As for whether Trump will testify, Scarborough said that he has heard from those in the New York legal world that “you just don’t put a former president on the stand unless you have an open and shut case.” That’s why Scarborough does not believe Trump will end up taking the stand.

“It will be both a pro-prosecution story, but also one designed to see if this case goes to trial and we charge the Trump Organization, we charge individuals, then is that an airtight case? Because … you don’t charge the organization of the former president, and you certainly don’t charge the former president or his family members with a crime unless it’s a slam dunk. Unless you know you can win,” said Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler.

“I was just going to say I’ve talked not only to legal people around New York but also a lot of political people for the past six months to a year when there was talk of Donald Trump possibly being tried by New York State or by [Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.],” Scarborough replied.

“And their conclusion was the same thing as Paul’s, which is, yeah, we’re probably never going to see the president on the stand,” he added. “You just don’t put a former president on the stand unless you have an open and shut case.”

This comes days after Scarborough told Trump supporters who are still questioning the results of the election to leave the country.

“If you believe that, I will say to you what many of you said in the 1960s: America, love it or leave it,” Scarborough screamed, according to Newsweek.

“If you don’t have respect in American democracy anymore if you don’t respect Madisonian checks and balances if your guy doesn’t win, if that’s the new rules of engagement for this great republic, then just leave our country because you’re unworthy of it,” he continued.

The post Joe Scarborough Reveals If He Thinks Trump Will Ever Take The Stand appeared first on Insider.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL, provided millions of dollars in private funding for the elections that came from a $350 million donation from Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The CTCL gave “COVID-19 response” grants of varying amounts to 2,500 municipalities in 49 states.

In exchange for the money, elections divisions agreed to conduct their elections according to conditions set out by the CTCL, which is led by former members of the New Organizing Institute, a training center for progressive groups and Democratic campaigns.

A CTCL partner, the Center for Civic Design, helped design absentee ballot forms and instructions, crafted voter registration letters for felons and tested automatic voter registration systems in several states, working alongside progressive activist groups in Michigan and directly with elections offices in Georgia and Utah.

Still other groups with a progressive leaning, including the Main Street Alliance, The Elections Group and the National Vote at Home Institute, provided support for some elections offices.

Facebook, with the CTCL, was also part of the effort, providing a guide and webinar for election officials on how to engage voters. Included were directions to report “voter interference” to Facebook authorities. The company also provided designated employees in six regions of the U.S. to handle questions.

Together, the groups strategically targeted voters and waged a voter assistance campaign aimed at low-income and minority residents who typically shun election participation, helping Democratic candidates win key spots all over the U.S.

The little-explored roles of CTCL and other such groups emerged in emails and other records obtained by RealClearInvestigations and public documents secured by conservative litigants and groups, including the Foundation for Government Accountability, which has filed more than 800 public records requests with elections offices accepting the grants.

Previously, the Zuckerberg-funded effort has been described in generally positive terms, notably when NPR reported in December on “How Private Money From Facebook’s CEO Saved The 2020 Election” — in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump’s doubts about the legitimacy of the process and “Congress’ neglect.”

Conservatives take a more critical view the effort. “This private funding has never been done before,” said Hayden Dublois, a researcher at the Foundation of Government Accountability.

”We hear about dark money and corporations buying ads, but never have we seen hundreds of millions of private dollars going into the conducting of elections. And states didn’t have any laws on the books to stop it.”

Numerous Trump supporters contend that the 2020 presidential election was rigged or even stolen but have produced little concrete evidence to prove it. But their suspicions aren’t likely to be dispelled by the efforts of the private progressive groups, however legal.

They are among other notable instances of monied interests underwriting public governance and affairs for political ends. In 2018, RCI reported that a New York University School of Law program funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg had placed environmentally minded lawyers in the offices of Democratic state attorneys general to challenge Trump administration policies.

And examples of private efforts to steer cash-strapped public education are numerous, from the Koch charities on the right to more recent race-conscious programs on the left emphasizing the legacy and centrality of white racism in society.

Zuckerberg did not respond to an emailed request from RCI for comment. In a post-election interview, he praised Facebook’s security work during the election and singled out its policing of “misinformation.”

He noted working with polling officials to watch for information that might lead to “voter suppression” and said Facebook had strengthened its enforcement “against militias and conspiracy networks like Q-Anon.”

Facebook has banned Trump from its platform and has delisted individuals – many of them conservatives — for espousing views about the election that it insists are “misinformation.”

The post Here’s How Zuckerberg Millions Paid For Progressives To Work With 2020 Vote Officials Nationwide appeared first on Insider.

The case has been scheduled for discussion by the Justices for June 10.

As is the practice, four or more Justices must agree to grant a review of a case.

The case could could have far-reaching effects on the nation’s colleges and universities using raced-based admissions standards, which, in an election year could also have consequences.

Supreme Court Pressed to Take Up Harvard Affirmative Action Case
By ⁦@KevinDaleyDC⁩
Students for Fair Admissions alleges admissions discrimination against Asians violates federal law
Via Washington Free Beacon

Tim Gradous (@tgradous) February 26, 2021

In 2018, a group called Students For Fair Admissions accused Harvard of discriminating against Asian-American students by awarding them lower “personal qualities” scores.

Conservative legal strategist Edward Blum and Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono studied six years of Harvard’s admissions database, and concluded that Asian-American students were discriminated against based on how they were rated in the admissions process on things like courage, kindness, and leadership.

Arcidiacono also argues that that two-thirds of black students and one-half of hispanic students are admitted based solely on racial preferences.

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