AP

Just a few weeks ago, a 1,300-pound walrus named Freya was enjoying the sort of Hot Girl Summer the average pinniped could only dream of. She’d left her native Arctic waters and recently ended up off the coast of Oslo, Norway, where she delighted onlookers and the animal-loving internet by hauling herself onto small boats, eating scallops and mussels, and generally living a life of leisure and glamour.

Freya the walrus was spotted off the coast of Oslo, Norway, where she was filmed filling up a boat with water in order to use its bilge pump as a shower.

Freya has become a local celebrity in European waters because of her inclination to get into hijinks with human vessels. 😆 pic.twitter.com/GC2ubUEjc5

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 31, 2022

Big story in Norway this summer is a walrus we've named Freya has made it to our shores and is touring the country, laying around and sinking boats pic.twitter.com/rQolsxd88b

— Wild Geerters (@steinkobbe) July 19, 2022

Her appearance in the Oslo Fjord was extremely unusual, since walruses are wary of humans and tend to stay farther away off the Norwegian coast. The novelty of it all made her an instant sensation; even Judy Woodruff couldn’t contain her herself in this whimsical summertime ode to Freya on PBS NewsHour earlier this month:

But as Freya’s legend grew, more and more folks wanted to see her up close. As the New York Times points out, the Oslo Fjord is full of water-going recreationists in the summer, and people started swimming with Freya, taking her picture, and even throwing things at her—so much that she had begun chasing off paddle boarders and kayakers. The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries warned the public to stay away from Freya, for their safety and hers. Last week, officials said they were weighing several options, including relocating Freya, but warned she might have to be killed if people wouldn’t listen.

Alas, people didn’t listen. And so on Sunday, Norwegian officials euthanized Freya.

In a statement, Frank Bakke-Jensen, the director general of the directorate of fisheries, cited the “continued threat to human safety” in making the decision to kill Freya. “We have sympathies for the fact that the decision can cause reactions with the public, but I am firm that this was the right call,” Bakke-Jensen said. “We have great regard for animal welfare, but human life and safety must take precedence.” 

Rune Aae, a biologist at the University of South-Eastern Norway, called the decision “too hasty a conclusion” in a Facebook post Sunday. Aae had been tracking Freya and posting the results on a Google map so that people would know where the walrus was and to give her wide berth. “Everyone would be able to know where Freya was and could act accordingly, i.e. not engage in water activities near her,” he wrote.

As wildlife ecologist and conservation biologist David Steen has pointed out on Twitter, the circumstances surrounding Freya’s death have become all too common. Humans, as you may have noticed, are pretty bad at listening—and particularly bad at listening to officials urging them to give wild animals some damn space. Steen included Freya in a thread pointing out other recent examples of too-close human-animal interactions, including links to bisons goring visitors at Yellowstone National Park earlier this summer and hordes of gawking tourists crowding the banks of a crocodile-filled river at Australia’s Kakadu National Park. Unlike those other cases, though, Freya paid for this sort of human ignorance with her life.

Not sure what you're supposed to say about this anymore.https://t.co/GJBRFu0AMm

— David Steen (@AlongsideWild) June 30, 2022

Freya didn’t deserve this. And we didn’t deserve her.

Bryan Olin Dozier/AP

A man crashed his car into a barricade a block from the US Capitol grounds in the early hours of Sunday morning before ultimately shooting himself, US Capitol Police confirmed Sunday. 

According to the US Capitol Police, the man’s car became engulfed in flames, and he climbed out and began shooting down East Capitol Street, which intersects the grounds of the US Capitol. “When our officers heard the sound of gunfire, they immediately responded and were approaching the man when he shot himself,” the press release states. “Nobody else was hurt.”

The man’s identity and motive are unknown, but the incident was a reminder of a fatal attack in April 2021 in which a Capitol Police officer was killed when a car drove into a barricade outside the Capitol.

