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Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.

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When those on the right arent getting their way, they sure love to compare what theyre going through to Nazi Germany. Last April, GOP governor candidate Scott Jensen decided to invoke Hitler while speaking at a MaskOffMN meeting, making the dumb argument that mask mandates are a slippery slope toward another Holocaust. TC Jewfolk dug up and shared the Jensen clip this morning: If you look at the 1930s and you look at it carefully, we could see some things happening. Little things that people chose to push aside. Then there was a night called Kristallnacht. (Kristallnacht was a multi-day coordinated wave of violence in which the Nazi party tore through Jewish homes, religious sites, and businesses.) Then there was the book burning, and it kept growing and growing, and a guy named Hitler kept growing in power, and World War II came about, Jensen continued.

Basically, Jensen is making the argument that mask mandates during a pandemic are akin the things that lead to actual atrocities against humanity. Gotcha. Jensen, who is also a practicing physician, has been known to say dumb shit in the past, including dismissing Covid as a mild four-day respiratory illness, saying he plans to gut the medical board if elected (because he is frequently under investigation), and claiming that most of the folks whove died of Covid only had a couple years left in them anyway.

Jensen is scheduled to appear at a Republican Jewish Coalition event tomorrow. We sure hope they school him on that guy named Hitler.

Diversion programs are an effective alternative to criminally prosecuting juveniles in Minnesota, the Star Tribune reports in the second installment of its focus on juvenile justice. A childs future can hinge on the path that is chosen, according to the Strib. Those who complete diversion are more likely to stay in school and less likely to commit more crimes than young people who are criminally charged. The big drawback: These programs arent being implemented in every municipality. Though state law requires that such programs exist, it sets few standards or guidelines, so instead, many places continue to use the wasteful, ineffective probation systems, based on the ideological belief that the more punitive an option, the better. Anyway, this is bad news for the where are the parents?/lock em all up crowd: Not only dont you have the solution, but in fact, youre the problem.

A small but possibly important win for unhoused Minnesotans: A state district judge has ruled that cops cant trash all your shit just because its outside in an encampment instead of inside a house. In an ongoing case brought by the ACLU of Minnesota, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, and Ballard Spahr on behalf of nine encamped homeless people against the MPRB, Hennepin County, and the city of Minneapolis, Judge Wilhelmina Wright ruled against the plaintiffs on some big issues. Unhoused people dont have the right to stay in encampments, and the government has the right to remove them, she said. But police trashing an encamped persons stuff is a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. That means the class action suit goes forward, and grants at least some protections to the property rights of the homeless generally.

The longstanding debate over whether to claim Bon Iver is tricky. Eau Claire, after all, is 66 miles from Minnesota. Menomonie sits just 44 miles across the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, and its home to Emmitt Bailey, the eight-year-old tot who won the kid division of the USA Mullet Championships on Sunday.

Take a look, courtesy of the USA Mullet Championships:

As a matter of state pride, were hereby certifying young Emmittwhose sick golden flow beat out 687 contestantsas a Minnesotan, thus locally angling this national story. Emmitt collected almost 10,000 votes en route to his victory, which comes with a $2,500 cash prize. Our rival state to the East may collect taxes on that haul, but nothing will diminish the fact that, per Racket, Emmitt is unquestionably a Minnesotan. Media hoopla surrounding his local mullet has gone beyond our wildest dreams, Emmitts local father, Eric, said last week. (A more widely agreed upon Minnesotan, Callen Steinbrink of Austin, qualified for the final round.) Cayden Kershaw of Wausau, Wisconsin, won the teen division. Considering his hometown is 159 miles away, he simply doesnt meet our editorial definition of local. Sorry, Cayden.

The rest is here:
Man Who Thinks COVID Regs = Nazism Could Be Your Governor - Racket - Racket

Happy Monday, OnPolitics readers!

Primary races in Florida and New York are happening tomorrow. Here's what you need to know.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is one ofthe top Republican names among potential presidential contenders in 2024. But first he must win reelection, and Democrats would love to thwart those White House ambitions, even as the Sunshine State has drifted toward the GOP in recent years.

Floridians will also set the table for their Senate race, where Orlando-areaRep. Val Demings is expected to prevail as the Democratic nominee to challenge Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

New test of voter laws: Floridians will cast their primary ballots under new voting restrictions a judge once said were designed to target Black voters, the first such federal election under the new law.

Voting rights advocates say the new rules make it harder to request and turn in absentee ballots and register voters as well as making it easier to challenge votes once cast. But supporters say the new rules are needed to combat voter fraud, which has not been proven to be an issue in the state.

The other races to watch on Tuesday take place in New York, where Democrats have a few intraparty clashes, with incumbents battling each other because of the state legislatures redistricting process.

