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On May 19, a real estate agent and small-time political operative in Cherokee County, Georgia took to his Facebook page to warn his friends and followers of long lines at a polling location there during the primary.

“Problems in Cherokee,” Bryan Laurens wrote, saying that “combined precincts in a single location create almost 2 hour wait time.”

While there were long lines that day, it wasn’t because polling precincts had been “combined.” Instead, the lines were the result of the owners of a building declining to offer it as a polling location, causing election officials to have to use just one polling location in that district. Laurens did not report this nuance to his followers.

“TWO OF THE MOST REPUBLICAN PRECINCTS IN STATE OF GEORGIA. PEOPLE ARE LEAVING — NOT VOTING,” he wrote. “Reports now of similar happenings around the county in at least four different combined precincts.”

Not long after his post, Laurens was contacted by the executive director of the Georgia State Election Board, James Mills. Mills then filed an official complaint with his own board against Cherokee County based on Laurens’ Facebook post, and sent a newly-hired private investigator to question county election officials about long lines during the May 19 primary.

Then, in June the investigator, a Trump-supporting believer in election conspiracies named Larry Duckworth, sat down with Cherokee elections director Anne Dover, a 19-year veteran in the office, as well as the county’s attorney. Dover was aware of Laurens’ post, which was screenshotted and served as the genesis of Duckworth’s investigation.

Dover noted that “this was the first time we’ve had any kind of complaint about lines in the 19 years I’ve been here.”

“I want to know who made those screenshots and submitted the social media post,” Dover said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by American Doom.

Duckworth then told Dover that Mills had taken the screenshots as a result of his regular monitoring of election keywords on Facebook.

“The executive director has a flag for social media issues… what trigger words they have, I don’t know, but I received those from him,” Duckworth said. “As executive director, he’s got his eye out for issues.”

Prior to being appointed to the State Election Board by Republican legislators, Mills served on the state’s parole board and was a member of the state legislature. Before entering government, he was a Baptist minister and owned storage facilities. He has no experience in election administration.

Dover then asked if Mills looked at Facebook posts for complaints of long lines in any other counties. Clearly, he did not, although Duckworth wouldn’t admit this. The reason this question is important is because it shows that Mills — along with the other Trump-supporting election skeptics on the SEB — is prioritizing even the most minor complaints from Republican strongholds.

Long lines at polling locations are a regular occurrence throughout Georgia — and especially in cities like Atlanta, where voters skew Democratic.

But the SEB isn’t concerned with ballot access issues in places where voters elect Democrats; they’re only concerned with making sure that voters in places like Cherokee — which is overwhelmingly Republican — have as smooth an election experience as possible.

Duckworth’s haphazard “investigation” and his unserious questioning of Dover are evidence of this pattern. That his probe began because Mills saw a Facebook comment from a fellow, rural Georgia Republican is just the icing on the cake.

Mills and Duckworth even went to the trouble of blacking out Laurens’ name on the screenshots that formed the backbone of this strange and wasteful investigation. (Duckworth is paid by taxpayer dollars, as is the county attorney and Dover who had to take time out of their day to answer his questions.)

“Well, we decided to make those names redacted, etc., so there’d be no retaliation,” Duckworth said.

But Dover had already seen the posts. She knew Laurens, as well as others who had commented about the long lines that day. In fact, the posts are still up, and Laurens’ Facebook page is largely open to the public with few, if any, privacy settings.

For his part, Duckworth insisted that Cherokee was not “targeted” as a result of Laurens’ post, and that his investigation was above board. But Dover already knew that it was apparently the case that Laurens’ Facebook post had prompted the investigation.

Prior to meeting Duckworth, Dover asked a statewide group of election officials if any other counties had received official SEB complaints as a result of social media posts regarding long lines. Not a single one of Georgia’s other 158 counties responded that they had.

“I have asked other counties that have been targeted via social media for cases to be opened — there are zero,” Dover told Duckworth.

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The era of Start the Steal has begun. I’ll have some more exclusive findings tomorrow about election interference efforts in Georgia. For now, a rundown of Trump’s address last night. Subscribe, support and share. - jg

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Last night, President Donald Trump spoke to the nation in an address in which he hyped overblown claims of fraud in the 2020 election as he kicked off Republican attempts to overturn the results of November’s mid-terms.

The speech will be looked back upon as one the strangest and most obvious threats to American democracy from an elected official in the country’s history.

The only real new developments the president mentioned were an error-filled DHS estimate that 278,000 undocumented immigrants are registered to vote across the country, and that China accessed the voter registration information of 200 million Americans back in 2020.

First, the estimate that 278,000 undocumented immigrants are registered to vote isn’t even correct according to the documents released by the White House itself. Those documents show that a little more than 10,000 noncitizens were found on voter rolls nationwide. The only way to reach the 278,000 number is by adding dead voters to that number of noncitizens.

I can’t stress enough how incompetent this is. Prior to Trump’s address, DHS leaked the 278,000 claim to Politico as if were a major finding — but DHS’ own findings don’t show that. Trump nor DHS claimed that any of these 10,000 noncitizens actually voted.

The China claim is interesting — but comes from 2016, not 2020, according to the documents release last night. Alos, voter registration information is largely public and not hard to come by. Political parties, individual candidates, non-profit organizations, lawyers and many more regularly access the type of information that China is accused of obtaining. What China allegedly did in 2020 may not even have been illegal.

So, Trump had no smoking gun because he never has — and because it doesn’t exist. But that wasn’t really the point of the address. The reason that the people around Trump and Republicans in Congress are letting this madness go on as we approach the mid-terms is that it’s good for them politically. Frightening and angering their base of voters increases the odds that Republicans might be able to hold onto power in Congress.

Led by a historically unpopular president, those odds are long.

The second reason most Republicans are willing to go along with Trump’s election lies is because they will help them claim the mid-terms were stolen from them when they lose. From there, Republicans in Congress and elsewhere will attempt to legally maneuver Democrats out of their wins, a story I’ll have coming out in the next few weeks.

Simply put: unable and unwilling to appeal to voters — or really anyone not named Donald Trump — Republicans in Washington and across the country are engaged in an organized and sweeping plot to undo the will of American voters in November.

For his part, Trump has to do everything he can to help Republicans win in November so that a Democrat-controlled Congress won’t hold him accountable for the crimes and impeachable offenses he and his administration commit on a weekly basis.

Last night, Trump simply provided specific talking points to be used in efforts to reverse the outcome of an election that Republicans are favored to lose.

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A Pro-Trump Private Investigator Is Investigating Elections in Georgia

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10 days ago · 117 likes · 9 comments · Justin Glawe

But let’s be clear about the fundamental reason this is all happening — again. Trump cannot accept that the American people told him “no” in 2020. A civilly-convicted rapist, Trump simply cannot stand that he was told “no” by voters, just as he wouldn’t accept the word “no” from the woman he raped, or the two dozen some-odd women who have credibly accused him of assaulting them. We don’t have to take their word for it — Trump himself said he can simply grab women “by the pussy” if he feels like it.

Trump couldn’t stand being told “no” in 2016 when he said Ted Cruz “illegally stole” the Iowa caucuses that showed Cruz winning there. Trump couldn’t stand it when he barely beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then formed a task force on election integrity that was quickly disbanded after finding no evidence of widespread voter fraud. And Trump still can’t stand that the American people told him “no” in 2020.

He especially can’t stand that it happened thanks in large part to Black voters in Fulton County, Georgia.

If Trump’s address actually contained damning information about the 2020 election, it would have come in the form of a court filing — a DOJ affidavit against foreign powers or domestic officials who took part in the fraud — but that was not the case. In the world of U.S. elections over the last six years, we often talk about press releases that are disguised as affidavits and lawsuits — legal filings making bombshell allegations that then never see their day in court for, you know, lack of actual evidence. This wasn’t even that — if Trump had the smoking gun, his DOJ would be filing as such in court. It’s not, and there’s a reason for that.

Trump’s address covered a wide variety of areas that have been the obsession of the election denial movement for years. All of this is also probably aimed at creating some sort of legal mechanism that would allow Trump to declare a national emergency, force passage of the SAVE Act — which will help to prevent millions from voting — and do things like call in immigration agents or the military to polling locations in order to intimidate voters and seize ballots, voting machines and other materials in places where Republicans lost. You know, like the FBI has already done right here in Georgia.

But even Trump stopped short of that emergency declaration last night. That doesn’t mean it’s not coming, but I think it’s an important distinction to make.

Much of Trump’s claims dealt with vulnerabilities in online election systems, including voter registration databases. During his second administration, Trump has gutted government agencies tasked with protecting these systems and data.

Nothing in last night’s address included new claims that actual votes were manipulated in 2020. Instead, Trump just repeated a bunch of things that were already known, exaggerated some others, made some stuff up, and claimed that all of this means someone could manipulate actual votes (they can’t).

The address was a nothingburger — boring, dumb, overblown, but harmful nonetheless. Millions of Americans will now even more fervently believe lies that elections aren’t secure, priming them to believe more lies when Republicans lose fair and square in November.

In the wake of his loss in 2020, Trump’s own intelligence community — led by then-DNI John Ratcliffe, who Trump still likes enough to employ as director of the CIA — found no credible evidence that any foreign power was able to manipulate votes.

“We have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results,” the first finding of Ratcliffe’s report made clear.

So what has changed between then and now? Two impeachments, to start. Now, Republicans are likely to lose the House of Representatives in November, and possibly the Senate as well. Trump expects to be impeached if and when that happens for the many and obvious crimes he has and continues to commit. That’s why he’s so desperate for Republicans to win in November, regardless of who Americans actually choose to elect.

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We’ve got an exclusive here today at Doom and Zeteo that details Georgia’s newest election “investigator.” Larry Duckworth is a private investigator who has been hired by the State Election Board to look into election complaints across the state. While that may sound above board, in practice what it means is that Duckworth is being directed by the SEB’s Trump-supporting, election-denying majority to drag up anything that they think can help convince people that November’s mid-term elections are rife with fraud.

Duckworth is joined in these efforts by Jason Frazier, who the board is also now paying with taxpayer dollars to act as an investigator. We’ve reported on Frazier a lot here — he’s a hardcore election denier and conspiracy theorist who, like Duckworth, should be nowhere near the election process. Alas, this is the world in which we now live.

Anyway, Chloe here at Doom found Duckworth’s Facebook page which contained enough evidence of support for election lies and Trump to prompt me to give him a call to talk about his beliefs. (This reminds me of the time I called former SEB member Rick Jeffares to ask him if he had sought a position in the Trump administration in exchange for help with pursuing election fraud claims in Georgia, and Jeffares just admitted to it outright.)

Because I know that the SEB, Georgia’s election denial movement and perhaps even powerful state Republican lawmakers are likely to say I somehow spun Duckworth’s comments and beliefs, I’m providing the entire recording of my conversation with him here. You can read a transcript of our discussion below if you like.

I’ve also got a breakdown at Doom’s home on YouTube of Duckworth’s posts, what he’s looking into in places like Cherokee County, and some other news about what the SEB is doing to challenge the eligibility of voters in Democratic strongholds like Chatham County, where I live.

There’s a lot more where all of this came from so stay tuned, spread the word, and support our work if you can.

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***
Interview conducted July 13, 2026. LD - Larry Duckworth, JG - Justin Glawe

JG: Larry, this is Justin Glawe, reporter in Savannah, and I’m working on a couple of lines of reporting that I was hoping to talk with you about if you have a couple of minutes.

LD: Yeah but for comment, we have a chain of command… You’ll need to talk to (SEB executive director) James Mills in Atlanta.

JG: OK. Sure, yeah, I’m happy to do that. I mean, the reason I wanted to talk to you about it is because they deal specifically with some things that you’ve posted on Facebook about, you know, election matters, and so I figured it would be best to go straight to the source.

LD: I have not posted anything on Facebook about election matters.

JG: Well, I’m looking at a post right here that’s, there’s multiple posts here that are on a, on a profile with your name and the same photo that’s on your CV. So are you saying this is not your Facebook page … On April 1st, 2023? You’ve got a thing about time to get serious for your family’s future. Uh, there’s multiple posts on here and they all have your name and your face as the profile picture.

LD: Why don’t you send it to me, I don’t remember doing those. That’s fine, I’m a bipartisan guy.

JG: Well, one of them says we must counter these Liberal dishonesties to destroy elections by citizens. Only is that bipartisan in your mind?

LD: Well, I don’t ever do that.