Thankful to our Capitol police who put their lives on the line every day. What happened today—a car running into a Capitol barricade—reminds all of us of Officer Billy Evans who, in 2021, was tragically pinned to a barricade and died protecting our Capitol and all of us. 🙏 https://t.co/TqXyxY7gk5

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) August 14, 2022

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) joins host Brianna Keilar on CNN on Sunday, August 14, 2022.Courtesy CNN

After a week of devastating news about former President Donald Trump, Republicans who braved the Sunday morning talk shows had a hard time defending the man who remains the leader of their party. Turns out it takes a little imagination to excuse taking top secret classified information and refusing to return them in accordance with the law, as Trump did.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, tried to downplay Trump’s actions by questioning whether boxes seized from Trump’s home labeled top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information really contained information at the highest secret classification. “These are labeled that,” Turner acknowledged on CNN’s State of the Union, but “we don’t know whether these are classified and rise to that level.” But when host Brianna Keilar asked Turner if he would take home documents marked as such, he had a one word answer: “No.”

"Do you take home documents marked special access?"

"No."@RepMikeTurner says he does not take home documents marked special access like the documents the FBI says were seized from Trump's home, but argues that we don't know if they were classified appropriately. @CNNSotu pic.twitter.com/IvFOSmXQ7W

— CNN (@CNN) August 14, 2022

Trump has deftly turned Monday’s raid on his home, the Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago, into a story of political persecution, and is raising money off of his tale of political retribution. His fans accept this narrative, one going so far as to storm the FBI office in Cincinnati, resulting in his death in a shootout, while threats against the FBI around the country are soaring. But when pressed on TV, the events of the last week have stack up against the former president: an FBI raid that turned up boxes of classified material, the revelation that some of the documents may contain information on nuclear weapons, and the news that Trump is being investigated under more than one federal statute, including the Espionage Act. 

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) defended Trump on Sunday by suggesting that the issue was whether Trump had declassified everything found at his home before he took it. “It appears that a president can classify or perhaps declassify information,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press, though he believed that question would be litigated going forward. The classification issue, however, is not the center of Trump’s possible innocent or culpability. He is under investigation under statutes that do not require taking classified information in order to be violated. 

Despite the awkward defenses mounted by his allies, the seriousness of Trump’s legal situation seems to have gotten through to some Republicans. When asked whether he would support Trump if he runs for president in 2024, Rounds demurred. “I’ll keep my powder dry with regards to [that] question,” he said.

WATCH: @SenatorRounds refuses to say whether he would support Trump in a potential presidential run. #MTP

“I’ll keep my powder dry with regards to [that] question.” pic.twitter.com/VWQ4BPy2a0

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 14, 2022

On Sunday morning, Trump made a request that may be even harder for his allies to defend. In a post on his social media site, Truth Social, the former president said some of the seized documents were taken improperly and requested that “these documents be immediately returned.”

Mother Jones illustration; Brian Cahn/ZUMA

As Friday wears on, the news for former President Donald Trump is getting worse. The search warrant and related documents detailing Monday’s raid on Mar-a-Lago showed that the FBI “removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities,” the Wall Street Journal reported. 

Among the approximately 20 boxes of documents confiscated by the FBI were papers described as “‘Various classified/TS/SCI documents,’ an abbreviation that refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information,” the Journal wrote. “It also says agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents.” The contents also included information on the “President of France.” The warrant revealed that Trump is under investigation for violating multiple federal laws, including the Espionage Act. As the New York Times reported Friday afternoon:

The search warrant for Trump’s residence cited three criminal laws, all from Title 18 of the United States Code. Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, which covers the unlawful retention of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; Section 1519, which covers destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations or administrative proceedings; and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records. Notably, none of those laws turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified.

Trump issued a statement that appeared to confirm reports that some of the highly classified information he was illegally storing was about nuclear weapons. “President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified,” he said. “How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!” The National Archives quickly debunked Trump’s attempt at whataboutism—it is in control of Obama’s records, as required by law. 

While Trump is fundraising off of allegations of political persecution by the FBI, a judge in New York on Friday refused to dismiss a criminal case against his business, the Trump Organization, which includes charges of tax fraud. Also this week, Trump pleaded the Fifth in a deposition in a New York state case over whether he inflated the value of his holdings.