It's Amy with today's top stories out of Washington.

There were whispers in the spring that the future of Roe v. Wade was in jeopardy. Weeks later, a draft of the forthcoming Dobbs decision was leaked. By June, the Supreme Court had overturned the ruling that had established a constitutional right to abortion since 1973.

Donations began to pour into the coffers of abortion rights organizations. And for some anti-abortion nonprofits too.

We were raising more than we had the previous year," said Nikki Madsen, executive director of Abortion Care Network, a national association for abortion clinics based in Washington D.C. But a significant portion has come in since the leak.

The Abortion Care Network is just one organization that is part of a larger trend of increasing donations following the Supreme Courts ruling.

While both sidessaw an uptick in donations, abortion rights groupssaw the bulk of donations, according to an analysis by Open Secrets and USA TODAY. The findings showed that overall contributions to top abortion rights organizations more than tripled. But contributions under $200 increased for both abortion rights and anti-abortion groups.

Which groups gained the most? In total, the top abortion rights organizations, including Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America, saw an increase in overall contributions jumpfrom $630,000 to roughly $2.3million in a three-month period ending in June.

Anti-abortion groupsalso saw a small bump in donations. In a combined total, overall contributions increased from around $34,000 in April to around $86,000 in June.

Donald Trump has blasted the Aug. 8 search of his Florida estate by questioning the justification for the unprecedented action at a former presidents home, criticizing how the FBI carried it out and questioning what was taken from Mar-a-Lago.

The latest:Trump's lawyers are seeking to halt the continued review of classified documents seized from the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this monthuntil a special master can be appointed to ensure that unrelated or privileged material is shielded from scrutiny, according to court documents filed Monday.

Since the search at Mar-a-Lago, Trump has made a number of statements through social media posts on his website Truth Social and through public statements that often lack context and facts that rebut his own allegations.

What was said: Trump said there's 'no way' to justify search, but search warrant cites Espionage Act and other crimes

Context: U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart signed off on the FBI search warrant by finding probable cause the FBI would find evidence that three potential crimes were committed: improper handling of defense documents, obstruction of justice and possible violations of the Espionage Act.

Judges review warrants as a check on investigators who are required to present evidence they've already gathered to demonstrate what more evidence they hope to collect in a search. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects people from unreasonable searches, requires a description of the place to be searched and the items expected to be seized.

What was said: Trump said protected documents were taken, but courts have rejected his privilege claims

Context: The Justice Department hasnt revealed what documents were seized in the search, other than to say the materials included 11 sets of secret and top secret records. A subsequent court filing called some of the records highly classified.

Federal judges have rejected previous claims of attorney-client and executive privilege in investigations of Trump because the documents with attorneys didn't deal with actual trial preparation and because the investigations outweighed his claim to keep communications with aides confidential.

President Joe Biden waived Trumps claims of executive privilege for the House committee investigating the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, when it sought documents from the National Archives and Records Administration. When Trump tried to block the release in federal court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Bidens waiver outweighed Trumps claim. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, ruling the investigation was more important than the claim of executive privilege.

Read more claims from Trump that are lacking or missing some context here.

Dr. Anthony Fauci announced today that he intends to retire from government service in December "to pursue the next chapter" of his career. Find out more about his next steps here. -- Amy

Read the original here:
OnPolitics: After Roe v. Wade was overturned, donations to abortion groups surged - USA TODAY

Iran is a sovereign nation occupying an area of 1,648,195 sq. km in Western Asia.

Iran is a very rugged country of plateaus and mountains with most of the land being above 1,500 feet (460 m). The mountain ranges surround the high interior basin of the country. Of note are the Elburz Mountains in the north, and the Zagros Mountains along Iran's western borders as observed on the physical map of Iran above. Iran's highest point, Mt. Damavand reaches 18,934 ft (5,771m). It has been marked on the map by a yellow triangle and is part of the Elburz Mountain chain.

The central and eastern portion is covered by the Plateau of Iran. Marked on the map, the Dasht-e Kavir is sandstone and salty desert plateau, which in the heat of summer is one of the hottest places on the planet.

The coastal areas outside the mountain rings have some of the lowest elevations in the country.

The most significant river is the Karun, in the southwestern corner of the country. Lake Urmia (in the far-northwest) is the country's largest body of water.

Iran (officially, Islamic Republic of Iran) is divided into 31 administrative provinces (ostanha, sing. ostan). In alphabetical order, these provinces are: Alborz, Ardabil, Azarbayjan e Gharbi (West Azerbaijan), Azarbayjan e Sharqi (East Azerbaijan), Bushehr, Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari, Esfahan, Fars, Gilan, Golestan, Hamadan, Hormozgan, Ilam, Kerman, Kermanshah, Khorasan-e Jonubi (South Khorasan), Khorasan-e Razavi (Razavi Khorasan), Khorasan-e Shomali (North Khorasan), Khuzestan, Kohgiluyeh va Bowyer Ahmad, Kordestan, Lorestan, Markazi, Mazandaran, Qazvin, Qom, Semnan, Sistan va Baluchestan, Tehran, Yard and Zanjan.