JG: Well, this was March 11th, 2024.

LD: Okay, maybe they were some specific things, good, so, I understand what you’re trying to do in style so, send me those cause I disavow those right now till I see them.

JG: What do you, what do you mean that I mean it’s clearly you it’s the same photo that’s on your CV that’s online. Like it’s clearly you and it’s clearly your page. I mean, in one of these posts, which was 2024, you say that…

LD: OK, so I’m talking. It’s clearly me to you, it’s not clearly me to me.

JG: I need if you’re gonna disavow this and claim that this is not you, sure I guess, but like, you know, this is you it says ‘the cheat is on,’ but I’m happy to send them to you. And if you would like to refute this and claim that you did not say these things, you know, then I guess I’ll just have to take that into consideration. But, I mea…

LD: Well, send them to me.

JG: you don’t recall posting any of these multiple things about

LD: Did you not listen to me? I don’t recall…

JG: no, it’s not that I’m not listening to you, Larry, it’s that I don’t believe you.

LD: That’s alright. Ok, ok…

JG: So I think, I think you’re lying and I think you’re a committed Trump supporter who is now probing elections under the guise that there is widespread election fraud when there is not. That’s what I think.

LD: I’m not committed to anybody, I’m committed to the rule of law

JG: Well, one of your posts directly says right here that you are committed to Trump and that you should vote for Trump.

LD: Well, send those to me because I don’t remember doing that.

JG: So, okay, and what happens then when I don’t get a response from you?

LD: I don’t know.

JG: Okay, so what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna write a story that we’re gonna publish that says that you’re a Trump supporter and an election denier. And if you wanna go ahead and refute that and say that these are not your posts, I’ll, I’ll, you know, okay, maybe I won’t write the story then, but, I mean, I just, it’s it’s clearly you, so, yeah,

LD: I am not anti-Trump. I’m not a MAGA person. I’m not an election denier.

JG: So then, so then what does it mean when you say the cheat is on?

LD: I don’t know, I don’t remember doing that. I don’t know what the context is.

JG: Context is another reason we need to turn out the vote. The cheat is on, on August 9th, 2024.

LD: What cheat is on? What cheat are we talking about?

JG: I assumed it would be something related to elections. Larry, I mean, you’ve got another post here that says ‘only Republicans voting in large numbers can stop this typical Dem Liberal madness.’

LD: I don’t remember doing that.

JG: Okay, you got another one here that says we must counter these Liberal dishonesties to destroy elections by citizens, only they hate normal America.

LD: I don’t want an election destroyed by anyone.

JG: Yeah, but this is, but this is directly and then it’s like got a Fox News, uh, uh, story here about attempting to register undocumented immigrants to vote and you say ‘Dangerous! They hate normal America because it sees through their lives.’ Are you saying that you don’t agree with that post that you wrote?

LD: Say that again. That doesn’t register. Say that again.

JG: Yeah, it says you said we must counter these Liberal dishonesties to destroy elections by citizens only. And then in reference to Democrats, you say ‘they hate normal America because it sees through the lies. Dangerous.

LD: I don’t remember that at all. That’s all BS.

JG: Okay, this is your post on your Facebook page.

LD: Well, it wasn’t by me.

JG: So then are you saying that your Facebook page was hacked?

LD: I don’t know. This is stuff out of the blue to me. I’ve asked you to send it to me. I can tell you what, I’m an American. Um, I’m not a MAGA person. I’m not against the MAGA people. Matter of fact, I was a Democrat for 34 years. So the issue is, I’m trying to be very… I very much believe in election integrity. I very much believe in self responsibility, honesty. I believe in … principle. I believe, today, a certain party [unintelligible] better, but when I do this job, which is all that counts, I’m very non-partisan.

JG: So when I’m looking at your CV here, it says licensed professional investigator and security president related bio. And it’s got, like, detect Excel,it’s got private investigator agency president, and then, like, some numbers here that look like registration numbers PSC…

LD: Yeah, that’d be correct.

JG: Yeah, so this is you, and it’s got a link to your Primordial Leadership [book]. So the same photo that is on this bio for you is also the exact, is the exact same photo that’s on this Facebook page that has all of these.

LD: I don’t want to say it for the fourth time. Send it to me. You know, to the degree that that is there, I don’t know, but I’ll comment when I see it.

JG: I mean, you’ve got, you’ve got a post on here from January 12, where you share a video that comes directly from Donald Trump’s Facebook page.

LD: OK, I don’t remember doing that, send it to me. How many times do I need to ask you to do that?

JG: All right, I’ll send it to you, but I just, here’s the thing. I don’t think, I think that when you see this you’re going to be like, oh, no comment. So while I have you on the phone here, I wanna get your comment on, if you say you’re not a Trump supporter, why are you sharing a reel from the president’s page on January 12?

LD: I said I am not a MAGA person. Who I voted for is my business and my business only.

JG: Well, it is your business until you’re hired by the state election board to investigate.

LD: It is my business. I have no obligation to say who I voted for…

JG: I’m not asking who you voted for. I’m asking you to speak to whether or not you think that the 2020 election was stolen, and whether your investigations are seeking to confirm that, or whether you think that your power granted by the SEB is going to help you to be able to prove those disproven allegations.

LD: I am not investigating the 2020 election at all.

JG: Okay. What are you doing? What are you doing in Cherokee and Cobb County? Then what are you looking into in those places?

LD: In both cases, those are complaints that came to the SEBs from individuals, um, about specific … I won’t get into specifics. And I’m investigating those, and I’m doing so with a very professional manner like the decorated detective I was and am, and a licensed detective, and it’s done in a very non-partisan way. That’s the core issue.

JG: Actually you’ve got another post here on September 23rd or September 2024 where you directly advocate voting for Donald Trump and JD Vance.

LD: OK, if I did do I not have that right to do that?

JG: No, you absolutely have the right to do that. But I, you, you have, you have already told me I’m not a MAGA person and I don’t support Trump. And here is a post in which you are directly advocating…

LD: I didn’t say I didn’t support Trump, I said I’m not a MAGA person….

JG: Okay, alright, so you, so you do support Trump then…

LD: I’m not going to tell you who I support.

JG: Alright, let me ask you a very simple question….

LD: It has no bearing on my investigating any cases that I’m doing…

JG: Okay, you can say that, but these posts allude to a pretty committed political ideology, so let me ask you a very simple question. Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election?

LD: He was certified, he won,

JG: I know I, okay, so he did win. Being certified is, as I’m sure you’re aware, as somebody who works for the State Election Board, being certified is different from saying he won the vote count. Did Joe Biden win the vote count? Did he beat Donald Trump fair and square in terms of who the voters chose? Not certified.

LD: I cannot say he did not.

JG: I’m sorry say that again,

LD: I cannot say he did not.

JG: I don’t even, that’s like a triple negative there. Did Joe Biden win the election or not?

LD: Then get smarter. I cannot say he did not win.

JG: All right. So, so what are we doing here, Larry? You’re gonna tell me I’m not a Trump guy, and then you’ve got Facebook post that show that you are a Trump guy.

LD: I never said I’m not a Trump…

JG: You’re to tell me that you’re not looking into 2020 election stuff, but,

LD: I’m not. I’m not.

JG: OK, what conversations have you had? How did… tell me a little bit about how James Mills came to find you? How do you know James Mills? How did the whole hiring thing go, go down?

LD: Well that’s, you’d have to call him…. I know but I’m not answering a question from…

JG: Well, he’s not gonna talk to the press because that’s just like how he operates. I’m happy to try to give him a call, but I got you on the phone right now. So maybe you can give me some insight into how it is that you got hired for this position.

LD: I don’t mind doing it personally, but I don’t think it’s the right protocol and you’ll have to ask him. And I … just because I believe in the chain of command.

JG: Well, it appears that you also believe that elections are inherently fraudulent. Would that be fair to say?

LD: No, I think they can be but I’m not saying they are.

JG: So then do you believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent?

LD: I don’t have any facts to say that it was.

JG: So do you believe that Democrats are trying to get undocumented immigrants to vote?

LD: I’ve heard reports of that but I don’t have factual proof of that,

JG: Are you looking into?

LD: I’m a cop. I’ve got to have the facts like Joe Friday, just the facts ma’am.

JG: Well, yeah, but so, but just the facts doesn’t then you share a story that makes those allegations on your Facebook page. Like those two things don’t line up. Like if you’re saying just the facts, then you don’t share a story or your opinion as you’ve done on your Facebook page that make these allegations. Do you see the difference there?

LD: No

JG: No, no, you don’t?

LD: I’m answering question about, do I know that it was wrong? I don’t know.

JG:

LD: I don’t know how they link up. I have no fact that Biden didn’t win, none. It may come out, but I have no facts that he didn’t win. I have no facts that Trump won.

JG: But you have no, you have no facts that, but you have no facts for the opposite of that. You have no facts that Biden did win. Is what you’re saying by saying that?

LD: That he was certified is a fact.

JG: actually.Oh, here’s a great post from you, Larry on March 28th, 2023. It says I stand with Trump.

LD: Okay.

JG: alright, so we started off this conversation by you saying you’re not a Trump supporter.

LD: No, I didn’t… You said that. I didn’t say that.

JG: No, you said I’m not, I’m not MAGA, I’m not a Trump supporter

LD: Well MAGA and Trump are different

JG: to you. Okay alright, sure, I’m telling you they’re not, they’re not gonna appear differently from … to the many many people who read this and go, ‘why is a guy who is this partisan involved with investigating election matters in Georgia?’

LD: Well listen I’ve got to get back to this meeting, but let me be very clear, I am a very non-partisan guy doing these investigations for the Cherokee, and then for the Chatham — they’re one of 12 [investigations] that I have, they’re very done very factually, very non-partisan, down the middle. I don’t have any bias one way or the other about what the facts are.

JG: So how are people to believe that when your Facebook page is riddled with claims of election fraud and falsehoods about undocumented immigrants voting and abject support for Trump? How do you expect members of the public to take you at your word?

LD: Well they’ll just have to look at the results. The results will be very non-partisan.

JG: [...4.1s]But the, the result, the result, but the point is, is that people who don’t trust you are going to say, this guy should never been hired in the first place, and now here he is, he’s been given [...0.6s] basically [...0.6s] power to be able to investigate things that he’s too partisan to be involved in to begin with. So by the time the results come down, [...0.8s] how’s anybody to trust those results considering your open partisanship?

LD: Well then that’d be defamation to me. ‘Cause it’s not true.

JG: What’s defamation?

LD: To claim that I’m doing things because of a bias. That’d definitely be defaming me.

JG: Are you accusing me of defaming you?

LD: Saying that or implying that…

JG: Oh, yeah, no, I think it’s … I think it’s 100%... It’s not my implication, but, I mean, I think it’s an implicitation. I think people are going to have very legitimate questions about how someone who has posted these things and started off this conversation by denying that they even posted them to begin with.

LD: I don’t… I said I don’t know, I’d have to see them. You’re putting words in my mouth. I’m smarter than you, don’t do that.

JG: Okay, well, this is your face, but you live in Suwanee, right?

LD: That’s correct, yes.

JG: Yeah, you got a family member named Doug Simmons.

LD: I’ve got a … yeah, well, I’m not saying who. The answer’s not ‘no.’

JG: Okay? And you’re from, initially, you’re from Cleveland, Ohio.

LD: Yes, that’s correct.

JG: Great. So this is your Facebook page. Here’s a picture of you smiling in front of a painted photo of an old ship with sails on it [...0.6s] from 2014. So this is your Facebook page. So are you gonna deny that these are your posts, or can we just?

LD: Until I see ‘em I can’t deny or confirm.

JG: [...3.2s]All right, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna text you right now, this, a link to this Facebook page. You do know how to use links and Facebook pages and things like that, right?

LD: I think I do.

JG: Okay, let’s hope so because you’re, because you’re an investigator and I assume you have to do like a lot of computer work and stuff like that. So let’s hope you’re able to navigate this. So I’m going to text this to you right now while I got you on the phone.

LD: OK, well I’ll be tied up until tomorrow but that’s fine.

JG: Well, sure, I’m sure it’ll take a long time to confirm whether or not this is the Facebook page that you started and belongs to you. So there it is right there

LD: My invitation to you is, for the case that I’m working on … non-partisan, do not try make things like they aren’t. I’m just giving you that.

JG: I’m not gonna make … I’m, I’m taking you at your own words here, and the words that are posted on your Facebook page, Larry, where you say you support Trump, where you claim that Democrats cheat in elections, where you claim that elections are full of fraud.