In this busy week, as slow-moving cases and investigations have taken large, public steps forward, Trump has sought to use the bad news to his advantage, inflaming supporters and fundraising off of the fury. It put Trump’s allies in the position of arguing that stealing classified information isn’t so bad or claiming, dubiously, that Trump had actually declassified the documents. 

Update, August 12: The judge overseeing the case released the warrant and related documents on Friday afternoon. Read it here:

Former President Donald Trump waves as he departs Trump Tower, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022, in New York, on his way to the New York attorney general's office for a deposition in a civil investigation.Julia Nikhinson/AP

In the days since the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s home, the Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago, Republicans have treated it as the tyrannical act of an out-of-control Democratic administration, conspiratorial social media spaces have hummed with talk of revolution, and an armed Ohio man was killed trying to enter an FBI field office. But it’s only in the last day that the why behind all of this drama began to come to light.  

For several days, the press wondered what kind of document recovery had prompted a raid on a former president’s home. On Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the FBI was looking for documents related to nuclear weapons. Trump, the Justice Department believed, might be keeping documents that are critical to national security and classified at the highest level, in violation of the law. “If the FBI and the Department of Justice believed there were top secret materials still at Mar-a-Lago, that would lend itself to greater ‘hair-on-fire’ motivation to recover that material as quickly as possible,” David Laufman, a former head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section told the Post. Trump responded Friday morning, calling the reports about nuclear weapons documents a “hoax.” 

On Thursday, the Justice Department responded to the outcry from the right by asking the court overseeing the matter to release the warrant used to execute the raid, if Trump agreed. Trump announced on his social media site, Truth Social, that he would not oppose its release. But that’s not a formal agreement. Trump has until 3 p.m. on Friday to officially tell the court overseeing the case to release the warrant. 

Meanwhile, Republicans are testing various strategies for how to respond to the revelations. Some have decided to downplay the seriousness of keeping nuclear documents. “It depends on what the nuclear information is,” said Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Along similar lines, the conservative writer Rich Lowry intimated that stealing some classified nuclear information and refusing to return it would not merit a federal raid. “Given the track record of these people, it better prove to have been the blueprint of hypersonic missile, or something similar,” he tweeted. At least one of Trump’s allies has defended Trump by claiming that Trump had declassified the documents, though Trump could not have unilaterally declassified some nuclear information.

And then there’s Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who told reporters Friday morning that “there needs to be real accountability here”—not for Trump, of course, but for Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom Hawley said should be impeached and removed from office.

Beto O’ Rourke isn’t just calling out Texas’s loose gun restrictions. He’s calling out hecklers too. During a Wednesday campaign event at a town hall in Mineral Falls, Texas, the Democratic candidate for governor erupted when someone in the audience laughed during remarks about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

O’Rourke, a longtime advocate for gun reform, had been critiquing Texas’s gun laws that allowed the gunman in the Uvalde massacre to purchase his weapon legally. “(He) did not wait until he was sixteen or seventeen, but followed the law that’s on the books ladies and gentlemen,” O’ Rourke told the crowd, before getting down on one knee to emphasize that the gun had been designed for military use.

Then someone laughed. Loudly.

“It may be funny to you, motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me,” said O’Rourke, prompting a raucous cheer from the audience. Several videos of the encounter went viral on Twitter, with one reaching over 3.4 million views. 

Tonight, in Mineral Wells, Texas

When a @GregAbbott_TX supporter laughs, yes, laughs out loud so everyone could hear, while Beto described the massacre of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Beto quite appropriately lets loose with a MF.
Yep.
It was a pretty good one too. pic.twitter.com/t5LLMIPXeP

— BetoMedia (@BetoMedia) August 11, 2022

Nothing more serious to me than getting justice for the families in Uvalde and stopping this from ever happening again.

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) August 11, 2022

This isn’t the first time that O’Rourke has confronted someone for presumably failing to take gun control seriously. Days after the Uvalde shooting in May, O’Rourke crashed a news conference attended by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and was heard telling Abbott that he was “doing nothing” to protect people from gun violence.  

