I’m sure “you should never be able to retire” will be a winning message for Republicans. https://t.co/Hrlbp37EDK

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) August 28, 2023

DOT levies largest-ever penalty against American Airlines for tarmac delays https://t.co/d5hgS5RW6n

— POLITICO (@politico) August 28, 2023

From WaPo:

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has scheduled Donald Trump’s D.C. trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election for March 4, 2024. At a separate hearing in Atlanta, Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been testifying for hours about Trump’s efforts to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia; the purpose of that hearing is to see if Meadows can move his state-level indictment to federal court. Trump is a front-runner in the Republican 2024 presidential contest, and the D.C. trial’s starting date is the day before the Super Tuesday primaries.

The federal judge overseeing the Trump election obstruction case scheduled the trial to begin on March 4 — a few weeks before Donald Trump is set to go to trial on state charges in New York.

So what happens now?

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said Monday from the bench in D.C. that she had talked to Justice Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the state case in New York, before scheduling her trial to begin March 4. She did not elaborate on what they spoke about.

Trump was indicted in March on state charges for alleged business fraud related to hush money payments during the 2016 election campaign. Merchan had scheduled that trial to begin on March 25.

A spokesperson for Merchan said in a statement Monday that the two judges spoke Thursday about their respective trials, but did not say whether the New York trial date will be rescheduled.

“At this time there is nothing further to impart regarding the People of the State of New York v Donald J. Trump,” spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said in an email.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), the prosecutor who brought the New York charges against Trump, did not comment. But he suggested in an interview last month with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer that he suspects the trial date in his case could change.

At the time of Bragg’s interview, federal prosecutors had not yet charged Trump on election obstruction charges. He had been charged on federal charges in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified materials and then thwarting investigators’ efforts to get them back.

“Based upon experience, I’ve been a federal prosecutor or a state prosecutor, and now obviously local. In matters like this, judges will confer and I take a very broad lens on justice, will obviously follow the directives of our court, but won’t sit on ceremony in terms of what was charged first or things like that. If and when that’s presented,” Bragg said in the interview with Lehrer. “There’s been no other case. The two charged cases have trial dates, but our trial judge is reached out to by another judge, we’ll obviously consider everything in its totality.”

My guess is the dates won’t hold, but this graphic illustrates how Trump could use the dates to his advantage. It also presents the DNC some amno as needed.

Image courtesy The Reid Out.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/28/bernie-sanders-democrats-support-biden-trump-2024

Progressive US voters must unite behind Joe Biden rather than consider any of his Democratic primary challengers because the threat of another Donald Trump presidency is too great, Bernie Sanders has said.

“We’re taking on the … former president, who, in fact, does not believe in democracy – he is an authoritarian, and a very, very dangerous person,” the senator and Vermont independent, who caucuses with Democrats, said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I think at this moment there has to be unification of progressive people in general in all of this country.”

Sanders’ remarks came as Trump continued grappling with more than 90 criminal charges across four separate indictments filed against him for his efforts to forcibly nullify his defeat to Biden in the 2020 presidential race, his illicit retention of classified documents, and hush-money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels.

Despite the unprecedented legal peril confronting him, Trump enjoys a commanding lead over his competitors in the Republican presidential primary, polls show.

And though polling for now shows Biden generally is ahead of Trump, that has not stopped Robert F Kennedy Jr and Marianne Williamson from mounting long-shot Democratic primary challenges – or third-party progressive candidate Cornel West from running.

Sanders himself was the runner-up for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 White House race won by Trump and in 2020, with West among his supporters. But Sanders this time quickly endorsed Biden’s re-election campaign, a decision which prompted West to accuse him of only backing Biden because he is “fearful of the neo-fascism of Trump”.

The senator responded to that criticism on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, saying, “Where I disagree with my good friend Cornel West is – I think, in these really very difficult times, there is a real question whether democracy is going to remain in the United States of America.

“You know, Donald Trump is not somebody who believes in democracy, whether women are going to be able to continue to control their own bodies, whether we have social justice in America, [whether] we end bigotry.”