LD: Send it to me.

JG: I sent you the Facebook page.

LD: And what is your name?

JG: Justin Glawe. G-L-A-W-E.

LD: Glawe, OK thank you Justin. Ok, be an active reporter, but be honest.

JG: I’m putting your words out there, Larry, that’s why I need you to… OK, hung up.

***
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Lots going on - election stuff is really starting to heat up, plus some important developments in Sapelo I’m staying on top of. Can’t do it without your support, so buy my book, choose a paid subscription to Doom, or throw a few bucks in the Coffee Fund. Thanks. - jg

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***

As a heat wave grips much of the country, conditions for conflict are ripening. This is a typical pattern for the American summer — acts of violence rise with temperatures — but the last week has been hotter than normal.

Combine this heat wave with a few other patterns of life under the reign of Donald Trump and the possibility of an explosive event only grows.

First, murders and violent crime are down across the country but police killings are on the rise. The downward trend in daily violence could change, but so far this year, 2026 looks to be one of the least violent in decades in cities and towns across America.

This year’s drop in violence reflects the general decline in violent crime since 2020, when the isolation and economic desperation of the pandemic was a major factor in a spike in acts of violence and homicides. The violence of that year played an undercard to the unrest over the killing of George Floyd and the contested presidential election.

Despite the decline in violence so far this year and since 2020, police continue to kill more and more Americans. So far this year, police have killed 646 people, on track for another year in which American law enforcement has killed more than 1,300 people nationwide. (A decade ago, this annual number stood around 1,000 police killings a year.)

Police killings are an important measuring stick for understanding excessive force by law enforcement, which disproportionately affects Black and Brown communities. It’s far from perfect, but police killings can be a relatively effective way to measure distrust between minority communities and the law enforcement agencies that occupy them.

American law enforcement agencies have done relatively little to address the distrust and animosity from minority communities since the pockets of unrest that shook the nation a decade ago (read my book that recounts all of that madness), and occasionally boil over in the aftermath of heinous police killings like that of Floyd.

An underclass of Americans who are overly policed and under-represented politically — even more so thanks to Republican redistricting efforts across the South that are diminishing Black voting power — continues to exist. This is a situation that will inevitably lead to unrest.

If the aggressive policing and open attempts to reduce or eliminate minority political power weren’t enough, the Trump administration has surged immigration agents and even the National Guard into Black and Brown communities. In Memphis last week, members of the National Guard killed Tyrin Johnson, who is Black. Two weeks ago, US Park Police in Washington DC — given new powers by the Trump administration — went on a chaotic and questionable police chase that resulted in the death of an innocent bystander, Nolberto Armando Sanabria Meza, who was from Venezuela.

On Tuesday, ICE agents in Houston shot and killed a Mexican man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, during a traffic stop. Araujo was apparently still alive when security footage from a nearby store captured him lying on the ground in handcuffs, when “a loud groaning sound could be heard,” an employee told the Washington Post. Another witness said Araujo could be heard saying, “You’re killing me!” ICE has said Araujo tried to ram agents with his car — a frequent excuse the agency has used for killing people, and one that is often directly contradicted by video evidence in cases like the killing of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, immigrants across the country are being deported and detained at historic rates. Last week, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people in five days. As Trump’s immigration forces capture more and more immigrants, the deaths of those inside the nation’s immigration detention centers continues to rise. Nearly 50 people have died while inside immigration facilities run by the Trump administration, or in local jails while in the custody of local law enforcement working with ICE. This is the highest number of immigrant deaths in custody ever recorded.

As I reported in March, many of those deaths came under questionable circumstances in which ICE either misled the public about the cases, or immigrants suffered under poor conditions inside facilities.

Trump’s immigration dragnet has had a traumatizing effect on Brown communities across the country. In just about every city and town, someone knows someone who went out for work one day and never came back. Some were simply sent back to the country from which they came. Others have been sent to distant nations with poor human rights records that they have no ties to as the Trump administration uses payments and threats to cajole nations in Africa and elsewhere to house immigrants picked up in the U.S.

The historically aggressive attempts by the Trump administration to completely rid the U.S. of tens of millions of undocumented immigrants have caused even right-wing Americans to question the efforts, especially those who rely on immigrant labor, like farmers.

Right here in Savannah, students who played baseball with Johan Efrain Sandoval Rodriguez, a 22-year old student at Savannah State University who was here on a visa from his native Dominican Republic, are questioning why he has been taken by ICE. The agency says Rodriguez failed to comply with requirements of the visa. Last week, the Savannah State campus was briefly put on lockdown as agents chased Rodriguez down and took him into custody.

With ICE enjoying another summer of acting with impunity in immigrant communities — thanks to the help of local law enforcement — the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility has changed its mission from acting as a watchdog for misconduct amongst agents to hunting for anti-ICE protest and dissent online, Wired reported. Meanwhile, agents are harassing U.S. citizens who have criticized the agency, showing up at the home of a New York man who sent acting ICE director Todd Lyons an email that called Lyons a “monstrous human being.” ICE agents also showed up at a polling location to question a poll worker who had posted comments critical of the agency following the killing of Good in Minneapolis.

The signs of our growing police state are there if you look. As we inch closer to November, the question will become how this apparatus of local and federal law enforcement, immigration agencies, and the National Guard and the military could be used to overturn an election that Republicans are likely to lose. It’s possible that the hottest time will be the fall.

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If there is a single statement that sums up what American life can feel like under President Donald Trump’s second term, it may be this: “We control everything.”

That’s what Trump said Wednesday during a speech at the Teddy Roosevelt presidential library. Trump is correct in some ways — it certainly does feel like the president, his authoritarian regime, and its enablers possess vast control over the government, the economy, and the media. But like all fascist movements, this power is brittle. Trump and his people may feel like they control everything because they live in a hyper-curated echo chamber where even the remotest dissent from anyone within their ranks is not allowed, but their movement is broadly unpopular.

That’s because it’s obvious to anyone who is not a committed member of this movement that Trump and his people are no better than the corrupt Washington insiders they were elected to ostensibly replace. The Epstein stuff, the war in Iran, the constant self-dealing, the wasting of taxpayer dollars on frivolous construction projects to feed Trump’s ego — there remains a large swath of conservative American voters who look at all of this and, at minimum, will decide to stay home in November. Some of them may have even had enough of the corruption, waste and incompetence of Trump’s second term to go out and vote for Democrats.

This group of voters will doom Republicans for one very simple reason: it is becoming quite clear that Trump and his people are getting obscenely rich off the backs of everyday Americans. Deluded by the belief that the white rage that fuels their fascistic policies on immigration gives them a free pass to loot the government, Trump, his family, and his administration have developed a massive blind spot that is preventing them from seeing what’s coming.

But it’s coming, and that’s because of very clear and obvious things like this:

What you see here is the result of deep reporting from Reuters, showing that Trump and his family’s crypto ventures are nothing more than a scam that enriches those at the top. In a way, this graph perfectly illustrates American life under Trump because it shows the decline of the many — and the rising prosperity of the few.

Making gobs of cash is as American as apple pie, as they say. But this is something different than your run-of-the-mill, hyper-capitalist cash grab. As president, Trump has enacted policies that have helped the crypto industry gain a foothold in global markets. (He’s also directly helped other industries in which he is heavily invested.) The crypto company run by Trump’s sons, World Liberty Financial, has benefitted from investments from the United Arab Emirates, a regional ally, and the founder of Binance, who Trump pardoned.

These are the exact type of swampy, jet-setting conflicts of interests that fueled Trump’s political rise. Now they’ll help usher in his movement’s downfall.

Still, instead of this being a universally-accepted understanding of the perversion of American values that it is, a solid third of the country sees nothing wrong with the profits Trump, his family, and the world’s richest people have made directly as a result of Trump’s election to his second term.

But a recourse is probably coming — this time in the form of a sweeping rebuke of Republicans in November.

***

Trump, the billionaires who populate his cabinet, the tech industry titans that have cozied up to Trump’s authoritarianism, and anyone and everyone who has access to the president and is cashing in on federal government contracts are the few who have gained massive profits since Trump took office. Americans making less than six figures a year are no better off — at best. There is simply no amount of immigrant fear-mongering that can make up for the fact that the lives of working class Americans look no better now than they did before Trump took office.

Of course, this should have been obvious to them from the very start, but we’ll have to take what we can get. The many millions of white, working class voters who will likely stay home in November will do so because they will have finally learned that Trump doesn’t actually give a solitary fuck about them. Between now and then, Trump will probably only make this dynamic worse.

The golden age is not already here and it is not coming because it never was. It’s here for Trump, his family, and the richest people in the world — but not for me, you, or any of the white working class masses who thought that kicking out immigrants would solve all their problems. By November, if deportation levels keep going the way they are, there will hardly be any undocumented immigrants left to blame.

That’s why, in recent days, you’ve seen Republicans shift to a new scapegoat: “communists” running for office against less left-wing Democrats. Trump has called these “communists” — also known as members of the Democratic Socialists of America, or just plain old Democrats — the “biggest” threat the United States has ever faced. Bigger than World War II, Pearl Harbor and 9/11, Trump has said.

This makes the leftists currently winning elections across the country just the latest “biggest threat” of the Trump era. China, Mexican immigrants, immigrants in general, the news media, Democrats in Congress, judges — all have had their turn as the biggest threat facing the nation. After 10 years of proclaiming whatever person or entity Trump was able to focus on for more than 10 consecutive minutes the “biggest threat,” what are Americans to actually believe?

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Even some of Trump’s supporters understand that, at a certain point, you can’t just keep claiming that everyone else is ruining things for the president you elected to make your life better. After 10 years of this, and with Republicans in control of “everything,” even some Trump voters will begin to question why it is that Trump can’t seem to make things better for the white working class. Then, those voters might catch a glimpse of some news that Fox or their algorithms aren’t feeding them. Something like, since taking office in 2024, Trump’s net worth has doubled, from $2.4 billion to $6 billion.

Even some Trump supporters who would otherwise brush this off with, “he’s a businessman” won’t be able to countenance the news of Trump’s obscene profits during his second term.

They elected him to make the country richer, to make them richer, not himself. Recall that, from the beginning, one of Trump’s biggest selling points was that he couldn’t be bought — he was already rich, so he wasn’t in it for the money. Tens of millions of Americans elected him on this very idea. Now, even with the powerful forces of right wing media and Trump-slanted social media algorithms, they won’t be able to avoid the truth that Trump has bilked his voters and everyone else to the tune of godly sums of money.

Some of these Trump supporters will feel lost and confused. And in that moment they’ll have to decide between what are really the only three choices in life: freeze, fight or flee. The ones who freeze simply won’t show up in November. The ones who fight will buy the new line about “communists.” The ones who flee will come to the other side or go farther to the right.

The MAGA movement will end because of its greed, hubris and brittleness. They don’t actually control everything — at least not yet. Trump and Republicans’ constant lies about election fraud are proof of this: they don’t have complete control over elections because that’s not how our founders set it up — but they sure do want that control, and are doing everything they can to try to get it.

That’s another reason they’ll lose in November. Not only will lots of Trump’s people stay home — bored with his nonsense, fed up with the corruption, the lies about Epstein, or the war he started — but many, many millions of Americans who aren’t particularly politically engaged will come out of the woodwork to stop what is the actual biggest threat to American freedom: Trump and Republicans themselves.

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How insane has all this Reflecting Pool nonsense gotten? Quite insane. At press time, the pool remained fenced off — either for the July 4 holiday or at Trump’s direction, depending on who you believe — and taxpayers will now be on the hook to repair… Trump’s repairs. Ava has a rundown of this entire debacle below. To support the independent, adversarial journalism of American Doom, consider a paid subscription or dropping a few bucks in our Coffee Fund. Now, on to the news…

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President Donald Trump’s $16.4 million, tax-funded Reflecting Pool renovations are falling apart. Now, he’ll spend even more money to fix the renovations that taxpayers have already paid for.

After only a few weeks, algae blooms and peeling paint have plagued the newly-renovated pool. Trump says vandals are to blame, although the evidence of those claims is scant. The pool is now fenced off from the public, monitored by cameras put in place by the Trump administration, and patrolled by members of the National Guard and police department from across the country who have been granted special jurisdiction in Washington D.C. in advance of Independence Day celebrations.