The identity of the heckler at Wednesday’s town hall is unclear. But a video from the event showed that several Abbott supporters were in attendance. 

Niyi Fote/TheNEWS2/Zuma

Perhaps you remember when, in 2016, then-not-yet-President Trump disparaged Hillary Clinton for taking the Fifth during a congressional investigation into her private email server. “The mob takes the Fifth,” he said at a campaign rally. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

The comment was hypocritical then, and it’s hypocritical now. Today, Trump refused to answer questions under oath in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil investigation into his business dealings. It was one part of a very bad week for the former president.

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?'” Trump wrote in a statement.

And yet, he pleaded the Fifth in New York attorney general Letitia James’ civil investigation into his business dealings. pic.twitter.com/lFqc19oiM7

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 10, 2022

Trump tried his best to get out ahead of the allegations of hypocrisy.

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?'” he wrote in a statement. “Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”

I never thought I’d see the day when Trump admitted he was wrong. I guess we both stand corrected.

Mother Jones illustration; Getty

“Failure to protect” laws punish parents for not shielding their children from abuse. These laws aren’t talked about very much, but they appear across the country, and in certain states, like Oklahoma, they are associated with especially harsh penalties.

In Oklahoma, failure to protect is the only child abuse charge levied predominantly against women, and it is disproportionately charged against women of color. People charged with the crime there are less likely to have a previous felony record than defendants in firsthand child abuse cases—a sign of just how much more dangerous abusers are than those accused of failing to stand in the way of their abuse. Since 2009, when the latest version of the state’s law went into effect, at least 139 women have been imprisoned solely for failure-to-protect charges. At least 55 are still incarcerated. 

It would be impossible to know any of this without the exhaustive review of Oklahoma court records I undertook for Samantha Michaels’ groundbreaking investigation of the state’s failure-to-protect law. I wrote computer programs that systematically reviewed every criminal felony and misdemeanor case available on each of the the state’s two court websites, ultimately reviewing 1.5 million cases to identify 955 charges for enabling or permitting child abuse filed against 662 individuals in 612 cases in Oklahoma since 2009. Another “web scraper,” as the programs are commonly known, collected demographic information for every incarcerated person in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ Offender Database.

But these counts were not enough to say just how common these cases are in Oklahoma. It’s easier for prosecutors to prove failure to protect than a general child abuse charge, so prosecutors often charge abusers with both, making it difficult to filter out these cases. Prosecutors often use various terms like “enabling” and “permitting” child abuse to refer to the failure-to-protect law. Charge information on case-details pages always includes a text description but only sometimes includes a statute number, necessary to confirm the exact charge. In some cases, the statute lists subsections, clear identifiers of exactly what conduct is alleged, but it does not always match the text. 

On the advice of the ACLU of Oklahoma, we filtered for defendants with two types of characteristics to overcome these limitations:

• Defendants whose charges include subsections that only reference “enabling abuse” and who are not also charged with a text or statute that alleges direct child abuse. Only 25 percent of charges fit this description.
• Defendants who are the only person in their case charged with failure to protect and are not charged with direct abuse. 

Of all Oklahomans charged with failure to protect, 2 out of 3 were women. Using only the cases we verified, we found that 9 in 10 were women.

There are some other limitations to our methodology. Generally speaking, cases were discovered using the search engines in Oklahoma State Courts Network and On Demand Court Records. Lists of URLs of case-details pages generated by the search were used to download each HTML page. Case numbers are generally sequential. We assumed missing case numbers were unavailable after we extensively tested to verify that all publicly available cases were captured. Some cases in our database were expunged after we scraped them in November and February and are included in our count. Cases expunged before then are not.

We attempted to use sentencing data in the Offender Database to calculate sentencing outcomes by case type, but multiple spot checks proved it unreliable for systematic analysis.

Brandon Bell/Getty

I regret to inform you that the Trump book canon continues apace with new excerpts out today from not one, but two, forthcoming insider accounts. The first is from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman and builds upon the only genre of Trump-era gossip I’m interested in: the infamous clogged toilet.