With an area of 1,648,195 sq. km, Iran is the 2nd largest country in the Middle East and the 17th largest country in the world. Tehran is the capital and the largest city of Iran. It is also the most populous city in Western Asia as well as the countrys leading cultural and economic center.

Iran is a mountainous country in Western Asia. Iran is situated both in the Northern and Eastern hemispheres of the Earth. Iran is bordered by Armenia and Azerbaijan in the northwest; Turkmenistan in the northeast; Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east; Iraq and Turkey in the west. Iran is bounded by the Caspian Sea in the north, and by the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman in the south.

Iran Bordering Countries: Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan.

Regional Maps: Map of Asia

This page was last updated on February 24, 2021

Continue reading here:
Iran Maps & Facts - World Atlas

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (R) meets with Josep Borell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (L), at the foreign ministry headquarters in Iran's capital Tehran on June 25, 2022.

Atta Kenare | AFP | Getty Images

Iran appears the most optimistic it's been in years about finally clinching an agreement on a renewed version of the 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. and other foreign powers.

Iranian negotiating team adviser Mohammad Marandi said on Monday that "we're closer than we've been before" to securing a deal and that the "remaining issues are not very difficult to resolve." And the European Union's "final text" proposal for the deal, submitted last week, has been approved by the U.S., which says it's ready to quickly seal the agreement if Iran accepts it.

Still, there are obstacles to rescuing the Obama-era pact, which lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for a range of limits on its nuclear program. Iranian negotiators responded to the EU's proposal, pointing out the remaining issues that may yet prove impossible to reconcile.

And the stakes are high: the more time goes by, the more Iran progresses in the advancement of its nuclear technology far beyond the scope of what the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the 2015 deal's original signatories say is acceptable.

That could risk triggering an all-out war in the Middle East, as Israel has threatened military action against Iran if it develops nuclear weapons capability.

An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military personnel stands guard next to two Iranian Kheibar Shekan Ballistic missiles in downtown Tehran as demonstrators wave Irans and Syrian flags during a rally commemorating the International Quds Day, also known as the Jerusalem day, on April 29, 2022.

Morteza Nikoubazl | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Already in the spring of 2021, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said of Iran that "only countries making bombs are reaching this level" of nuclear enrichment.

With a revived nuclear deal, the U.S. and the deal's other signatories France, the U.K., Germany, China and Russia, known collectively as the P5+1 aim to contain the nuclear program and prevent what many warn could be a nuclear weapons crisis. Iran maintains that its aims are peaceful and that its actions fall within the country's sovereign rights.

Three main sticking points remain. Iran wants the Biden administration to remove its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its designated terrorist list, which so far Washington seems unwilling to do.

It also wants a guarantee that the deal will be binding regardless of future U.S. administrations. Biden cannot legally guarantee that, and the reality remains that another administration could cancel any deal just as former president Donald Trump did.

The third item is a long-running investigation by the IAEA into traces of uranium found at three of Iran's undeclared nuclear sites several years ago. Tehran wants it shut down, something the agency itself, as well as Western governments, are opposed to.

The regime appears to have found a winning formula: widening its nuclear footprint while narrowing the inspections and monitoring regime.

Behnam Ben Taleblu

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

The U.S. didn't seem to have much patience with Tehran's demands, with State Department spokesperson Ned Price saying this week that "the only way to achieve a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA is for Iran to drop further unacceptable demands that go beyond the scope of the JCPOA. We have long called these demands extraneous."

In the time since Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in May 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, the Islamic Republic's government has pushed ahead with rapid nuclear development.

Its stockpile of enriched uranium is now at 60% enrichment, its highest ever and a huge leap from the 3.67% limit set out by the 2015 deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.

The level required to be able to make a bomb is 90%. Commercial enrichment for energy use is between 2% and 3%. It's also slashed IAEA access to its nuclear sites for monitoring.

"The restoration of the deal is getting close to a now or never situation," Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States in Washington, told CNBC.

"We have little time to lose and about as plausible a framework for getting back to the 2015 deal as we are ever likely to have. So either it's going to happen in the near future or it's going to become increasingly difficult and of increasingly less value, at least regarding containing Iran's nuclear ambitions."

Much uncertainty remains and that's deliberately part of Iran's strategy, said Sanam Vakil, deputy head of the Middle East North Africa program at U.K. think tank Chatham House.