While Trump said the project would only cost about $2 million and would be completed in a week, the costs rose to $16.4 million — all of which has been paid with taxpayer dollars. Now, as his renovations are failing, Trump has ordered the National Park Service (NPS) to fence off the pool, and is planning to drain it once more after July 4 in order to fix the peeling paint job and mitigate algae blooms.

In early June, Trump completed his renovations of the pool, one of many construction projects in and around Washington that the president has taken up in his second term, costing taxpayers at least $1.2 trillion combined. By June 5th, the pool had been refilled with water, but mere days afterwards, the water had turned bright green and the new “American Flag Blue” paint was peeling off the surface it was just painted onto.

The NPS also said in a federal court filing, which was part of a lawsuit filed to stop Trump’s work on the landmark, that there were cuts in the caulking of the pool, prompting Trump to blame vandals for the peeling paint and algae blooms.

Steve Goodale, an experienced builder of swimming pools and aquatic systems, and Rosalina Stancheva Chrisova, professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University, told NPR that the large, stagnant pool provides perfect conditions for algae blooms, especially because the pool is exposed to sunlight with no shade. Both also said that the renovations created disturbances that likely could have accelerated the growth of algae.

As for the alleged cuts in the pool, Trump says vandals are to blame. In a recent post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that unnamed vandals had cut a “350 foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors” and that “somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition.”

Trump had previously said his renovations were so solid that even someone with a knife wouldn’t be able to damage the Reflecting Pool.

“This will last for at least 50 years,” Trump said in May. “If you had a knife — I don’t want to give anybody any ideas — If you had a knife you can’t even cut it.”

Trump also claimed that six people have been arrested for the damage done to the “now beautiful” reflecting pool, but only one of those allegedly arrested has been identified, 67-year-old David Hearn. On June 19, Hearn was biking near the Reflecting Pool when he noticed a part of the liner peeling, he told the Washington Post. Hearn then reached into the water and grabbed the peeling piece of liner, but claims he did not take it out of the pool. As he was preparing to leave, Hearn was arrested by the U.S. Park Police.

“I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything,” Hearn told the Post. “By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

Hearn was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property and is scheduled to appear in court on July 9. U.S. Park Police and the NPS have not confirmed any information about the identities of the other individuals that Trump has claimed have been arrested for tampering with the pool.

Along with the complete lack of information about others who have been arrested for allegedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool, the Trump administration has also failed to provide any solid evidence of acts of vandalism. He has said that the federal government will release photos to support his claims, but only one video has been released by NPS. The video appears to show a woman simply reaching her hand into the water.

***

Trump has said he wants the Reflecting Pool open by July 4, when the president will take part in events across Washington that include a $1.6 million fireworks show, paid for with NPS funds, and culminating in the “most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all,” the president announced on June 15. The total cost of the fireworks display and rally aren’t known, but it’s the second time in as many months that Trump has used taxpayer dollars to hold events in Washington. In June, Trump spent $60 million taxpayer money on his UFC Freedom 250 event.

Now, Trump has spent an estimated $16.4 million on his Reflecting Pool project — $11 million more than Trump himself said the renovations would cost. Two companies with ties to Trump benefitted from those contracts, paid with taxpayer money.

Greenwater Solutions installed the new water purification system in the pool that has failed to prevent algae blooms. The company is owned by John Cafaro, who lives near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Cafaro has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump over the years, including $250,000 in 2020 and $100,000 in 2024, both years Trump was campaigning for president. Atlantic Industrial Coatings installed the “American Flag Blue” sealant that is now failing.

Trump has claimed to have no relationship with Atlantic Industrial Coatings, despite having bragged in May that he told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about a contractor who had performed pool repairs at Trump’s properties.

“I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools,” Trump recalled telling Burgum while speaking in the Oval Office. “So I asked him, I said, ‘I have an idea.’ I’m going to send my contractor over, take a look. He looked at it, he called me up and said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’”

The company’s winning of a no-bid contract after Trump boasted of his unnamed contractor has gotten the attention of Democrats in Congress. Prior to winning the contract to renovate the Reflecting Pool — at $11.3 million more than initially projected by Trump — Atlantic Industrial Coatings had never received a federal contract. Nor had the company ever worked on a project like the Reflecting Pool, according to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who wrote the company in May as part of the senator’s probe of the contract.

Blumenthal is among those calling for an investigation into the bidding process, noting that Atlantic Industrial Coatings submitted a bid that matched “current contract’s value down to the dollar and included a 20 percent profit margin.”

Blumenthal questioned if American tax dollars are being used in a responsible way by Trump, echoing concerns about many of Trump’s vanity construction projects. Trump plans to, once again, drain the Reflecting Pool after July 4 in an attempt to fix the renovation he just completed. The cost for this second round of repairs is not known.

In his letter, Blumenthal pointed out that the company received much more money than Trump’s initial estimate to renovate the Reflecting Pool.

“The ballooning payments to Atlantic Industrial and Atlantic Industrial’s lack of any obvious qualifications for the Reflecting Pool project raise troubling questions about whether excess taxpayer dollars are (yet again) being diverted to President Trump’s manifestly unqualified friends and associates,” Blumenthal said. “The American people deserve to know whether excess taxpayer dollars are being used — without the authorization of Congress — to reward the President’s preferred partners and desecrate national landmarks.”

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Justin here. Chloe’s got a comprehensive rundown of everything Iran. Bottom line: it’s not getting any better and Trump isn’t helping — when he’s paying attention at all. If you want to support our work staying on top of all the madness, choose a paid subscription or throw a few dollars our way at the Doom Coffee Fund. Now, on to the news… - jg

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It took less than two weeks for President Donald Trump’s “peace agreement” with Iran to fall apart. Israel, Iran and the United States have all re-engaged in military operations that were prohibited by the memorandum of understanding that Trump signed at Versailles on June 17.

Now, the situation is in free fall, with Trump appearing to threaten on Saturday evening to attack Iran with nuclear weapons. In a Saturday evening post on Truth Social, Trump blamed Iran for violating the cease fire agreement that was put in place at Versailles.

“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” Trump said. “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”

This is the second time Trump has made threats about the complete destruction of Iran. In April, Trump claimed that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” In response to U.S. attacks, Iran on Sunday fired on Bahrain and Kuwait and threatened to end peace talks if the Trump administration doesn’t stand down.

Public Notice

Trump's cognitive impairment endangers us all

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2 months ago · 936 likes · 48 comments · Justin Glawe

Before the agreement was signed at Versailles, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would not leave Lebanon, but would halt strikes if Hezbollah also abided by the ceasefire agreement. Strikes continued through the announcement of the peace deal, and one day later, 47 people were killed in Lebanon following a series of strikes from the Israel Defence Force (IDF).

On June 20, a dispute arose between Iran and the U.S. over whether Tehran had agreed to allow U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites. As Israel continued to send strikes into southern Lebanon, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz once more.

Then, on June 21, just four days after signing what was coined the 60-day roadmap to peace, President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, seemingly violating his own terms of the peace deal.

“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump said in a live address on June 21. In the same address, Trump threatened “far greater” attacks if Iran failed to accept a diplomatic solution.

On Thursday, Iran struck at least one commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel continued its bombardment of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. By Friday evening, Trump was authorizing a U.S. military response, and calling Iran’s attack on the cargo ship on Thursday a “foolish violation” of the ceasefire agreement, while not mentioning Israel’s apparent violation of the same agreement.

The U.S. continued to send strikes into Iran on Saturday and early Sunday morning, targeting military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as on Iranian sites around the Strait of Hormuz.

These actions have obliterated the fragile peace agreement — technically a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a later settlement to be reached — that Trump signed at Versailles.

The very first paragraph of the 60-day road map MOU includes a call for the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” The agreement also calls on all parties to “not to initiate any war or any military operations against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.”

With the fighting of the last three days, Trump’s MOU — which largely went uncritically reported as an actual peace agreement — appears all but dead. After his brief trip to Switzerland to meet with Iranian officials and other regional stakeholders, Vice President JD Vance said on Friday that “violence will be met with violence” in response to Iran’s attack on a Singapore-flagged commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. If Iran has “disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone,” Vance said on X.

Peace talks in jeopardy

While the Trump administration struggles to control hostilities in the region, Israel has said it will not stop attacking alleged Hezbollah targets, despite this being a violation of the Versailles MOU. On the same day that the Singaporean vessel was hit, three people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon. Now, Iran is once again policing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

As the situation in the Middle East has again deteriorated, Trump faced rare pressure in Washington from Republicans who briefly considered reigning in the president’s power to wage war in Iran. Trump criticized Senate efforts to pass a War Powers Act resolution — which would have limited Trump’s ability to continue to carry out military operations against Iran — saying it “made my job more difficult.”

Congress will now head for a two-week break after failing on Wednesday to pass the resolution, with the measure failing in the Senate on a party line vote.

Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) apparently changed their minds on the resolution after a contentious White House meeting with Trump that included a screaming match between Cassidy and Trump. Cassidy voted against the resolution after the White House agreed to brief the Louisiana senator on Trump’s plans in Iran as chaos in the region grows. Paul abstained from the vote as the remaining Republican senators voted against the measure.

In the White House meeting, Cassidy pressed Trump on Iran, saying that the president has “not told the American people what’s going on.”

“It was supposed to last four weeks, it’s lasted four months,” Cassidy recounted telling Trump. “Our original objectives have not been achieved and I want to know what’s going on.”

Cassidy has more or less confirmed that Trump called him a “lunatic” during the meeting. In comments to reporters afterward, Trump called it a “great meeting.”

While Trump has already declared he is “bored” of the war, it is becoming increasingly clear to Americans that there is no easy way out of Trump’s mess, and the costs of U.S. operations in Iran are piling up fast.

Fiscal and Physical Costs of War

Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury in February, the cost of the war to American taxpayers is around $40 billion, according to Militaryspend.org and other organizations.

Now, the Pentagon has asked Congress for an additional $88 billion in supplemental funding for the war. Senate Democrats have said they’ll oppose the funding measure.

“It seems designed to repel Democratic votes,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said in an interview. “They’re clearly not trying to pass this.”

But the estimated $40 billion cost of the war in Iran is much higher when operational costs that are already factored into the Defense Department’s budget are taken into account, Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN.

As American taxpayers spend more each day on the war effort, the cost of everyday items like gas and groceries remains high.

But it’s not just taxpayer dollars being lost as the U.S. military again ramps up its strikes in the region. Those on the front lines are risking their lives in order to carry out a war that has no end in sight, despite Trump’s much-heralded signing at Versailles.

Thirteen American service members have died, with another 500 injured in the fighting. In Lebanon, more than 4,000 civilians have been killed, according to Militaryspend.org. While the number of Iranian deaths and injuries to both troops and civilians are disputed, estimates range into the thousands.

Trump’s fragile cease fire looks doomed as the fighting and rising costs of the war continue with no end in sight. Americans can only sit back and wait for Iran’s possible retaliation as both sides threaten one another in increasingly heated tones.

“The only success of Trump is the increased income of American coffin makers and wheelchair manufacturers for his soldiers in this defeated war,” the Iranian military has written on missiles fired in recent days.

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The older I get, the more efficient I seem to be at many things. I know there will be a time in old age when this is not the case, but hopefully by then some of the many things I am required to spend my time on will have passed.

One of those requirements is having to pay a lot of attention to what elected officials say and do. Maybe I’ll always have to spend what I estimate to be a solid 40 percent of my time doing this, which, combined with general news consumption and my own investigations and stories, becomes more like 60 percent of the minutes in a day.

But I have a child now, and a house that needs some work, plus my book is out, plus I’m feeling a bit squishy so I’m at the gym relatively frequently, and I like to play music as often as possible, ideally every day. Family, friends, recovery, paying bills — life gets busy and fast.

So when it comes to paying attention to the many, many things our elected officials say and do, plus the consequences of those actions on people who often don’t have the power to do much about it — like immigrants dying in awful conditions in facilities across the country — I have to be efficient.

Luckily, people like Donald Trump and just about every single person around him makes what they do and how they do it incredibly obvious.

Just days past his latest corrupt gambit — the advertising, marketing, and grift-filled spectacle that was UFC Freedom 250 — Trump is on to his next corrupt project or stunning failure, depending on how it shakes out.

The details of the deal over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and ending our war there are out and they’re not great, at least politically for Trump. He basically just blew hundreds of millions of dollars — and wasted the lives of 13 American service men and women — on a war that didn’t need to happen, and is now preparing to ink a deal that is no better than the one Barack Obama made with Iran a decade ago.

