Gasoline prices at record high: Retail gas prices hit another record high over the past three weeks, mirroring a rapid increase in the cost of crude oil, according to a nationwide survey released Sunday.The average price for all three grades rose nearly 20 cents to $2.53 in the three weeks ending Aug. 12, while crude oil price futures rose about $8.21.
Feds feared Abramoff would skip bail: The Justice Department played hardball last week with former superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, in part because of concerns he might flee to Israel. Hours before Abramoff was indicted on fraud charges in Miami last Thursday, FBI agents tried to arrest him at his Maryland home. But he’d already left for Los Angeles. Agents tracked him down on his cell phone and ordered him to surrender to the local FBI office. When Abramoff did, later that day, he was handcuffed, thrown into jail, then released last Friday on a $2.2 million bond.
Gay man wins $270 mil after being outed : Robert Hernandez, age 45, was awarded $270 million from Univision Radio because he was outed on a radio show – in San Francicso!! Hernandez said the outing left him so “devastated” that he couldn’t work.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a smarmy little sap.
He’s got a smirky face you just want to slap.
But performing as “Da Vek” he
Went and pissed off Slim Shady —
And Eminem said cease and desist hustling my rap.
“Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate. I am not the president’s lawyer. I will add I am not Congress’s prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people.We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”
— Attorney General Merrick Garland, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee/Inquisition.
“Didn’t hurt himself. Didn’t really help himself either. It says something that no one felt the need to attack him.”
– Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and founder of the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Project, discussing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s mediocre performance during the first GOP presidential debate
“Almost 42 million Americans – over one-eighth of the US population – are estimated to have lived within one mile of a mass shooting since 2014,” CNN reports.
“Donald Trump has turned his Georgia mugshot into a record-breaking fundraising haul,” Politico reports. “The former president has raised $7.1 million since he was booked at an Atlanta jail Thursday evening… On Friday alone, Trump raised $4.18 million, making it the single-highest 24-hour period of his campaign to date.”
The Florida Legislature (which last year passed a “Constitutional Carry” gun law) is spending millions of dollars beefing up security at the Capitol Complex with expensive bulletproof windows while also making it easier for people to carry weapons into those state buildings. The Legislature approved a $61.6 million window replacement project as part of a larger renovation of the Capitol, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
A new Navigator Research poll finds that — by a whopping 62% to 30% margin — most Americans think Donald Trump has committed a crime. Independent voters are even more sure and think Trump is guilty by 67% to 18%.
A new Washington Post/FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll finds 29% of debate viewers thought Gov. Ron DeSantis came out on top, followed by Vivek Ramaswamy at 26%, Nikki Haley at 15% and Mike Pence at 7%. “The findings may be surprising because DeSantis generally stayed above the fray in a raucous debate, though Ramaswamy received and delivered lots of barbs.”