Haberman recently obtained what appears to be photographic evidence that Donald Trump did in fact regularly clog White House toilets with Oval Office documents. As you might remember, the habit reportedly prompted frequent plumbing disasters, and more consequentially, added to Trump’s long record of mishandling official White House communications. Axios has the toilet scoop and it includes the rather hilarious accusation from Trump world that Haberman staged the toilet photos in order to sell some books. “You have to be pretty desperate to sell books if pictures of paper in a toilet bowl is part of your promotional plan,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told Axios. Those cursed photos below:

🚽FIRST on @axios: Trump’s telltale toilet … ⁦@maggieNYT⁩ obtained these photos ahead of the Oct. 4 publication of her book “Confidence Man”

Source tells her pic on the left shows a White House commode
Pic on the right is from a Trump overseas trip https://t.co/6opWty4kjd

— Mike Allen (@mikeallen) August 8, 2022

In an equally dark note of an entirely different hellscape, we also have an excerpt from The Divider: Trump in the White House that confirms, yet again, Trump’s admiration for authoritarian figures including Adolf Hitler. Here’s what Peter Baker and Susan Glasser report Trump once said about the Nazi dictator amid frustration that “his generals” weren’t blindly following batshit orders:

The President’s loud complaint to John Kelly one day was typical: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”

“Which generals?” Kelly asked.

“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded.

“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said.

But, of course, Trump did not know that. “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the President replied. In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich had been completely subservient to Hitler; this was the model he wanted for his military. 

It’s the kind of anecdote, equal parts horrifying and endlessly unsurprising, that prompts a bit of an eye-roll for me especially if this is the kind of story that inspires one to hit preorder. Hear me out:

When the subject is Trump, a man who often appears physically incapable of exercising any restraint, the insatiable appetite hits strangely. After all, What more can be evinced from insider accounts about a man who doesn’t keep anything close to the chest, whose horrifying nature is routinely up for public consumption anyway? The appeal reflects a deeper emptiness among an audience hyper-vigilant to the unprecedented nature of these times but who apparently depend on these books for further saturation. Sure, such accounts might make for a good headline, but is a perverse boredom behind their overwhelming popularity? 

Anyway, that’s the latest on our toilet-clogging, Nazi-inspired former president. Wake me up when we have evidence that Trump really did eat the paper.

Think you've seen performance art? You haven't been to CPAC.Zach D Roberts/AP

On Friday, a real-life January 6 defendant cosplaying as a January 6 defendant sat sobbing in a fake jail cell at CPAC while wearing an orange jumpsuit and praying with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) The full story is even weirder.

As Tess Owen, who witnessed the immersive theater experience at the conservative convention held this week in Dallas, explains for Vice:

Attendees at CPAC, the massive annual conservative activist conference, were given bluetooth headphones, emblazoned with the word “silence,” where they were invited to listen to audio accounts from January 6 defendants who have been jailed due to the Capitol riot. 

Some spectators wept. Some threw money into the cage. Others came up close to mutter words of comfort and support to the emotionally distraught man inside, who was alternating sitting on a bare cot with his head in his hands, and writing sad slogans on a blackboard like “Where is Everyone?” Among those in the audience was Zuny Duarte, mother of Enrique Tarrio, the jailed ex-chairman of the Proud Boys facing seditious conspiracy charges for his role in the Capitol. One man, wearing a T-shirt saying “Correctional Officers for Trump 2020” pointed at his chest, making sure the “jailed” activist saw, and said “”I know how it works, man.” 

Then … Marjorie Taylor Greene showed up and got in the cage with him pic.twitter.com/0FWdFkNpht

— Tess Owen (@misstessowen) August 5, 2022

An actor played the January 6 defendant on Thursday. But on Friday, the role was filled by Brandon Straka, a Stop the Steal activist who recently pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct for his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election during the January 6 insurrection. As Owen reports:

The surreal scene around the cage in the CPAC exhibit hall was only made more bizarre when security guards began parting the crowds for extreme-right Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The “jail guards” unlocked the cage and allowed her in. She hugged Straka, before falling to her knees in front of the chair he was sitting on. They clasped hands and prayed together. 