But Trump, who has spent his life incorrectly believing that he is smarter than every single person in the world, blew up Obama’s deal under the guise that it was a cash-laden handout to Iran. Now, Trump is about to give Iran even more money — not to mention the blood and treasure we’ve expended in our war effort. (Dead American soldiers are just the start. Our munitions reserves are incredibly depleted thanks to Trump and Pete Hegseth’s unnecessary and relentless bombing. Plus, soldiers and airmen are now run down after having spent months screaming across the region in service of Trump’s military adventurism, which he has openly said he’s bored with.)

But it’s not just that Trump’s deal with Iran does nothing new, or that it’s cost us much more than the previous one did, it’s that, like everything Trump touches, it’s probably entirely corrupt.

That’s because the deal promises $300 billion in funds to rehabilitate the Iranian infrastructure we destroyed. The exact language of this bullet point in the deal says those funds will come from both the United States and “regional partners.” That’s vastly more than the $1.7 billion promised by the Obama administration as part of the previous Iran nuclear deal. If you don’t think that those in Trump’s orbit and probably Trump’s own Trump Organization will somehow find a way to profit off all those billions of dollars, you haven’t been paying attention.

Every deal Trump has made during his second term in office has financially benefitted himself, his family and their companies, or the slew of business interests still held by members of his cabinet. The Iran nuclear deal, if it holds, will be no different.

The scale of the Trump administration’s corruption is historic. Sunday’s birthday blood match, in previous times, would have been an impeachable offense in and of itself. Trump’s corruption perverts and harms rules, norms and laws like a steamroller every single day. It will continue until someone puts a stop to it. Republicans won’t do this. It will be up to Democrats, hopefully starting in November, to begin a second reconstruction project that ensures no future presidential administration will be able to get away with all that Trump has.

Trump as president exists for a lot of reasons. Among them is the obvious fact that Reconstruction failed following the Civil War. Since then, a shifting coalition of white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and hyper-capitalist forces have successfully been able to flourish. The systems under which they’ve done so must end in order for a truly democratic republic to continue. The reforms of the Watergate era were a start, and something similar — albeit much more aggressive — must start taking shape now. If not, the historic corruption of Trump will become the norm, not the exception. At that point, people like me probably won’t even be able to make a living. And all of us who aren’t inside the system of corruption and influence will work in service of it.

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Another great piece from Ava! At American Doom, we cover the many topics and controversial decisions that emerge from our recent political system and the Trump administration. From ICE developments, confronting claims of “election fraud,” to the scheduled UFC fight on the White House lawn on President Trump’s 80th birthday — we are committed to getting viewers like you an accurate rundown of what’s going on amidst all the chaos! To support our work, you can subscribe for $6 a month or throw a few dollars in our Coffee Fund.

Sunday marked both Flag Day and President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. To celebrate, Trump threw a party for himself at the White House that included a full card of UFC fights at a cost to taxpayers of $60 million. The president also tied the event to the summer-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States itself.

For Sunday’s special occasion of Flag Day and Trump’s birthday, the president’s online merchandising store offered discounts of 50 percent on drinkware and clothing with “Trump 250” branding.

Meanwhile, thousands gathered to watch the fights and accompanying events, mostly on giant screens because the 4,300 seats in the arena that was built on the White House lawn at taxpayer expense were taken by members of the U.S. military, and select invitees of Trump, UFC CEO Dana White, as well as other VIPs. The UFC website called this event a “once-in-a-generation celebration of the American fighting spirit.” Even though the average American had no choice but to watch from afar.

Despite costing at least $60 million in taxpayer dollars — and even with UFC expected to lose millions because tickets were invite only — holding UFC Freedom 250 at the White House was a marketing and advertising windfall for Trump, White, and scores of others in the president’s orbit. Everyone from tech CEOs like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to major brands like Budweiser, to foreign governments like the Saudis and emerging-market ventures that offer online gambling and cryptocurrency services benefitted from the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to advertise at a sporting event held with the White House as backdrop.

Mark Shapiro, president of UFC parent company TKO Group Holdings, called the event the “greatest earned marketing tool of all time.” In March, one of Trump’s many brokerage accounts purchased as much as $50,000 in stock in TKO Group, according to The New York Times, giving the president a concrete, if small, interest in the success not just of UFC, but Sunday’s marquee event.

Since the fights were announced in the spring, the event has been touted by Trump and the White House as a celebration for all Americans. Trump said in an interview, “They’ll have 100,000 people down by the Ellipse with screens. And it’s all free. It’s going to be great.” But only those who gathered at the Ellipse just outside the main arena area were able to watch the event for free.

There, UFC fans could register for one of 85,000 passes to watch the fights. Of the 4,300 seats in the arena, almost half — 1,900 tickets — were reserved for Trump, White and TKO Group CEO Ari Emanuel. Another 1,000 tickets were reserved for members of the military, who had to pay for their own travel costs to attend the event, according to the Washington Post. This left a small number of VIP tickets available, which cost as much as $1.5 million.

For those who wanted to watch at home, a subscription to the Paramount+ streaming service was required. Paramount+ falls under the parent company Paramount Skydance, which is owned by David Ellison, the son of Trump ally Larry Ellison. Last week, the Justice Department announced it had approved a historic merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros., giving Ellison even greater control over what Americans watch since their company took over CBS News last year.

LA Times culture writer Mary McNamara criticized UFC Freedom 250 and said “it served as an almost-6-hour ad for the UFC.” But it was much more than that.

Along with the financial ties and marketing for Trump supported brands, this was an opportunity to gain back support from likely young white men. Over the course of his second term, Trump’s approval ratings have sunk largely due to events like the release of the Epstein files and the war in Iran. UFC has been hugely popular among younger men, along with online sports betting. Sunday’s event was designed to appeal to this core base of Republican voters.

A celebration of corruption

Within the ring itself there were ads for online gambling site, Polymarket. The company has been criticized for its role in growing gambling addiction, especially among the young men who overwhelmingly use the service — the same men who Republicans need to maintain their grip on power in Congress. Last week, the Trump administration approved rules that favored the online gambling industry.

An advertisement on the fighting surface for “Riyadh Season” drew viewers’ attention to the state-sponsored festival held in the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Trump family has a long and profitable relationship with the Saudis, who have never taken responsibility for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khasshogi in 2018.

Padding on the cage surrounding the ring featured ads from Bud Light, which has apparently rebounded from the outrage from Trump and the American right that stemmed from the company’s 2023 ad campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Even the Trump family’s own company, World Liberty Financial, got in on the advertising opportunity. World Liberty was among the sponsors of the event, and fighters at UFC Freedom 250 received bonuses in the form of cryptocurrency held by the company. Along with Trump’s recent purchase of TKO stock, World Liberty’s stake in the event gave the president even more financial ties to its success. Trump personally owns at least $50 million in World Liberty stock, according to his financial disclosures. Almost half of World Liberty is owned by the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The development fund of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, counts the UAE among its most significant backers.

Trump’s Treasury Department just approved access to banking privileges for World Liberty, allowing the company to expand its services.

Controversial construction

As with previous projects Trump has facilitated during his second term in office, there has been much criticism and disagreement about Sunday’s event and the 92-foot tall cage — called “the Claw” — that was constructed on the South Lawn of the White House. The use of taxpayer dollars and the event’s location at the White House was at the center of a lawsuit filed by the Public Integrity Project. The lawsuit claimed not only that the event was a “corrupt scheme” created for the benefit of private parties like Trump and White, but that the entire event violated National Park Service regulations. The lawsuit was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, an Obama appointee, on the grounds that Public Citizen did not prove “irreparable harm.”

In its lawsuit, the Public Integrity Project noted that the National Environmental Policy Act requires damage assessments to be completed for projects like “the Claw,” as well as for Trump’s ballroom. The organization noted in its lawsuit that it’s unclear whether any assessments were completed ahead of Sunday’s event.

This alleged flouting of rules and laws regarding UFC Freedom 250 is in line with nearly all of Trump’s construction projects, which have been rushed through by Trump even as a majority of Americans have said they don’t support them. Rules that Trump and his administration have sidestepped or outright ignored are in place to protect important landmarks and federal land, the Public Integrity Project argued in its lawsuit. The organization added that Trump is bypassing rules and procedures in order for Trump to take credit for completion of projects.

The group also expressed concern that the event would damage the South Lawn and noted that the Trump administration has not publicly said who will pay for repairs that could cost as much as $700,000.

Critics of Trump’s decision to demolish the East Wing of the White House and construct Trump’s new ballroom have the same complaints. It is not clear who will be paying for the project — although taxpayers will be on the hook for as much as $300 million, according to the Washington Post — and an important part of the White House is now gone forever.

Trump’s ballroom isn’t the only project under fire from watchdog organizations and average citizens. Three Vietnam War veterans have sued to block Trump’s proposed “Arc de Trump.” So far their motions to halt construction have been denied by Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by Barack Obama. Like Trump’s ballroom, the project is also expected to be paid for by a mix of both taxpayer dollars and private donations.

While Trump continues his construction of the ballroom, he’s also completed his refurbishment of the reflecting pool on the National Mall. The project was originally estimated by Trump to cost $1.8 million, but ended up costing $14.2 million. Trump, of course, said the new renovations have had “rave reviews” even though The Guardian reported that “Some of the first visitors declared themselves underwhelmed by the 2,000 square foot pool’s somewhat dull color.”

Despite all the money and effort put into these renovations, the water is already turning green. Theories as to why the pool is changing color include the recent change of color to “American Flag Blue.” A marine biologist told Newsweek that the color has created a darker surface, raising temperatures and allowing for better conditions for the algae to bloom even faster. Algae has always been a problem in the pool, but the darker color is doing nothing to help the issue.

As Trump continues moving forward with his controversial projects, his approval ratings continue to drop. Now, he’s planning another major event in Washington, with the cost to taxpayers unknown.

The president announced on Truth Social on Monday night that he will host “the most spectacular Trump rally of them all” on July 4.

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Justin here. Chloe has a good breakdown of the latest on the Iranian conflict today. Bottom line: Trump is trying to post and/or brand his way out of a mess that he caused. Plus, he and Republicans continue to push false election fraud claims to sow doubt in the November midterms. On another note, my book is out and you can order it here, wherever books are sold, or by asking your local bookstore to order a copy. I hope you’ll read it. As always, the best way to support the fact-based, adversarial journalism we perform here at Doom is through a paid subscription or by throwing a few dollars into our Coffee Fund. Now, on to the news… -jg

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The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran has been upended with a series of attacks between the two countries and their proxies in the region. None of these developments should be surprising to those who have been paying attention to the general absence of U.S. leadership under President Donald Trump.

Trump is now firmly a lame duck president with historically low approval ratings, and Iran and Israel both know this, as well as the fact that Trump can’t be counted on to put together a coherent thought.

Israel and Iran say they’ve now halted strikes after waves of firefights between the two nations. Israeli warplanes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut in retaliation to alleged Iranian attacks, according to NBC.

Amidst this fighting, two U.S. Army aviators had to be rescued by a Navy sea drone near the strait of Hormuz after their helicopter was struck down by Iranian forces. President Trump took to Truth Social on Tuesday, saying that “the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

As of Wednesday night (Thursday morning Tehran time), the U.S. has resumed airstrikes in Iran. A peace deal, for now, appears all but dead.

The situation is just the latest escalation in the constant, will-they-won’t-they of Trump’s largely failed attempts at a peace agreement. With previous ceasefires and discussions of mutual cooperation falling through repeatedly, Iran and Israel are doing whatever they deem to be justified in the absence competent U.S. leadership. Because the Trump administration is effectively an authoritarian government, nothing as big as a peace deal with Iran can get done without Trump’s approval — and he simply doesn’t care anymore.

As the war eclipses the 100-day mark, it appears no closer to ending — with both sides seemingly unwilling to back down.

Public Notice

Trump's cognitive impairment endangers us all

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2 months ago · 914 likes · 47 comments · Justin Glawe

The Times of Israel reported that just four days before the Iranian missile strikes on Sunday, Trump admitted to calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “fucking crazy.” On Sunday, June 7, Iran launched multiple waves of ballistic missile strikes that were intercepted by Israeli defenses. Israel returned fire, and Iran subsequently launched a sixth wave of strikes.

In other actions taken against Israel, Houthis in Yemen announced missile strikes on the country and declared a ban on Israeli shipments coming through the Red Sea.

