October 1, 2023

Sunday, October 1,2023. 🎃 Annette’s News Round

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” F.Scott Fitzgerald.

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I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

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On the GOP Shutdown. Averted.

First, we lived under their threat.

Ultimately, Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats in the House saved the day, for 45 days.

Watch the man who will be Speaker of the House in 2024, if we the people do what must be done. 👇

Remember his A-Z Speech too.

One more thing.

Expect the President and Senate Democrats to find the money for Ukraine that the GOP cut out.

They may even get some Republican help.

Then this happened late last night, in the Senate and at the White House.

From the Washington Post.

Following the passage of the continuing resolution, a bipartisan group of Senate leadership members, led by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), issued a statement vowing that they will ensure the United States will continue “to provide critical and sustained security and economic support for Ukraine.”
“We welcome today’s agreement to avoid a harmful and unnecessary shutdown of the federal government,” the senators said in the statement.
The Senate will, “in the coming weeks,” work on legislation to continue funding the war effort in Ukraine. “We support Ukraine’s efforts to defend its sovereignty against [Vladimir] Putin’s brazen aggression, and we join a strong bipartisan majority of our colleagues in this essential work,” the senators said.

President Biden released a statement shortly after the Senate finalized its vote, lauding the deal but calling out “extreme House Republicans” who “demanded drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans.”
The statement continued with a call for additional financial support for Ukraine, which was left out of Saturday’s bill. “We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said. “I fully expect the Speaker [McCarthy] will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.”

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General Mark Milley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attacks Trump in his retirement speech.👇

We don't take an oath to a tribe.

We don’t take an oath to a religion.

We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator.

And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator.

- Mark Milley 🇺🇸

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Will Scott Hall’s admission of guilt lead to a cascade of confessions in Georgia?

First Trump co-defendant pleads guilty in Fulton election case.

Scott Hall, Guilty.

Bail bondsman Scott Hall on Friday became the first defendant in the Fulton County election interference case to take a plea agreement with prosecutors, signaling the probe has entered a dynamic new phase.

During an impromptu hearing before Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, Hall, with his attorney by his side, pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

Hall agreed to testify truthfully when called, five years probation, a $5,000 fine, 200 hours of community service and a ban on polling and election administration-related activities. He also recorded a statement for prosecutors and pledged to pen a letter of apology to Georgia voters.

The agreement is a victory for prosecutors, who are preparing for at least two sets of trials involving what is now 18 defendants. Jury selection for the trial involving the first two defendants, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, is slated to begin on Oct. 20.

A spokesman for District Attorney Fani Willis declined to comment.

Hall was indicted last month in connection with the breach of sensitive voting data in Coffee County in South Georgia on Jan. 7, 2021. He had been charged with racketeering and six felony counts of conspiracy.

Hall could be called to testify against Powell, whom prosecutors allege paid for the Coffee County trip as the Trump campaign sought evidence to support its claims of voter fraud.

Hall isn’t as well know as some of the other Trump co-defendants, but he played a wide-ranging role in efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia. Early in January 2021, he called Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who was also indicted in the Trump case, and they talked for 63 minutes about the presidential election “in furtherance of the conspiracy,” according to the 98-page Fulton indictment.

Prosecutors said Friday that Hall chartered the plane which flew Trump allies and a team of computer analysts to Coffee County, some 200 miles southeast of Atlanta. The group spent hours at the county election office and copied Georgia’s statewide voting system software, which is supposed to be kept secure by election officials.

They also took official ballots outside of the polling place in violation of Georgia law, according to the indictment.

Hall is among those who were captured in surveillance video at the office. At one point he is seen massaging the shoulders of the Cathy Latham, the county Republican Party chairwoman who is also charged in the elections case.

University of Georgia Law Prof. Melissa D. Redmon said it’s hard to say how much damage Hall could do to Powell’s defense at trial.

“But you’d have to assume it’s going to be something for (prosecutors) to offer him first-offender misdemeanors and he can go on about his life and keep his business,” said Redmon, a former Fulton prosecutor.

Powell’s attorney, Brian Rafferty, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under the terms of the plea deal, it appears that Hall will be able to keep his bail bond license. Under Georgia law, a professional bail bondsperson cannot be convicted of a felony “or any crime involving moral turpitude.”

The DA’s office clarified, and Hall’s attorney successfully asked McAfee to acknowledge, that Hall didn’t commit a crime involving moral turpitude.

It’s common for prosecutors to float plea deals in large, multi-defendant racketeering cases as they hone in on the biggest targets in an alleged criminal scheme. In this case, former President Donald Trump and his former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani face the most charges.

“You want the ones at the table to be the most culpable and the ones you have the most evidence against,” said Redmon. “You don’t really want to be bothered with the low-hanging fruit if you don’t have to.”

During a separate meeting before McAfee on Friday, special prosecutor Nathan Wade disclosed that the DA’s office had yet to offer plea deals to Chesebro or Powell, but he said that will change in the near future.

“We’ll sit down and kind of put some things together, and we’ll reach out to defense counsel individually to extend an offer,” Wade said. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

One more thing.

Buried in the Scott Hall indictment - On Jan. 2, 2021, Hall and Jeffrey Clark, who then headed the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, had a 63-minute phone call. Clark was an architect of attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential results and has also been charged in the Georgia case. Undoubtedly, prosecutors now know what was said during that conversation. Is there a recording?

Also, Hall is brother-in-law of David Bossie, former chairman of Citizens United and Trump's deputy campaign manager 2016-2019. While Bossie had a falling out with the Trump campaign and administration in May 2019, in January 2020 he returned to prominent association with the Trump administration to help Trump during one of his impeachments. (Multiple sources, including Wikipedia).

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More disgusting actions by Trump and his supporters.

Touch 👇 to watch.

About David DePage, the MAGA monster who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer.

One more thing.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — In an occasionally dark and profane speech, Donald Trump on Friday sought to win over Republicans in California by complaining that rich people in Beverly Hills smell bad because they’re denied water, reiterating lies about widespread election fraud and calling on police to shoot people robbing stores. (Associated Press).

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Meet Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett from Texas. She will make you smile.

Watch her here. 👇

During a hearing of the House Oversight Committee, Crockett torched Republicans for trying to impeach Joe Biden while ignoring the mountains of evidence arrayed against Donald Trump. Here is a mini-kind- of partial transcript but she is her own best advocate in the video above👆, if you take the time. 👇

"But when we start talking about things that look like evidence they want to act like they're blind. They don't know what this is," she said, holding up a photo of the stolen classified documents hidden in Trump's bathroom in Florida.

"These are our national secrets, looks like in the shitter to me! This looks like more evidence of our national secrets say on the stage at Mar-a-Lago," she said, holding up another photo.

"When we're talking about somebody that's committed high crimes it's at least indictments — let's say thirty-two counts related to unauthorized retention of national security secrets, seven counts related to obstructing the investigation, three false statements, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, falsifying business records, conspiracy to defraud the United States, two counts related to efforts obstruct the vote certification proceedings, one count of conspiracy to violate civil rights, twenty-three counts related to forgery or false document statements, eight counts related to soliciting and I could go on!" she said.

"Because he's got ninety-one counts pending right now but I will tell you what [President Biden] has been guilty of," she said. "He has unfortunately been guilty of loving his child unconditionally and that is the only evidence that they have brought forward and honestly I hope and pray that my parents love me half as much as he loves his child!

"Until they find some evidence we need to get back to the people's work which means keeping this government open so that people don't go hungry in the streets of the United States and I will yield!"

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Are you asking yourself whether you should have been an astronomer? I am.

Ever since the “Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017,” skywatchers have been looking forward to the next one visible from the United States. On October 14th, the nation again will be gripped by a dramatic annular (ring of fire) eclipse with a path from Oregon to Texas. (Source. 92nd Street Y, NYC).

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Happy birthday, President Carter.

As he turns 99, Jimmy Carter’s hometown honors the former president as a global humanitarian – and a good friend.

Plains, Georgia (CNN) — More than 14,000 people have written to Jimmy Carter for his 99th birthday.

The wishes, posted in a digital mosaic created by The Carter Center, come from around the world: an Ohio family thanks the 39th US president for being an example of “how to live”; a Georgia resident recalls shaking his hand during his run for governor; a man sends best wishes from Switzerland.

“He was only president for four years. He was governor for four years. But he was a resident of Plains, Georgia, for 99,” his grandson, Jason Carter, told CNN. “And that is, fundamentally, who he is.”

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One more thing.

Breaking 💥 -

Following the House vote passing a stopgap funding bill, Speaker Emerita, Nancy Pelosi, will accompany the body of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein back to California on a U.S. military plane Saturday.

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