ANOTHER LAWSUIT! Judge denies DOJ request to block Trump deposition in ex-FBI officials' lawsuits

A federal judge has denied a Department of Justice request to prevent former President Trump from sitting for a deposition in lawsuits brought by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, both former FBI officials. NBC News' Ryan Reilly reports.

 

LIVE: Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok SPILLS THE BEANS on Trump Corruption | The Weekend Show

 

Former FBI Counterintelligence Deputy Assistant Director, Peter Strzok, explains why the Durham Report failed to discover serious criminality. Plus, the sentencing of Oathkeepers and the danger of DeSantis.

Trump ensnared in new FBI legal fight

 

OD Action is now atAdvocacy!

Today’s Action: Support Temple graduate students on strike!

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100,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths: Shocking toll of Putin’s bloody invasion one year later

Daily Dose of Democracy:

Trump, FBI director can be deposed in lawsuit from ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok, judge rules
The disgraced ex-president has found himself dragged into yet another lawsuit, this time by one of his favorite punching bags, ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok. Strzok was infamously fired from the FBI at Trump's behest after the former agent's text messages were leaked and found to contain criticism of the then-president. Strzok is suing over his dismissal, and it looks like ole Donny — who never passes up a chance to rip on Strzok at his rallies — is going to have to go under oath yet again over this obviously retaliatory firing.

Take Action: Disbar the 15 state attorneys general who dispute the 2020 election!

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VIDEO OF THE DAY: Gloves off: Buttigieg finally attacks Trump in must-see takedown
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to East Palestine, Ohio, where he publicly called out the disgraced ex-president and the GOP for their decades-long push to weaken rail safety regulations.

Take Action: Tell Congress to overturn Citizens United!

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Lauren Boebert gets bad news in Colorado
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: Wow.

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A Norfolk Southern policy lets officials order crews to ignore safety alerts
As the nation grapples with the fallout from the disastrous East Palestine train derailment, ProPublica has discovered that ignoring safety concerns is official Norfolk Southern policy. Norfolk Southern allows a monitoring team to instruct crews to ignore alerts from train track sensors designed to flag potential mechanical problems. While investigators are still looking into whether this played a role in the East Palestine derailment, it directly led to an earlier derailment near Cleveland that poured paraffin wax — which is thankfully nonhazardous — into the town of Sandusky. In that incident, the monitoring team ignored worker warnings and ordered the train to continue rather than take a one-hour delay. The train jumped the tracks four miles later.

Take Action: Tell the Senate to confirm Biden's judges ASAP!

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Lawyer argues fetus of jailed pregnant woman is being illegally detained
A clever lawyer is throwing Republicans' own deeply flawed, incoherent arguments back in their faces in order to get a pregnant client out of jail. Attorney William M. Norris argued that, since the Florida Constitution says a fetus is a person, the state is subjecting his client's baby to "unlawful and illegal detention” since it has not been charged with any crimes. Norris also alleges that his pregnant client has not received OBGYN care in four months, and the state is failing to provide the mother-to-be with adequate prenatal nutrition or medical care. Folks, this should not come as a suprise. The GOP's obsession with banning abortion care isn't about the welfare of unborn fetuses — it's about controlling women's bodies.

Take Action: Tell Congress to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment ASAP!

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Half the country experiencing summer temps while a blizzard warning looms in California
Over one million people have lost power as a brutal blizzard swirls through half the country, while the other half enjoys unheard-of summertime temps. Great Lakes ice coverage is only at 7% instead of the usual 30% for this time of year, while there's a blizzard warning in Los Angeles for the first time in decades. This seems...bad. Almost as if...the climate is changing and we're not doing anything about it.