"This is the Iranians taking us down to the wire, dangling the prospect of the deal and trying to extract final concessions, guarantees from both the IAEA and the P5+1 part and parcel of the negotiating strategy," she said.

"They're both in a stalemate. And they're both actually in a position of weakness," Vakil said, noting the Biden administration's concern over Iran's nuclear capability if no deal is reached, its aim of achieving a foreign policy "win" before the November midterm elections, and Iran's suffering economy desperately in need of sanctions relief.

But, she added, Iran is known for its "strategic patience," waiting out the other side until they can get the most possible concessions out of them.

Meanwhile, Biden faces harsh criticism from political opponents fiercely opposed to any deal with Iran.

"Every quest for a guarantee is just another opportunity Tehran is taking to have Washington fight among itself and attempt to offer more in exchange for less," said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Under these circumstances, the only reasons Iran might agree to a deal like the JCPOA is to repair its economic armor in advance of another change in U.S. policy after 2024."

Indeed, many question why a deal that could be ripped up by the next U.S. administration is even worth considering for Iran.

Through this deal Iran would regain access to its foreign reserves, which are estimated to be well over 100 billion, Vakil noted. "That injection of liquidity into the Iranian economy will help in infinite ways from investment to paying government wages to supply chain challenges," she said. "So even if this deal is a two-year deal, as many see it to be, it's a two-year reprieve, and it stems a nuclear crisis."

Tehran's moves to escalate its nuclear activity have put it in the driver's seat for these negotiations, Ben Taleblu said. "The regime appears to have found a winning formula: widening its nuclear footprint while narrowing the inspections and monitoring regime."

Nonetheless, both the U.S. and Iran have an interest in continuing negotiations rather than ditching them altogether, some analysts say, arguing the alternative for both parties is worse.

"Those who have argued that no deal is better than the restored JCPOA have in practice unleashed Iran's nuclear program and failed to produce a better alternative,"said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group.

"Right now, the options are either to restore a deal that would put Iran's nuclear program in a box, acquiesce to Iran with a bomb or bomb Iran."

Link:
A renewed Iran nuclear deal may be closer than ever, but problems remain

DUBAI, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Iran accused the United States on Monday of procrastinating in efforts to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal - a charge denied by Washington, which said a deal was closer than two weeks ago because of apparent Iranian flexibility.

After 16 months of fitful, indirect American-Iranian talks, with European Union officials shuttling between the sides, a senior EU official said on Aug. 8 it had laid down a final offer and expected a response within a "very, very few weeks".

Iran last week responded to the EU's text with "additional views and considerations" while calling on the United States to show flexibility to resolve three remaining issues.

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Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, said on Monday he hoped the United States would respond positively as early as this week to the bloc's proposal, adding that Iran had given a "reasonable" response. read more

"The Americans are procrastinating and there is inaction from the European sides. ... America and Europe need an agreement more than Iran," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, told a news conference.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price denied that, telling reporters in Washington: "The notion that we have delayed this negotiation in any way is just not true."

Price said the United States was encouraged that Iran seemed to have dropped demands such as the removal of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the U.S. foreign terrorist organization list.

Iran's and U.S.' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

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"That's part of the reason why a deal is closer now than it was two weeks ago. But the outcome of these ongoing discussions still remains uncertain as gaps do remain," Price said, adding the United States was working as quickly as possible to provide its response.

The United States has called on Tehran to release Iranian-Americans held in Iran on security charges. Iran has demanded that several Iranians detained on charges linked to U.S. sanctions be freed.

"The exchange of prisoners with Washington is a separate issue and it has nothing to do with the process of negotiations to revive the 2015 pact," Kanaani said, saying Tehran was ready to swap prisoners.

In 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump reneged on the deal reached before he took office, calling it too soft on Iran, and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin breaching the pact's nuclear curbs.

"We seek a good agreement which would ... be long-lasting," Kanaani said. "We won't be bitten twice."

The 2015 agreement appeared near revival in March after 11 months of indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Vienna. But talks then broke down over obstacles such as Iran's demand that the United States provide guarantees that no future American president would abandon the deal. U.S. President Joe Biden cannot provide such ironclad assurances because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid told French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone that Israel objected to a revived pact and would not be bound by it should one reached. Israel, widely believed to possess its own nuclear arsenal, has made veiled threats to take preemptive military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.

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Additional reporting by Christina Thykjaer and Inti Landauro in Madrid and by Simon Lewis, Humeyra Pamuk and Costas Pitas in Washington;Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Arshad MohammedEditing by Toby Chopra, Will Dunham, Angus MacSwan and Catherine Evans

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Excerpt from:
Iran says U.S. delaying on nuclear deal, U.S. sees progress - Reuters