People recited the Lords Prayer. pic.twitter.com/qN3D8owlk5

— Tess Owen (@misstessowen) August 5, 2022

According to mistakenly unsealed court documents, Straka avoided jail time after providing “significant information” to the FBI. Straka has tried to claim that he was not a “snitch.” But the court documents, which show that he cooperated at each of his three meetings with the FBI, tell a different story. 

On Friday, despite all his rage, Straka was still just a rat in a cage.

Michael Brochstein/Zuma

If I were an 88-year-old millionaire who wanted to spend August relaxing with my family, I would simply retire.

Instead, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)—who is running for reelection in November—took to Twitter on Friday to complain about having to miss his family reunion for the second year in a row because he has to be in DC “to fight Dems irresponsible tax&spend bill.” Surely his constituents can sympathize.

Each Dec Schumer puts out schedule for Senate I set Grassley family reunion based on schedule. For 2nd yr in row I won’t be at reunion I’m in DC to fight Dems irresponsible tax&spend bill. Need a Republican majority to hv schedule we can count on & A RESPONSIBLE FISCAL AGENDA

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) August 5, 2022

Ever since Democrats decided to actually start legislating, Republicans have been doing everything in their power to stop them, from opposing a same-sex marriage bill to briefly stymying legislation that would enhance benefits for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits overseas. But with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) apparently on board for the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” it’s unclear what exactly Grassley hopes to accomplish in DC this weekend. He might be better off in Iowa, after all.

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in 1975Harvey Georges/AP

In a new campaign ad for his daughter, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), former Vice President Dick Cheney warns viewers of the dangers of Trumpism and states that “a real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.” Real rich, coming from the guy who, in a false pretext for invading Iraq, told America, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” 

“In our nation’s 246 year history there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump.” Dick Cheney pic.twitter.com/erBPBNy8ah

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 4, 2022

Clad in a cowboy hat and a vest with an “I Voted” sticker, the man who literally has no heart is now attempting to play the part of a wise old cowboy warning of the threats Trumpism poses to our democracy. “In our nation’s 246-year-history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he says. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.”

The hypocrisy notwithstanding, it seems doubtful that the former veep will hold much sway in a state that Trump won in 2020 with nearly 70 percent of the vote. One recent poll saw Cheney’s primary opponent, Trump-backed attorney Harriet Hageman, leading with 52 percent to Cheney’s 30. That’s OK, though: Cheney already has her sights set on 2024.

“Lynne and I are so proud of Liz for standing up for the truth, doing what’s right, honoring her oath to the Constitution when so many in our party are too scared to do so,” the elder Cheney said. “There is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office, and she will succeed.”

Mikhail Voskresensky/TASS/ZUMA

Today, after spending nearly six months in the custody of the Russian government, Brittney Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison after being found guilty of drug smuggling and possession charges. The outcome is the latest development after the WNBA star was arrested at a Moscow airport in February after officials said they discovered vape canisters containing cannabis oil in Griner’s luggage.  

During her sentencing, Griner directly appealed to the judge and pleaded for leniency. “I know everybody keeps talking about ‘political pawn’ and ‘politics,'” she said. “But I hope that is far from this courtroom.”  

Brittney Griner's attorneys in Russia say she is "not doing fine" today and has passed through her lawyers a message for her family, which she wants to remain private. They hope that she'll be able to talk to her family next week

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) August 4, 2022

The sentencing was widely expected and could be the next step in negotiations for a potential prisoner swap. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday that he had urged Russia to accept a proposal that would bring home Griner, as well as Paul Whelan, who in 2020, was arrested on espionage charges. It’s been reported that in exchange for Griner and Whelan, the Biden administration is offering to release convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout. 

In a statement on Thursday, President Joe Biden slammed Griner’s sentencing as “unacceptable.” “My administration will continue to work tirelessly and pursue every possible avenue to bring Brittney and Paul Whelan home safely as soon as possible.”