Sanders didn’t elaborate, but his remarks seemed to be an allusion to the Trump White House’s creation of the US supreme court supermajority, which last year struck down the federal abortion rights that the Roe v Wade decision had established decades earlier.

That court also struck down race-conscious admissions in higher education as well as a Colorado law that required entities to afford same-sex couples equal treatment, among other decisions lamented by progressives.

“Around that, I think we have got to bring the entire progressive community to defeat Trump – or whoever the Republican nominee will be – [and] support Biden,” Sanders added on State of the Union.

Sanders nonetheless said he planned to push Biden to tackle “corporate greed and the massive levels of income and wealth inequality” across the US. On Meet the Press, he suggested he would urge Biden to “take on the billionaire class”.

Those comments came about four months after Sanders called on the US government to confiscate 100% of any money that Americans make above $999m, saying people with that much wealth “can survive just fine” without becoming billionaires.

The FBI is now collecting DNA profiles at the same rate as China. Its database contains 21 million profiles — equivalent to 7% of the US.

“When we’re talking about rapid expansion like this, it’s getting us ever closer to a universal DNA database"https://t.co/19U6otZSAn

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) August 29, 2023

Big Pharma spent $400 MILLION to try to keep drug prices high.

But they lost — and the American people won! https://t.co/4G1ZEWOm71

— Social Security Works (@SSWorks) August 29, 2023

However, not in effect until 2026 and no guarantees the list will remain as is.

LGBTQ+ Canadians are being warned against traveling to the United States in updated travel advisory https://t.co/6Z5GBsVPgV

— Alexandra Halaby (@iskandrah) August 30, 2023

Fascinating to watch TN Republicans & @GovBillLee try to walk a tightrope of trying to sell that their special session was a success and made us safer while also letting the TFA tell their folks nothing happened.

Spoiler: the TFA is right. https://t.co/VueUKe6Npp

— Justin Kanew (@Kanew) August 30, 2023

California Attorney General Calls For 'Lowering Taxes' On Marijuana To Combat The Illicit Market: "We should make the regulatory burden less than what it is while we target the illicit market that is undercutting them."https://t.co/AyRaPKzaMy

— Marijuana Moment (@MarijuanaMoment) August 30, 2023

We should not be paying any more for prescription drugs than other countries around the world. As the Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I look forward to working with the President and my colleagues to make that happen. pic.twitter.com/xyKeSMwyff

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 29, 2023

Why is pharma suing to stop President Biden from lowering prescription drug prices? Follow the money.

Januvia, Merck's diabetes drug, costs $547 in the US but just $16 in France.

Eliquis, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s blood clot drug, costs $561 in the US but just $63 in Germany.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 29, 2023

I hope Orl is OK!

Airlines in the United States canceled more than 850 flights on Wednesday as Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 storm.

Southwest Airlines canceled more than 200 flights, while Delta Air Lines and American Airlines canceled 148 and 98 flights, respectively, as of 8:17 a.m. ET, according to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com.

About 795 flights were also delayed.

Airports at Tampa, Clearwater and Tallahassee shut down operations and were monitoring the status of the storm.

Drawing strength from the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters, Idalia was forecast to unleash destructive winds and torrential downpours that will cause coastal flooding up to 16 feet (4.88 m) deep.

Idalia grew from a tropical storm into a hurricane early on Tuesday, a day after passing west of Cuba, where it damaged homes, knocked out power, flooded villages and prompted mass evacuations.

“With Tampa Airport closing at midnight Tuesday, we canceled everything there through at least afternoon today and we’re awaiting a decision from the airport as to when it will re-open to commercial service,” Southwest Airlines said on Wednesday.

The airline also ceased operations for the day at Jacksonville International Airport.

I know someone who lives not far from Jacksonville and got out yesterday.

On this day in 1965, Bob Dylan released Highway 61 Revisited, with rock musicians backing him on most tracks, redefining his sound and mirroring the turbulence of the times. pic.twitter.com/0AUWEF3GEa

— Eric Alper 🎧 (@ThatEricAlper) August 30, 2023