Prior to this, talks of mutual ceasefire between Hezbollah, Iran’s terror-proxy, and the U.S. were beginning to take place. On June 1, Lebanon confirmed that Hezbollah had agreed to the U.S. proposal for a mutual ceasefire with Israel, according to Daily Beirut.

While Trump has been golfing, posting on social media, falling asleep in the Oval Office and attending the NBA Finals, the situation in the region deteriorated rapidly. After alleged Hezbollah attacks that led to Israeli intervention in Beirut, the Iranian Foreign Ministry defended the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ right to defend itself after citing multiple Israeli ceasefire violations.

Israel has also continued to act against Hezbollah outside Iran, complicating the existing ceasefires. Israel continued to carry out daily strikes in southern Lebanon over alleged Hezbollah attacks in northern Israel, despite those attacks being halted by negotiations in Washington.

Iran warned that attacks on the Lebanese capital would trigger a broader response across the Middle East once more.

In response to the devolving situation, Trump has continued his efforts to post his way to peace, making breathless demands on Truth Social. From almost the first day of the conflict, Trump has repeatedly claimed that a peace deal is just around the corner.

Trump repeated the claim again in recent days, saying that the U.S. and Iran are “very close to making a deal” in an interview with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. Trump has repeatedly teased such deals that have yet to happen — a throwback to his deal-making background as a businessman. But unlike an ice-skating rink in Central Park, Trump’s branding bravado isn’t working with Iran.

In the interview, Trump expressed his disdain for “endless wars” — a campaign promise that Welker pointed out he has now threatened with his “excursion” into Iran — and repeatedly boasted of a forthcoming peace deal. Trump also suggested the U.S. would “work with Iran to retrieve and destroy its highly enriched uranium” if they are unable to reach a deal. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

“If we make a deal that now we’re friendly, we’ll all go together. It’ll be our equipment. We’ll take it out and destroy it, whether it’s on-site or whether we take it off-site,” Trump told Welker.

“And we will go with them, or without them. But we won’t have people shooting at us, OK?” Trump went on. “Now, if we don’t make a deal, then we’re going to take them out militarily very harshly. And we’ll wait till we do that before we go, in which case we’ll have safety either way.”

Trump also said, bluntly and strangely, that Iran and Israel have “both had their fun” but that he does not want this to “blow up” a final deal with Iran — ignoring the U.S. role in the conflict.

All of this is why it’s so dangerous to continue to allow Trump to serve as president. He started a war that he’s realizing he can’t end simply by posting, risking regional catastrophe.

In the same interview, Trump walked out on Welker after making various false claims about his “landslide election victory” in 2020, the unfairness of the press, and rigged elections, calling Welker, NBC, CBS and CNN “crooked.”

Notably, Trump’s blowup came after Welker pressed him on false claims of election fraud in 2020, which came as Trump made similarly unfounded claims of elections in California.

The wait for results of elections in California that will decide the next mayor of Los Angeles have created a vacuum into which Trump and Republicans have firmly stepped, claiming that the normal vote-counting procedures in the state are evidence of fraud. These claims are part of broader efforts to sow doubt in November’s midterms.

Meantime, the bombs are again falling in a war that few asked for.

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For as long as the internet has been around, there have been people willing to say terrible things online. It used to be that many who expressed racist beliefs and other markers of societal regression did so anonymously, and that’s certainly still the case. But take a scroll through the Facebook feed of just about anything these days — including, most certainly, your local TV news station — and you’ll see members of your own community openly espousing racism and hate.

Many of our friends, neighbors and co-workers no longer feel pressured to keep these beliefs under wraps. They are open with it, and clearly feel there are no consequences. Increasingly, they’re right.

As I’ve gone about talking to people about my book, which has now been published, people have asked me variations of a question: what’s different about America now compared to when I began my career as a newspaper reporter more than a decade ago? If I had to pick a single word to describe a driving factor of the widespread decline the book covers, it would be shamelessness.

Many of our friends, neighbors and co-workers have been emboldened over the last two decades to openly espouse beliefs that many of us grew up believing were in the past. They do not feel shame in displaying their ignorance and racism. I don’t know about you, but I grew up in an era where things like the Civil Rights movement were generally viewed as good things. The people who believed otherwise, I was led to believe, were on the margins of our society. I don’t know if I can say that anymore.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson does an admirable job combatting the hate and racism that fills the comment sections of his Facebook posts on any given day. Like a lot of us, he might be better off ignoring those comments more often, but I understand why he feels the need to confront them head-on.

His feed — plus that of hundreds of local news outlets across the country — is inundated every single day with people saying things that should result in getting them ousted from polite society. But they’re not doing so anonymously — they’re doing it under their own names, often proudly linking themselves and their racist comments back to their employers.

Maybe some of these folks get a talking-to by their boss at the local car dealership where they work. Maybe some of them even get fired for saying obviously racist shit on the Facebook page of their town’s mayor, where their profile lists them as being employed at businesses whose bottom lines rely on, you know, not being openly racist. But many more of them face no consequences. And why should they? Over the last 10 years, we’ve watched as some of the most powerful and influential people in American life have expressed racist beliefs on a daily basis.

In this type of society, why should anyone be fearful that such comments will have consequences in their own lives? Many of the things that many of us were led to believe would result in dire consequences no longer apparently do so, especially for those at the top, like Donald Trump. Wanton corruption, open racism, abject ignorance — all of these things have led to more success and power for Trump and his vast network of Americans who support these degrading behaviors or are profiting from them.

How do you turn around a society where such behavior is rewarded? That’s the underlying question that will be answered by November’s elections.

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With all of the major news related to the Trump administration, we cover a variety of topics here at American Doom to keep readers like you up to date on the various updates and changes that come each day, big…

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You’ll read lots of pieces today about last night’s election results but this is the only publication where you’ll learn about the following. To support our work, you can subscribe for $6 a month or throw a few dollars in our Coffee Fund.

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Georgia’s election denial network of public officials, unhinged online personalities and average citizens spent yesterday ricocheting between joy and despair — and it had nothing to do with the results that began to roll in last night.

Led by Trump allies on the State Election Board (SEB) and a handful of far-right state lawmakers and political candidates, election denial forces here have spent weeks fear mongering and successfully placing clips in right-wing media over the Secretary of State’s election night operation center that the election deniers have deemed a “secret bunker.”

In fact, the “Election Night Reporting Center,” as the Secretary of State’s Office calls it, is not, and never has been, a secret. Nor are any votes actually counted there, as SEB members and a pair of Republican candidates who filed a lawsuit to gain access to the “bunker” have alluded. Votes are counted at county offices of elections, which then send those totals to the Secretary of State. There, the totals are put online for the public to see.

But Georgia’s election denial wing of the Republican party does not trust Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as part of their demands that all elections be administered and all votes be counted by those who pass a litmus test that includes abject support for Donald Trump and a fervent belief in lies and conspiracies about widespread election fraud. That wing includes the MAGA majority on the SEB and figures like Greg Dolezal, a state senator, and Christopher Mora, a candidate for one of Georgia’s U.S. House seats.

Dolezal and Mora filed a lawsuit this week demanding that the SEB and Republican poll watchers be granted access to the reporting center at the Secretary of State’s Office. On Tuesday, a judge briefly ordered that that access should be granted before rescinding the order on a technicality, thus prompting the back-and-forth emotions on display by Georgia’s vast network of election denial officials and activists.

While much of the coverage of these developments has covered the lawsuit, opposing judicial orders and the reporting center under the both sides framework, key context has been absent: the SEB (and its MAGA “pitbulls,” as Trump has called them), Dolezal and Mora have had months — years, really — to make their claim that poll watchers and other observers should be legally allowed to oversee election night proceedings at the Secretary of State’s reporting center. The simple and obvious reason that they did not file their lawsuit until this week is that it would not have benefitted them from a political and media-savvy standpoint to do so.

By filing the lawsuit this week, Georgia’s election deniers took advantage of public interest in Tuesday’s primaries to gin up further distrust in elections. Raffensperger has a secret bunker where he could manipulate votes! He’s running in the very election that his office is charged with overseeing! He won’t let us into the bunker to ensure he isn’t stealing the election for himself and other people who are bad!

In the last 48 hours, these have been the stupefyingly insincere arguments that Dolezal, Mora, the SEB and others have made. Maybe many of them actually believe their own nonsense, but just as many understand that the best way to secure elections for MAGA candidates is to sow as much doubt as possible in all elections. By doing so, election deniers think they can convince the public that they, and only they, should be allowed to administer elections, make rules about voting and polling locations, and effectively control all levers of government in order to ensure that real Americans are in charge.

You see this mindset reflected in statements from Trump administration officials and Republican members of Congress every single day when they say things like how they want to pass the SAVE Act to ensure that “the right people” are voting. It’s part of a playbook that includes the aggressive redistricting of the South to dilute Black — and in turn mostly Democratic — voting power. From this week’s nonsense over the “secret bunker,” to efforts across the country to purge voters based on false and misleading claims about undocumented immigrants voting in elections — every policy and talking point about voting and elections pushed by the vast majority of Republicans is aimed at a singular goal: using the levers of power to ensure that they maintain their grip on it, regardless of what American voters say at the ballot box.

Other election night takeaways:

Massie vs. whoever

Rep. Thomas Massie lost to a man whose name most voters probably did not even know until they arrived at their polling locations in Kentucky yesterday. That’s because the majority of those voters were simply doing what Trump told them to do — get Massie out of office by voting for the other guy. Why was Trump so adamant that Massie had to go? Because Massie had the gall to be one of the only elected Republicans in the country to ask serious questions about the president’s ties to Jeffery Epstein. Just a few years ago, nailing politicians and powerful figures with Epstein ties was a huge deal for Republican voters! But what they actually meant was that they wanted to imprison people like Bill Clinton, not Donald Trump. It’s sort of like all the MAGA folks you see with the Gadsden flag. They don’t really mean Don’t tread on me; what they really mean is Tread on them. But don’t believe the hype Massie’s loss — it was a primary in a very Trumpy state. Considering Trump’s dismal approval ratings, this is like winning a preseason football game.

Jones (Trump) vs. Jackson (cash)

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones will head to a runoff with billionaire Rick Jackson to become the state’s next governor. If you’re not in Georgia, this race may not seem important but here’s why it matters: Jones has been instrumental in not just spreading Trump’s lies about election fraud but propagating rules and systems that have allowed the MAGA wing of his party more control over elections here. Considering Georgia’s role as something close to a swing state, Jones becoming governor stands to have an important effect on how elections and voting are run here — and how those rules will help and hurt Republicans and Democrats.

Jones was responsible for appointing Salleigh Grubbs to the SEB, where she has quickly become the most forceful and unhinged voice of Georgia’s election denial movement who has any position of power (albeit very little). You might remember Grubbs as the woman who chased a garbage truck in 2020 because she thought it contained shredded ballots. As this week’s madness over the “secret bunker” played out, Grubbs was out front on the issue, appearing on Mike Lindell’s “news” channel.

Jones is also one of Trump’s fake electors who was never fully punished for, you know, fraudulently trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Rick Jackson is just another loaded guy who thinks his billions entitles him to run things. Not great choices! One of the two will face former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in the general.

Who will lose to Jon Ossoff?

A pair of MAGA backbenchers — Rep. Mike Collins and Derek Dooley — are headed to a runoff for the honor of probably losing to Sen. Jon Ossoff. Collins is most famous for his work on the Laken Riley Act, a classically regressive piece of legislation built, more than anything, to give him an “I hate immigrants more than most” talking point on the campaign trail. Dooley was once the head football coach for the University of Tennessee, so is therefore obviously qualified to join the United States Senate.

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Quick reminder that Doom was the only publication to nail the DOJ on its efforts to mess with elections here in Georgia. That work takes a lot of time and resources. If you want to support our hard-nosed, adversarial journalism, the best way to do so is through a paid subscription or dropping a few dollars in our Coffee Fund. Now, on to the news…

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In just the last few days, Republican threats to democracy have exploded.

Using legal, quasi-legal and legislative means, Republicans from Washington D.C. on down to state legislatures have enacted widespread measures to secure what they hope will be a permanent majority of American power, voters be damned. That’s because the goal of the election denial movement — which forms a major part of the Republican base of voters — has never been to “secure elections.” It’s always been about ensuring that only Republicans can win elections, as I explained on the Signal Fire podcast today. You can watch our conversation here.

With Republicans asking the Supreme Court to purge voters very close to the November midterms under the guise that scores of undocumented immigrants populate voter rolls (they do not), this plan to not just sow distrust in an election Republicans are set to lose, but to ensure that the rules prohibit anyone else from winning it, has become more clear. Not satisfied with these efforts — and helpfully backed by a Supreme Court decision two weeks ago — Republicans throughout the South have begun to legislate Black lawmakers out of their elected positions.

Quite literally, Republicans are using the tools of democracy to undo it. Already, several elections have been outright cancelled as Republicans draw new maps that will solidify their political power. Again, not satisfied with this historic power grab, Republicans in Tennessee have gone a step further, stripping Black lawmakers of legislative roles that allow them a say in how their state is run.

Helping Republican politicians along are their foot soldiers in the election denial movement, who continue to file voter roll challenges and harass election offices with lawsuits, demands for public records based on their conspiracies about election fraud and, in the case of someone here in the South this week, threaten election officials who refuse to tow President Donald Trump’s line on non-existent widespread election fraud.

Someone mailed a four-page manifesto threatening Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to a sheriff’s office in Mississippi, bizarrely. The letter preceded a bomb scare at a campaign event in Georgia on Monday, where Raffensperger was speaking to voters about his bid to become the state’s next governor. Raffensperger famously refused to help Trump overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, and as a result has been the target of constant harassment from his fellow Republicans.

Meanwhile, Trump is again floating the idea of sending the military to voting locations in November, just as he did in 2020 when he considered having the National Guard seize voting machines. (In December, Trump said he regretted not doing that.) Trump saying something random to a reporter is one thing, but there’s more than that: multiple federal agencies are involved with efforts to “secure” the midterms.

You might remember the inexplicable presence of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard at the FBI raid of a Fulton County elections warehouse in January. Recent reporting makes clear that her presence there was part of an administration-wide effort to stay on top of false election fraud claims in order to exploit them for maximum benefit in November.

Department of Homeland Security officials have been reaching out to state- and county-level election officials throughout the country. The DHS officials have demanded, among other things, voter history and registration information from these officials, Reuters reported.

Keep in mind that counties are the frontlines of U.S. elections. It’s there that results are initially certified before being approved by state officials, which is why, as I reported on significantly back in 2024, Republicans tried to use their power at the county level to refuse to certify election results that showed Democrats winning.

To my knowledge, no state has reformed its certification rules in the wake of those attempts, and there is no indication that efforts by election denial officials in counties across the country aren’t just as robust as they were two years ago.

Meanwhile, those same county and state officials have fewer resources from the federal government to help them manage election threats and chaos this time around. That’s because the Trump administration has gutted agencies that provide help to state and local officials battling online threats, hacking attempts and other scenarios that states and counties might not have the tools to fight.

“Nearly every program and capability to stop bad actors and support election administrators has been dismantled,” a former Biden administration official at the National Security Council who worked on threats to elections told ProPublica last month.

Whatever agencies and programs haven’t been purposefully destroyed by the Trump administration have had their missions completely perverted with the hiring of election conspiracy theorists to lead them. Already, this has (partly) resulted in things like the seizure of voting machines in Puerto Rico and, of course, the FBI elections raid here in Georgia.

Seven months out from the midterms, the threats to Americans’ ability to actually elect who they prefer continues to rise. You hear a lot of hyperbole these days — and around the time of any election, really — but I don’t think it’s too alarmist to say that if Republicans succeed in their efforts to effectively gerrymander and rule-make their way into legislative majorities both in the states and the U.S. Congress, that’s power they’re never going to give up.

Trump has said as much, urging states to gerrymander their way into power and chastising them when they don’t. He’s doing this because he’s terrified of being impeached when Democrats take the House and, possibly, the Senate after November. Even in his current state of severe cognitive decline, even Trump knows that Republican chances in the midterms are bad. He’s certainly not helping by driving up costs with a clueless war in Iran, spending tons of money we don’t have on vanity construction projects and a missile defense system we don’t need, and just generally not giving a shit what everyday Americans are going through as daily life becomes more and more expensive.

There have always been two paths to power. The democratic one has always been more difficult. The authoritarian one is easier, if sometimes bloodier.

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You might have seen that American Doom beat the Justice Department in federal court last week. Trump’s DOJ will now have to officially reveal the names of some of the witnesses in an affidavit that led to an FBI raid on an Atlanta elections office. Doom was the only publication in the country to motion the court to release the names. To support our work, please choose a paid subscription or drop a few dollars into our Coffee Fund.

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I do not think this summer will be as hot as the last one, but what do I know? I’ve been wrong before. For whatever reason, it seems that many Americans have come to accept the daily drumbeat of chaos and corruption that emanates from Washington, as well as the more recent authoritarian machinations being heaped upon us by Trumpian legislatures throughout the country. Well, maybe accept isn’t the right word. Maybe people are just exhausted.

And when I say us, I guess not all of us. Because lots of people are very happy about the abject power grab that has occurred in recent days following the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Republican-led states to effectively rig the map so that only Republicans can win.

Last summer saw fairly widespread protests over the Trump administration’s mass deportation regime as masked agents stormed American streets. The song of the summer this year seems to be a slightly less obvious one of rising authoritarianism: the quiet, plodding work of Republicans who are using the tools of democracy to undo it. There are many ways to create an authoritarian state. One of those ways includes the masked police that sparked outrage and protests last year. Another involves what we’re seeing now: duly-elected officials ensuring that no one else can come to power by using the very levers of government and elections that are supposed to ensure equal representation under the law.

Simultaneously, Republicans are working to, once again, convince millions of Americans that any election that doesn’t result in a Republican victory is fraudulent. (This is the thesis statement of the election denial movement, whether they explicitly state it or not.) All of this — the war in Iran, Trump administration corruption coupled with a complete disregard for the economic concerns of Americans, attacks on voting rights, sowing distrust in elections — feels like the inevitable, if not openly-violent, end state of decades-long period of turmoil that I’ve reported on in one form or another my entire career.

Today at Luke O’Neil’s Hell World, you can read about some of that chaos in an excerpt from my forthcoming book, If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened – The Life and Times of a Domestic War Correspondent. The book will be published in June by the University of Georgia Press and you can pre-order it here. (Use the code 08TERRIBLE to receive 30 percent off.)

Some folks have been asking me why I wrote this book, which also deals with my descent into and recovery from alcoholism, and the short answer is: I had to. Not only did I have to get all this shit off my chest, but I felt I had to put these events down so that other people who were watching the chaos and violence of American life — and who were wondering if it all was really as bad as it can sometimes seem — were not alone. First, you are not alone. Secondly, it certainly all has been very bad. Third, it’s going to get better. The pendulum never stops at the top, as my dad would say.

All of this pressure and pain will go away if Americans stick to the principles of light, love, justice and progress. It can be hard in dark days to remember that those principles can win, but by remembering that they can defeat darkness we get closer to willing the darkness away.

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A federal judge in Georgia has sided with American Doom and ordered the Justice Department to officially reveal the identities of three witnesses whose allegations led to the FBI raid of a Fulton County elections warehouse in January.

I say “officially,” because the identities of the witnesses were more or less known immediately thanks to information provided in the affidavit about their positions as public officials — two are appointed members of the State Election Board (SEB) and the third is an elected member of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners.

But the officials — Dr. Janice Johnston and Janelle King of the SEB and Fulton County Commissioner Bridget Thorne — objected to American Doom’s motions to have their names un-redacted from the affidavit. Johnston, King and Thorne did not respond to a request for comment.

What’s never been clear is why the three officials objected to the public release of their names. All three are clearly identified in the affidavit by their positions on the SEB and Fulton County commission, and all three are outspoken election skeptics who, for years, have amplified falsehoods and questionable claims about widespread voter fraud.

For her part, Johnston was so enamored with the FBI raid in January that she made an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast from her SUV in the parking lot where, nearby, FBI agents were still pulling materials from the elections warehouse. Since at least late last year, King has publicly bragged about her solicitation of help from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to investigate specious claims of election fraud in Fulton County during the 2020 election, as I reported for the Guardian in November. Thorne has openly discussed her inclusion in the affidavit with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee ordered the Justice Department to provide an un-redacted version of the FBI affidavit that led to the January raid. That document will now officially name Johnston, King and Thorne as witnesses.

Boulee explained his order:

“In balancing the right of access versus Respondent’s interest in keeping the names of the witnesses confidential, the Court notes that many of the above factors weigh in favor of the right of access. For instance, it does not appear that Glawe is seeking the records for an illegitimate purpose or to promote public scandal. Moreover, it is undeniable that the 2020 election and the seizure of the election records are historically significant matters and that granting full access to the affidavits is likely to promote public understanding of these events,” Boulee wrote in his order. “The Court also cannot ignore that the redacted information concerns both public officials and a matter of public concern. Indeed, each of the witnesses currently holds a public office related to elections in Georgia and the underlying search at issue in this case involves a Georgia election.”

The Justice Department had argued that the identifies of Johnston, King and Thorne must remain under seal due to “concerns over privacy, retaliation, and/or harassment associated with official confirmation of their providing evidence in a criminal investigation.” Boulee noted that the identities of the three are already widely known, and that “maintaining the seal in this case does little to protect the privacy of these witnesses.”

Keep in mind that the information provided by Johnston, King and Thorne was already widely known as well. Their claims of “election fraud” are based on technical errors that occurred during the 2020 election — errors that have been the subject of much scrutiny and hand-wringing by the election denial movement in the ensuing six years.

The case against Fulton County is largely viewed as specious by election experts, former judges and reputable lawyers, but that hasn’t stopped the Justice Department from pursuing criminal charges against the county for the technical errors that occurred in 2020 — and had no effect on the outcome of the election. Trump lost; Biden won. It’s as simple as that. But with the Justice Department acting as Trump’s personal law firm, election denialists within the agency have been aggressively pursuing debunked claims of widespread election fraud for two reasons: to curry favor with Trump, who simply cannot accept that he lost the 2020 election, and to lay the groundwork for forthcoming claims that the November mid-terms were beset with widespread fraud.

Trump and Republicans need to create this narrative going into November because they’re likely to lose in significant fashion. The FBI raid in Atlanta, the subpoenaing of election records in Arizona and the personal information of election workers in Fulton County, the seizure of voting machines in Puerto Rico, and a recent demand that the Supreme Court allow Republicans to purge voters in Arizona under dubious claims that many undocumented immigrants are registered to vote — all of it is part of the narrative-building that Republicans and the Trump administration are performing in order to claim that an election they are set to lose was somehow stolen from them.

Millions of Americans are being primed to believe this, and they’re being led by people like Johnston, King and Thorne, who now must officially take credit for their role in the affidavit — and their positions as leaders of a movement in Georgia aimed at convincing voters of fraud that simply doesn’t exist.

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This article is the result of months of digging into ICE deaths. The previous article in this series is viewable here. This reporting has taken much time and resources — and hundreds of dollars in fees to obtain autopsy reports. To support this work, please choose a paid subscription to American Doom or contribute to our Coffee Fund.

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Two coroners in Missouri who have publicly expressed anti-immigrant sentiment have overseen the autopsy of an ICE detainee who died in a local jail, American Doom has found. Now, under a questionable interpretation of Missouri law, the two coroners are refusing to release the autopsy report for Brayan Garzon-Rayo, a 27-year-old Colombian man who allegedly took his own life while being held on an ICE detainer in the Phelps County Jail just a little more than a year ago, on April 8.

The refusal of the two coroners — Darren Dake and Ernie Coverdell — to release Garzon-Rayo’s autopsy report highlights transparency issues regarding the record number of deaths in U.S. immigration custody under the Trump administration.

At least 44 people have died in the custody of ICE, other immigration agencies, or in local jails as a result of the Trump administration’s historic crackdown on undocumented immigrants. That’s the highest number of deaths in a 14-month period since the government began publishing detainee death data in 2018 — and possibly since the Department of Homeland Security and ICE were formed in the wake of 9/11.

With about 70,000 immigrants in immigration custody each day, and plans to convert warehouses across the country into detention centers to hold even more, immigrant advocates worry that the number of deaths will continue to rise. As more immigrants are held in facilities that are already at or over capacity, conditions within the facilities will worsen, advocates have warned, leading to delayed responses to medical emergencies and routine ailments.

