Essential California: Big News By The Beach

Former Edgewater police officer McKinzie Rees hopes to serve and protect again, but first she must get her name removed from a so-called “bad cops list” maintained by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. It landed there, she said, as retaliation after she reported sexual assaults by a supervising sergeant. That sergeant went on to work for another police department until this year, when he pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and misconduct and was sentenced, more than four years after the assaults and retaliation against Rees. She testified to the state’s House Judiciary Committee this week that, even after her attacker was exposed, her complaint about still being listed as a problem police officer “is falling on deaf ears every time.” Rees’ testimony, echoed by other frontline police officers from Colorado Springs and Denver about retaliation they faced after reporting misconduct, is driving state lawmakers’ latest effort at police oversight.

While the completely unqualified Lara Trump (Eric’s wife) takes over the RNC and turns it into a cult of loyalists, the just as unqualified sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are trying to do the same with the Trump transition. Please God, may this remain a family dream only. From Axios: Donald Trump Jr.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and DAVE COLLINS (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein ’s 2020 rape conviction, reversing a landmark ruling of the #MeToo era. The court found the trial judge had improperly allowed testimony against the ex-movie mogul based on allegations that weren’t part of the case. Weinstein, 72, will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape.

In a little-noticed court filing recently, feds described sleazy former Trump advisor Steve Bannon as a “co-conspirator” in a massive criminal fraud and racketeering case against a flamboyant, far-right Chinese fugitive -- you know, the guy with the yacht where Bannon was hiding out? Via Mother Jones: FBI agents in March 2023 arrested Guo Wengui, a self-styled anti-Chinese government activist Bannon once advised, charging him and two associates with using a series of fraudulent investment opportunities to defraud thousands of Guo’s supporters in the Chinese diaspora of more than $1 billion. Guo used the proceeds to fund a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family, including a $3.5 million Ferrari, a $26 million mansion, a $140,000 piano, and two $36,000 mattresses, the Justice Department alleges.

One of my lawyer friends has been predicting for months we would see Amy Coney Barrett gradually moving toward a partial alliance with the liberal justices on the court, and yesterday, we saw her back up Justice Sotomayor's argument in the Iowa abortion case before the court. "The U. S. Supreme Court sounded divided yesterday during oral arguments in a case concerning access to emergency abortions.

Maybe Lara Trump will give her a raise! After all, clearly she's willing to do just about anything! Via American Oversight: Christina Bobb, a former Trump attorney and far-right television presenter who was a fervent supporter of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is now the Republican National Committee’s senior counsel for “election integrity.” Bobb’s RNC appointment came shortly after Trump secured the party’s 2024 nomination, and signals the RNC’s focus on continuing to push lies about voter fraud and election security.