Ben Richards

quote:

---

Rep. Matt Gaetz warned billionaire Michael Bloomberg that he may be facing a criminal probe for paying the outstanding fines and fees of 32,000 convicted felons in Florida so they could regain their right to vote ahead of the November election.

Speaking to Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday evening, Gaetz (R-Fla.) said he had spoken to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody prior to his appearance on the show about Bloomberg’s voter effort in the Sunshine State.

---

quote:

---

To Gaetz and Moody, however, there are legal concerns regarding Bloomberg’s political spending in this specific case.

“I believe there may be a criminal investigation already underway of the Bloomberg-connected activities in Florida,” Gaetz told Sean Hannity.

“[Under Florida law] it’s a third-degree felony for someone to either directly or indirectly provide something of value to impact whether or not someone votes. So the question is whether or not paying off someone’s fines and legal obligations counts as something of value, and it clearly does. If Michael Bloomberg was offering to pay off people’s credit card debts, you would obviously see the value in that.

“When you improve someone’s net worth by eliminating their financial liabilities, that’s something of value. Normally, it would be very difficult to prove that that was directly linked to impacting whether or not someone was going to vote. But they literally wrote their own admission,” the Florida Republican argued, referencing a Washington Post report.

---

quote:

---

A ceremonial resolution honoring the life of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg failed in the Senate on Tuesday after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz objected to language his Democratic counterparts added noting her dying wish that a successor not be chosen until after the presidential inauguration early next year.

---

quote:

---

"Unfortunately, the Democratic leader has put forth an amendment to turn that bipartisan resolution into a partisan resolution," Cruz said in his floor remarks, referring to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer.

---

quote:

---

"Specifically, the Democratic leader wants to add a statement that Justice Ginsburg's position should not be filled until a new president is installed, purportedly based on a comment Justice Ginsburg made to family members shortly before she passed.

"That, of course, is not the standard," he added. "Under the Constitution, members of the judiciary do not appoint their own successors."

---

quote:

---

Snook were being caught as far north as Brunswick Ga

---

quote:

---

The Justice Department on Monday refused a request from Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, for top officials to testify on several issues, citing a recent appearance by Attorney General William Barr which it called an attempt by committee members to “air grievances.”

The letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd, said that committee members spent most of Barr’s July 28 appearance at an Oversight hearing to scold and insult the country’s top prosecutor. The letter even pointed to how an article in The New York Times described the hearing.

“Democrat after Democrat posed questions to Mr. Barr only to cut him off when he tried to reply, substituting their own replies for his,” the Times wrote.

Boyd’s letter was in response to Nadler’s request for Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband, Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal and U.S. Marshals Service Director Donald Washington to appear before its Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. One of the meetings was scheduled for Sept. 24.

---

quote:

---

At a special meeting Monday afternoon, the Jefferson Parish Council approved a resolution to allow the parish's bars to reopen as early as Wednesday. The vote was 6-0; Councilman Byron Lee was absent.

The resolution acknowledges statewide "gating criteria" that require that in order for bars to open, the Department of Health must have two consecutive weeks of 5% or below positive rate on coronavirus testing for the parish.

According to the most recent data, Jefferson Parish's positivity rate for the week of Sept. 3-9 was 3.8%.

---

quote:

---

Under the terms of the resolution, Jefferson Parish will "opt in" to reopening its bars "at the moment Louisiana Department of Health posts a positivity rate of 5% or below for two consecutive weeks for Jefferson Parish."

---

quote:

---

The GOP-led Senate Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees plan to release a joint report as early as this week disclosing the results of a year-long probe into Joe Biden's stewardship of Ukraine anti-corruption policy while his son earned big money as a board member at the corruption-plagued Burisma Holdings gas firm.

---

quote:

---

The report is expected to accuse the former vice president of engaging in a prohibited conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest by continuing to oversee the U.S. anti-corruption policies in Ukraine while his son served on the board of a natural gas company under investigation by the very Ukrainian prosecutors dependent on U.S. money, guidance and assistance in the fight against corruption that Joe Biden controlled.

The fact that Joe Biden admits he forced the firing in spring 2016 of Viktor Shokin — the Ukrainian prosecutor who was overseeing the Burisma probe — by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine only heightens the conflict concerns.

Democrats won't be able to easily dismiss the concerns politically because Obama-era State Department officials have admitted in testimony that the Bidens' behavior created the appearance of a conflict of interest that directly undercut U.S. efforts to fight endemic corruption in Ukraine.

But the bigger concern the report is expected to raise is whether U.S. officials during the Obama-Biden era turned a blind eye to red flags about what was going on at Burisma and with Hunter Biden and his business dealings.

---

quote:

---

“This ain’t Portland” - Orange Beach mayor

---