“These recent tragedies underscore what we’ve known to be true for many years, which is that nobody is safe for any period of time inside ICE detention,” said Laura Hernández, executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, a nonprofit organization devoted to ending immigration detention. “The detention system is infamous for its long-standing record of brutal medical abuse, violence, and premature deaths.”

While poor conditions inside ICE facilities have been well-documented, less known are the exact circumstances that have led to the record number of immigrant deaths during the Trump administration. But records collected by American Doom show that delayed or insufficient staff responses to medical issues played a role in some of those deaths.

In September, a Chinese man experiencing seizures and heart issues was left unattended by medical staff at a facility in California, according to an autopsy report provided to American Doom by authorities. Huabing Xie later died of a heart attack after being left alone for 36 minutes during a crucial window of time, the autopsy showed.

Another autopsy report showed that a Mexican man held at another California facility complained of severe rectal pain for weeks and was given only Tylenol. By the time the man was finally taken to the hospital, staff there recommended emergency surgery. The man, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, died of a heart attack before the surgery could take place. At the time of his death, Ayala-Uribe rated his pain at a level of 10 out of 10.

In Missouri, two men have allegedly taken their own lives while being held in local jails on ICE detainers. They are among at least seven people who have died of what ICE and local authorities have said are suicide. In the case of Garzon-Rayo, he denied having a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, according to a detainee death report released by ICE. Several days later, after testing positive for COVID and tuberculosis, Garzon-Rayo allegedly committed suicide.

But authorities have yet to release key records that could shed light on the exact circumstances of Garzon-Rayo’s death, which his family has questioned. Those records include Garzon-Rayo’s autopsy report, which Dake and Coverdell have refused to release. The two coroners have claimed an exemption in Missouri state law that prevents them from publicly releasing the report, but civil rights attorneys and public records experts who spoke to American Doom say the law is not prohibitive, and that it’s up to individual coroners in Missouri to release autopsy reports.

This fact is backed up by the cooperation of another coroner in Missouri, who has agreed to release the autopsy report for Luis Cruz-Silva, who allegedly took his own life while in custody at the Ste. Genevieve County Jail.

Dake and Coverdell have offered various explanations for their refusal to release Garzon-Rayo’s autopsy report. Initially, Coverdell told American Doom he couldn’t release the report because “it’s an ICE report,” without providing further information. Later, he joined Dake in citing state law regarding autopsy reports that the two men say prevent them from releasing the document publicly. But that’s simply not the case.

The Missouri Attorney General as well as local prosecutors did not respond to requests for clarification on whether Dake and Coverdell were allowed by law to release Garzon-Rayo’s autopsy report, but the public records experts who spoke to American Doom confirmed that the law is not prohibitive — both men could release the report if they wished. Additionally, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which investigated the deaths of Garzon-Rayo and Cruz-Silva, have not yet provided records related to the two men’s deaths as requested under the state’s public records law by American Doom.

The lack of transparency over Garzon-Rayo’s death is a reflection of the byzantine network of immigration detention facilities, multiple federal agencies, local law enforcement, and medical examiners and coroners across the country that must be navigated in order to understand exactly how the 44 people who have died in ICE custody under Trump met their deaths.

In many cases, local authorities like medical examiners and coroners have helpfully released key records like autopsy reports. In others, local authorities and ICE have put up roadblocks to obtaining information about deaths in custody, or have provided incomplete and sometimes misleading information about those cases.

For Garzon-Rayo, the situation is clear: Dake and Coverdell could release his autopsy report, but have refused to do so. Coverdell has said he has viewed video from inside the Phelps County Jail that confirmed Garzon-Rayo took his own life, but declined to answer questions about exactly what that footage showed. The Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated the deaths of Garzon-Rayo and Cruz-Silva, but would only say that no charges are forthcoming.

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After Garzon-Rayo died, Coverdell took custody of his body. Unable to conduct the autopsy himself — Coverdell is an elected coroner but not a licensed medical pathologist — Coverdell paid Dake, the coroner in nearby Crawford County, $2,600 to conduct the autopsy, he told American Doom.

Coverdell and Dake have a history of making public comments in support of Trump’s immigration policies, among other disparaging remarks about Democrats, liberals and Americans who don’t support Donald Trump, according to an American Doom review of their Facebook posts going back to 2018.

“CLOSE THE BORDER,” read a post shared in 2023 by Coverdell.

In 2018, Coverdell shared a photo of a migrant caravan with a caption that read, in part, “wake up before we are truly overun (sic) you liberal fools.” Coverdell has shared posts that said “toilet dwelling” Democrats propagate a “culture of hate.”

Among his many posts on his personal Facebook page, which has no privacy restrictions, Coverdell has also shared an AI-generated photo that showed an encampment of tents in a trash-strewn field under the banner, “Kamala’s America;” another AI-generated photo that showed the Statue of Liberty constructing a wall at the U.S. southern border; and a Dec. 23, 2023 post that encouraged his Facebook audience: “Everyone post: CLOSE THE BORDER!”

Dake has shared posts that support Trump’s “remain in Mexico” asylum policy and decried “leftists” who “hate border walls and gun rights,” among other pro-Trump posts.

Dake said he found nothing wrong with his posts, adding that he was “looking forward to the publicity.”

“Every time you left-leaning ‘journalists’ write a spin piece about me my support and popularity increases,” Dake told American Doom.

Dake did not answer specific questions about Garzon-Rayo’s autopsy, pointing to Coverdell in Phelps County. Coverdell told American Doom that he had seen video from inside Garzon-Rayo’s cell, but did not elaborate.

“It doesn’t matter what race, religion, ethnic background,” someone is, Coverdell told the American Doom, “if it’s a person that feels it’s better to die than face life for one reason or another.”

Coverdell said he did not intend to “disparage immigrants,” and said that he “in no way believes it is good when someone dies, especially by suicide.”

In August, Phelps County Sheriff Michael Kirn, whose agency oversees the jail, addressed members of the county commission about the county’s agreement with ICE to hold detainees like Garzon-Rayo.

Kirn told commissioners that “having the ICE inmates has incurred costs in food, medical, staffing and transport” that the county was having difficulty affording, according to meeting minutes reviewed by American Doom, adding that there was “not enough revenue coming in to offset” those costs. Under an agreement with ICE, the county had been receiving funding from the agency to hold detainees like Garzon-Rayo. Kirn did not respond to questions from American Doom.

At the August commission meeting, Phelps County’s elected officials agreed that the agreement with ICE was no longer worth the county’s resources. Phelps County stopped housing ICE detainees on September 1.

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Today’s edition of American Doom has information about the fight over 2020 ballots in Georgia that you won’t find anywhere else. Please choose a paid subscription or contribute to our Coffee Fund to help fuel more of the fact-based, adversarial journalism you see below.

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As Fulton County and the Justice Department continue to argue in court filings over the thousands of 2020 ballots and other material seized during an FBI raid in January, witnesses who Trump’s DOJ has relied upon for its supposed evidence of fraud in that year’s election have officially — and strangely — attempted to distance themselves from the case.

Of the 11 witnesses named in the FBI affidavit that led to the raid, all but four have agreed with American Doom’s motion to have their identities un-redacted. This means they’ve agreed to have their identities officially made public. Of the four who have asked that the court continue to withhold their identities, three are public officials. Two are current members of the Georgia State Election Board.

“Wit. 2 is the Republican-appointed member of the Georgia State Election Board,” the affidavit states, abbreviating “witness.” Any ambiguity about which “Republican-appointed member” this witness is — there are four Republican-appointed members on the SEB — is obliterated by the next sentence. “Wit. 2 was an obstetrician prior to serving on the State Election Board.”

For anyone with a passing knowledge of Georgia election matters, this is quite obviously SEB member Dr. Janice Johnston, who frequently discusses her time in private practice as an OBGYN, including at SEB meetings.

“Wit. 3, the current House-appointed State Election Board member, confirmed there were missing ballot images,” the affidavit goes on, referencing an oft-referenced claim about missing ballot images in Fulton County in 2020 that reflects the election denial movement’s misunderstanding of the rules and mechanisms for storing such records.

This is Janelle King, who is the only Republican member of the SEB who has been appointed by the Georgia House of Representatives. The remaining Republican SEB members — John Fervier and Salleigh Grubbs — were appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, respectively.

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“Current Fulton County Commissioner, Wit. 11, was a poll worker during the 2020 election,” the affidavit says of Bridget Thorne, who is one of only two Republicans on the commission, and the only Republican who has been outspoken in her belief about election fraud.

The SEB’s Johnston and King are fighting American Doom’s motion to have the court make their identities public. Joining them is Thorne, a Fulton County commissioner who has spread lies and conspiracies about election fraud. American Doom is not naming the fourth individual who has asked that their identity remain redacted in court documents because they’re a target of what is broadly considered to be a politically-motivated prosecution by Trump’s Justice Department that is primarily based on “evidence” presented by biased, pro-Trump election skeptics like Johnston, King and Thorne.

The evidence cited in the affidavit — which led to a magistrate judge issuing a search warrant that the FBI executed during its Jan. 28 raid of the Fulton County elections warehouse — is mostly recycled claims of technical errors and mistakes like double-counted ballots. That evidence is widely viewed to be not a predicate for criminal charges, which is what DOJ lawyers have argued is the basis for the raid, but for the Trump administration’s efforts to sow doubt in November’s election results.

Combined with similar seizures of 2020-related election materials in Arizona, California and Michigan, the Fulton County raid appears to be part of a coordinated effort to resurface fraud claims ahead of an election that Republicans across the country are slated to lose — and lose big — as the president carries out an unpopular war in Iran, gas prices spike, and inflation continues to make life less affordable for most Americans.

The Fulton County case is going nowhere but deep into the obscure lore of MAGA election denial conspiracy. Any criminal charges that result from the affidavit that Johnston, King and Thorne are now weakly distancing themselves from will likely be tossed by reputable judges. Perhaps this is the reason for their quiet recusal from being officially named as a result of American Doom’s motion.

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Johnston, King and Thorne’s attempts to keep their identities weakly sealed in the affidavit are at odds with much of their public behavior. As we reported in November, King and others have openly bragged about their coordination with the DOJ on election fraud claims in Georgia for months.

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If there were any remaining questions about the MAGA-dominated SEB’s role in the Fulton County raid, Johnston herself put them to rest at the last meeting of the board.

“A request was made to the DOJ” by the SEB, Johnston said at the board’s Feb. 19 meeting, “and took notice (sic) to the Fulton County election irregularities that have been alleged, but had never been investigated.”

So, why are Johnston and King asking the court to allow their names to continue to be redacted? That’s a good question, and one that I put to Johnston, King and Thorne. As of this writing, none have responded.

One would think that, after years of claiming that the 2020 election was beset with widespread fraud by Democrats and poll workers in Fulton County, this trio of hardcore election skeptics would want to shout from the mountaintops that their “evidence” is the backbone of what Trump’s lawyers at the DOJ are now claiming is a criminal investigation. (No one has been charged yet.) Instead, Johnston, King and Thorne are quietly arguing behind-the-scenes to have their identities remain redacted in the affidavit — a laughable objection, considering how obvious the affidavit makes their identities to be.

If nothing else, having their identities so obviously obtainable in the affidavit itself begs the question of why Johnston, King and Thorne are now fighting their official release. Maybe they’re fighting just because they feel like it, who knows, or to stick it to the “fake news,” as they like to say. It doesn’t really matter because everyone knows who they are.

What does matter is that Fulton County is pressing the DOJ hard on the “evidence” that Johnston, King and Thorne presented to the FBI that led to the raid. That evidence is questionable at best. At worst, it’s the result of “research” from the same small but vocal network of election deniers who have tried to have their way with Georgia elections since 2020. This network has used their influence to pressure state lawmakers to institute changes to election administration and voting — like the ban on QR codes that are used to count votes in a more reliable way than the hand counts that election deniers would like to impose — on millions of Georgia voters.

The election denial movement’s success in Georgia has caused a fracturing within the state Republican party. That divide is at the heart of the races for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general, all of which will be up for grabs in November.

If the MAGA, election denial wing of the Georgia GOP wins out, you can expect to see the state implement even more anti-democratic measures aimed at cracking down on voting rights and fair elections. Because none of this is actually about election fraud; it’s always been about ensuring that Republicans win, no matter what.

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Watching Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth give another bombastic press conference that seemed like an act of absurdist theater this morning as the chyron reminded us of the ridiculous name of our war in Iran — Operation Epic Fury — I had one of those moments where I’m reminded just how staggeringly dumb much of modern American life is. It inspired me t…

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