Israel advances plan to build 700 units in new east Jerusalem settlement

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-716500

Israel’s government advanced a plan to build as many as 700 new apartment units in a suburb of Jerusalem that opponents say encroaches on a Palestinian village that straddles the country’s contested pre- and post-1967 lines.

The Jerusalem planning and building committee on Monday approved a plan for a new neighborhood called Givat Shaked, which would include high-rise buildings that come right up to the edge of Beit Safafa — a village that was split from 1948 until 1967, when Israel captured east Jerusalem in the Six-Day War.

Republicans Want Donald Trump for 2024, Even if He's Indicted: Poll

 https://www.newsweek.com/poll-shows-republicans-want-donald-trump-2024-even-if-indicted-1740831

Approximately 61 percent of Republicans said they'd support the former president if he were indicted, compared to 20 percent of independents and 8 percent of Democrats. The survey of 1,236 adults was conducted between August 29 and September 1 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 points.

"Former President Trump is losing the battle with public opinion over whether he did anything wrong by taking government documents to Mar-a-Lago," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. "But his core support remains intact regardless of the results of the investigation."

Senate Republicans point fingers as majority hopes slip

 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3631583-senate-republicans-point-fingers-as-majority-hopes-slip/

More broadly, Senate Republicans are concerned that Trump’s legal troubles are consuming too much of the national spotlight, diverting public attention from what they want to make the 2022 midterm election about: President Biden’s economic record.

Barr says DOJ ‘getting very close’ to having enough evidence to indict Trump

 https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3632614-barr-says-doj-getting-very-close-to-having-enough-evidence-to-indict-trump/

Former Attorney General William Barr said on Wednesday that he believes the Justice Department is “getting very close” to having enough evidence to indict former President Trump. 

He said on Fox News that government investigators need to consider if they will be able to make a “technical” case against Trump for his handling of sensitive documents the FBI found at his Mar-a-Lago home last month. 

“I think they’re getting very close to that point, frankly,” Barr said. 

A Ruling Untethered to the Law

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/judge-cannon-trump-mar-a-lago-special-master/671349/

Cannon’s opinion, by contrast, is so deeply flawed that it’s hard to know where to begin a critique. Let’s start with the unequal application of the law. Although Trump wallows in feigned claims of persecution, in fact he has been privileged by the Justice Department, and now Cannon, in a manner unheard of for any other defendant. Every defendant would relish the opportunity to delay a criminal investigation by having a court enjoin the government from investigation, but that never happens. The time-honored recourse for someone aggrieved by a search is not to have an unelected judge unilaterally decide to enjoin the constitutionally delegated power of the executive branch to investigate and prosecute. The defense remedy is in a post-indictment motion to suppress evidence from a search.

Arizona Republican secretary of state candidate wrong about ‘fake’ mail ballots

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/aug/30/mark-finchem/arizona-republican-secretary-state-candidate-wrong/

Finchem said, "In Arizona, we have flood the zone with fake ballots."

Although he did not explain his definition of "fake ballots," Finchem’s description suggests that ballots are mailed out en masse to voters that did not request them. But that’s now how it works — and there’s no evidence of pervasive fraud or fakery.

Arizona voters must take steps to receive a mail ballot, whether it’s for a specific election or a continuing basis.

Finchem’s statement is an inaccurate and ridiculous summation that could discourage voter participation in a legitimate process. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!

‘Deeply Problematic’: Experts Question Judge’s Intervention in Trump Inquiry

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/trump-special-master-aileen-cannon.html

A specialist in separation of powers, Peter M. Shane, who is a legal scholar in residence at N.Y.U., said there was no basis for Judge Cannon to expand a special master’s authority to screen materials that were also potentially subject to executive privilege. That tool is normally thought of as protecting internal executive branch deliberations from disclosure to outsiders like Congress.

Barr: Justice Department should appeal 'deeply flawed' ruling approving special master in Trump documents case

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/06/politics/bill-barr-special-master-doj-trump/index.html

Former Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday said the decision by a Florida judge to grant former President Donald Trump's request for a special master to review the documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago is "deeply flawed" and urged the Justice Department to appeal it.

"The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it. It's deeply flawed in a number of ways," Barr said during a Fox interview Tuesday.

The Trump ‘special master’ ruling violates the principle that no-one is above the law

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/07/the-trump-special-master-ruling-violates-the-principle-that-no-one-is-above-the-law

 Cannon’s ruling has to rank high in the annals of the worst reasoned judicial decisions in American history. Even former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr called it “deeply flawed.” If it signals that judicial Trumpism has spread more broadly than we thought, there may be danger ahead to our entire system of equal justice.

Judge's ruling for Trump is astonishing

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/06/opinions/trump-mar-a-lago-special-master-ruling-rodgers/index.html

All of this means that the order is extremely vulnerable to being overturned on appeal, assuming the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel hearing it consists of at least two unbiased judges inclined to follow the law.

Military prosecutors nix plea deal for officer facing over 70 counts of sex crimes

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/military-prosecutors-nix-plea-deal-for-officer-facing-over-70-counts-of-sex-crimes/

The Military Prosecution on Wednesday announced it had backed away from a plea deal signed with an officer accused of filming his female subordinates while nude without their knowledge, following opposition from many of the victims.

Police in Kuwait shut down shop selling magen david necklaces

 https://www.thejc.com/news/news/police-in-kuwait-shut-down-shop-selling-magen-david-necklaces-1lghWRXEOSQrjkAZ35m7HE

Legal action has been taken against a shop in Kuwait after it sold accessories bearing Jewish symbols.

The Gulf state’s Ministry of Trade and Industry has ordered the closure of a shop in the coastal city Salmiya, as the sale of items containing the Star of David was deemed illegal.

A post to the Ministry’s official Twitter profile on 27 August said that an arrest had been made due to the “displaying and selling of accessories bearing slogans that violate the public order of the state.”

Steve Bannon Says 'They Will Have To Kill Me' In Response To New Indictment

 https://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-fraud-indictment-trump-new-york-1740482

In the 2020 case, Bannon and several other people were accused of defrauding people who contributed to a $25 million "We Build The Wall" campaign, which promised to construct a barrier across the southern U.S.-Mexico border.

In a statement released to several journalists, Bannon suggested the charges against him are politically motivated and somehow linked to George Soros, the Jewish billionaire philanthropist who is often the target of right-wing conspiracy theories.

Fact checking claims January 6 was not an armed insurrection

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/28/politics/armed-insurrection-january-6-guns-fact-check/index.html

US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell told Kinzinger that "(c)ommon things were used as weapons, like a baseball bat, a hockey stick, a rebar, a flagpole -- including the American flag -- pepper spray, bear spray."

The rioters "had all these items," Gonell said, "used to attack us. Those are weapons."

As CNN has reported, rioters also used knives, stolen police shields, a stun gun, fire extinguisher and more. Hand-to-hand combat led to more than a dozen officers being sent to the hospital, some of whom had bone fractures and concussions.