"I made an honest mistake."

Brittney Griner delivers statement in Russian court ahead of an expected verdict: "I know everybody keeps talking about political pawn and politics. But I hope that that is far from this courtroom." https://t.co/nEpVrwligV pic.twitter.com/MFBo1wmzn3

— ABC News (@ABC) August 4, 2022

Should Joe Biden run for reelection? It’s the question looming over Democrats as the president’s hemorrhaging poll numbers drive fears they’ll be swept away by a red wave this November. 

But for Carolyn Maloney, who is currently locked in a nasty primary fight against Jerry Nadler, the question of Biden’s reelection has plunged the New York congresswoman into an 11th-hour damage control campaign that somehow manages to get worse with every passing day. 

The botched clean-up effort started Tuesday during a debate for New York’s 12th congressional district when Maloney was asked whether Biden should run again in 2024. “I don’t believe he’s running for reelection,” Maloney answered, instantly prompting speculation that perhaps she had insidery knowledge of Biden’s thinking on the issue. It was rather frank, particularly when compared to Nadler’s response to the same question: “It’s too early to say,” he said. “It doesn’t serve the purposes of the Democratic Party to deal with that until after the midterms.” The next day, likely sensing that she had screwed up, Maloney stood by her remarks but added that she’d support Biden if he did run.

That should have been the end of that news cycle but Maloney on Thursday decided to give this performance:

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) walks back: "Mr. President, I apologize. I want you to run. I happen to think you won't be running, but when you run or if you run, I will be there 100%. You have deserved it. You are a great president and thank you for everything you've done …" pic.twitter.com/w8gUATVkf9

— The Recount (@therecount) August 4, 2022

It’s been a minute since I’ve seen such frightened fealty, wrapped in a groveling non-apology. But I guess that kind of Trump-era relic emerges when you’re battling for your political career. In any event, I was about to call this the most absurd performance of her career but then I remembered this atrocity.

Bob Daemmrich/Zuma

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones just might have the most incompetent lawyers on the planet.

The red-faced Infowars founder is currently on trial to determine how much his website owes Sandy Hook parents for its defamatory claims that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax. He had previously testified under oath that he had not sent any text messages about Sandy Hook. But, according to an attorney for the Sandy Hook parents, Jones’ own lawyers accidentally sent him proof of the opposite. The video of Jones learning of his lawyers’ mistake is absolutely nuts:

“Do you know what perjury is?” pic.twitter.com/awbBpVf4Tl

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 3, 2022

“Mr. Jones,” the plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Bankston said, “Did you know that 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone, with every text message you’ve sent for the past two years, and when informed, did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protect it in any way, and as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession, and that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn’t have text messages about Sandy Hook. Did you know that?”

Jones, looking baffled, responded, “See? I told you the truth. This is your Perry Mason moment. I gave them my phone.”

The attorney continued, asking Jones: “In discovery, you were asked, ‘Do you have Sandy Hook text messages on your phone?’ And you said, ‘No,’ correct? You said that under oath, Mr. Jones, didn’t you?”

“I mean, if I was mistaken, I was mistaken, but you’ve got the text messages right there,” Jones replied.

“You know what perjury is, right?” Bankston said, before reminding a dumbstruck Jones that he was free to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

If that’s not enough schadenfreude for you, enjoy this clip of Bankston showing Alex Jones a video of himself on Infowars referring to the jurors selected for that very trial as “extremely blue-collar folks.”

Buckle up for some The Rehearsal-level discomfort:

The cherry on top? The January 6 committee is reportedly planning to subpoena Jones’ texts and emails to learn more about the planning behind the attempted insurrection. 

Did you know that, Mr. Jones?

Ty O'Neil /ZUMA

On this day in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was officially confirmed to the Supreme Court.  A trailblazer for women’s rights, it was during Ginsburg’s confirmation hearings that she issued a now iconic speech defending abortion rights. Now 29 years later, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to turn Roe v. Wade, those words carry even greater urgency.