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Family files lawsuit after Colorado police kill unarmed man at point-blank range in middle school pickup line
Prepare to tear your hair out in fury. Last February, a 32-year-old man waiting in a carpool line with his mother mistakenly opened the door of another car while waiting tp pick up his brother from school. Minutes later, a Pueblo County sheriff's deputy dragged the young man out of his own car, shot him three times at point-blank range, let him bleed out on the ground, and THEN ARRESTED HIS MOTHER AND SEIZED HER PROPERTY. The District Attorney's office bought the responding officers' bullshit excuse that they felt they were in danger and justified their killing of an innocent man in front of a school of children, a decision that let both officers return to their jobs just days later. Bodycam footage of the horrific incident was withheld from the public for a full year. This is everything that's wrong with American policing.

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Subscribe to Brian Tyler Cohen’s YouTube channel
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: With indictments against Trump now “imminent,” make sure to subscribe to Brian Tyler Cohen’s YouTube channel to the latest news and analysis as soon as it breaks. Subscribe here.

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US frees two Pakistani brothers held for almost 20 years without charges at Guantanamo Bay
The United States has finallly repatriated two brothers to their native Pakistan after holding them for almost two decades in military prison without charges. Abdul Rabbani, 55, and Mohammed Rabbani, 53, were arrested by Pakistani authorities in their home city of Karachi in 2002 before swiftly being transferred to US custody for allegedly operating al-Qaida safe houses.

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Man charged with eating two bags of stolen chips
In the latest example of the complete absurdity of the American "justice" system, a Tennessee man, who is of course Black, was arrested and charged for picking up and eating $5 worth of chips that fell to the ground after ANOTHER person stole a display of snacks from a nearby convenience store. Seems like a good use of public resources.

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DOJ pressured to investigate 100+ West Virginia jail deaths
Activists with the Poor People's Campaign and relatives of some of the 13 inmates who died at West Virginia's Southern Regional Jail last year held a press conference Thursday to implore the Biden administration to investigate conditions at the notorious lockup, as well as the deaths of more than 100 prisoners in the state during the last 10 years.

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The 9-question survey many doctors use to diagnose depression was actually created by an antidepressant manufacturer
It turns out that a Zoloft marketer who worked for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer wrote the nine-question test that many doctors use to diagnose depression. The test was designed specifically to be answered in a 15-minute doctor's visit — and then used to justify prescribing anti-depressants, which of course puts money right back in the pockets of Big Pharma's vampiric executives. Why this test has been used to diagnose serious mental issues and prescribe powerful brain-changing drugs for so long is beyond comprehension. It also raises serious questions about the overprescription of drugs in America in general.

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For the union makes us strong!

Toyota accepts union demands for biggest wage hike in two decades

Work won't love you back: after a union election win, now comes the hard part

Google contractors strike in Austin

Omaha teachers union approves new contract, secures $7200 base pay raise

California medical residents get pay hike, more paid leave in new union contract

US strike activity surged in 2022 as SCOTUS workers' rights ruling looms

Dispatches from the GOP's war on trans people

Texas bill would ban nearly all gender-affirming care, including for trans adults

North Dakota lawmakers advance another round of anti-trans bills

Drew Margery: The New York Times' defense of its trans panic is pathetic

Kansas House debate on latest installment of trans athlete ban produces laughter and name calling

Nebraska heartbeat, trans youth bills moving to Legislature floor for debate

Hope...

First look at Ryugu asteroid sample reveals it is organic-rich

Russia successfully launches "lifeboat" mission to the ISS

Scientists record first-ever brain waves from freely moving octopuses

Want more hope? Subscribe to our favorite good news newsletter FREE.

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Today’s Action: Support Temple graduate students on strike!

Temple University recently revoked tuition remission for the entire semester in response to graduate students striking for better pay and benefits. University officials aren’t even trying to hide their union-busting scheme — they sent a rather straightforward email identifying the strike as the sole reason for the tuition removal. Furthermore, they notified students that the full semester tuition woud be due by March 9th or students would be subject to $100 late fees.

It’s ironic that the union’s call for adequate pay was met with more explicit greed from the university. At the bargaining table, the university continued pressuring students to accept an inferior contract that would conveniently keep their yearly pay below the annual cost of living in Philadelphia. 80% of the union rightfully rejected the woeful terms, which means their strike will continue.

Temple University graduate students need our support! Donate to the Temple Strike Fund and spread the word with their social media toolkit! Amplify their (more than) reasonable demands for a living wage, healthcare for families and dependents, longer parental and bereavement leave, and better working conditions today!

PS — Please don't forget to sign the petition to call for the judge to rule that Fox News defamed Dominion and Smartmatic, and be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

 @advocacy | 1002 Hull St., Louisville, KY 40204

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Education takes center stage in 2024 GOP primary

 

View in browser   BY JUAN PEREZ JR. With additional reporting from Ari Hawkins and David Siders School buses in California. | David McNew/Getty Images CULTURE CLASH — Once upon a time, back when people used fax machines, education policy — test scores, spending, school choice and the like — were a notable feature of Republican presidential campaigns. Former President George W. Bush’s support for education spending and the transformative No Child Left Behind Act was enshrined in the party’s 2004 platform . Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee railed that a general lack of concern about education in the 2008 presidential field “frustrates the fire out of me.” Bush’s brother, Jeb, invoked Martin Luther King Jr. in 2016 when he proposed a detailed education platform before his campaign fizzled. This year, education is re-emerging as a prominent issue for the budding 2024 GOP field. But America is poised to witness a presidential contest where the debate over school policy sounds dramatically different — with discussions over academic standards and the stunning, once-in-a-generation hit to test scores taking a back seat to issues with a more distinct culture war bent. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is salting a back-to-basics education mantra with brimstone, targeting school lessons on race and sexuality. Former Vice President Mike Pence has put a small Iowa school system’s gender identity policy in the national spotlight. And Former President Donald Trump is stirring up concerns about “pink-haired communists teaching our kids.” Haley’s campaign launch last week offered a sign of the heightened role the education wars are about to play in the GOP primary. “They’re talking about critical race theory, where if you send a five year old kindergartner into school — if she’s white, you’re telling her she’s bad, and if she’s brown or Black you’re telling her she’s never going to be good enough and she’s always going to be a victim,” Haley said of the academic practice to a New Hampshire crowd last week. “That’s abusive.” She added that a Florida ban on sexual orientation and gender identity lessons for young students — championed by rival Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law — “didn’t go far enough.” “When I was growing up, we didn’t have sex ed until seventh grade,” Haley said to applause in New Hampshire. “That’s the kind of stuff you do at home, you don’t do that at school. That’s the kind of thing parents do.” For his part, Pence has focused attention on an Iowa dispute, in which the conservative Parents Defending Education organization is suing the Linn-Mar Community School District to stop it from enforcing a policy that directs educators to protect their students’ gender identities on campus. The court case has garnered supportive briefs from the Pence-backed Advancing American Freedom organization plus a coalition of Christian groups and Republican state attorneys general. The legal battle is also the focus of a Pence political initiative — funded with an initial budget of $1 million — that will advocate for “parental rights” policies embraced by conservatives. “We’re told that we must not only tolerate the left’s obsessions with race and sex and gender but we must earnestly and enthusiastically participate or face severe consequences,” Pence told supporters last week. “Nowhere is the problem more severe, or the need for leadership more urgent, than in our public school classrooms,” he said. Trump’s education plan, unveiled last month , calls for cutting federal funding for any school or program that includes “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.” Trump would also open civil rights investigations into any school district that has engaged in race-based discrimination, particularly against Asian American students. He also called to “keep men out of women’s sports,” make significant cuts to school administrative personnel, elect school principals and end teacher tenure. “As the saying goes, personnel is policy and at the end of the day if we have pink-haired communists teaching our kids we have a major problem,” Trump said. Sen. Tim Scott, who is testing the waters on a potential presidential bid, is taking a less combative approach. Speaking at a GOP Black History Month event in Charleston last week, the South Carolina senator said “the story of America is not defined by our original sin, the story of America is defined by our redemption” and urged Republicans to “be the party of parents.” Scott and others are responding to the GOP grassroots energy surrounding issues at the intersection of race, gender, culture and education — which Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin successfully harnessed in his 2021 blue-state victory. The sharp-edged rhetoric might get sanded down for the general election. But for now, not getting outflanked on education controversies that currently animate the right appears to be the first order of business for the 2024 field. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at jperez@politico.com or on Twitter at @PerezJr .   JOIN POLITICO ON 3/1 TO DISCUSS AMERICAN PRIVACY LAWS: Americans have fewer privacy rights than Europeans, and companies continue to face a minefield of competing state and foreign legislation. There is strong bipartisan support for a federal privacy bill, but it has yet to materialize. Join POLITICO on 3/1 to discuss what it will take to get a federal privacy law on the books, potential designs for how this type of legislation could protect consumers and innovators, and more. REGISTER HERE .     WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden taps former Mastercard CEO to head World Bank: President Joe Biden today nominated Ajay Banga, the former CEO of Mastercard, to lead the World Bank . The surprise selection would install in the role a Wall Street veteran positioned to leverage billions more in private capital the institution needs to transform into a leader on climate change and other global challenges. — New indictment details Bankman-Fried’s illegal campaign contributions: U.S. prosecutors today revealed new details of how FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly made millions of dollars of illegal campaign contributions using stolen customer money, as they hit the one-time crypto exchange executive with new fraud charges. Federal prosecutors in New York alleged that Bankman-Fried and two unnamed co-conspirators took out loans from Alameda Research — his hedge fund — and siphoned FTX customer funds to pump money into campaigns and super PACs that supported candidates from both parties in the 2022 midterms. The charges indicate the misuse of funds for political activity contributed to the collapse of the FTX exchange last year. — Judge orders depositions of Trump, Wray in long-running dispute with ex-FBI officials: A federal judge has agreed to permit former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to take sworn testimony from Trump for two hours as part of their long-running lawsuits related to Strzok’s firing in 2018 after Trump repeatedly and publicly pilloried the pair. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled today that Strzok and Page — whose text messages disparaging then-candidate Trump cast a pall over the FBI’s investigation of links between the Trump campaign and Russia — would also be allowed to depose FBI Director Christopher Wray for a similar two-hour period on a limited set of topics. AROUND THE WORLD Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador. | Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images DEMOCRATIC DECLINE — Mexico’s Senate approved a major overhaul of the country’s independent election watchdog on Wednesday ahead of the 2024 presidential race. The electoral reforms, championed by President Andres Manuel López Obrador, are the latest in a pattern of anti-democratic measures in the country, as the populist leader moves to secure his party’s grip on power, Ari Hawkins reports for Nightly. The reform package — dubbed “Plan B” because of López Obrador’s more sweeping measures that were blocked by opposition lawmakers — would severely hinder the functioning of the country’s primary electoral oversight agency, the National Electoral Institute. The measures would diminish its autonomy and weaken the sanctions it can impose on candidates and parties that violate Mexican election laws. The president’s allies in the Morena party, which controls Congress, argued that overhauling NEI would save millions of dollars and has long criticized the institution as a tool that serves the elite. Dante Delgado, the leader of the opposition’s Movimiento Ciudadano party, said the Mexican president is “destroying the work and fight of millions of Mexicans to create a democratic, impartial system” by weakening the electoral watchdog credited with helping transition the country to a multi-party government in 2000 after 71-years of single party rule. López Obrador, who remains highly popular in Mexico, cannot run for re-election in the 2024 presidential race. But the country’s leader, who garnered the public’s favor by railing against government bureaucrats, has escalated measures to secure the party’s future success. “With the upcoming 2024 elections — even though he can’t run for another six-year term — he [López Obrador] wants to ensure his successor will be from his party and continue the implementation of his vision,” said Lila Abed, deputy director of the Mexico Institute, a division of the Wilson Center, which produces research and policy recommendations to strengthen relations between the U.S. and Mexico. López Obrador, who served as the head of Mexico City’s government from 2000 to 2005, clinched the presidency in 2018 and has engaged in a systematic crackdown against the country’s democratic institutions ever since. In recent years, the Mexican president has re-shaped the judiciary to shore up the power of his political allies. And López Obrador frequently used referendums to override policy objections from opposition lawmakers and has sought to expand the role of the country’s military. In its most recent report, the U.S.