“It’s a decision that she must make for herself,” Ginsburg said at the time. “And when government makes that decision for her, she’s being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”

At least 14 states currently have abortion bans in place, including Texas where everyday citizens have also been incentivized to sue people they suspect of helping “facilitate” an abortion. In many states where the procedure is still accessible, conservative lawmakers are actively seeking to restrict that right. But the future of abortion rights is far from a foregone conclusion. In the first post-Roe vote on abortion, Kansas voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected an effort to amend the state constitution to remove abortion rights.

It’s against this backdrop that you should listen to Ginsburg’s words today.

Today in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was officially confirmed to the Supreme Court. During her confirmation hearings, she issued a now iconic speech on abortion rights. Now, 28 years later, her words carry even greater urgency in the aftermath of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Watch: pic.twitter.com/9xV438Gibc

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 3, 2022

Correction, August 3: An earlier version of this story misstated 1993 as being 28 years ago. Math is hard.

Back to isolation you go, Mr. President.Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Zuma

President Joe Biden tested positive for Covid again on Saturday morning and will return to isolation, according to a White House physician.

The president initially contracted the virus on July 21, but had been testing negative since Tuesday, according to his doctor, Kevin O’Connor. Biden says he is not experiencing symptoms.

Folks, today I tested positive for COVID again.

This happens with a small minority of folks.

I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me.

I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon.

— President Biden (@POTUS) July 30, 2022

O’Connor said the president appears to have a “rebound” case after taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid. About 5 percent of patients who have taken Paxlovid have experienced such rebound cases, according to the White House Covid-19 response coordinator.

Biden has canceled his planned trips to Delaware and Michigan this week.

A "ghost bike" in Brooklyn, New York, marks the spot where a cyclist was killed.Mark Lennihan/AP

Last week, Michael Weilert, a 13-year-old boy on a bicycle in Parkland, Washington, pressed a button to activate a blinking pedestrian signal, entered the crosswalk, and never made it to the other side of the street.

Weilert had the right of way, but one of the crosswalk lights was broken. A driver failed to yield, despite another car stopping at the intersection. The car struck Weilert, killing him.

Still, officials implied that the victim was responsible. “He all of the sudden appeared in front of her car,” Trooper Robert Reyer of the Washington State Patrol told the News Tribune, “and she [the driver] was unable to stop.”

Even though the driver failed to yield, she was not ticketed or charged, though the county prosecuting attorney could still press charges in the future. “Charges would only be forwarded if there was a criminal offense, such as being impaired and killing somebody, or driving in a manner that is, basically, reckless,” Reyer said. “We could completely exclude both. There was no impairment, and there was no reckless driving.” 

As Weilert’s mother has pointed out, failure to yield is, by definition, reckless. She also noted that another driver had already stopped to allow her son to cross. “I can’t imagine knowing that someone is stopped—any car is stopped—at a crosswalk and you wouldn’t stop too. Just that behavior alone…is reckless,” she told local TV station KIRO 7. Now, she’s calling on the state to pass a law requiring crosswalk signs to flash red, so drivers know they need to stop.

Reyer’s comments—and the lack of repercussions for the driver—are part of a larger infrastructure designed to allow cars to control the roads, even if it means imperiling pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchair users.

Seattle Bike Blog points out an effective way to reduce cars’ dominance: Eliminate community roads with multiple lanes of traffic. “Traffic engineers across the world have found that one lane in each direction with turns lanes where appropriate can carry a large number of vehicles per day far more safely,” Tom Fucoloro writes. Traffic engineers already know how to design roads to save lives. They just have to implement those changes.

On the other side of the country, in Durham, North Carolina, Matt Simpson, a 40-year-old father, was killed in a crosswalk in awfully similar circumstances earlier this month. He was crossing the street—two lanes in either direction—on his bike, with his wife and two children in tow. He had the right of way, too. A driver ran the red light, struck Simpson, and left the scene of the crash. While authorities search for the suspect, safe streets advocates are calling for protected bike lanes and narrower roads that would encourage drivers to reduce speed.