-based democracy watchdog Freedom House marked the country’s democratic decline for the third consecutive year , noting persistent “corruption among government officials, human rights abuses by both state and nonstate actors, and rampant impunity,” among other measures of non-democracies. “Historically, we’ve known when there were authoritarian leaders coming into power because there was a coup d’état or another event … But now, we’re seeing a trend of leaders using electoral processes to be able to get into power, which gives them a certain legitimacy and credibility,” added Abed. “Once they take control, they start debilitating democratic institutions, and that’s something that AMLO has done from the moment he came into power.”   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS – DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID .     NIGHTLY NUMBER Over 7,000 The number of new homes that Israel’s government has approved in Jewish settlements in the West Bank , despite growing international opposition to the far-right government’s policy to allow incursion into occupied territory. The announcement came just days after the United Nations Security Council passed a statement criticizing Israel’s settlement construction on occupied lands, while the United States vetoed a tougher, legally binding resolution. RADAR SWEEP FIND IT ON FACEBOOK — Around the country, there are thousands of Facebook groups called “Buy Nothing” — where users post items that they want to get rid of and others claim them, for free. The groups become a place outside the usual exchange of money for goods or services. And in doing so, they become communities in their own right, where neighbors can get to know each other. Like everything else, though, Buy Nothing relies on the rest of the American economy. Lots of people no longer have (or never did have) Facebook accounts. Still, as its founders tried to branch out with its own app and attract investors, they got backlash — users asked, isn’t the whole ethos of the group supposed to be apart from questions like investment? So how does a group founded on free stuff continue to function and grow in the U.S. economy, itself very much not about free stuff? Vauhini Vara reports for Wired. PARTING WORDS A new podcast asks what bartenders have to say about America's political climate. | Scott Olson/Getty Images BAR FOCUS GROUP — There are polls. There are focus groups. And then there are the nation’s bartenders, whom two prominent Republican strategist friends are hoping can tap into the American zeitgeist in a new podcast out today, writes David Siders for Nightly. Billed as “a bar crawl around America to find out what real people around the country are saying about hot political issues and culture,” the strategists, David Kochel and Rob Stutzman, call it “Highball Politics.” “Why bartenders?” Stutzman says in the first episode. “Because bartenders have the pulse of their patrons and, therefore, the pulse of America. Real America.” Episode one features a conversation with a bartender in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, about, among other issues, Covid, the caucuses and Roe v. Wade . The mood in the bar is friendly, said the bartender, Jaime Jackson of LP Street Food. But political conversations are “something that I do have to monitor pretty intensely” because, as she put it, “I don’t want any fights.” Kochel is a veteran of six presidential campaigns. Stutzman served as an adviser to former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. They are planning to hit up bartenders in a mix of politically important states and districts, focusing on the sorts of drinking establishments they say they’d go to if they were first walking into a city and trying to get the lay of the land. “It’s a poor man’s focus group,” said Kochel. If someone like Sarah Longwell, the Republican strategist with a sizable following, “has the money to do a $30,000 focus group every week for her podcast ,” he said. “We have enough money to find a bartender.” You can find “Highball Politics” on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify . Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong Ari Hawkins @_AriHawkins   FOLLOW US

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Barr’s Comments About Durham Probe Are ‘Appalling’ Says Strzok | The Katie Phang Show

The Durham probe into the Russia investigation has failed, once again. Former FBI agent Peter Strzok joins Katie Phang to discuss.

Jan. 6 Committee Puts The Ball In Pat Cipollone’s Court

 

Former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, former Congressman David Jolly, and New York Times Washington correspondent Mike Schmidt discuss the January 6th committee calling in former President Trump’s top lawyer to testify» Subscribe to MSNBC: